Student at the Confucian academy under Sukjong and Gyeongjong, executed in the Sinim Purge and counted among the "three commoners"; pen name Bukjeong; posthumous title Jeongmin
| Life | 1697 ~ 1721 |
| Era | 조선 후기 |
| Clan | 칠원 윤씨 |
Yun Ji-sul (1697-1721) was a Confucian student of late Joseon whose seat was Chilwon, with courtesy name Nopaeng (老彭) and pen name Bukjeong (北汀). According to the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture he descended from the senior general Yun Su (尹秀) and served as head student (jangui) at the Sungkyunkwan. His posthumous title was Jeongmin (正愍). His life was short, but he is remembered for memorials written at the height of the Noron-Soron conflict at the end of Sukjong's reign and the start of Gyeongjong's.
In 1715 (Sukjong 41), when the Noron Gwon Sang-ha was stripped of office after a memorial by the Soron Yu Gyu and some 800 others over the preface to the Garye Wollyu, he submitted a memorial as a student explaining the dispute and asking that Gwon be rescued. In 1720, the year Gyeongjong took the throne, as head student he memorialized that the epitaph of Sukjong written by Yi I-myeong was one-sided, and he also led a student boycott (gwondang).
When the Sinim purge came the next year he was impeached by Kim Il-gyeong and other Soron and put to death in 1721. It is told that Yun Bong-gu, then magistrate of Munhwa, sighed on hearing the news and gave up his post to return home. Yun Ji-sul, Im Chang and Yi Ui-yeon were called the "three commoners" (sampoui) of the purge. When the Noron returned to power in 1725 (Yeongjo 1) he was rehabilitated, in 1802 enshrined at Sahyeonsa, and in 1841 posthumously made Minister of Personnel.
Poui (布衣) means a scholar without office. Of the victims of the Sinim purge (1721-1722), Yun Ji-sul, Im Chang and Yi Ui-yeon were called the three commoners because, as students without posts, they lost their lives for speaking out. The title carries the price young scholars paid at the center of party strife, and it should also be read alongside the fact that their names were greatly honored when the Noron held power later.
Yun Ji-sul was rehabilitated just after Yeongjo's accession in 1725, enshrined at Sahyeonsa in 1802, and made Minister of Personnel posthumously in 1841. This shows how judgments of people shifted with the fortunes of factions in late Joseon. Within the Chilwon Yun he is presented as a different strand of scholarly conviction from the incorruptible-official and merit-subject line of Yun Seok-bo and Yun Tak-yeon.
The location of his tomb was not confirmed in this research.