When people think of Joseon Dynasty ice, they usually only think of Seokbinggo (stone ice storages). Textbooks only give it a quick mention, so most people think the government had a total monopoly on ice and only they could use it... but is that actually true?
If you're one of the history buffs among us, you might've heard of Kang Hui-maeng’s family. They sold ice to the public for 300 years and made a killing. During King Jeongjo's reign, his descendant Kang Gyeong-hwan was a 'big hand' (whale) in the Hanyang ice business. I’ll get into that below.
However, things flipped in the late Joseon era. After the major wars, the government’s grip weakened, making it hard to conscript workers for ice harvesting. At the same time, Hanyang’s population grew and trade blew up, so demand for ice went through the roof.
Because of this, Jeong Chang-seong, the guy in charge of ice storage, argued that claims of an ice shortage were fake news spread by people in the pocket of private ice merchants. On the other hand, the Hanyang city government reported that the shortage was legit. This internal bickering happened because different factions—like Kang Gyeong-hwan’s group—were lobbying against each other. In reality, the shortage was real and the 'Bing-gye' (ice guilds) had a serious monopoly going on.
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