Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan) 茶山丁若鏞

1762–1836 · Joseon Korea

A Practical Learning (Silhak) scholar of late Joseon Korea. Favored by King Jeongjo, he designed the Hwaseong Fortress at Suwon, but was implicated in the persecution of Catholics and spent eighteen years in exile at Gangjin. There, at his Dasan hermitage, he wrote more than five hundred volumes, including Admonitions on Governing the People, Design for Good Government, and Toward a New Jurisprudence, setting out the ethics of the magistrate and a blueprint for national reform. His brother Jeong Yak-jong was executed, and his brother Jeong Yak-jeon died in exile on Heuksan Island.

See Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan)'s ideas and sayings

Major works

Admonitions on Governing the People (Mongmin simseo)
Design for Good Government (Gyeongse yupyo)
Toward a New Jurisprudence (Heumheum sinseo)
Complete Works of Yeoyudang (Yeoyudang jeonseo)

Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan)

I am Jeong Yak-yong of the Dasan hermitage at Gangjin. I lost my brothers and spent eighteen years in exile, and writing books stiffened my shoulder and dimmed my eyes.

Yet what I wrote in those years came to five hundred volumes, so even in a ruined place there was work to be done. Where do you stand now, my friend, and what are you trying to do there?

This Jeong Yak-yong (Dasan) is an AI recreation based on the thinker's writings and ideas, not the real person. Only sentences marked with a source are actual passages from the works.