Magnates and their honours · Goryeo under King Sinjong and the Choe house · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Choe household

Choe U is 33 and Choe Hyang 32 on 1 January 1200.

English Wikipedia lists three wives for Chung-heon, Lady Song and two of royal or royal-in-law blood, and five sons (U, Hyang, Gu, Seong and a fourth); the order of the marriages is not pinned and some sons are very young in 1200. Choe U will rule from 1219 to 1249; Hyang dies in 1230. The household's strength is that Chung-heon marries into the royal clan, puts his sons in office and keeps Pak Jin-jae, the sister's son, by him until their quarrel of 1207.

Chung-heon's second brother Chung-su is dead (Choe Chung-su).

Who he is

Name
Choe U (called Choe I in the Chinese page; b. 1166)
Title
Head of the household's heirs
Born
1166 (English Wikipedia: 1166 to 10 December 1249)
Family
Sons by Lady Song (daughter of Song Cheong): Choe U (b. 1166) and Choe Hyang (b. 1167); later sons Choe Gu and Choe Seong; wives of the Wang clan and the Jangheung Im clan are listed in English Wikipedia
Confidence
medium

English and Japanese Wikipedia; offices in 1200 not pinned

What it holds

  • His sons' households, offices and retainers (not described for 1200)

How things stand that morning

Choe U and Hyang are the heirs; neither holds a post we can name for 1 January 1200.

Threats

  • Rivalry between sons by different wives
  • The loss of the father

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

  1. 1219Choe Chung-heon dies on 29 October 1219; Choe U succeeds.Depends on: The father's death Stopped by: A coup by another son or a general

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Names and years from English Wikipedia; the Chinese page uses Choe Yi for Choe U.

On the map: No land drawn.

Primary sources for Goryeo

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • Essentials of the History of Goryeo, Kim Jong-seo (金宗瑞) and the Joseon history office (1452). The chronological companion to the Goryeosa, finished a year after it and drawing on the same lost records, sometimes with entries the Goryeosa omits. Read online
  • Continuation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Bi Yuan (畢沅), completed by Feng Jiwu after his death (late eighteenth century, finished after 1801, from Song and Yuan sources). A Qing scholar's continuous month-by-month chronicle of the Song and Yuan centuries, compiled from the Song shi, the Liao, Jin and Yuan histories, Li Tao, Li Xinchuan and other Song sources. Read online
  • History of Goryeo, Jeong Inji (鄭麟趾), Kim Jong-seo (金宗瑞) and the Joseon history office (completed 1451, from the Goryeo veritable records and earlier drafts). The official history of Goryeo, compiled by the Joseon state from the lost Goryeo veritable records. Read online
  • History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
  • History of the Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
  • Draft Compilation of the Collected Statutes of the Song, Various; the Song huiyao were compiled by the Song state, the surviving draft reassembled by Xu Song from the Yongle dadian in the nineteenth century (the original Song compilations date from the eleventh to the thirteenth century; the surviving extracts were recovered in 1809 to 1820 and printed in 1936). Dated extracts from the Song government's own statute collections, arranged by office. Read online
  • Description of the Foreign Peoples (Chau Ju-kua), Zhao Rukuo (趙汝适) (about 1225, while superintendent of maritime trade at Quanzhou). The Song customs officer's survey of the overseas world, compiled from merchants and from Zhou Qufei, a generation after 1200 but describing trade routes that were the same in 1200. Read online
  • Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country (Yi Gyu-bo), Yi Gyu-bo (李奎報) (poems and prose from the 1190s to 1241; collected and printed by his son in 1241, with a supplement in 1242). The collected poems, letters, memorials and essays of a Goryeo scholar who was thirty-two and still seeking office in 1200. Read online

2 more in the sources library for Korea and Japan.

Sources and studies

  1. Choe Chung-heon (English Wikipedia)
  2. Cui Zhongxian 崔忠獻 (Chinese Wikipedia)
  3. Sai Chuken 崔忠献 (Japanese Wikipedia)
  4. Goryeosa, Goryeosa jeoryo, Samguk yusa, Lee Ki-baik, Shultz: not opened in this run (Wikisource could not be reached); facts marked recollection come from these as remembered

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.