preface

Volume 1: Becoming the Crown Princess and Entering the Palace
Volume 2? The feud between King Yeongjo and Crown Prince Sado reaches its peak.
Volume 3? Prince Sado dies while hearing thunder behind his back.
Volume 4? About Me and My Family
Volume 5: Defending the Traitorous Family
Volume 6? Jeongjo, Sunjo, and My Troubled Life

Epilogue

The records of Lady Hyegyeong Hong, who lived for three generations and whose life was full of ups and downs!
“I take up my brush and write about the sorrows of a life spent in blood and tears.”

It focuses on the tragedy of King Yeongjo locking Crown Prince Sado in a rice chest and starving him to death, and tells the secret stories of the palace surrounding it.
This book, consisting of six chapters, is a record of the turbulent palace history of Lady Hyegyeong Hong, who lived in a palace rife with political intrigue and fighting, from her father-in-law Yeongjo, her husband Crown Prince Sado, her son Jeongjo, and her grandson Sunjo, and can be considered the pinnacle of court literature.

Lady Hyegyeong Hong entered the palace at the age of ten and was loved by King Yeongjo and her husband, Crown Prince Sado.
However, when her first son died at the age of eighteen, her misfortune began to deepen between her Noron-affiliated parents and her husband who was protected by the Soron faction.
Moreover, the unbridgeable gap between Crown Prince Sado and King Yeongjo only grows wider.
In the midst of all this, the Im-o Incident, a tragedy in which Crown Prince Sado was locked in a rice chest and died at the young age of 28, occurred.
This incident became a constant cause for fighting between the Noron and Soron factions, and it became the reason why Lady Hyegyeong Hong's family obstructed King Jeongjo's ascension to the throne, and why Hong Bong-han, Jeong Hu-gyeom, and Princess Hwa-wan were ostracized by King Jeongjo.
And after King Jeongjo's death, Lady Hyegyeong Hong began writing once again.
She asked her young grandson, Sunjo, to cleanse her family of the sins of the Im-o Incident and the obstruction of King Jeongjo's ascension to the throne.

There are debates about the right and wrong of Lady Hyegyeong Hong's actions, the truthfulness of the records, some say that Lady Hyegyeong Hong is "too political a woman", and that 『Hanjungnok』 is full of hypocrisy and vanity, but her life itself is a life of splendid ups and downs, even with just a few simple facts, and 『Hanjungnok』 can be seen as a valuable example of court literature that records even the intimate private lives of the palace.
Additionally, the differences between the historical account of the Im-o Incident, which was related to the death of Crown Prince Sado in the latter half of the book, and the content of the Hanjungnok were compared.
『Hanjungnok』 will also provide another source of enjoyment in solving the mysteries of tragic history that are the subject of debate even among historians.