Kaesong

Kaesong, also called Gaegyeong or Songdo, was the capital of the Goryeo dynasty and a centre of Korean political and commercial life. Merchants used Byeongnando at the mouth of the Yeseong River as a gateway for trade with foreign visitors, while royal palaces and temples adorned the capital. In 1392 Yi Seong-gye took the throne at Suchang Palace, founding the Joseon dynasty. Two years later he moved the court to Hanyang, though Kaesŏng briefly became the capital again under his successor. The city retained its commercial importance: in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries its merchants grew rich on the intermediary trade between China and Japan and on growing and processing ginseng.