Reforms of King Gongmin
As the Yuan gave way to the Ming, King Gongmin purged the pro-Yuan faction, recovered the Ssangseong Commandery, and, through Sin Don, curbed the magnates to restore royal power.
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Anti-Yuan policy: in 1356 Gongmin purged pro-Yuan figures such as Gi Cheol, brother of the Yuan Empress Gi, abolished the Imunso of the Branch Secretariat, dropped the Yuan calendar and restored the old institutions. He retook the Ssangseong Commandery by force and banned Mongol customs such as braided hair and Mongol dress.
Strengthening royal power: early on he abolished the Jeongbang, which had controlled appointments. In 1365 he empowered the monk Sin Don, whose Directorate for Land and Slave Rectification returned land and slaves seized by the magnates. He re-founded the Seonggyungwan (1367) to promote Confucian learning and recruited new scholar-officials through the examinations.
Resistance from the magnates and repeated invasions by the Red Turbans and Japanese pirates sapped the reforms, which ended with Sin Don’s fall in 1371 and Gongmin’s assassination in 1374.