Fortress Sammun Gate Ui Tomb

This is the tomb of Seong Sam-mun (1418–1456), known by his pen name Maejukheon, a civil official of the early Joseon dynasty and one of the Sayuksin, the six ministers executed for plotting to restore King Danjong to the throne. It is said that as his mother was about to give birth, a voice was heard from the sky asking three times, 'Has she given birth yet?', and so he was named Sam-mun, meaning 'three questions'. In 1438, the twentieth year of King Sejong, he passed the regular state civil service examination, and in 1447 he came first in the special higher civil examination. Selected as a scholar of the Jiphyeonjeon (Hall of Worthies), he enjoyed King Sejong's deep favour and compiled the Yegi daemun eondok. When King Sejong created Hunminjeongeum, he assisted alongside Jeong In-ji, Choe Hang, Bak Paeng-nyeon and Sin Suk-ju, and travelled as many as thirteen times to the exiled Ming Chinese phonologist Hwang Chan in Liaodong, contributing greatly to the promulgation of Hangeul. In 1453, the first year of King Danjong, when Prince Suyang (later King Sejo) seized power in the Gyeyu coup, killing Hwangbo In, Kim Jong-seo and others, Seong Sam-mun declined the third-rank title of Meritorious Subject of the Pacification conferred on him for the event. In 1454 he rose to Deputy Director of the Hall of Worthies and Third Counsellor of the Ministry of Rites, and in 1455 to Royal Secretary for Rites. Together with his father Seong Seung, Bak Paeng-nyeon and others, he plotted to restore King Danjong to the throne, but the plot was discovered in advance, and he was brutally executed beside the Hangang River, at what is now Noryangjin in Seoul. His tomb lies in the Sayuksin cemetery at Noryangjin in Seoul, and it is said that one of his legs is buried here, at Yangchon-ri, Gayagok-myeon, in Nonsan, Chungcheongnam-do. Every year, on the last day of the tenth lunar month, a memorial rite is held at the tomb in honour of his virtue, and his spirit tablet is enshrined at the Altar of Loyal Subjects at Jangneung Royal Tomb, the tomb of King Danjong.

AI Translation

Where it is

Region

Nonsan, Chungnam

Designation

Cultural Heritage Material · 문화유산자료