The Reason Why the Mountain Behind Gyeongbok Palace Was Banned from Logging for 500 Years

Hanyang was a basin surrounded by mountains on all sides, and the firewood for hundreds of thousands of people came entirely from those mountains. The bare mountains, stripped of trees, would pour out soil and sand whenever it rained, and that soil would fill the streams, causing floods. Digging it out was endless. Joseon's answer was to lock down the four mountains surrounding the capital entirely. They designated them as forbidden mountains, banned logging, erected boundary markers, and assigned forest rangers. The official reason stated in documents was timber for building the palace, but while that law was upheld, the tree roots held the soil of the mountain behind Gyeongbok Palace...