The Deposition of U

Sunday, 18 May 2014

If ever you are depressed, just think of U.

U is the only king in Korea's long history to never have had a posthumous title for his reign. Born of a slave girl and rising to power in 1374 after the last king was assassinated by a small ming faction he was enthroned age 11, amidst diplomatic tensions with china (so you can probably see this is not going to go awfully well for him). Aside from having the most pathetic name you could imagine, he also broke Koreas long standing non-aggression philosophy and decided to invade china.

Of course, the Korean army was dwarfed by the Chinese army, and when the general sent be U, called Yi (seriously, you cant make this stuff up), saw that his army was to be crushed by china at what would have been the battle of Amarok river, he turned right around and invaded Korea, no, not the chinese, Yi did. Yi deposed U. Yi deposed U and replaced U with the son of U, called somewhat stereotypically, Chang. Chang was, one year later, later poisoned by Gongyang, who took over the throne.

To this day, no one really care about U. - ancylla

I should mention, deposition of U was an incredibly important event in the history of Korea, it led from the Goryeo period into the Joseon period.