Choe Myeong-gil Grave, Cheongju

This is the grave of Choe Myeong-gil (1586–1647), a civil official of the mid-Joseon period. His clan seat was Jeonju, his courtesy name was Jagyeom, and his pen names were Jicheon and Changnang. He studied in his youth under Yi Hang-bok, passed the civil service examination in 1605, the 38th year of King Seonjo, and entered government service. In 1614, the 6th year of King Gwanghaegun, he was implicated in the affair over the deposing of the queen mother and was dismissed from office. He later took part in the 1623 restoration of King Injo, was made a first-class Meritorious Subject for Stabilising the State (Jeongsa Gongsin), and was enfeoffed as Wanseong Buwongun. In 1627, the 5th year of King Injo, at the time of the first Manchu invasion, he argued forcefully that peace negotiations with Qing were unavoidable, and it was from this point that peace talks began to be discussed. In 1636, at the time of the second Manchu invasion, in a court that from the outset was united in favour of resisting the Qing, he alone argued for peace and was fiercely criticised for it. In the end the military situation turned decisively against Joseon, and in the first month of the following year King Injo went out in person and surrendered to the Qing emperor Taizong. After the Qing army withdrew, Choe Myeong-gil, as State Councillor of the Right, devoted himself to putting the disordered affairs of state back in order. He resigned in 1640, the 18th year of King Injo, but was made Chief State Councillor again in the autumn of 1642. When Joseon's anti-Qing activities later came to light, he was summoned to Qing and detained there, returning home in 1645, the 23rd year of King Injo, after which he continued to assist King Injo until his death. He excelled in Neo-Confucian scholarship and in literary composition, forming a school of his own, and his writings include the Jicheonjip (Collected Works of Jicheon) and the Jicheon Jucha. His posthumous title was Munchung. Within Choe Myeong-gil's burial ground are three burial mounds, of which the one in the centre is his grave. A granite retaining stone (hoseok) 20–50cm high encircles the mound, and an offering table (sangseok) and a grave marker (myopyo) stand in front of it. The offering table measures 170×96×29cm and the grave marker 54×134×15cm; the inscription on the grave marker was written by Nam Gu-man. The spirit-guide pillars and civil-official stone statues arranged in front of the offering table are of granite, about 160cm tall, and are somewhat worn. About 500m in front of the grave stands Choe Myeong-gil's spirit-path stele (sindobi), erected during the reign of King Sukjong. The stele body measures 106×268×36cm, and the monument as a whole stands 4m tall. The stele is designated separately from the grave as a Chungcheongbuk-do heritage item, and a protective shelter was built over it in 1978.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Cheongju, Chungbuk

Designation

Provincial Monument · 시도기념물