Vulgar History - International, part 28： Korea's Queen Min Surprises Everyone (pt 1⧸2)

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00:00:30.000 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. I'm your host, 1.00

00:00:37.080 Anne Foster. I have a bit of a frog in my throat at the moment, and I hope that doesn't affect

00:00:44.260 your listening experience. I'm going to try and drink lots of tea, and we'll all get through

00:00:50.180 this together because I need to tell you this story, and here we all are. So this week we're

00:00:56.120 doing i'm pretty sure the first ever vulgar history uh trip on this international season aka

00:01:03.440 the season that just won't quit because i keep finding stories to tell we're taking our first

00:01:08.140 trip together to east asia we have been i'm like very aware of the fact that we've been lingering

00:01:15.560 in this international season a lot in western europe lately so we're pivoting there's going to

00:01:22.460 be a bit more Europe coming up, but we're also going to be doing some more stories set in Asia

00:01:27.180 and we're starting with this one. And this is, so this is Korean history, which is not something I

00:01:33.340 knew anything about until I started researching this podcast episode. And so I really want to

00:01:41.420 thank some people who helped answer some really basic questions I had. So for instance, Titswood

00:01:48.100 brigade member, Veronica, who helped me with her experience from when she lived in South Korea,

00:01:53.540 but also with recordings of some pronunciation. Anything I pronounce badly is all on me.

00:01:59.420 She went above and beyond to help me understand how to pronounce some of these names. My friend

00:02:04.600 Eunbag, who wanted to emphasize or wanted me to emphasize she's not a historian, she's not an

00:02:10.860 expert, just kind of off the top of her head as a person who grew up in South Korea, she just sort

00:02:15.920 of told me kind of what her impression was of this figure talking about Queen Min and

00:02:22.180 how she kind of saw her fitting into contemporary Korean society.

00:02:26.100 And also special thanks to a friend of the podcast and sometimes guest on the podcast,

00:02:30.400 Lana Wood Johnson, who first of all suggested this person and second of all helped me out

00:02:35.240 with some understanding of history. 0.85

00:02:38.060 And she also was right there suggesting some K-dramas for me to watch to help me understand

00:02:42.760 it better. 0.77

00:02:43.120 I did watch a movie called The Sword With No Name, which I might talk about at some points

00:02:50.100 during this. Queen Min is definitely a main character in that movie. There's also some

00:02:55.140 stuff that's not quite accurate, which is not a problem to me. So there's more research

00:03:00.860 things than in some other weeks because that I could find there was no English language biography

00:03:07.920 of Queen Min for me to refer to. So I was just kind of piecing together smaller, shorter pieces

00:03:12.280 from other sources. I'm not going to list them all here out loud because that would take a long

00:03:16.280 time, but they're all in the show notes. And the main resources were the Oxford Encyclopedia of

00:03:22.360 Women in World History, the Wikipedia page, an article from Korea Times, and a resource book

00:03:30.120 from the Philadelphia Museum, which had an exhibit of Choson-era artifacts and had these

00:03:36.480 kind of resources for classes who were taking their students there. And it was really at a

00:03:39.880 level I appreciate it of just like really explaining stuff that people might not know.

00:03:44.820 Oh, and then also curriculum materials from the koreasociety.org. Similar thing. Lesson plans for

00:03:52.080 school children. I'm always happy to find things written for somebody who maybe doesn't know

00:03:58.400 anything about a subject because I really was, I learned a lot preparing this episode. And so I

00:04:04.640 really hope I do justice to this figure. I know that there are some listeners in South Korea,

00:04:12.420 other listeners who are more familiar than me about Korean history. Anyway, so I'm going to

00:04:17.420 do my best to pronounce things. Anything that I mispronounce or misrepresent is my own mistake

00:04:23.120 and does not reflect on the helpful people who really tried to help me to prepare this because

00:04:28.580 I really want to make this international season truly reflect, if not every country that there's

00:04:36.020 a listener listening to this from, but at least all the quadrants of the world. And so we're

00:04:41.520 getting into Asia. Here we go. It's a great story. I couldn't not do it. And we're going to start

00:04:48.520 with some background information because I did not know. I don't think I knew really anything

00:04:55.720 about the history of Korea, which is embarrassing. But now I know some stuff and I will just explain

00:05:04.600 to you the things that I also learned because it's really like everywhere, like to really set

00:05:09.240 the place and the time and the culture helps to understand how this woman, how her story plays out

00:05:17.000 and how people reacted to her and how she's remembered now. I do also think what I've gleaned

00:05:22.660 is that I think Queen Min, who is the person we're talking about,

00:05:27.720 is a controversial figure in a similar way to how Malinzine is a controversial figure

00:05:34.240 to the culture from which they are from.

00:05:37.380 So she is remembered fondly by some people and kind of not fondly by other people.

00:05:46.660 So I'm just going to try to tell the story the way that it hits me 0.56

00:05:49.780 as like a basic white lady from Canada. And here we go. The story takes place on the peninsula in 0.58

00:05:59.000 East, I guess Southeast Asia that we now know as like Korea. But during the era we're looking at,

00:06:07.060 which is the late 19th century, this peninsula was known as the Chosan Kingdom. And I'm going

00:06:13.720 to refer to this place as Chosan or the Chosan Kingdom because that's what it was called when

00:06:18.280 the story took place. And from what I've been reading, English language sources tend to

00:06:22.040 go back and forth, calling it one or the other, the kingdom or just Chosan.

00:06:28.080 And yeah, this is similar to what I've done in other episodes. So like in the Malanzine episode,

00:06:33.420 we refer to the land where she lived as the Machiga Empire, because that's what it would

00:06:38.240 have been thought of by her and the people who live there. Or like in the Njinga episode,

00:06:41.960 refer to that land as Ndongo, even though it's today kind of where modern day Angola is.

00:06:47.560 I'm just trying to use the words people would have used in the era in which they lived,

00:06:52.300 which is also what I'm calling the main character in the story, Queen Min, but we'll get to that

00:06:55.980 in a minute. So, Chosan Kingdom. I'm sure lots of you know so much about this because there's so

00:07:02.360 many K-dramas and Korean movies and books set in this era because it was like a 500-year period of

00:07:11.900 time. And it's a great place to set stories. So the Choson kingdom, that's also the name of the

00:07:19.760 dynasty, like the family who's in charge of it. And so this dynasty began, the Choson dynasty,

00:07:25.500 in 1392. It lasted until the late 19th century, effectively. So a period of around 500 years. So

00:07:34.020 one dynasty ruling the kingdom for 500 years is one of the longest lasting royal dynasties

00:07:40.460 anywhere in the world, anywhere in world history ever, to compare to a history that I know a bit

00:07:47.920 better, and you might also, England. So between 1392 and 1900 in England, they went from the

00:07:54.860 Plantagenets to the Yorks, to the Tudors, to the Stewards, to the Hanovers, to the Windsors.

00:08:01.160 All of these were mostly violent shifts of monarchs changing dynasties. And it often

00:08:07.760 was because somebody didn't have a son who survived, and so they had to look for a relative

00:08:12.360 somewhere else, and the relatives would argue. And the reason, a reason, why the Chosun dynasty

00:08:19.620 continued for 500 years was because, unlike in England, in the Chosun dynasty, if the king died

00:08:27.060 without a male heir, they could, they had the option to adopt a child and say that was now

00:08:34.060 the adopted sibling of the dead king. And so the dynasty would continue through kind of adoption

00:08:39.040 means. And this is going to happen twice in this story. And part of what happens when that happens

00:08:44.880 is that the parents of the new king may likely still be around. And they're probably going to

00:08:51.900 be some sort of influential family. And they're going to probably have a point of view of their

00:08:56.100 own. And that's going to be part of what happens here. So yeah. The other thing about having a

00:09:03.020 dynasty this lengthy, when they're that solidly in place, it's hard to usurp them because they're

00:09:11.480 so powerful and they've been powerful for so long. So I think another thing to bear in mind about the

00:09:19.840 history of Joseon is that other countries saw them as backwards because they hadn't been

00:09:28.240 violently changing dynasties over and over again because they kind of had a consistent culture

00:09:32.720 but wearing the same clothes and eating the same food for 500 years doesn't make

00:09:37.780 a place backwards like europe everything we've been looking at you know like england but also

00:09:45.040 france and um germany and italy and sweden all these places like they were not stable like

00:09:51.460 countries were over this 500 year period like they were conquering each other and taking each

00:09:56.260 other over. And so Europe kind of took all these toxic qualities around the globe and just thought

00:10:03.580 because that's what Europe was like. That was the best way that anyone could be, but that's

00:10:07.780 not true. And they also, Europe as they were going around conquering and colonizing, were sort of

00:10:14.800 destabilizing everything in their path under the assumption that the places that they were taking

00:10:19.820 over were somehow inferior. Not true. It's just different. So that being said, like there was

00:10:27.780 still massive poverty and unequal distribution of wealth in Choson, but not, I don't think,

00:10:34.060 particularly better or worse than in any European country. It's just this place happened to have

00:10:40.420 a really consistent dynasty, which allowed it to develop like the kingdom in a different way

00:10:48.360 from a lot of other places so like one of the things you think about if you imagine a country

00:10:53.660 or a kingdom that's been under the same rule for 500 years it's like oh but is it are they sort of

00:10:58.800 like especially because we're going to talk about they um really kept to did their best to keep to

00:11:03.900 themselves without really any natural or national natural borders but um so they were certainly

00:11:12.080 influenced by especially by the chinese but if you have your own really stable like consistent i mean

00:11:19.240 kind of stable culture um and you're not doing super a lot of trade with other cultures it's

00:11:25.580 like oh is this like a civilization that's like kind of frozen in amber is it like if you imagine

00:11:30.960 if it's 1900 and you suddenly meet somebody who's been living like it was england in 1392 you'd be

00:11:36.840 like, oh, like your language is different. You don't know about electricity or whatever,

00:11:42.500 like the printing press. But I mean, things still advanced in Chosan. Most of the Western

00:11:49.760 technological advances that happened during this area were made by invading other people

00:11:53.920 and kind of stealing their ideas. But things were going on in Chosan. Technological advances were

00:11:59.400 coming slowly, but they were still coming. So I really don't want to leave you with any sort of

00:12:04.040 impression that this is any sort of backwards place. It's just a really different cultural

00:12:09.880 context from what we've been looking at, especially lately in Europe. So yeah, so they didn't have

00:12:15.360 natural borders, like they weren't surrounded by, they weren't an island, they were a peninsula,

00:12:20.000 they were attached to the mainland. They didn't have mountains all around, like how in the

00:12:24.660 Catalina de Rosso episode, we talked about how Basque country kind of similarly did their own

00:12:30.760 for centuries because they had mountains around them chosan was like slash where korea is it's

00:12:38.700 like right between china and japan and so was like invaded by one or the other or both

00:12:44.520 over these 500 years but or comma and they had their own culture that had some influences from

00:12:55.320 the other cultures that were around them, but they were very proud of their culture.

00:13:00.740 His very specific culture in this culture included a highly regimented social structure,

00:13:05.220 which is really important to talk about because this social structure really affected the life

00:13:12.080 of Queen Min and how she was seen and also how she, I think, continues to be seen as a Korean

00:13:19.500 women. So we're still in the like backstory stuff, but I hope you're still here along with me

00:13:25.540 learning things. Or if you already know this stuff, I hope you're, I hope I'm relaying this

00:13:30.140 correctly. So the era before the Chosun dynasty was the Koryo dynasty. And during that era,

00:13:39.060 women had more independence and power than they would later in the Chosun era. 0.89

00:13:45.560 We've talked about this in the podcast before, but I think it bears repeating that women's

00:13:49.480 rights are sometimes kind of misinterpreted as being like slowly getting better for everybody 0.95

00:13:54.520 since like ancient roman times but in fact women's rights have gotten better and worse and better and 0.53

00:13:59.800 worse in every country like since recorded history like we've talked about places where it was okay

00:14:06.520 to have like a woman be monarch like ethyl fled or something and then we've talked about places 1.00

00:14:10.720 where it's just like this is terrible we can never let a woman be in charge again like fred again 0.99

00:14:15.120 And like, it's not just an upward trajectory. 0.99

00:14:18.220 So in fact, in this peninsula, so in the Koryo dynasty, women had more independence.

00:14:24.580 And then the Joseon came in and women got less power and independence.

00:14:30.540 So after the Joseon dynasty took over, women's status and visibility went on the decline.

00:14:36.740 And this was in part from a shift from a matrilineal to a patrilineal structure of kinship and

00:14:44.080 identity.

00:14:44.660 so just a very patriarchal structure. Here's an example. So during the Koryo dynasty, newly

00:14:50.780 married couples used to live with the bride's family, which offered numerous advantages for 0.87

00:14:54.680 the women, including economic advantage, like a woman could safeguard her share of the inheritance 0.62

00:14:59.780 she shared equally with her male siblings. In the Choson dynasty, because of the establishment of

00:15:06.040 a patrilineal line, like only like father to son, and that was it, like the male heir was crucial, 0.82

00:15:12.520 This eroded women's rights and privileges had changed the residential arrangements to this 1.00

00:15:17.660 rigid rule of primogeniture. So the eldest son was the principal heir. So no longer were you sharing 0.95

00:15:23.620 the inheritance among all siblings, like even among all male siblings. So women didn't have 0.97

00:15:30.160 that access to money. And as we've seen in so many stories, like if you don't have your own 1.00

00:15:34.140 independent money, then you're dependent on men all the time. And that really affects your life.

00:15:38.520 so why why did this change occur so largely because of the uh spiritual philosophy of the

00:15:49.020 Joseon kingdom so the Joseon kingdom was a neo-confucian patriarchal culture we're gonna

00:15:56.220 break down most of those words so confucianism is um developed from the ancient chinese traditions

00:16:04.360 codified by Confucius, a person who lived like 800 years before this all happened. He was a

00:16:10.940 Chinese philosopher. Confucianism spread to Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. And Confucianism is a system

00:16:17.080 of ethical rules designed to inspire and preserve the good management of family and society.

00:16:23.260 So under Confucianism, modesty, respect for one's parents and ancestors, frugality, pursuit of

00:16:28.840 knowledge, and proper etiquette were highly valued. And this imposed a strict division of

00:16:35.860 gender people to prevent adultery and other sexual misconducts. So there was just a lot of,

00:16:46.860 and I think these are all documented laws. So like, I don't know, I'm trying to compare it to

00:16:52.720 something with which I am more familiar. So like Victorian England or something, or if you think

00:16:57.740 about like regency era england like in bridgerton where it's just like this is like the high class 0.66

00:17:01.940 and this is the low class and this is the man and this is the woman and like no one can ever change

00:17:06.960 from the role that they are given and in cho-san era it was a similar thing i would say maybe a bit

00:17:15.220 more strict because this had been the rules for much longer so men and women were required to

00:17:23.240 occupy different roles and spaces even in their own households. So men and women lived separately

00:17:28.260 even in their own house. So men's living quarters consisted of several rooms, including a place to 0.76

00:17:33.460 study, a bedroom, and a living room. Women and children resided in rooms sheltered in the 0.87

00:17:37.360 innermost section of the household. And I didn't come across anything suggesting any sort of

00:17:42.140 non-binary gender understanding. So I think it was very much just like men, women, that is our

00:17:49.120 understanding of gender everything is like very balanced in that way um there's kind of it's like

00:17:55.620 you're either an important person or you're an unimportant person either you're a man or you're

00:17:59.920 a woman and one is always better than the other one it's it's a very binary everything is a binary

00:18:05.940 so yeah so chosan dynasty implemented a legal system which provided a written record of laws 0.99

00:18:12.340 that enforce strict regulations on the activities of women by repressing physical freedom so women

00:18:18.100 were forbidden from horseback riding, playing games, and attending outdoor parties. If you 0.93

00:18:22.780 defied this, the punishment was 100 lashes. And so the way that women were confined and not allowed 1.00

00:18:31.240 to do stuff signifies the complete control that Joseon men held over women's lives. The only 0.65

00:18:38.280 acceptable aspiration for a woman in this era was to marry and produce children, specifically 0.94

00:18:44.160 a son daughters were referred to as robber women because their dowry took away from their family's 1.00

00:18:52.000 wealth married daughters were known as like a word meaning one who left the household and became a 0.98

00:18:59.200 stranger so it's a very that's the society we're looking at so when a woman was married she was

00:19:08.060 expected to be faithful, living, and subservient to her husband, and also fertile and to bear male

00:19:14.380 heirs. After marriage, a woman would be referred to as the wife of or the mother of losing her

00:19:22.140 individual identity and becoming the full property of a man. And this is why we don't know the name,

00:19:29.620 like the given name of the woman we're going to be talking about. But again, we'll get to that.

00:19:34.660 yeah so women reviewed as an extension of their husband or their son if a husband felt that his 1.00

00:19:42.360 wife had committed one of the seven evils which included disobedience to parents-in-law failure 0.99

00:19:48.400 to bear a son adultery jealousy hereditary disease talkativeness and larceny he could easily divorce

00:19:55.880 her there was no need for any evidence a man's word was powerful enough to ruin a woman and

00:20:01.280 Once divorced, she was left to destitution or to death by suicide.

00:20:06.760 Therefore, marriage was a respectable woman's only option. 1.00

00:20:11.680 Widowhood was extremely unfavorable. 0.99

00:20:14.960 Widows are treated even more poorly than unmarried daughters 0.97

00:20:18.800 because unmarried daughters at least had the option of making a match. 0.99

00:20:23.260 Widows were discouraged from remarrying just by peer pressure. 1.00

00:20:28.240 if she married again she was looked down upon by her peers as an incentive to remain single

00:20:34.820 the government awarded chaste widows with land grants they also in 1477 there was the anti-remarriage

00:20:42.340 law which discouraged women from remarrying by restricting their sons from public service jobs

00:20:46.900 so if they remarried then that affected also their beloved sons widows were in fact given a special

00:20:52.400 knife for suicide and those who ended their lives were viewed as admirable because they were the

00:20:58.900 epitome of faithfulness. Chastity was considered one of the most desirable female traits. A woman's

00:21:06.200 abstinence was looked upon as more valuable than her life. I want to just like re-emphasize that

00:21:13.720 I'm just kind of like here's what things were like in Choson era in this kingdom. I don't think

00:21:21.160 have ever talked in this in depth about like here's what things were like in Tudor era England

00:21:26.640 but like I really don't want to be doing anything other than just saying like here's what the laws

00:21:32.980 were here's what society was like I'm not putting any sort of like moral judgment on it saying that

00:21:37.280 this is any better or any worse than any other country or kingdom at this exact same point in

00:21:42.800 time but I found all these details and it really really really is going to help you understand

00:21:47.540 And when we get to Queen Min's story, how she was seen and how what she did was so revolutionary. 0.60

00:21:56.720 So, Joseon women could not hold official government positions. 0.81

00:22:02.340 They were not expected to be educated at the same level as men.

00:22:06.080 For instance, women were not taught to read and write in Chinese, which was used for official court documents as well as poetry and literature.

00:22:12.460 but instead women were educated in confucian ideals of proper behavior moral conduct proper

00:22:18.460 speech proper appearance and womanly tasks so the purpose of education for women was to instill

00:22:26.460 the ideals of the male-oriented society and to motivate them for the tasks of married life

00:22:31.920 so just putting yourself in the point of view of someone if this is the only world you've ever

00:22:38.300 known and this is how you're raised like it's the same anywhere really like if you don't know that

00:22:44.360 there's more stuff that you could be doing then why would you think of doing other things by the

00:22:50.900 age of seven girls could no longer associate with boys or men they were more and more confined to

00:22:55.940 the inner quarters of the house where they received instruction in domestic duties from

00:22:59.600 their mothers and grandmothers this is a quote from martina deutschler's book the confucian

00:23:05.120 transformation of korea in cosmological terms heaven yang dominates earth yin and correspondingly

00:23:13.120 male has precedence over female the clear hierarchical order between the sexes is thus

00:23:17.820 cosmologically sanctioned and is imperative for the proper functioning of the human order 0.75

00:23:23.020 this order can be preserved only when human passions are kept in check and in addition to

00:23:28.660 strict gender roles there's also an equally strict class system and i forget if i wrote this down but

00:23:33.060 I did want to mention also that because men and women could never coexist, so like a male

00:23:38.580 doctor could never tend to a female patient. 1.00

00:23:41.260 So female, I think, servants would kind of serve as midwives and they would help women 1.00

00:23:48.400 who are having medical issues. 0.98

00:23:52.260 That was kind of like, not that it was a way to educate women necessarily, but it's a role 0.90

00:23:58.140 that some women would have.

00:24:00.920 And I was going to talk about this later, but I'll talk about this now.

00:24:04.140 So there is an author whose books I've been reading called June Hurt.

00:24:09.260 She writes young adult historical mysteries that are set in various parts of the Chosan dynasty.

00:24:15.560 Her first book, I'm just looking up the title.

00:24:18.700 The first book is called The Silence of Bones.

00:24:21.060 So it's about a 16-year-old girl who is a servant and they're murder mysteries.

00:24:26.160 They're like young adult historical murder mysteries set in the Chosan kingdom.

00:24:29.040 So in The Silence of Bones, for instance, she's a servant who's assigned to help the investigators because a woman has been murdered and they can't handle even the corpse of a woman.

00:24:40.540 Like they need a servant to do that.

00:24:43.320 So anyway, if you want to read books set in Chosan Era, which was another way I've been trying to kind of learn more about this era.

00:24:49.880 And since I finished my research, now I'm just reading them because they're good books.

00:24:53.060 So The Silence of the Bones are the books are The Forest of Stolen Girls and then The Red Palace.

00:24:58.720 Anyway, they're all about teenage girls in Chosun era, solving murder mysteries, and

00:25:02.280 they're really good.

00:25:03.880 So we're moving on to the class system. 0.93

00:25:08.920 So again, Confucian Principles.

00:25:11.800 It's similar, again, just in the hierarchy to when we talked about in the Rani Ditta

00:25:17.260 episode about how Kashmir or how their society worked there.

00:25:21.480 So it's a caste system with the king at the top of the pyramid and then the upper class

00:25:26.680 were called the Yangban. And then there was a small middle class of government employees known

00:25:31.300 as Chungin. And then the bulk of the population, peasants, laborers, fishermen were classified as

00:25:37.520 Sangmen. And it's not just like, hey, here's this, how the world works, let's get on with it.

00:25:44.800 There were riots from the like lower class people because of the corruption of bureaucrats, 0.98

00:25:50.700 heavy taxes and things like that. So in theory, any man could become yang ban, like the upper 0.99

00:25:57.900 class, by passing an examination, but it cost time and money to study for the required exams. 0.91

00:26:04.460 So, I mean, there wasn't that much upward mobility. The low-born and enslaved people 0.96

00:26:10.440 were even further down on the pyramid. And enslaved people became enslaved by birth, 0.51

00:26:16.000 like if their parents were enslaved, as well as a form of legal punishment. 0.89

00:26:20.700 During times of famine, the people who were like one step up, the sangmen, would sometimes

00:26:26.580 sell themselves into slavery in order to survive.

00:26:29.940 So I'm describing the way that this system worked, but it's not like, here we go, and

00:26:36.900 it works, and everything's great.

00:26:38.180 It's like, no, but this is how it theoretically was supposed to work.

00:26:42.860 And please note, it's not like everything was grim and awful for everyone all the time,

00:26:47.400 any more or less than anywhere else during this 500 year period basically like there was some

00:26:54.220 places um where maybe women had more were allowed to like walk around um and there are other places

00:27:01.320 where women also couldn't so it's just again i really don't want to come across at all as being 0.98

00:27:07.520 like specifically critical of this culture because it's the first like asian culture we've talked

00:27:14.280 about on this podcast but also this is like a real shitty time to be a woman and a poor person 0.97

00:27:21.480 because this dynasty this era lasted until like basically 1900 so a lot of what is

00:27:31.680 culturally done in korea now derives from this time period so korean etiquette cultural norms

00:27:39.480 societal attitudes towards current issues, even the modern Korean language and its dialects stem

00:27:44.560 from the traditional thought pattern that originated from the Joseon dynasty. That's where

00:27:48.520 the alphabet that's used now was first invented. The hangbok, the traditional dress, that was how

00:27:58.380 people dressed during the Joseon dynasties. This is where a lot of what I have seen as the traditions

00:28:04.240 of korea are from this era and good things that happened so there was a golden age of development

00:28:10.800 uh the chosun dynasty built fortresses trading harbors and palaces many korean inventions come

00:28:16.860 from this period including the first sundial in asia and the world's first water-powered clock

00:28:22.280 the metal printing press supplanted the woodblock printing press in china and that was one that was

00:28:28.740 invented in korea and now we're just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors

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00:29:02.960 made to help download it now the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms were reduced to cinders

00:29:11.720 and armies scattered like bones in the dust now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken

00:29:18.900 world praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight but in the shadow dark the darkness

00:29:25.040 always wins this is old school adventuring at its most cruel your torch ticks down in real time and

00:29:33.020 when that flame dies something else rises to finish the job this is a brutal rules light

00:29:38.200 nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make

00:29:43.980 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.

00:29:48.780 Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.

00:29:59.460 See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

00:30:06.880 Welcome to the realms of peril and glory.

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00:30:32.980 Search realms of peril and glory to find out more.

00:30:38.740 Hi, I'm Whitney.

00:30:40.500 And I'm Katie.

00:30:41.220 And we're the hosts of True Crime Campfire.

00:30:44.080 We set out to make a true crime podcast we'd want to listen to.

00:30:47.480 We get right to the story. 0.95

00:30:49.160 We don't do a lot of extra talking, and when we do, it's usually to roast the short hairs off of some loser, murderer, or scammer. 0.97

00:30:55.560 You'll laugh, but only at the people who deserve it. 0.89

00:30:58.220 Like, which serial killer would you most like to shove into a locker?

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00:31:04.460 Dude got caught because he didn't understand what a floppy disk was.

00:31:07.460 we look for the stranger than fiction stories like the case of patty james a killer catfish

00:31:12.980 before the internet was even a thing or howard walmsley a sentient wad of damp laundry who

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00:31:34.660 or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Friday.

00:31:40.400 And we're back. So during this 500-year period, agriculture came to take precedence over commerce,

00:31:46.840 which is part of why they had less to do with international trade and stuff, because they were

00:31:52.180 more focusing on growing their own crops for themselves. By the mid-19th century,

00:31:58.220 chosan dynasty was in jeopardy traditional customs were losing their significance

00:32:04.320 so they'd always been sort of bordered by japan and china and now like russia was becoming more

00:32:10.900 powerful the united states existed so and chosan was like right in between all these kind of like

00:32:16.980 really powerful places who were pressuring for an open door policy they wanted to have more to do

00:32:23.480 with Chosan to like do more westernized stuff is the way that it's often phrased.

00:32:32.340 So the possibilities of invasion, and it's not like they were like politely asking for this,

00:32:38.320 there was a possibility of invasion from all corners added to tension among the Chosan dynasty,

00:32:43.600 like the people, the ruling people. So in 1864, the king was King Chuljung, and he died

00:32:53.100 aged 32 without any heirs. And he had also been one, I think, if I'm remembering correctly,

00:32:58.760 who is like the previous king died and then he was adopted to be the new king. Anyway,

00:33:03.560 so he died without any heirs. He also died under mysterious circumstances. Although he

00:33:09.340 was frequently ill, he may have been poisoned because that's a thing that happened to people.

00:33:15.000 Maybe the illness was also poisoning. And if he was poisoned, it was probably by the

00:33:21.920 Andong Kim clan, which is one of the very powerful families. So it's like, again, I keep 0.99

00:33:28.860 comparing it to like Tudor England, which is like an era that I just happen to know better.

00:33:34.560 So it's like, you know, there's this, the Howards and the Seymours and the Boleyns. It's like

00:33:41.400 all these kind of noble families were always sort of trying to get in good with the king.

00:33:47.860 so king chul jung's wife had been from the and on kim clan so i don't know if that's anyway every

00:33:55.860 like any dynasty it's a game of thrones situation and then it came down to after he died like there's

00:34:02.180 a scramble right away who was going to name his successor would it be his widow who is from the

00:34:06.980 and on kim clan or was it going to be his mother who was not so another family the like who didn't 0.85

00:34:16.120 want the Andong Kims to get to choose the new leader. They looked around and they settled on

00:34:20.820 a distant relative of the king, I think, from the Pyongyang Zhou clan, which was the only other 0.83

00:34:26.020 family as powerful as the Andong Kims and who could maybe challenge them for power. This relative

00:34:31.760 they'd found was a man named Yi Ha-yung, but he wasn't eligible to be king himself because he was

00:34:38.200 a man. And the way it worked with like adopting a new person to be king was that if the king died

00:34:44.040 without children. You couldn't replace him with someone who is like the same age-ish. Like if he 0.92

00:34:50.020 was a man, an adult man, you couldn't choose another adult man. Like the new king had to be

00:34:55.620 from the next generation after the most recent incumbent of the throne. And Yi Ha-yung was of

00:35:02.500 the same generation as the king. He had a son though. His 12-year-old son was Yi Myung-bok.

00:35:09.500 so it's kind of like okay well what if we make him the new king um so again he's 12 years old

00:35:16.580 and he would not be able to rule in his own name until he came of age which effectively meant that

00:35:21.100 Yi Ha-yung would be in charge because he would be the father of the king who was a little boy

00:35:27.280 um the Pun Yang Zhou clan knew that they could easily influence the father to like further what 0.76

00:35:32.600 they wanted and that he would be the regent for the son so acting alongside the queen mother who

00:35:39.480 had chosen him or his son to be the new king and so it was it all happened really quickly which is

00:35:46.380 part of why i feel like maybe this was poisoning because there was some like planning ahead

00:35:50.120 happened so as soon as news of chul chul jung's death reached di hai yung through his intricate

00:35:56.300 network of spies so like he already had an intricate network of spies in the palace

00:36:00.000 he um and the pun yang jo clan took the hereditary royal seal so like an object this is like how in

00:36:08.460 the jane gray story where she put the crown on her head and like that was treason it's like the

00:36:12.760 object itself has so much power so in order for a legitimate reign to take place you had to have

00:36:17.760 this royal seal and he got it so this uh gave the queen mother absolute power to select the

00:36:26.340 successor to the throne and he like he found out right away that the king had died he got the royal

00:36:31.220 seal so by the time the andong kim clan found out that the king had even died he already had the

00:36:36.040 seal. So in the autumn of 1864, Yi Myung Bak was crowned as king. He got a new king name,

00:36:44.480 which is King Gojong of Chosong. His father was titled the term that means Grand Internal Prince.

00:36:56.180 So his title was Regent Hongsun Daewangun. And this is the title. Daewangun is usually given

00:37:05.140 to the father of the king. And he's going to be an incredibly important, both of these are going

00:37:10.820 to be really important characters in this story. So King Gojong, that's the little boy king. His

00:37:15.300 dad, Daewon Goon, like we're going to call him that because that is how he is most often referred

00:37:21.300 to in the sources I was looking at. So the dad, Daewon Goon, was very strongly Confucian and he

00:37:30.680 was a capable and calculating leader in the early years of Gojong's reign. He abolished the old 1.00

00:37:37.580 government institutions that had become corrupt under the rule of various clans, revised the law

00:37:42.000 codes along with household laws of the royal court and the rules of court ritual, and heavily

00:37:45.980 reformed the military techniques of the royal armies. Within a few short years, he was able to

00:37:50.800 secure complete control of the court, and eventually he received the submission of the 1.00

00:37:56.400 Ponyang Joes, who were the people who put him there, but then he kind of became more powerful 0.99

00:38:00.340 than them. And he also disposed of the last of the Andong Kims. He believed that their corruption 0.99

00:38:06.400 was responsible for how Joseon Kingdom had declined in the 19th century. So that'll happen in two

00:38:13.940 years. And then the regents he was ended because Gojong became fully the king because he was,

00:38:19.000 I guess, 14. But he was truly a puppet and Daewon Goon kept being in charge. Everyone knew he was 0.56

00:38:25.880 in charge, Gojong was just kind of like, oh yeah, he's like, quote unquote, the king. But I think

00:38:30.280 they kept him less educated as well, just to make him be less influential, so he wouldn't have his

00:38:36.240 own ideas. So Daewon Goon was just in charge of everything, effectively illegally staying on as

00:38:41.680 the regent, even though his son was literally the king. At this point, a wife was chosen for him by

00:38:48.460 his father and that is the main character of this whole thing so let's learn about her now that is

00:38:55.920 queen min so this woman who was a girl when she was chosen to be his wife was known as lady min

00:39:05.420 and we don't know her first name because of the patriarchal culture some records suggest her name

00:39:11.300 may have been ja young we're gonna refer to her as queen min or just min because that's how she's

00:39:17.320 most often referred to in the historical writings I've been looking at. So Min, which is her family

00:39:24.580 name. Like she's from the Min clan. Like that, we don't know her first name, but her last, it's like 0.83

00:39:32.080 if I was just Foster. But anyway, all we know to call her is Min. So it's kind of like Saida Al-Hura

00:39:37.340 in that episode where like we only know her title, but this is what everyone called her. So I'm going

00:39:41.580 to call her that too was the daughter of min chiroc a former past prime minister of the chosan

00:39:49.060 kingdom she was highly intelligent and read chinese classics during her youth i don't know

00:39:54.640 if this is like an exception to the whole like girls not allowed to read thing or just her father

00:39:58.340 thought it was okay when she was around eight years old her father died her mother might have

00:40:04.300 also at that time so she was from this noble family but it was not a super wealthy branch

00:40:10.620 of the family, and so she grew up not super rich. And at age 15, her name was brought forward as a

00:40:16.700 potential bride for the young king, who was the same age. They were more or less the same age.

00:40:21.940 And her name was brought up, probably, because Daewangun's wife was from the Min family as well.

00:40:29.740 In fact, Min, I believe, was Daewangun's wife's second cousin. The Min family was a noble clan

00:40:37.240 boasting many high-position bureaucrats in its past, as well as past princess consorts,

00:40:42.320 as well as two queen consorts. And so what seemed appealing about Min to Daewangun was she was an

00:40:51.080 orphan, she was poor, like, so she wouldn't have, he was like, okay, she wouldn't have parents who

00:40:55.920 would meddle around, like, she's an orphan that's kind of ideal. So we can just like put her in

00:41:00.880 place is kind of just like a baby maker for us to have princes so she just seemed like she was not

00:41:08.400 going to be a threat it's reminding me of like when um caroline of brunswick was chosen for george

00:41:13.940 the fourth or when diana spencer was chosen for king charles um they just wanted somebody who

00:41:20.520 seemed kind of like meek and quiet and like would just kind of look pretty and not really challenge

00:41:26.180 them. And like in those instances, that is not what happened. So Daewon Goon was told Min was

00:41:33.500 orphaned, beautiful, with a healthy body and an ordinary level of education. She had no close

00:41:39.580 relatives to harbor political ambitions, but came from a noble lineage. So like she seemed like a 0.94

00:41:44.320 great choice. So she was brought in for a meeting with him. Clearly he was impressed and the marriage

00:41:49.280 was agreed upon. So like the marriage happened like weeks after this meeting, they're just like,

00:41:53.860 let's do it. So there might have been signs in that meeting of what was to come. As per one

00:41:58.940 source, the Daewangun did not realize her tiger-like spirit and politically ambitious

00:42:04.100 nature. But another source suggests that he felt slightly disturbed by her presence,

00:42:10.320 like that he could sense that she was a woman of great determination and poise. So I don't know,

00:42:14.620 like it's tempting to think back like, ooh, like what would this meeting have been? Because they're

00:42:19.240 going to become like, spoiler, arch nemeses of each other. But at this point, he was just like,

00:42:23.500 she seems pretty sure this is fine. So she had just turned 16 and she married the 15-year-old

00:42:28.740 king and she was invested as queen consort of Chosan. At the marriage ceremony itself,

00:42:35.980 the wig typically worn by brides at royal weddings was so heavy and she was so small and 16 0.89

00:42:40.660 that a tall court lady was specially assigned to support it from the back, the wig. Now,

00:42:47.020 it would not have come to a surprise to anybody that Gojong already had a favored concubine because 0.99

00:42:52.720 that's just how things worked and so nobody would have been surprised by this like not men not

00:42:58.140 anybody so his favorite although i feel like for a 15 year old to have a favorite concubine is like

00:43:03.380 quite a thing so his favorite concubine at this point was named yi guiyin guiyin is the first

00:43:10.780 junior rank of concubine and on the day of their marriage ceremony gojong did not go to queen

00:43:16.480 mids quarters to like consummate the marriage. Instead, he went to Yi Guiyin's quarters.

00:43:21.660 So that potentially is not a good sign that this is going to be a successful marriage. One thing

00:43:28.220 I read suggested she might have suggested herself that he go and do that and not come to be with

00:43:32.860 her. So who knows how that actually happened. And just in terms of concubines, since we're on the

00:43:37.760 topic. So it was of the utmost importance for to have a son to be the heir, as I've talked about

00:43:43.620 a lot. If the official wife wasn't able to have a son, then the son of one of the concubines 0.70

00:43:49.700 would become the heir. So this was kind of like plan B for them. Yeah. So it seems like 0.90

00:43:57.800 these two were incompatible just like personality wise. She preferred to stay in her chamber 1.00

00:44:04.760 studying while he enjoyed spending his days and nights drinking and attending banquets and royal

00:44:08.980 parties min was genuinely interested in affairs of the state and so she she just moved there and

00:44:15.980 she's just like oh my god there's so many books it's like vibes of like bell when she goes to

00:44:19.740 beast's castle she's just like i can learn so much stuff from all these books so she immersed

00:44:24.860 herself in reading books about philosophy history and science these are books that were normally

00:44:30.120 reserved for yang ban men like the aristocratic men allegedly she once told a friend about her

00:44:37.540 husband, he disgusts me. What was men like? So, years later, a woman named Louise Jordan Milne

00:44:47.140 described her like this in her book, Queened Korea. The queen is pale and delicate looking.

00:44:54.520 She has a remarkable forehead, low but strong, and a mouth charming in its coloring, in its outlines, 0.86

00:44:59.440 in its femininity, in the pearls it discloses, and sweet with the music that slips through it

00:45:04.260 when she speaks. She dresses plainly as a rule and in dark but rich materials. In this, she

00:45:11.100 resembles the highborn matrons of Japan. And in cut, her garments are more Japanese than those 1.00

00:45:15.360 of other Korean women. She wears her hair parted in the middle and drawn softly into a simple knot 0.68

00:45:20.140 or coil of braid. She wears diamonds most often, not many but of much price. They are her favorite

00:45:25.260 gems. An American woman named Lillian Underwood, who would later be a close friend of Min's and

00:45:31.580 was appointed as her doctor because she had to have a lady doctor also later wrote this i wish

00:45:37.980 i could give the public a true picture of the queen as she appeared at her best but this would 0.95

00:45:41.680 be impossible even had she permitted a photograph to be taken for her charming play of expression

00:45:46.860 while in conversation the character and intellect which were then revealed were only half seen when

00:45:51.180 the face was in repose slightly pale and quite thin with somewhat sharp features and brilliant

00:45:57.140 piercing eyes. She did not strike me at first sight as being beautiful, but no one could help

00:46:01.660 reading force, intellect, and strength of character in that face. So yeah, as she settled

00:46:09.000 into her new role as queen, people around her began noticing these things that these women

00:46:13.460 were writing. She had a more assertive and ambitious personality than the previous queens 0.99

00:46:19.540 had. She did not participate, again, in these lavish parties that her husband enjoyed.

00:46:25.080 she rarely commissioned extravagant fashions from the royal ateliers and almost never hosted

00:46:30.840 afternoon tea parties with powerful aristocratic ladies unless politics required her to do so 0.95

00:46:36.560 she was expected to act as an icon for kriya's high society but she would rather just like read

00:46:41.880 books like this is like jane gray vibes cc vibes christine of sweden vibes she's just like reading

00:46:48.400 books which everybody found really strange and concerning like she read books general reserve

00:46:54.880 for men and just kept furthering her own education so i guess it's like she had been educated

00:47:00.120 quote an ordinary amount i think i said earlier but she's just like really excited to learn more

00:47:05.500 stuff happy to have these books yeah time passed like she got married when she was 16

00:47:11.200 by the time she was 20 she had begun to wander outside her apartments at the palace and to play 0.91

00:47:17.500 an active part in politics in spite of daewangun and various high officials who viewed her as

00:47:22.620 becoming meddlesome. She also had not had a child until around this point. So when she was 20,

00:47:29.660 she had a son, but the son died shortly after being born. Daiwangun publicly accused her of

00:47:35.500 being unable to bear a healthy male child. Remember, that's one of the seven things that

00:47:40.300 wives can't do. But she suspected that he had maybe killed the child on purpose through giving

00:47:49.880 her maybe poison ginseng treatment. So like he publicly accused her of being unable to bear a

00:47:57.060 healthy male child. It sounds like she publicly accused him of poisoning the baby. So now kind of

00:48:02.120 everyone knew that they were feuding. And the feud was largely for control over the king, who is

00:48:08.520 again, not Daiwangun. It was Gojong, Min's husband. And just kind of like, who was he going to listen

00:48:14.400 to more. So Gu Zhang did conceive a son through his favored concubine, Yi Guyin, and she gave

00:48:23.360 birth to Prince Wanhua, who was given the title of Crown Prince by Daewangun. He was overwhelmed

00:48:30.160 with joy at this firstborn grandchild, and this made him acknowledge Min even less, but little

00:48:36.500 did he know. Min had secretly begun to form a powerful faction against him. With the backing

00:48:42.860 high officials, scholars, and members of her clan, remember the Min clan, she sought to remove him 0.77

00:48:48.380 from power. So the queen consorts, so her older brother, Min had an older brother who wasn't

00:48:55.980 adopted. There's just a lot of adoption. I don't know. It's anyway, she had an adopted older

00:49:01.880 brother. Min Seung-ho was in on the scheme as well as court scholar Cho Ik-hyun. They devised

00:49:08.340 a formal impeachment of Daewangun to be presented to the Royal Council of Administration.

00:49:13.720 And their argument, which was like a very sound argument, was like Gojong is 22. Like,

00:49:18.860 he should be able to rule in his own right because like, and he should have been doing

00:49:22.760 that since he was 16 or something. Like Daewangun is overreaching. Anyway, I love that she's been 0.82

00:49:27.900 reading books and maybe from those books, that's where she got the idea or she like found the

00:49:31.620 loophole of like, ooh, this is what we can do. So in 1873, with the approval of Gojong and the

00:49:38.420 council, like this all happened and Gojong was behind it. So the Daewangun was forced to retire

00:49:45.000 to his estate at Yangju. Min also at the same time banished Yi Guiyin, the concubine, along with her 0.84

00:49:51.300 son to a village outside the capital and stripped her and the son of royal titles. The following

00:49:56.180 year, Min gave birth to a son, which assured her place as queen consort. So in terms of children,

00:50:02.320 just, so she's, what, 21? And by now she had lost one daughter and four sons in infancy.

00:50:11.840 And she only had one surviving child, Sunjong. Sunjong was frequently ill, which led her to be

00:50:17.700 anxious that a concubine might have a son that would replace her son. So she went after, she

00:50:22.920 went for help to shamans and she gave monks beneficial positions to ask for their blessing

00:50:28.260 and she and Sun Zhang apparently remained very close. But with these expulsions, like having

00:50:34.080 gotten rid of Daewangun, having gotten rid of Yi Guiyin, Min had gained complete control over 0.72

00:50:41.480 her court. We love to see it. So she was now fully queen consort. She was ruling alongside her 0.83

00:50:47.900 husband, but more so she was recognized as being more politically active than Gojong. So Daewang

00:50:55.560 Goon was gone and now she's fully in charge. So she became in many ways the de facto leader of 0.95

00:51:02.760 Joseon. She showed her political skill, placing her relatives in top government roles and

00:51:09.760 maneuvered among the noble factions to consolidate her power and that i think

00:51:16.540 that's where we're going to end part one because it's like running on a high running with this

00:51:23.240 exciting thing so yeah we're going to pick up the serve queen men next week with more information

00:51:28.480 so a couple reminders as per ever so if you go to vulgarhistory.com there's a form or there's

00:51:34.420 like a button there or if you want to give me feedback oh my god how's my korean pronunciation

00:51:39.620 am I representing this culture okay I have I'm worried um but I I hope I'm telling the story okay

00:51:46.260 and also just give me any other feedback or ideas or suggestions you have about people you want to

00:51:51.420 hear covered on the podcast if you want to buy uh some books and have a little money to support me

00:51:57.560 for instance the books written by June Hur I'll put all those links in the show notes but if you

00:52:01.640 go to bookshop.org slash shop slash vulgar history and if you do your book shopping from there then

00:52:07.860 a little bit of money goes to help support this podcast. You can also support the podcast by going

00:52:12.320 to vulgarhistory.store, vulgarhistory.store. You can use code TITSOUT for free US shipping or

00:52:19.400 TITSOUT10 for 10% off. I've been adding stuff there not for every single person I've talked

00:52:25.500 about, but for most of them, frankly, there's like various Hortons, Mancini, Mazarinette stuff.

00:52:31.080 There's the Horse Girl Energy design in honor of Cece. I'll try to hopefully figure out something

00:52:37.000 out for min as well yeah and then you can also join the patreon so patreon.com and foster writer

00:52:43.660 that's where when you join for at least a dollar a month then you get early access to all the

00:52:48.060 episodes of vulgar history ad free because you've probably noticed these last couple episodes like

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00:52:58.140 you can get that patreon.com and foster writer if you pledge five dollars or more a month on

00:53:04.320 there as well you can also get access to the bonus series of vulgar peace theater where i do 0.94

00:53:10.520 costume drama reviews with allison epstein and lana wood johnson as well as so it's asshole

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00:53:33.700 five-star review. We've recently-ish got to 2,000 ratings, which is super exciting and kind of

00:53:41.320 minorly overwhelming, but I feel like we're at 2,000. Let's get to 3,000. Let's get those ratings

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00:53:54.880 These are things you can do that just like make me happy and also help support the show. So anyway,

00:53:59.020 yeah we're on instagram at vulgar history pod we're on twitter at vulgar history and next week

00:54:05.380 we're gonna pick right up from where we left off rather um and learn more about queen min if you

00:54:10.260 want to watch um a movie about her uh the movie i watched is called the sword with no name and

00:54:17.400 in that movie actually they do make it canon in the movie that her name is ja young and she

00:54:23.820 kind of has this sexy bodyguard who is there helping her out but you know what in real life

00:54:30.200 men did all this without presumably a sexy bodyguard and i respect her so much for that 0.99

00:54:34.460 keep your pants on keep your tits out talk to you all next week 0.99

00:54:38.780 folker history is hosted written and researched by ann foster and edited by christina lumagi 0.99

00:54:44.740 Transcription by CastingWords

00:55:14.740 Awe-inspiring sound and endless adventure.

00:55:20.000 Welcome to the Realms of Peril and Glory.

00:55:25.620 Explore the mechanically magical vistas of Vale,

00:55:30.400 the paranormal mysteries of Liminal London,

00:55:35.960 and the cyberpunk chaos of Cyborg.

00:55:40.260 fall in love with our core cast or be awed by our incredible guests from familiar shows

00:55:50.140 like oxventure three black halflings and no roles bard ignite your imagination and discover the

00:55:59.800 realms of peril and glory today go to realmspod.com or search realms of peril and glory wherever you

00:56:07.540 listen to podcasts.

00:56:09.460 Two, one, you win.

00:56:12.860 Oh, please, not that music.

00:56:14.700 That music gives me nightmares from my childhood.

00:56:17.080 Could we get something a little bit lighter,

00:56:18.840 some lighter music here?

00:56:20.100 Are you a fan of true crime TV shows?

00:56:23.340 And what about Unsolved Mysteries,

00:56:24.960 the show that jump-started all of our love of true crime?

00:56:28.140 I'm Ellen Marsh.

00:56:29.480 And I'm Joey Taranto.

00:56:30.500 And we host I Think Not,

00:56:32.460 a true crime comedy podcast

00:56:34.320 covering some of the wildest stories

00:56:36.240 from your favorite true crime campy TV shows

00:56:38.940 all the way to Unsolved Mysteries.

00:56:41.200 Baby, you will laugh, you will cry,

00:56:43.480 you'll think about true crime in a whole new way,

00:56:45.640 and you'll also ask yourself,

00:56:47.120 who gave these people mics?

00:56:48.480 New episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday

00:56:51.220 with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon.

00:56:54.840 And every Monday, you can listen to our True Crime Rundown,

00:56:58.440 where we go over the top true crime headlines of the week.

00:57:02.080 So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:57:06.240 Thank you.

Vulgar History - September 28, 2022

International, part 28： Korea's Queen Min Surprises Everyone (pt 1⧸2)

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