Toegye Yi-hwang(1501 - 1570) As one of the foremost Confucian scholars in Korean history, Toegye is often called Korea's Chu Xi (1130 - 1200), the great Confucians of China. In 1523, Toegye entered the Old Sungkyunkwan at the age of 22. In 1534, he began his long successful career by achieving the highest score on the government examination. His lifelong devotion to Confucianism is culminated in his theory Chugiron, in which he emphasized the importance of human volition and self-cultivation as the essence of learning