Descendants' Dispute Began in 1977
The dispute among descendants of the Six Martyred Ministers has persisted for more than half a century; this year, it appears the ancestral rites will be split into two separate ceremonies.
At the Sa-yuksin tomb in Noryangjin, Dongjak District, Seoul, there are seven graves instead of six. In addition to the ministers widely known to have been executed for plotting to restore King Danjong — Seong Sam-mun, Park Paeng-nyeon, Ha Wi-ji, Yi Gae, Yu Seong-won and Yu Eung-bu — officials also installed a cenotaph for Kim Mun-gi. For the spring memorial on the 12th at the Sa-yuksin tomb, members of the descendant group Sahyuksin Seonyanghoe (Seonyanghoe) will attend, while representatives of another descendant group, Sahyuksin Hyeonchanghoe (Hyeonchanghoe), have said they will not participate.
Hyeonchanghoe holds its annual autumn memorial at the site on Oct. 9, Hangul Day. Seonyanghoe plans to attend a ceremony on the same day at the Changjeolsa shrine in Yeongwol, Gangwon Province.
The dispute traces back to 1977, during the Park Chung-hee administration, when the National Institute of Korean History resolved that Kim Mun-gi should be honored as one of the Sa-yuksin. In 1456, Kim Mun-gi — who held the senior military post of Samgundo jinmu — attempted to mobilize troops to restore King Danjong; after the effort failed, he was executed by a brutal form of capital punishment involving dismemberment.
Originally, only Seong Sam-mun, Park Paeng-nyeon, Yi Gae and Yu Eung-bu were interred at the site. Following the institute's decision, Seoul City formalized the area and added memorial tombs for Ha Wi-ji, Yu Seong-won and Kim Mun-gi. Seonyanghoe, largely composed of the original Sa-yuksin descendants, points out that Nam Hyo-on (1454–1492), himself one of the six living ministers, did not list Kim Mun-gi in his Sa-yuksin biography, the Yuksinjeon.
Seonyanghoe suspects that the sudden inclusion of Kim Mun-gi reflected the influence of the Kimnyeong Kim clan, notably Kim Jae-gyu, the former director of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, who was a descendant of Kim Mun-gi.
Hyeonchanghoe, representing Kim Mun-gi's descendants, counters that the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty record Kim Mun-gi’s activities where Yu Eung-bu’s would otherwise appear.
Tensions escalated in 2011 when a Kim Mun-gi descendant overturned a memorial table set up by Seonyanghoe members, sparking a physical confrontation in front of the Sa-yuksin tombs. A Seonyanghoe official who posted criticism of Kim Mun-gi was later charged with criminal defamation for insulting the dead and received a fine.
Since 2014, Seonyanghoe has held memorial rites excluding Kim Mun-gi on the second Sunday in April each year. The Seoul mayor intervened and both sides attempted reconciliation in 2020, but talks collapsed amid a dispute over the ordering of entries in a Sa-yuksin biography published by Hyeonchanghoe.
Seonyanghoe met recently and decided to publish an e-book, tentatively titled The Full Story of the Sa-yuksin Distortion. The book is expected to include allegations that Kim Mun-gi betrayed the Sa-yuksin, raising concerns that the feud could flare up again.
The situation grew more complex after a dispute over Yu Eung-bu's entry in the clan registry turned into litigation. In 2019, Cheon-nyeong Yu, active in Seonyanghoe, sued to have Yu Eung-bu's name removed from a Yu family genealogy compiled by Hyeonchanghoe. After five years of hearings, the court ruled in 2024 that there was no conclusive evidence supporting either side's claim and dismissed the plaintiff's case.
