AHC: Korean population explosion

Other than that, I'm not sure what else is there to be done with regards to Korea's population growth. Are there any Korean merchant groups operating in the peninsula?
 

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Other than that, I'm not sure what else is there to be done with regards to Korea's population growth. Are there any Korean merchant groups operating in the peninsula?

Not ones of any real size. Confucianism generally frowned on trade, so it wasn't that big of a thing before Europe came along.
 
Confucianism discouraged trade, which is the exact reason why we have so many overseas Chinese settling outside China, primarily in SE Asia, where they intermarried with locals. If Korea would have more merchant groups, they can emigrate to other lands, though in this case the closest territory that the hypothetical Korean merchant groups would settle in will be the area around the Amur River basin.
 
I didn't originally mean to beat a dead horse, but I stumbled across some research that was relevant to this thread, and I decided to dig further.

Also... China's population jumped from 140 million to 300 million in the space of 50 or so years after the introduction of new cash crops. Population can grow really quickly when the stars align, no matter how devastating it was before. Japan's another example of how fast a broken country can become an economic powerhouse.

The Columbian exchange affected people's lives throughout the world as a result of cultivation of different crops, including that of Korea. The changes that were implemented in Korea from the 16th century onward allowed the population to grow from around 6.5 million around 1500 to more than 18 million by the mid-18th century. If you also take into account that the population decreased significantly around 1592-8 during the Imjin War, and it took several decades for the population to pick up afterward, then the population probably doubled or tripled within 100-150 years.

Technically, the first cash crop was cotton, which was smuggled by a Goryeo trader around 1363 from the Yuan, and became so popular that it eventually replaced silk as the preferable material for clothing. During the 16th-18th century, crops such as corn, sweet potato, chili pepper, tomato, carrot, peanut, and squash were imported through trade contacts with China, Japan, and the Ryukyu Islands. Although the potato was not widely cultivated until the Japanese occupation, the sweet potato was often used in a similar manner. As the population continued to increase, the government began to implement more efficient irrigation systems and required farmers to grow cash crops around the 17th century, which allowed people to trade products in the market, and causing the population to increase further. However, the population decreased to less than 15 million by the mid-19th century, probably because of pressures due to overcrowding, such as sanitation.

As a result, a POD after 1200 or so would still make it almost impossible, if not ASB, for Korea's population to reach 30 million by 1900. Although it might be possible for the population to surpass 20 million by then, it would be still highly unlikely, given what occurred in OTL. A Qing occupation might lead Korea to adopt western ideas more readily by the mid to late 19th century, but would also almost certainly require the population to plummet to 5 million, making it almost impossible for it to surpass 15 million by 1900 even if the country managed to adopt to new conditions within 50 years.

Is there an event in which the Joseon could you know, ditch Confucianism for something a bit more practical?

This was refuted before, but I did further research and found out that there were actually two main political groups, namely the Hungu and Sarim factions. The Hungu was active from the mid 15th century until the Sarim became prominent during Seonjo's rule. Both were split among rival and regional groups which constantly attempted to gain prominence in the court, causing the ruler to have less influence over certain matters. The reason that the court supported Confucian ideals was mostly due to the fact that Buddhism, which had been the state religion during Goryeo, had been viewed as corrupt due to the monks supposedly gathering wealth for their own private gains.

In other words, a POD before 1000 would be essential for Korea to support an ideology other than Confucianism, and even then, it would be extremely difficult for another system to gain prominence, due to its relative geographic isolation and rejection of "barbarian" ideas.
 
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