104 t h e a n n a l s o f k i n g t’a e j o
our people would have perished. If things such as this can be allowed, what
are the things that cannot be allowed?
“The censors and inspectors alternately submitted memorials [to the
king], requesting that Yi Saek, U Hyŏnbo, and others, who betrayed their
country and brought calamity to the people, be punished for their crimes.
Though they submitted their memorials several dozen times, Lord
Chŏngch’ang [King Kongyang], because of his ties with his in-laws, pro-
tected the perpetrators who perverted the law. Furthermore, he had the
remonstrating officials beaten and driven out. As a result, that wicked clique
spread its ranks throughout the capital and outlying areas, and its members
grew increasingly less afraid of the law.
“Kim Chongyŏn, while on the run, plotted an uprising and formed a
clique. Kim Chobu and others devised a plan for responding to the uprising
from the inside. Calamity and anarchy broke out daily without pause.
Nevertheless, Lord Chŏngch’ang failed to produce measures to save the
country as well as the people in the future. Instead, he was only intent on
dispensing private favors to gain the people’s esteem. If anyone violated the
law, he invariably pardoned him and appointed him to a government post.
Thus, as the Classic of Documents (Shujing) says, he became “the lord of
all the vagabonds under heaven, who collect about him as fish in the deep
and beasts in the prairie.”^3
“You were the one who played a crucial role in enthroning him, and, for
the Great Cause, turned your army around to march back home and saved the
people. Nevertheless, he [King Kongyang] only heeded the slander by the
womenfolk and eunuchs around him and constantly tried to ensnare you in
a deadly trap. At the same time, he made men of integrity suffer for being
reluctant to flatter him. Consequently, the slanderers and flatterers thrived,
while the people who were good and loyal to him became alienated and
disappointed. As administration and law were disarrayed to the degree of
confusion, the people did not know how to conduct themselves.
“Heaven on high sent him warnings and reprimands, repeatedly altering
the signs of constellations and revealing many other inauspicious omens.
Lord Chŏngch’ang finally realized that he had lost the Way of the ruler, and
the people’s hearts had already left him. Now that he was incapable of- Quoted from the speech made by King Wu after he defeated tyrant Zhou of Shang.
King Zhou here is referred to as “lord of all the vagabonds.” Shu Ching: Book of History trans-
lated by Clae Waltham, p. 122.