Yeongju Geumseong Daegun Sindan

About this place

The Yeongju Geumseong Daegun Sindan is designated as Historic Site No. 491, and it is a place for holding memorial rites for Prince Geumseong (given name Yu, the sixth son of King Sejong, uncle of King Danjong, and fourth younger brother of Prince Suyang), who was brutally struck down for plotting the restoration of King Danjong during the reign of King Sejo of Joseon, together with the magistrate of Sunheung-bu, Yi Bo-heum, and the loyal men who died in connection with that affair. In the first year of King Sejo of Joseon (1455), the faction of Prince Suyang, who had seized the throne from King Danjong, framed Prince Geumseong with the false charge of treason and exiled him to Sangnyeong, then re-exiled him to Gwangju. The following year, when the six martyred subjects such as Seong Sam-mun and Bak Paeng-nyeon failed in their movement to restore the former king and were cruelly sacrificed, Prince Geumseong, held to be implicated in that affair, was again exiled here to Sunheung and placed under house confinement behind a thorn hedge (wirianchi). Prince Geumseong, sharing a like spirit with Yi Bo-heum, then magistrate of Sunheung-bu, had a proclamation drafted for the restoration of King Danjong and had men gather secretly in the town of Sunheung. As the enterprise to restore King Danjong, who was in exile in Yeongwol, ripened through gathering military funds, preparing weapons, and drilling soldiers, one autumn day in the 3rd year of King Sejo (1457), a public slave of Sunheung-bu who had overheard the secret plot informed on them; the town of Sunheung, attacked by the government army, was reduced to a heap of fire and a sea of blood in a massacre, and the prefecture was abolished. Some 200 years later, in the 9th year of King Sukjong (1683), the honor of Sunheung was restored, and then in the 45th year of King Sukjong (1719), a townsman, Yi Gi-ryung, informed the magistrate Yi Myeong-hui, and an altar site was established. Geumseong Daegun Sindan came to take its present form at the request of Sim Seong-hui, governor of Gyeongsang, in the 18th year of King Yeongjo (1742); the altar site was put in order, and the spirit place of Prince Geumseong was enshrined in the center, that of the magistrate Yi Bo-heum to the right, and that of the nameless loyal men to the left, and a monument to the martyrs of righteousness (sunuibi) was erected. * Geumseong Daegun Sindan (Historic Site No. 491) This is an altar prepared to honor the souls of Prince Geumseong, the sixth son of King Sejong, who had been placed under thorn-hedge confinement in Sunheung after being implicated in the movement of the six martyred subjects such as Seong Sam-mun to restore King Danjong in the 2nd year of King Sejo of Joseon (1456), and who died a martyr's death together with Yi Bo-heum of Sunheung-bu and the local Confucian scholars while plotting the restoration of King Danjong. When the movement to restore King Danjong failed, Sunheung-bu was abolished. Afterward, in the 9th year of King Sukjong (1683), Sunheung-bu was restored and the martyred loyalists were vindicated, and in the 45th year of the same reign (1719) the magistrate Yi Myeong-hui established an altar site; in the 18th year of King Yeongjo (1742), Sim Seong-hui, governor of Gyeongsang, put the altar site in order, enshrined the spirit places, and erected the monument to the martyrs of righteousness, and memorial rites have been held here every spring and autumn ever since.