Fall
There was a growing feeling in Kaesŏng that Goryeo needed to take some kind of pre-emptive action against China, and advisors to King U eventually goaded him into attacking the powerful Ming armies. Against universal opposition, and in violation of the long-standing Goryeo practice of not invading its neighbors, King U went one step further and insisted on attacking China proper. In 1388, General Yi Seonggye was ordered to use his armies to push the Ming armies out of the Korean peninsula. The general realised the strength of the Ming forces when he came into contact with them at the Amrok River, and made a momentous decision that would alter the course of Korean history. Knowing of the support he enjoyed both from high-ranking government officials and the populace, he decided to return to the capital and take control of the government instead of possibly destroying his army attacking the Chinese.
He returned to Kaesŏng and, after overpowering the royal court's defenders and removing (then killing) General Choe Yeong, Yi Seonggye usurped the throne from Goryeo's Dynasty and took control of the government. King U was deposed and replaced with his son King Chang, but only one year later both of them were poisoned, and replaced with prince Gongyang.
U became the only king in Korea's long history never to have had a posthumous title for his reign.
Read more about this topic: U Of Goryeo
Famous quotes containing the word fall:
“Complete courage and absolute cowardice are extremes that very few men fall into. The vast middle space contains all the intermediate kinds and degrees of courage; and these differ as much from one another as men’s faces or their humors do.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“If the heart beguiles itself in its choice [of a wife], and imagination will give excellencies which are not the portion of flesh and blood:Mwhen the dream is over, and we awake in the morning, it matters little whether ‘tis Rachael or Leah,—be the object what it will, as it must be on the earthly side ... of perfection,—it will fall short of the work of fancy, whose existence is in the clouds.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)