The tide of history often changes the fate of a family, and the once glorious and wealthy Joseon royal family was no exception in the war-torn era. As descendants of the royal family that once held power on the Korean Peninsula for hundreds of years, what will happen to them? Is there anyone who inherits the throne and guards the dignity of the royal family? Or did they completely lose all their aura in the torrent of the times and become ordinary people? Let's take a look at the history of the descendants of the royal family who once led the Korean Peninsula and see what fate they ultimately led to.
The glorious history of the Lee dynasty
The beginning of the Joseon Dynasty can be traced back to the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. At that time, the Korean Peninsula was divided into many small countries, which existed independently of each other, and the situation was chaotic. With his extraordinary wisdom and courage, Yi Sung-gye, a famous Korean family, united various armed forces and gradually unified the rivers and lakes on the peninsula, establishing a unique centralized dynasty.
The most influential figure on the Korean Peninsula, Yi Sung-gye was born into an aristocratic family, was deeply influenced by Confucianism from an early age, and was an upright and prudent person. But at the same time, he was a brilliant military strategist and statesman with great ambitions and a desire to unify the Korean Peninsula. Through several battles, he defeated various separatist forces, and finally unified the Korean Peninsula and established the Lee dynasty named after him.
After the establishment of the Yi dynasty, Joseon entered an era of unprecedented prosperity. Li Chenggui exercised centralized rule, vigorously developed agricultural production, and economic construction was in the ascendant. He also focused on the long-term development of the country, greatly promoted culture and education, and attached importance to the cultivation of talents, so that the culture and art of the DPRK flourished. As the founder of the dynasty, Li Chenggui was well versed in the way of employing people, listened to the opinions of meritocracy in many ways, and employed people on the basis of merit, and the whole of Korea was attributed to him.
Under the diligent governance of successive rulers, the Li dynasty continued to grow stronger, and at one time competed with the Ming Dynasty at that time. The royal family and nobles are well-known at home and abroad, and the cultural influence of North Korea radiates throughout East Asia. Although China's national power at that time far surpassed that of Korea, the Yi dynasty still reigned in its own right, becoming a shining pearl on the map of East Asia. Until the late Ming Dynasty, due to internal and external troubles, the dynasty gradually declined, but its brilliant achievements for hundreds of years have become a dazzling chapter in the history of the Korean Peninsula and even East Asia.
The decline of royal power
Although the Yi dynasty once dominated the Korean Peninsula and held power for hundreds of years, with the changes of the times and the invasion of foreign forces, this once glorious dynasty eventually went into decline.
In the second half of the 19th century, Japan became the greatest external threat to the Korean Peninsula as it grew stronger after the Meiji Restoration. At that time, Korea still maintained a feudal monarchy and was weak enough to resist Japanese aggression. In 1894, the Korean peasant uprising broke out again, and the situation got out of control for a time. Japan seized the opportunity to send troops and defeated China in the ensuing Sino-Japanese War, seizing control of Korea.
In 1897, Gojong Yi-hee was forced to change the Korean Kingdom to the Korean Empire under pressure from the Japanese. Despite this symbolic reform, the Korean Empire was in fact still the hand of Japan. In 1905, after the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the Korean Empire became an exclusive protectorate of Japan.
In November 1907, under the pressure of the Japanese, Gaozong Li Xi had to announce his abdication and cede the imperial throne to his crown prince Chunzong Li Kun. It can be said that from this moment on, the Korean Peninsula completely lost its autonomy and became a Japanese colony.
After Chunjong Yi Kun ascended the throne, he no longer had the right to express any opinion on the state decisions of the Korean Empire, except for receiving a living allowance from the Japanese side every year. He even had to get the approval of the Japanese side to furnish the house where he lived. In August 1910, Japan forcibly signed the "Japan-Korea Merger Treaty", announcing the annexation of the Korean Empire, ending the nearly 500-year-old Lee dynasty in Korea.
After that, the last king, Junzong Li Kun, although still nominally king, had become a prisoner of surveillance by the Japanese colonial authorities. In order to completely control the Korean Peninsula, the Japanese even carried out a systematic education on the "imperial people" of Li Kun's eldest son, Li Yin, hoping to use his bloodline to firmly rule the Korean Peninsula in the future.
In this way, a once powerful dynasty came to an end. The declining royal power was eventually lost to the foreigners and became vassals of the colonists. Since then, the Korean Peninsula has lost its long-standing independence, which also means that its long and splendid royal culture is about to decline.
A difficult choice for members of the royal family
The fall of the Korean Empire meant that the Lee dynasty was completely eclipsed. As the king of the fallen country, Chunzong Li Kun and his eldest son Li Yin once fell into an extremely helpless situation. Once upon a time, they still held the power to rule the Korean Peninsula, but once they faced the oppression of Japan by force, they suddenly became marginal figures outside the core of power.
After the defeat, the Japanese authorities exerted great pressure on Li Yin to completely surrender and naturalize as a Japanese national. As the only eldest son of Chunzong Li Kun, Li Yin was supposed to be the legitimate heir to the throne, but the reality hit him hard. In order to entrap Li Yin, the Japanese even arranged for him to marry Yoshiko, the eldest daughter of the Japanese imperial family Irobongu, in 1920, hoping to show the pro-Japanese color of the "colony".
Sadly, in the face of the colonizers' obscenity, Li Yin finally succumbed. He had to accept everything that the Japanese government had carefully arranged for him, including accepting the Japanese name "Li Xian" that the Japanese side had changed for him, and changing Yoshiko's name to the Japanese style "Li Fangzi". Not only that, but the Japanese also trained a son for Li Yin, Li Jiu, in an attempt to train him to become the future puppet ruler of the Korean Peninsula.
Compared with Li Yin's down-and-out fate, the situation of Li Yin, the second son of the royal family, is even more helpless and miserable. After the fall of the Korean Empire, Yi Yan was idle and prodigal for a while. In order to make ends meet, he had to sell his mother's cemetery in exchange for a pitiful living expenses. From the prince of the fallen kingdom to a beggar on the streets, this huge contrast in life is enough to break the psychology of any person.
In the face of the great changes brought about by the war, even a royal family as prominent as the Li family had to make a difficult choice. Some chose to surrender to the Japanese and gave up their dignity; Some people choose a way out to make a living, sacrificing the moral bottom line. This tragic fate is truly staggering, and it reflects how great and merciless the trauma of war has been on ordinary people.
The tragic life of the heir to the throne
Among the many members of the Li royal family, the most tragic is Li Jian, the eldest grandson of Chunzong Li Kun. As the direct heir to the throne of the last king of the Korean Peninsula, Li Jian failed to inherit the throne, but had to give up the dignity of the royal family and completely assimilate into a Japanese commoner.
Li Jian was born in 1901, and his father was Li Yin, the eldest son of the royal family, who was arranged by the Japanese to marry the imperial family. During the turbulent period after the fall of the Korean Empire, Lee Kim was given preferential treatment by the Japanese authorities as a royal nobleman. However, as colonial rule intensified, the Japanese began to systematically assimilate the people of the Korean Peninsula.
In 1939, under pressure from the Japanese authorities, Li Jian was forced to change his name to the Japanese name "Li Longyan". Shortly thereafter, World War II broke out, and the Korean Peninsula came under complete control of the Japanese colonizers. In order to survive, Li Jian had no choice but to be forced by the Japanese to completely give up his royal identity and become a Japanese national.
In this way, the eldest grandson of the last king of the Korean Peninsula was destined to lose the throne and became a Japanese commoner. In the war-torn era, in order to survive, Li Longyan had no choice but to be at the mercy of the Japanese authorities. He was even incorporated into the army by the Japanese and sent to do heavy work on the battlefields of Burma at that time.
After the end of World War II, Lee Yong-yan, the former heir to the throne of the Korean royal family, made a living in the Tokyo area of Japan. Because his family is surrounded by walls, he makes a living by selling porridge on the street. In stark contrast to his royal background, it is Li Longyan's humble life like a beggar.
In the memoirs of a Japanese writer, there is such an account of Li Longyan: "His hands were rough like peasants, his eyes were dull, and he was full of sadness. When I asked him about his background, he was reticent, saying only lightly that he was a pathetic refugee. ＂
From the eldest grandson of the royal family to the homeless homeless, Li Longyan's life has been full of ups and downs, enough to witness the endless trauma caused by the war to the common people. As the heir to the throne of the last king of Joseon, he was destined to have no chance of inheriting the throne, but had to give up his dignity and live a more humble life than ordinary people. All this is the cruel fate given to him in the war-torn era.
The fall of the Joseon royal family
After the turbulent years of war, the once glorious Lee dynasty on the Korean Peninsula finally came to the end of the family's decline. As the only eldest grandson of the last king, Chunjong Li Kun, Li Longyan should be the legitimate heir to the throne. However, in the smoke of war, he had to give up all the dignity of the royal family, became a commoner, and finally lived a more humble life than ordinary people.
After the end of World War II, the Korean Peninsula was finally freed from Japanese colonial rule. At that time, Lee Yong-yan could have relied on his royal blood to try to regain power on the Korean Peninsula. But for some reason, he eventually chose to give up the right to the throne and refused to return to North Korea.
There is a widely circulated theory that Lee Yong-yan has long been influenced by Japanese education, and has long since distanced himself from traditional Korean culture, and he is not even proficient in Korean. Under these circumstances, even if he returned to North Korea to regain power, it would be difficult to win the hearts and minds of the people. As a result, he preferred to continue to live in obscurity on Japanese soil.
Another theory is that the reason why Li Yongyan refused the right to inherit the throne was because he had already seen the vanity of the royal family and was full of disgust with royal power. He learned from the pain and believed that it was the existence of royal power that led to the collapse of the whole of Korea, so he resolutely decided to give up all royal privileges and live an ordinary life.
Whatever the reason for Lee Yong-yan's choice, it marked the official severance of the Joseon royal family. After him, no one can claim to be the heir to the throne of the Joseon royal family. A dynasty that once led the Korean Peninsula for hundreds of years has died silently in the long river of history.
end
Over the Korean Peninsula, the once kingly royal family no longer exists. This country, which was once proud of itself and claimed to be a "simple nation", can now only reminisce about its former glory in history books. From the unification of the country by Li Chenggui to the decline and collapse of the Li dynasty, the unprecedented dynastic culture on the Korean Peninsula finally fell.