DEBATE OVER MILITARY TRAINING AGENCY 457versus rotating duty soldiers and support taxpayers and the fate of the Military
Training Agency occurred a decade after Yu HyiSngwiSn's death. In that interval
factional strife began to reappear once again in court politics after a long hiatus
of inactivity. After the death of Prince Dorgon in 1650 had allowed King Hyo-
jong to purge Kim ChajiSm's faction from the political scene, the contest between
Westerner splinter factions was reduced, but factional strife reemerged with the
death of King Hyojong and ascension of his son, King HyiSnjong, in 1659.
The Southerner faction had played an important part in the fight against
Hideyoshi and suffered along with the Westerners when the Great Northern fac-
tion was in power during King Kwanghaegun's reign (1608-23). They were
allowed back in the government after the Westerners seized power in 1623, and
in the reigns of Kings Injo and Hyojong workcd alongside their Westerner col-
leagues without much rancor. The situation changed, however, because of the
so-called mourning rite controversy (yesong), which arose when the Westerner
faction under the leadership of Song SiyiSl took the position that Dowager Cho
(or Dowager Chaiii), King 1njo's second queen, owed a lesser degree of mourn-
ing to the deceased King Hyojong than what one might ordinarily expect because
Hyojong had not been the eldest legitimate son of King Injo.
Even though Song was an ardent defender of Chu Hsi orthodoxy in philo-
sophical matters and based his argument on his interpretation ofthe I-Ii, an ancient
Chinese ritual text, his position logically threatened the legitimacy of the
deceased Hyojong, and by extension to his son HyiSnjong. The Southerners, led
on this issue by the scholar Yun Hyu and the official HiS Mok, insisted that Hyo-
jong be treated as a fully fledged heir of Injo and a legitimate king, and that
Dowager Cho owed a higher degree of mourning than what Song prescribed.
By so doing, they threatened the king's confidence in the Westerner faction as
the most loyal supporters of the throne.
King Hyojong \ legitimacy was a particularly sensitive issue because he had
come to the throne only after Crown Prince Sohy6n had been poisoned, his
princess and in-laws executed or exiled, and two of his thrce sons killed - all
with King Inio's assent or complicity. Nonetheless, in 1659 King HyiSnjong
adopted the Westerner position on the degree of mourning and did not purge
any Southerners over the matter. In fact, he even appointed one of their leaders,
HiS ChiSk, to the State CouncilY
Southerners Control of the Military Training Agency, 1669Even by r669, when disposition of the Military Training Agency was being
debated, rivalry hetwecn Westerners and Southerners still remained latent. When
the Westcrner leader, Song SiyiSl, proposed reduction of the Military Training
Agency by attrition, his leading opponent was the Westerner and then com-
mander of the agency, Yi Wan, while his leading defenders were Southerner
officials like Second State Councilor HiS ChiSk and commander of the Royal
Division Yu HyiSgyiSn. But Southerners then gained control over important cap-