Person1542 – 1607

Ryu Seong-ryong

Also called: Yu Seong-ryong

Chief State Councillor who directed the war effort during the Imjin War, proposed the Hullyeon Dogam, and wrote the Jingbirok

A disciple of Yi Hwang and an Easterner (later Southerner), he recommended Yi Sun-sin and Gwon Yul before the war. During the Imjin War he proposed the Military Training Command with its gunners, archers and swordsmen, and urged organising local troops as sogogun and restoring the jingwan defence system. Impeached in 1598, he retired to Andong and wrote the Jingbirok, a record of the war's lessons.

Where they went

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6 related events

  1. 1
    1457Jingwan defence systemrelated figure

    King Sejo set up the jingwan system, grouping the troops of nearby counties under a key garrison town in each province for self-defence. The central army was reorganised into the Five Guards.

  2. 2

    Yangban clan villages founded in early Joseon. With their geomantic sites and surviving yangban and thatched houses, they became a World Heritage Site in 2010 as the "Historic Villages of Korea".

  3. 1592 – 1598Imjin Warparticipant

    A seven-year war that began with Japan's invasion of Joseon in 1592 and lasted until 1598. Ming China sent troops, turning it into an East Asian international war.

  4. 3

    At news of the defeat at Chungju, King Seonjo left Hanyang in the rain before dawn on the 30th. He went by Gaeseong and Pyongyang to Uiju on the Yalu and asked Ming for help.

  5. 4

    During the Imjin War, on Ryu Seong-ryong’s advice, the Hullyeon Dogam was founded to train musketeers, archers and spearmen. It was a standing army of paid soldiers.

  6. 5
    1593Recapture of Hanyangparticipant

    Having lost Pyongyang and been checked at Byeokjegwan and Haengju, the Japanese left Hanyang under the peace talks. On the 20th of the fourth month Ming and Korean troops entered the capital after a year.

Related works

Dramatized works (films, dramas, novels) may differ from the historical record.

People who appear alongside

  • King Seonjo1552 – 1608

    Fourteenth king of Joseon; fled to Uiju and asked Ming for help

  • Sin Rip1546 – 1592

    General who made a back-to-the-river stand at Tangeumdae, Chungju, early in the Imjin War and died when routed by Konishi Yukinaga

  • Sejo (Grand Prince Suyang)1417 – 1468

    Seized power in the 1453 coup and took the throne from his nephew Danjong

  • Yi Eon-jeok (Hoejae)1491 – 1553

    Neo-Confucian scholar who pioneered the primacy of li and influenced Yi Hwang; died in exile at Ganggye after the purge of 1547

  • Toyotomi Hideyoshi1537 – 1598

    Unified Japan and launched the invasion of Korea

  • Yi Sun-sin1545 – 1598

    Admiral of the Joseon navy, victorious at Okpo, Hansando and Myeongnyang

  • Hyujeong (Seosan Daesa)1520 – 1604

    Buddhist master who, as supreme commander of monks, raised monk soldiers across the country in the Imjin War and joined the recapture of Pyongyang

  • Yujeong (Samyeong Daesa)1544 – 1610

    Hyujeong's disciple who led monk soldiers in the Imjin War and after the war went to Japan to negotiate and bring captives home

Themes this person appears in

  • Imjin War1592 – 1598

    From the Japanese invasion to the Battle of Noryang — the righteous armies, Yi Sun-sin at sea, and Ming intervention

  • Ming, Qing and Edo Japan1500 – 1800

    The age when the Ming, shaken by northern raiders, southern pirates and the silver economy, fell to Li Zicheng’s rebels, and the Manchu Qing reached its greatest extent and prosperity under Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong — as Japan was unified out of the Warring States into the Edo shogunate’s bakuhan order and closed country, and Joseon, after two great wars, met its neighbours through embassies to Edo and the Northern Learning

  • Islamic Empires and the Atlantic World1500 – 1800

    Three centuries in which the Ottomans of Suleiman I, the Mughals of Akbar and the Safavids of Abbas I flourished and then faltered, while across the Atlantic the slave trade and colonies transformed the Americas, leading to American independence

  • Military Systems Through the AgesAD 685 – 1907

    From the Nine Oath Banners to the Two Armies and Six Guards, the Five Commands and garrison system, the Five Army Camps and the Board of Marshals — armies rebuilt at every crisis

  • Reformation and Absolutism1517 – 1796

    From Luther’s Ninety-five Theses to Catherine the Great — the wars of religion of a divided Christendom ended at Westphalia, and absolute monarchs armed with divine right, standing armies, bureaucracies and mercantilism, followed by the enlightened despots of eastern Europe, contended for the balance of power among sovereign states

  • Intangible and World Heritage2000 BC – 1850

    From the dolmens to Namhansanseong on the World Heritage List, from Jongmyo ritual music to ssireum on the Intangible Heritage lists — where each came from and when it was inscribed