In this article, the Exile punishment and the practice of ‘allowing discretion (“Jongpyeon”)’ of the ending days of the Goryeo dynasty are examined, through historical records and literary works published in the 14th and 15th centuries, including Yangchon-jib. The main focus of this article is to determine how Gweon Geun’s such experience influenced his own political actions.
First of all, some discrepancies between the documents written by Gweon Geun himself and the official Goryeo-sa chronicles, concerning Gweon Geun’s own exile, are compared and corrected. Second, the details of his exile, the similarity and differences between ‘relocation(or modifying the penalty) by consideration(“Yang’i”)’ and ‘allowing discretion(“Jongpyeon”),’ and the relationship between these two states, are all examined as well. Third, Gweon Geun’s own experience during this time period, his perception of the reality, and whom he befriended during that time, are analyzed too.
The exile punishment was certainly a political ordeal to an official at the time. Yet in terms of actual living, the restriction seems not to have been so harsh. Residential restriction was rather a simple inconvenience. It must have been difficult for the exiled people to maintain the social activities they enjoyed before the exile, yet they were, and Gweon Geun was also, able to befriend local officials, as well as local intellectuals like literati and monks, who provided him with support. Gweon Geun’s exile was actually an opportunity for him to think about some things, and devise his own ideas for national reforms, based upon the reality of the local society, which he was witnessing firsthand.
We can see that the exile punishment of this time period was a little different from what had come before. And Gweon Geun’s experiences reveal some characteristics which must have been displayed from the friendship network of Neo-Confucian officials in this period. We should also remember that all those different perceptions of reality and different kinds of experience, accumulated by exiled officials, eventually led to the differences in their future political paths.