Jeong Mong-ju Tomb

This is the tomb of Jeong Mong-ju (1337–1392), pen name Poeun, a loyal subject of the late Goryeo period who laid the foundations of Neo-Confucian learning in Korea. In 1360, the ninth year of King Gongmin's reign, he came first in the civil service examination and subsequently held a succession of posts, including Censor of the Yemun-gwan [Office of Special Counsellors] and Rector of the National Academy. At the time it was customary in Goryeo to conduct all funeral and ancestral rites according to Buddhist ritual, but Jeong Mong-ju worked to revive Confucian ritual propriety by having shrines built and ancestral tablets made in accordance with the Family Rites (Garye), so that proper rites could again be performed. He established the Obu Hakdang [Five District Schools] in the capital and hyanggyo [local Confucian schools] in the provinces to promote education, restored discipline and order, and re-established public granaries (uichang) to relieve the poor, striving in these ways to shore up the declining fortunes of the state. As Yi Seong-gye's power grew by the day and figures such as Jo Jun and Jeong Do-jeon moved to found a new dynasty, Jeong Mong-ju tried to the last to preserve the Goryeo royal house, but in 1392, the fourth year of King Gongyang's reign, he was assassinated at Seonjukgyo Bridge by an assassin sent by Yi Bang-won, the future King Taejong. Tradition holds that after his death he was first buried in Pungdeok-gun, Gaeseong, and that when his remains were being moved in 1406, the sixth year of King Taejong's reign, to his hometown of Yeongcheon in North Gyeongsang Province, the myeongjeong [a banner of crimson cloth inscribed in white characters with the deceased's rank, office and surname] leading the funeral procession blew away in the wind on reaching Pungdeokcheon-ri, Suji-myeon, in what is now Yongin, Gyeonggi Province; the bier would move no further, and so the tomb was made on that spot. The gravestone, erected in 1517, the twelfth year of King Jungjong's reign, is inscribed only "Tomb of Jeong Mong-ju, Chief State Councillor of Goryeo" (高麗守門下侍中鄭夢周之墓), giving solely his Goryeo office and omitting his Joseon posthumous title, thereby making clear his resolve not to serve two dynasties. At the entrance to the tomb site stands a sindobi [a stele erected by a roadside near a tomb to commemorate the lifetime achievements of a king or high official]; its text was composed by Song Si-yeol, its main inscription written out by Kim Su-jeung, and its jeonaek [the title inscribed at the top of a stele's face, in seal script] written by Kim Su-hang, recording Jeong Mong-ju's loyalty and deep learning, which transcended dynasty and era.

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Where it is

Region

Yongin, Gyeonggi

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물