Жосон әулетінің төртінші патшасы Сэджон

Fourth king of Joseon from 1418 to 1450

Sejong (hangul=세종; 10 April 1397 – 17 February 1450), personal name Yi Do (hangul=이도), commonly known as Sejong the Great (세종대왕), was the fourth monarch of the Joseon dynasty of Korea. Today, he is regarded as one of the greatest rulers in Korean history, and is remembered as the inventor of Hangul, the native alphabet of the Korean language. Initially titled Grand Prince Chungnyeong (충녕대군), he was the third son of King Taejong and Queen Wongyeong. In 1418, Sejong replaced his eldest brother, Yi Je, as crown prince; a few months later, Taejong voluntarily abdicated the throne in his favor. Despite this, Sejong was a mere figurehead, while his father continued to hold the real power and govern the country until his death in 1422. Sejong reinforced Korean Confucian and Neo Confucian policies, and enacted major legal amendments (hangul=공법). He personally created and promulgated the Korean alphabet, encouraged advancements in science and technology, and introduced measures to stimulate economic growth. He dispatched military campaigns to the north and instituted the Samin Jeongchaek (hangul=사민정책) to attract new settlers to the region. To the south, he helped subjugate the Japanese pirates through the Ōei Invasion. From 1439, he became increasingly ill and his eldest son, Crown Prince Yi Hyang (future King Munjong), acted as regent.

Although the appellation "the Great" (hangul=대왕) was posthumously given to almost every monarch from the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties, this style is usually associated with Gwanggaeto and Sejong.

He was born on 10 April 1397, which was later adjusted to 15 May, after Korea's adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1896. This date is his officially recognized birthday, and is celebrated along with National Teachers Day in South Korea. Sejong was the son of King Taejong by his wife, Queen Wongyeong. When he was twelve, he became Grand Prince Chungnyeong (hangul=충녕대군). During childhood, he was favored by his father over his two older brothers. As the third son of the king, his ascension to the throne was unique. Taejong's eldest son, Yi Je (hangul=이제), was named heir apparent in 1404. However, his free spirited nature as well as his preference for hunting and leisure activities resulted in his removal from the position in June 1418. Though it is said that he abdicated in favor of Sejong, there are no definitive records. Taejong's second son, Grand Prince Hyoryeong (hangul=효령대군), became a Buddhist monk upon the elevation of his younger brother. Following Yi Je's demotion, Taejong moved quickly to secure his third son's place as heir apparent, and the government was purged of officials who disagreed with the change. In September 1418, Taejong abdicated. However, even in retirement he continued to influence government policy. Sejong's surprising political skill and creativity did not become apparent until after his father's death in 1422.

Sejong reorganized the government by appointing people from different social classes as civil servants. Furthermore, he performed government ceremonies according to Confucianism, and encouraged people to behave according to the teachings of Confucius. He suppressed Buddhism by banning outside monks from entering Hanseong (modern Seoul) and reduced the seven schools of Buddhism down to two, Seon and Gyo, drastically decreasing the power and wealth of the religious leaders. One of the key factors in this suppression was Sejong's reform of the land system. This policy resulted in temple lands being seized and redistributed for development, with the monks losing large amounts of economic influence. During the Goryeo period, monks wielded a strong influence in politics and the economy. With the dominant powers of Joseon now being devout Confucianists, Buddhism was considered a false philosophy and the monks were viewed as corrupted by power and money. The Seokbosangjeol (hangul=석보상절), a 24 volume Korean language translation of Chinese Buddhist texts (a biography of Buddha and some of his sermons), was commissioned and published in Sejong's reign by his son Grand Prince Suyang, as an act of mourning for Queen Soheon. In 1427, Sejong also gave a decree against the Huihui (Korean Muslim) community that had held special status and stipends since Yuan dynasty's rule over Goryeo. The Huihui were forced to abandon their headgear, to close down their "ceremonial hall" (a mosque in the city of Gaegyeong, in present day Kaesong) and worship like everyone else. No further mention of Muslims exist during the Joseon era.

In the early years of the Joseon dynasty, the economy was based on a barter system with cloth, grain, and cotton being the most common forms of currency. In 1423, under King Sejong’s administration, the government attempted to develop a national currency modeled off of the Tang dynasty's kaiyuan tongbao The Joseon tongbo (hangul=조선통보) was a bronze coin, backed by a silver standard, with 150 coins being equal to 600 grams of silver. Production of the Joseon Tongbo ceased in 1425 because they were too expensive to make, with the exchange rate falling to less than the intrinsic value of the coin.

He opened three ports to trade with Japan; however, he also launched expeditions to crush the Japanese pirates (hangul=왜구) in the East China Sea.

King Sejong was an effective military planner. He created various military regulations to strengthen the safety of his kingdom, and supported the advancement of military technology, including cannon development. Different kinds of mortars and fire arrows were tested as well as the use of gunpowder. In June 1419, under the advice and guidance of his father, Sejong embarked upon the Ōei Invasion. The ultimate goal of this military expedition was to remove the nuisance of Japanese pirates who had been operating close to Tsushima Island. During the invasion, 245 Japanese were killed, and another 110 were captured in combat, while 180 Korean soldiers died. More than 150 kidnap victims (146 Chinese and 8 Koreans) were also liberated. A truce was made in July 1419 and the Joseon army returned to the Korean Peninsula, but no official documents were signed until 1443. In this agreement, known as the Treaty of Gyehae, the daimyo of Tsushima promised to pay tribute to the king of Joseon, and in return, the Joseon court rewarded the Sō clan with preferential rights regarding trade between the two countries. In 1433, Sejong sent Kim Jong seo, a prominent general, to the north to destroy the Jurchens (later known as the Manchus). Kim's military campaign captured several fortresses, pushed north, and expanded Korean territory, to the Songhua River. Sejong promoted the sciences. He wanted to help farmers so he decided to compile a farmer's handbook. Published in 1429, the book – Nongsa Jikseol (hangul=농사직설) – dealt with planting, harvesting and soil treatment, and contained information about the different farming techniques that were gathered by scientists from different regions of Korea. In 1442, Jang Yeong sil made one of the world's first standardized rain gauges named cheugugi (hangul=측우기). This model has not survived, with the oldest existing Korean rain gauge being made in 1770, during the reign of King Yeongjo. According to the Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat (hangul=승정원일기), Yeongjo wanted to revive the glorious times of Sejong the Great, and started reading chronicles from that era. When he came across the mention of a rain gauge, Yeongjo ordered a reproduction. Since there is a mark of the Qing dynasty ruler Qianlong (r. 1735–96), dated 1770, this Korean designed rain gauge is sometimes misunderstood as having been imported from China. In 1434, Jang Yeong sil, tasked by King Sejong, invented the gabinja (hangul=갑인자), a new type of printing press. This printing press was said to be twice as fast as the previous model and was composed of copper zinc and lead tin alloys. Sejong also wanted to reform the Korean calendar system, which was at the time based upon the longitude of the Chinese capital. He had his astronomers create a calendar with the Joseon capital of Hanseong as the primary meridian. In order to provide equality and fairness in taxation for the common people, Sejong issued a royal decree to administer a nationwide public opinion poll regarding a new tax system called Gongbeop in 1430. Over the course of five months, the poll surveyed 172,806 people, of which approximately 57% responded with approval for the proposed reform. Joseon's economy depended on the agricultural output of the farmers, so Sejong allowed them to pay more or less tax according to the fluctuations of economic prosperity and hard times. Because of this, farmers could worry less about tax quotas and instead work at maintaining and selling their crops. It is said that once, when the palace had a significant surplus of food, the king distributed it to poor peasants who needed it.

One of Sejong’s closest friends and mentors was the 15th century musician Bak Yeon. Together they composed over two hundred musical arrangements. Sejong’s independent musical compositions include the Chongdaeop ('Great Achievements'), Potaepyeong ('Preservation of Peace'), Pongnaeui ('Phoenix'), and Yominrak ('A Joy to Share with the People'). Yominrak continues to be a standard piece played by modern traditional Korean orchestras, while Chongdaeop and Potaepyeong are played during the Jongmyo Jerye (memorials honoring the kings of Joseon). In 1418, during Sejong's reign, scholars developed the Pyeongyeong (hangul=편경), a lithophone modeled off of the Chinese bianqing. The Pyeongyeong is a percussion instrument consisting of two rows of 8 pumice slabs hung on a decorative wooden frame with a 16 tone range and struck with an ox horn mallet. It was manufactured using pumice mined from the Gyeonggi Province and was primarily used for ceremonies. Sejong's contribution to the arts continued long after his death; he had always wanted to use Korean music rather than Chinese music for ancestral rituals, but conservative court officials stopped his efforts. However, when Sejong's son, King Sejo, rose to the throne, he modified the ritual music composed by his father and created the 'Jongmyo court music', which was used for royal ancestral rituals and is now inscribed as an UNESCO Intangible Cultural Hertiage.

King Sejong profoundly affected Korea's history with the creation and introduction of hangul, the native phonetic writing system for the Korean language. Although it is widely assumed that he ordered the Hall of Worthies to invent the script, contemporaneous records such as the Veritable Records of King Sejong and Jeong In ji's preface to the Hunminjeongeum Haerye emphasize that Sejong invented it himself. Before the creation of the new letters, people in the country primarily wrote using Classical Chinese alongside phonetic writing systems based on Chinese script that predated hangul by hundreds of years, including idu, hyangchal, gugyeol, and gakpil. However, due to the fundamental differences between the Korean and Chinese languages, and the large number of characters that needed to be studied, the lower classes, who often lacked the privilege of education, had much difficulty in learning how to write. To assuage this problem, King Sejong created this unique alphabet (which numbered 28 letters at its introduction, of which four letters have become obsolete) to promote literacy among the common people. Each consonant letter is based on a simplified diagram of the patterns made by the human speech organs (the mouth, tongue and teeth) when producing the sound related to the character, while vowels were formed by combinations of dots and lines representing heaven (a circular dot), earth (a horizontal line) and humanity (a vertical line). Morphemes are built by writing the characters in syllabic blocks. The blocks of letters are then strung together linearly. Hangul was completed in 1443 and published in 1446 along with a 33 page manual titled Hunminjeongeum, explaining what the letters are as well as the philosophical theories and motives behind them. The manual purported that anyone could learn the alphabet in a matter of days. People previously unfamiliar with it can typically pronounce Korean words accurately after only a few hours of study. King Sejong faced backlash from the noble class as many disapproved of the idea of a common writing system, with some openly opposing its creation. Many within the nobility believed that giving the peasants the ability to read and write would allow them to find and abuse loopholes within the law. Others felt that hangul would threaten their families’ positions in court by creating a larger pool of civil servants. The Joseon elite continued to use the Chinese hanja long after Sejong’s death. Hangul was often treated with contempt by those in power and received criticism in the form of nicknames, including eonmun ("vulgar script"), amkeul ("women’s script"), and ahaekkeul ("children’s script"). Despite this, the system gained popularity among women and fiction writers. In 1504, the study and publication of hangul was banned by Yeonsangun. Its spread and preservation can be largely attributed to three main factors: books published for women, its use by Buddhist monks, and the introduction of Christianity in Korea in 1602. Hangul was brought into the mainstream culture in the 16th century, due to a renaissance in literature and poetry. It continued to gain popularity well into the 17th century, and gained wider use after a period of nationalism in the 19th century. In 1849, it was adopted as Korea’s national writing system, and saw its first use in official government documents. After the Treaty of 1910, hangul was outlawed again until the liberation of Korea in 1945.

Sejong was blinded by diabetes complications that eventually took his life in 1450. He was buried at Yeongneung (hangul=영릉), in the same mound as his wife, Queen Soheon, who died four years earlier. The tomb is located in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea. His successor was his first son, Yi Hyang (posthumously honored as King Munjong). Sejong judged that the sickly Munjong was unlikely to live long, and on his deathbed asked the scholars from the Hall of Worthies to look after his young grandson, Danjong. As predicted, Munjong died two years after his ascension, and the political stability enjoyed in the past decades disintegrated when Danjong became the sixth king of Joseon at the age of twelve. Eventually, Sejong's second son, Grand Prince Suyang (later known as King Sejo), usurped the throne in 1455. When six court officials were implicated in a plot to restore his nephew, Sejo abolished the Hall of Worthies and executed Danjong along with several ministers who served during Sejong's reign.

In 2009, a bronze statue of King Sejong was placed on a concrete pedestal on the boulevard of Gwanghwamun Square and directly in front of the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts in Seoul. The sculptor was Kim Young won. The pedestal contains one of the several entrances to the 3,200 m2 underground museum exhibit entitled "The Story of King Sejong". It was unveiled on Hangul Day in celebration of the 563rd anniversary of the invention of the Korean alphabet.

Sejong Street (Sejongno; 세종로, 世宗路) and the Sejong Centre for the Performing Arts, both located in central Seoul, are named after King Sejong. In early 2007, the government of South Korea decided to create a special administrative district from a part of the South Chungcheong Province, near what is presently Daejeon. The district was named "Sejong Special Autonomous City". The King Sejong Station, a research station for the Korea Antarctic Research Program, is named after King Sejong. The King Sejong Institute, a South Korean gubermental organization that promotes Korean language education internationally, is named for King Sejong.

A portrait of Sejong is featured on the 10,000 won banknote of the South Korean won, along with various scientific tools invented under his reign.

Sejong is the leader of the Korean civilization in Sid Meier's Civilization VI’s Leader Pass DLC, Sid Meier's Civilization V, and Civilization Revolution 2. Sejong is the starting ruler of Korea in Europa Universalis IV.