WEBVTT - The Rice Box 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:03.920 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:08.520 and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:13.399 One quick note before I begin the episode. My novel 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.480 Anatomy a Love Story is finally out in the world, 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.239 and I just want to thank everyone so so much, 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.319 every podcast listener who's picked up a copy or read it, 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:24.680 or recommended it to their friends or picked up a 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.080 copy at the library. Truly, the response has been just 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.960 beyond anything I could have imagined, and it's so gratifying 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:33.400 to see something you work on be out in the world. 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.839 So thank you all so much. If you want to 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.240 support the show, we are on Patreon at Patreon dot com, 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:44.360 slash Noble Blood Tales, where I released episode scripts, and 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.840 also we're just starting back up on the miniseries Rain 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.160 on Me where we discussed the c W show Rain, 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.440 which is very exciting. We also have merch available at 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.160 d F t b A dot com. All of that 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:07.440 info is in the episode description. One summer day in 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:12.520 seventeen sixty two, the Prince of Korea's father called the 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.720 boy into his private rooms. The King Young Joe, had 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.320 always hated his son, his only heir, since he had 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.560 been a child. There was nothing specific about the prince, 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.720 no one single trait that the king could point to 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:31.560 in order to explain his distaste for the child that 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.280 had lingered in his mouth for decades. Maybe it was 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:39.679 the prince's seeming frailty, the way he had gravitated as 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:44.000 a child towards art and drawing instead of athletics. Maybe 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.120 it was the fainting spells and the strange mood that 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:53.320 he had sometimes fell into. The King had wanted a strong, charismatic, 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:57.920 dynamic air for the Jun dynasty. Instead he had this 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:03.320 prince who had been a strange child, and then the 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:09.120 strange child had turned into a monstrous adult because the 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:13.600 prince was monstrous. Even though the prince's wife tried to 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:17.280 conceal the extent of her beatings, the court knew that 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:21.359 she missed public events because of the bruises on her face. 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:27.600 Her ladies in waiting were brutalized and sexually assaulted. Servants 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:32.480 had gone missing. No one dared to make public accusations, 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.680 but everyone knew that they had been murdered by the prince. 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:40.880 The Crown Prince of Korea, a man known most frequently 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.840 by the name Prince Sado, whether it was due to 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:49.000 mental illness or sadism or both, had turned his father's 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.960 court into a place of terror. Putting him up for 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:56.640 criminal trial would be a scandal, and because of Korean 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:58.959 law at the time, it would mean that his own 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.200 wife and child and would be forced to bear punishment 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:06.240 as well. But still Sado needed to be dealt with. 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:11.000 No one wanted him to become the next king of Korea, 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:15.240 and so what could his father do if he couldn't 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:19.320 technically forced the prince to stand trial for his many crimes? 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:22.840 And it was illegal to desecrate the body of a 0:03:22.880 --> 0:03:25.400 member of the royal family, and so it's not like 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:30.799 Sado could have been quickly and conveniently killed himself. So 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.359 what could the king do to kill a prince who 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:40.200 wasn't allowed to be executed. Walking into his father's chambers 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:43.920 that day, Sado knew something was coming. In a moment 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.760 of whimsy or panic. Earlier that day, he had asked 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:51.000 his wife to bring him their son's cap for him 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:54.920 to wear. His wife didn't want the prince anywhere near 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.480 their son, didn't want their son involved in whatever was 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:03.760 going to happen. She gave shaddo her own cap. The 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:07.440 prince's wife, a woman named Lady Hia Yung, was there 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:12.480 in the room to watch what happened. Next, the king 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.719 called for a wooden chest, the type normally used to 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:21.160 store rice. The chest was brought forth, a small box 0:04:21.320 --> 0:04:25.400 with only about four square feet of space inside. It 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.119 was a sweltering day in early July, and the court 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:33.680 watched the proceedings breathlessly, trying to fan themselves as quietly 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.080 as they could. King Young Joe told his son to 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.960 get inside the crate. With no choice but to obey 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.240 his father, Prince Sado did as he was told. The 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:50.560 lid was closed and locked shut. Not long after, the 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:58.599 screams began. The story of Prince Sado of Korea is 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:03.240 a tragic, gruesome one. It's the story of a young man, 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:08.839 a mentally ill young man, who faced cruelty and responded 0:05:08.880 --> 0:05:13.440 with violence and sadism. But the story is also interesting 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.760 for who tells it. We know the details of Prince 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:21.280 Sado's life because his wife, Lady Ya, a woman who 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.480 otherwise might have existed entirely on the periphery of history, 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.839 wrote her memoirs later in life, several decades after the 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:33.960 brutal death of her husband. In the eighteenth century, from 0:05:34.080 --> 0:05:38.039 Asia to Western Europe, autobiography was a realm that was 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:44.080 almost exclusively dominated by men, and yet Lady Young spent 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:47.080 ten years of her life writing about her life in 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:52.440 four parts. It's a series that's been widely translated and 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.159 which is considered one of the most important texts in 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:01.000 Korean literature. Perhaps she knew even during her life that 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:05.200 the story of her husband and his father would be exaggerated, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:09.920 that it would become legend, twisted for political purposes and 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:14.640 ripe for conspiracy theories. Lady Hug Young was there, and 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.960 she did us the favor of setting the record straight, 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.080 or at least telling the story the way that she 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:27.919 believed it should be remembered for posterity, with nuance and sympathy, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:32.240 but also with an unflinching eye to the violence and 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:39.120 terror in court. I'm Danis Schwartz and this is Noble Blood. 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:46.760 A warning before we begin. This story contains almost every 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.360 sort of violence imaginable, so if you're listening with young 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.920 children or you're sensitive to that sort of content, please 0:06:53.960 --> 0:07:01.240 proceed with caution. The name Sado translates to thinking of 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.080 with great sorrow, and even though it's the name by 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:08.680 which the prince is most commonly known today, it was 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:13.880 actually given posthumously. The prince was born Prince Yon on 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:20.120 February seventeen thirty five. For clarity's sake, I'll continue to 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:24.640 refer to him as Sado. Prince Otto was his father's 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:30.040 second son, the replacement for the former Crown Prince Hyogung, 0:07:30.360 --> 0:07:34.520 who died as a child seven years before Soto was born. 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:39.440 The King Young Joe was heartbroken after his eldest son's death, 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:44.720 and he immediately saw Sodo as a middling replacement for 0:07:44.840 --> 0:07:48.960 his golden boy. His golden boy, the dead son, the 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.640 prince who would have been perfect if only he had lived. 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.880 Soto was a sickly boy who became a sickly young 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.320 man at ten years old. He suffered from an unidentified 0:08:02.440 --> 0:08:06.040 illness that was so severe that he sometimes would pass 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:09.640 out in the middle of rooms. His father, the King, 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:15.440 resented his frailty. Sado was also artistic. We have records 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.480 of small doodles that he made, drawings of dogs and 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.920 other animals. Whatever kind of son the King Young Joe 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:29.800 wanted Sado, wasn't it. The relationship between father and son 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.720 did not improve as the years went on. In fact, 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:38.000 King Young Joe only increased in his bitterness and cruelty 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:41.800 towards his only living son. There was nothing that Sato 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.800 could do correctly, nothing he could do that didn't need 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.800 to be picked apart endlessly with criticism. Some of the 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:53.600 King's behavior seems unnaturally cruel. He would call his son 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.880 into the throne rooms in the middle of the bustling court, 0:08:57.400 --> 0:09:01.520 in front of vassals, ladies in waiting unus, and guests, 0:09:01.600 --> 0:09:05.640 and beate the prince there where everyone could see. Where 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.480 the king could he borrowed Satto from important court events 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:15.479 and forbade him from visiting the ancestral tombs. Sado, perhaps understandably, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:20.600 became extremely anxious and visibly distressed whenever he was in 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.160 the same room as his father. His only comfort was 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.920 his older sister, Princess Huajio. Their father didn't seem to 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.240 hate her as much as he hated Sato. The princess 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.160 was mostly just ignored and overlooked, but at least she 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:42.280 understood what came first with Sado, the mental illness or 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:46.200 his father's hatred. Did the king only hate his son 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.839 because he saw signs of insanity or cruelty bubbling below 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:56.160 the surface, it's impossible to know. Regardless, Soto was the 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.960 king's only son and only heir, and so Sado could 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:02.560 hinued along on the path that was expected for a 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.480 young prince, which meant that when he was nine years old, 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.040 he was married. We know the story of his arranged 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:11.720 marriage from the memoirs of the woman who would become 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.280 his wife, Lady Hiayung. She was nine years old too, 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:18.640 one of the hundreds of girls who were brought before 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.720 court officials to be examined to see if they would 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.920 make a good wife for the prince. Initially, Lady Hia 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:30.400 Young wasn't optimistic about her chances. Her family was noble 0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:36.440 and well connected politically, but not especially wealthy or important. Still, 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.640 she was brought to the palace one of the finalists, apparently, 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:45.400 and she was brought before the king the selection was made. 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:51.360 Lady Hia Young and Prince Otto, both pre preteen, were 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.560 officially married, even though the marriage wouldn't be consummated until 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.720 years later. It was around the time that they did consummate, 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:04.160 round fourteen or fifteen years old, that Soto was given 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:08.720 a more formal royal position. He was made a regent 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:13.839 of the kingdom. In theory, it was more responsibility, an 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:17.400 opportunity for him to learn how to rule and prepare 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:21.439 for him to one day be king. In effect, it 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:25.520 was just more opportunity for his father to mock and 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:29.840 belittle and undermine him. But for the time being, at 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.800 least it seemed like Sodo was able to bear it. 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:35.800 He liked his wife and he could confide in his 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:40.040 older sister. He was anxious and panicked around their father, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:44.680 but it was nothing he couldn't handle, at least until 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:51.160 tragedy struck. In seventeen fifty two, there was a measles 0:11:51.280 --> 0:11:55.599 outbreak in Korea, and those Sado managed to evade the virus, 0:11:55.640 --> 0:12:01.720 his beloved sister died. It was the moosest relationship he 0:12:01.920 --> 0:12:07.439 ever had. She was only nineteen years old. Sado wrote 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:12.199 a eulogy for her, quote, My elder sister was virtuous 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.400 and chaste. She was born into the royal family and 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.480 had grown up with me in the palace. She lived 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.400 to see twenty springs till one frosty snow took her 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.559 to join the immortals. Who would have expected this? Now, 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:31.040 I have rarely seen the wild geese flying across the sky. 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:33.840 I could not believe that what had started as a 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:38.559 minor illness would end up incurable. Mother, and I had 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:43.120 been anxious over your deteriorating health day and night. You 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:46.599 were sincere and filial till the end of your journey. 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.440 Upon hearing that His Majesty was about to visit you, you 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.200 you rose from your sick bed, but your words drifted 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.880 like flowing water and faded away with time. My grief 0:12:59.040 --> 0:13:03.760 is merely expressed through these humble offerings. Your virtue will 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:09.840 be remembered as lingering fragrance. The next year, another massive 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:13.720 life event would hit Sado. In addition to his wife, 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.800 he took a royal consort, a woman named Young Ben, 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:22.920 and in seventy three she became pregnant. Sado was terrified 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.040 that she would have a boy, knowing that a son 0:13:26.240 --> 0:13:30.520 would incite his father's rage. Though the king had continued 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.080 to have daughters, the king had only been able to 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:37.800 have one son Sado. In his panic, Sado tried to 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.240 force his consort into taking a board of faisons while 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:46.360 she was pregnant in order to allay his father's jealousy. Still, 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:50.280 despite the attempts. The child was born healthy and it 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.080 was a son. Sado refused to deal with his mistress 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:57.400 or his child at all, and so it was his wife, 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:01.400 Lady Young Young, who provided or the woman and helped 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:04.440 her find a safe place to give birth and a 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:10.240 safe place to stay with the newborn. From that point on, 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:16.520 Sado's mental wellness began to fully deteriorate. His anxiety began 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:22.080 to bleed into paranoia and hallucinations and phobias. One evening, 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.280 while reading a Taoist book about the thunder Daddy, he 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:29.480 had a full hallucination seeing the thunder God in front 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.280 of him. In his vision, that God told him what 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:34.880 he would need to do in order to avoid disaster. 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.560 Sato became terrified of thunder, and he refused to touch 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:43.040 any object that was engraved with the character for thunder 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:48.120 from the book. He also developed a complicated compulsion around 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.440 dressing and a fear of clothing called vesta phobia. It 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.280 would take him hours to get dressed, and he would 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.960 rip off items of clothing and reject outfits in a frenzy, 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:04.760 sometimes even lighting offending items of clothing on fire. His wife, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.280 he had Young, wrote quote for him to get dressed. 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:12.280 I had to have ten, twenty, or even thirty sets 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.560 of clothes laid out. He would then burn, some supposedly 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.480 on behalf of some ghost or other. Even after this, 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:22.920 if he managed to get into a suit of clothes 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.880 without incident, one had to count it as a great 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:29.960 good luck. If, however, those serving him were to make 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.840 the slightest error, he would not be able to put 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:36.200 his clothes on, no matter how hard he tried. In 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:41.240 the process, people were hurt, even killed. It was truly 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:49.880 dreadful end quote. The prince was violent. People got hurt 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:52.760 in the fires that he set, and sometimes he killed 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:57.200 people outright. It seems that a major factor that provoked 0:15:57.320 --> 0:16:01.080 the prince's violence was fear of his father. There After 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.520 his father berated or mocked him, Prince Sado would go 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.400 into something that some described as a manic state and 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:12.920 turned that anger and humiliation onto someone else, someone beneath 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:16.320 him in status or power, sometimes even going so far 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.920 as to kill them. Once so distraught after an interaction 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:24.120 with his father, the prince fled down a hallway and 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:27.000 began to give chase to a random official that he 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:30.600 in turn wanted to break. As the prince ran, he 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:34.880 knocked over a candlestick and burned down the entire building 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.640 and the one next to it. Sado could be downright 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:42.880 horrific in his violence. There's one story where he killed 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.960 a eunuch that displeased him for some reason or another, 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.640 and he beheaded him, and then the prince brought the severed, 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:54.000 bloody head into his wife's chambers to shock her and 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:59.160 her ladies in waiting. When Sado didn't kill the eunuchs outright, 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:02.400 he would beat them. Taking out his rage and grief 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:07.520 and frustration. He began to violently sexually assault palace staff 0:17:07.560 --> 0:17:10.440 as well, and beat his wife to the point where 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.080 she was missing formal events because of the bruises. On 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:18.080 one occasion, in a violent rage or manic state, he 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.040 threw a go board at his wife's face, and the 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:24.200 injury was so bad that she didn't attend a royal 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:28.680 ceremony for the king moving palaces. Lady Hia Young had 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:31.280 been with her husband since they were nine years old. 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:35.640 Even if she couldn't love him, she still had tenderness 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:39.120 for him and knew that someone needed to intervene when 0:17:39.160 --> 0:17:42.600 it came to his behavior. Lady hiug Young tried to 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:47.040 report Sadow's behavior to his mother, the royal noble consort Young, 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.520 but the consort begged Lady Hug Young to keep it quiet. 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.800 The consort knew how terrible her son's behavior was, yes, 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.560 but she didn't want it to turn into malicious palace gossip. 0:18:00.240 --> 0:18:03.440 He was the prince and heir to the throne, after all, 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.000 what would become of them, of all of them if 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:11.520 people knew that he was unfit to rule. In seventeen 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:15.439 fifty seven, Prince Sado took another second royal consort, a 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.840 woman named Pingey. He claimed that they were in love, 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:22.479 but there was a problem. Pingey had been a lady 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:28.200 in waiting to his grandmother, which was culturally taboo considered incest. 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:33.560 The king was incensed, and depending on the story, the 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:36.520 king either tried to force his son to jump down 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:41.280 a well or he berated Sado so incessantly that Sado 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:45.160 himself chose to jump down a well as a suicide attempt, 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:49.720 only to be rescued by guards. Lady Hugyung knew that 0:18:49.840 --> 0:18:53.320 disaster was imminent, and she tried to protect Pingey from 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.960 the outrage of the court and of Sado by bringing 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.200 her to a hidden spot in the home of one 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.640 of Sado's says stairs, but her restpite was only temporary. 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.639 A few years later, in a fit of random rage, 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:11.840 Sado would assault his mistress Pingay and leave her alone 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:17.240 on the floor, helpless and bleeding until she died. We 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.480 don't know how long Pingaey laid on the floor alone. 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:24.760 It was Lady Hya Young who prepared Pingay's body for 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.520 the funeral. Rites When the lady returned from the burial, 0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.600 Sado never mentioned Pingay or her death. She was never 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:38.160 spoken of again by Sado, completely forgotten. Two more horrible 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.080 events occurred that finally sealed the King's decision to do 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:47.320 away with Prince Sado altogether. At Sado's twenty fifth birthday party, 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:51.280 he began screaming at his family, at his mother, his father, 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.600 his sister, and his children. By this point he had 0:19:54.640 --> 0:19:58.399 a son and two daughters by his wife. Sado demanded 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:02.520 that his younger sister, there father's favorite, use her influence 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:05.520 to force their father to let him visit the springs 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:09.720 at Onyon. If you don't, Sado said, glaring at his sister, 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.679 I will kill you in front of our mother and 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:17.480 my wife. Fortunately, in this one case, he was soothed 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:22.040 and didn't resort to violence. Two years later, Sado made 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:26.040 another death threat. An official angered him for some reason 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.040 or another, and Sado claimed that he was going to 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.480 kill his son, and so, in an effort to either 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:36.359 follow through or to appear as though he was following through, 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.240 Sado snuck into the upper chambers of the palace through 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:45.520 a water passage where the official's son lived. Fortunately, the 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.119 son didn't happen to be there at the time, and 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:50.800 so Sado just stole some of the boy's clothing and 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:54.919 personal effects as a way to send a message. But 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.720 here was the real problem. The King Young Joe also 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.040 lived on the upper floors of the palace, and his 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:06.400 rumors of Sado's trip upstairs began to circulate. The story 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:10.240 became that Sado had actually gone up there to try 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:15.520 to kill King Young Joe. Enough was enough. It seemed 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:21.640 Young Joe could tolerate erratic behavior, violent assaults, and multiple murders, 0:21:22.280 --> 0:21:24.840 but he would not tolerate even the rumor of a 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.639 threat against his own life. But there were a few 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.679 complications when it came to Young Joe's decision to do 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:35.480 away with his son. Prince Sado could not be tried 0:21:35.560 --> 0:21:38.960 in court because there was a practice of communal punishment 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.320 at the time, which would have meant that his wife, 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:45.920 Lady Hyagyung, and more importantly, their children would be punished 0:21:45.920 --> 0:21:50.200 as well. At this point, the couple had three surviving children, 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:54.400 one son and two daughters. Sado was still the king's 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:58.320 only heir, and Sado's son was directly in line for 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:02.960 the throne. And even more complicated, there was a rule 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.760 at court that dictated that the body of a royal 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.040 person could not be defiled. So where did that leave 0:22:10.080 --> 0:22:12.720 the king when it came to ways of getting rid 0:22:12.760 --> 0:22:17.840 of his son. On a hot day July four, seventeen 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:21.640 sixty two, King Young Joe told his son to come 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:26.399 into his rooms. While members of the court stood silently 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:30.280 waiting to see what would happen next, the king ordered 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:35.040 his servants to bring out a rice chest. It was 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:39.280 a wooden rice chest just over two ft long, empty, 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:44.240 the lid was taken off. King Young Joe told his son, 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:48.800 Prince Sotto, to get into the box. Maybe the prince 0:22:48.840 --> 0:22:53.800 thought of disobeying, Perhaps for a fleeting moment he thought 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:58.040 of running, of fighting, But in the end, Prince Sotto 0:22:58.160 --> 0:23:01.600 obeyed his father and low word himself into the small 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:06.800 wooden crate, tucking his legs beneath him. The king nodded 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:10.240 to his servants, who closed the lid and locked it shut. 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:14.919 The court listened to the scratching, to the screaming, to 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:19.159 the pleads from the prince, already sweltering inside his small 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:24.960 wooden prison. The prince's wife, Lady Hiagyang, stood there watching 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:28.480 with horror. She had already written a letter to the 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:32.080 king begging for clemency for her and for her son. 0:23:33.000 --> 0:23:36.720 With another nod, the King had the box tied with 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:41.240 rope and covered in grass and moved to the upper palace. 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:46.119 Lady Hiagyang's brother came that day and took his sister 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.680 and her children back to their parents house for safety 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:54.520 in a palanquin. From the rice box. The shouts and 0:23:54.680 --> 0:23:59.200 cries continued for another seven days. On the eighth day, 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:04.080 the prince was finally silent. No one had touched the prince, 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:08.240 not technically, and so the royal body had not been defiled. 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:14.000 On July twelfth, seventeen sixty two, they removed the lid 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:17.680 and saw that Prince Sado was dead. He was twenty 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:22.400 seven years old, The prince was buried on Mount Baibung 0:24:22.520 --> 0:24:25.919 Sang in yang Ju, and when the burial procession returned, 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:30.080 the king forbade anyone in court from ever mentioning his 0:24:30.119 --> 0:24:33.520 son for the rest of his reign, at least in 0:24:33.640 --> 0:24:38.200 order to continue the line of succession without technically including Sado. 0:24:38.600 --> 0:24:43.359 King Young Joe had Sado's son posthumously adopted by Sado's 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:48.000 older brother, the deceased Prince, who had died long before 0:24:48.040 --> 0:24:52.200 Sado was even born, and though there were some challenges 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:55.720 from the court and the country about the legitimacy of 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:59.399 the boy, when the king died in seventeen seventy six, 0:25:00.000 --> 0:25:04.320 Sado's son Jong Joe became the next king. As soon 0:25:04.359 --> 0:25:08.399 as he was crowned, Jong Joe undid the messy fake 0:25:08.520 --> 0:25:13.239 adoption nonsense of his grandfather. He proudly declared that he 0:25:13.480 --> 0:25:17.920 was the son of Prince Sado, whom he posthumously renamed 0:25:18.359 --> 0:25:22.919 King Shein Moon Huan MoU jong hun Gwanga the Great. 0:25:24.040 --> 0:25:27.760 The new king also moved his father's body to a 0:25:27.880 --> 0:25:32.160 royal tomb some miles outside of Seoul, and when his mother, 0:25:32.520 --> 0:25:37.040 Lady Young Young, died four decades later, she was buried 0:25:37.480 --> 0:25:48.560 next to her husband. That's the story of the short 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:52.440 and incredibly tragic life of Prince Sado of Korea. But 0:25:52.680 --> 0:25:56.040 keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear a 0:25:56.080 --> 0:26:09.800 little bit more about theories surrounding his death. Our primary 0:26:09.880 --> 0:26:13.600 source for a detailed account of Prince Sado's madness and 0:26:14.240 --> 0:26:18.480 his eventual execution murder are from the memoirs of his wife, 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:22.439 Lady hiang Yung, who wrote her reflections several decades after 0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:27.640 her husband's death. Some historians and political theorists point out 0:26:27.640 --> 0:26:31.640 the possibility that her account might have been politically motivated, 0:26:32.080 --> 0:26:35.040 not that the actual events that she described didn't happen, 0:26:35.560 --> 0:26:37.920 but that the way that she framed them was meant 0:26:37.960 --> 0:26:41.760 to protect and defend her family. Some point out that 0:26:41.840 --> 0:26:47.919 by emphasizing Sato's brutality and insanity, Lady Hiagyung is tacitly 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:51.359 giving us a defense of her own inaction of having, 0:26:51.800 --> 0:26:56.320 in theory, stood by while her husband was killed. Some 0:26:56.480 --> 0:26:59.000 even go so far as to argue that Sado's death 0:26:59.320 --> 0:27:04.600 was entirely politically motivated, that Lady Hyayung exaggerated the Prince's 0:27:04.640 --> 0:27:09.240 insanity in her memoirs in order to in part cover 0:27:09.400 --> 0:27:12.879 up what had been a political conspiracy to kill him. 0:27:12.960 --> 0:27:16.280 The idea is that the prince was an outspoken opponent 0:27:16.480 --> 0:27:20.399 of the Norn political party, which his wife's family just 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:23.840 happened to be. Prominent members of the Norn Party had 0:27:23.880 --> 0:27:27.520 been essential in helping King Young John establish his claim 0:27:27.560 --> 0:27:31.439 to the throne, and so some argue that they called 0:27:31.440 --> 0:27:34.600 in a political debt in order to get the king 0:27:34.840 --> 0:27:39.600 to eliminate his troublesome son. I think it goes without 0:27:39.640 --> 0:27:43.480 saying that to some degree, of course, anyone writing their 0:27:43.520 --> 0:27:46.080 own memoir is going to frame the events in a 0:27:46.080 --> 0:27:50.680 way that focuses on their own experiences and defends their 0:27:50.680 --> 0:27:54.720 own actions and thinking. But I also think the strangeness 0:27:54.840 --> 0:27:59.760 and cruelty of Prince Sado's death sometimes gives modern audiences 0:28:00.280 --> 0:28:03.760 more sympathy for him than they otherwise might have. The 0:28:03.840 --> 0:28:07.919 fact of the matter is cruel and unusual, as his 0:28:08.040 --> 0:28:13.120 death was. Prince Otto did murder people. We have multiple 0:28:13.160 --> 0:28:16.320