One of Yi Song-gye's first acts is to carry out a sweeping land reform long advocated by literati reformers.

After a national cadastral survey, all old land registers are destroyed.

Except for estates doled out to loyalists called "merit subjects," Yi declares all other land to be owned by the state, thus undercutting Buddhist temples (which hold sizable tracts of farmland) and locally powerful clans—both of which had exacted high rents from peasants, leading to social distress in the late Goryeo period.

These reforms also greatly enhance the taxation revenue of the central government.