Netflix's hit series [Kingdom]
Did you know that it started in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty?

In an interview, writer Kim Eun-hee said that she planned [Kingdom] after seeing a passage in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty that said tens of thousands of people died from an unknown disease.
He said that he thought that if the people, starving from the epidemic and the greed of the officials, could eat human flesh, and that if the mysterious epidemic was represented as the appearance of a monster, it would express the pain of the time and create an interesting story.


In fact, there is a record in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty that the people ate human flesh.
In Volume 5 of the Annals of King Taejong, the third year of King Taejong's reign (1403), it is recorded that the corpse's two fingers and penis were missing.
It is said that human flesh was good for treating syphilis, which was a problem not only in Europe but also during the Joseon Dynasty, so people dug up recently buried graves and ate the corpses.
In the 9th year of King Seonjo's reign (1576), human flesh and human liver and gallbladder were also used as medicine to treat serious illnesses.

It is surprising that the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, which we thought was only a record of the king, contains such strange and unusual stories as cannibalism and seeing UFOs.
It is also interesting to note that dramas like [Kingdom], which deals with zombies in Joseon, and [My Love from the Star], which deals with the story of aliens appearing in a UFO during the Joseon Dynasty, originated from the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty.
Let's open this book and see what other strange and interesting stories it contains.
You will come across content that will make you say, “Should I believe this?”

It thundered and rained, and people and cattle were struck by lightning in Bongju, Punghae-do.
A man was killed by lightning while leading an ox, and someone cut off his two fingers and penis.
The governor argued the case against the law.
--- p.27

In the 19th year of King Seongjong's reign, a woman's body was found floating down the river, her entire body covered in wounds from being beaten, and her genitals were torn open by a knife.
Even if you just read the records in the Annals, it is an incredibly horrific and brutal murder case that is hard to imagine.
An incident of this magnitude would have such a huge social impact that it would make the front page of a newspaper even today.
But what if the woman floating down the river was murdered because of speculation?
--- p.70

Moon Yang-hae, known as a Taoist living in Hadong, stated that during the process of receiving the national examination, he met Nok-jeong and Woong-jeong at the house of Lee Hyeon-seong in Seonwon Village, where immortals live.
Nokjeong, who was transformed from a deer to a human, is said to be 500 years old, has a long face and white hair, and is called 'Cheonggyeong Nosu' or 'Baekun Geosa'. Woongjeong, who was transformed from a bear to a human, is said to be 400 years old, has a cloudy face and black hair, and is called 'Cheong-o Geosa'.

--- p.152

So when was the first recorded instance of conjoined twins in Korea? According to the Samguk Sagi (History of the Three Kingdoms), the oldest record of conjoined twins in Korea dates back to the 7th year of King Bojang's reign in Goguryeo (647 AD), when a woman in the Goguryeo royal capital gave birth to a son with two heads on one body.
Next, in the 17th year of King Heondeok of Unified Silla (825 AD), it is recorded that a woman living in Mamijihyeon, Mujinju gave birth to a child with two heads and two bodies and four arms.

--- p.198~199

In the 43rd year of King Yeongjo's reign, Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Eung-sun reported that a strange incident had occurred in Saneumhyeon (Sancheong-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do) in which a 7-year-old girl gave birth to a boy.
Since it was generally impossible for a seven-year-old girl to give birth, the report by Gyeongsang Governor Kim Eung-sun caused confusion among the people and the government.
Even King Yeongjo, who had lived for over 70 years, had never heard of a 7-year-old girl giving birth.
Although King Yeongjo himself read many books, he was perplexed to find no record of a 7-year-old girl giving birth in the approximately 400 years since the founding of Joseon.

--- p.230

The ten kings of hell each investigate different types of crimes, but some kings investigate whether the deceased has committed the same crime and then punish them.
Or, there are kings like King Taesan or King Jeonryun who are in charge of reincarnation and decide where to be born.
In this way, in the afterlife, each dead person is judged at least once and up to ten times depending on the sins they committed.

--- p.266

And that's not all.
Whenever a drought occurred, Taejong always bowed his head to heaven and the people, thinking that the drought was caused by the resentment of the people who had made their lives difficult due to the great events of founding Joseon by killing many people including Jeong Mong-ju, the Rebellion of the Princes who killed their brothers, and the moving of the capital from Gaegyeong to Hanseong.
And in order to provide practical assistance to the people, he ordered the governor to listen to the people's difficulties and solve them, and he reviewed the entire state administration and made sure to correct any problems discovered.

--- p.299

During the competition, Sejong had a heated debate with his subjects about whether dragons actually existed.
The subjects quoted the story of Emperor Huizong of Song seeing a dragon and said that dragons exist in this world.
On the other hand, King Sejong, who was a rational and reasonable thinker, did not acknowledge the reality of the dragon and denied it point by point with scientific evidence.
However, in the end, Sejong acknowledges that no one can be certain about the existence of the dragon and concludes by accepting some of his subjects' opinions.

--- p.337

While he was studying for a while, a beautiful woman appeared and approached him, asking if he wanted to have a drink.
When a woman fell over drunk while sharing a drink with Moon Ga-hak, he tied her to a pillar with a rope.
The woman, who had woken up from her drunkenness, tried to escape from the rope, but when she failed, she transformed into her original form, a white fox.
But it was no use.
After struggling for a while, the white fox realized that he could not escape on his own and begged Moon Ga-hak to let him go, saying that he would give him a book containing the disguise techniques.

--- p.392~393

In the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, there is an unbelievable record that in 1711 (the 37th year of King Sukjong's reign), a woman of slave origin living in Samcheok killed a tiger with her bare hands and then returned to retrieve her husband's body.
It's hard to believe that a human killed a tiger with his bare hands, so should we take this account of a woman, who is relatively weaker than a man, killing a tiger?

--- p.440