During the reign of King Chungnyeol of Goryeo, a magistrate named Choi Seok served in Seungpyeongbu, present-day Suncheon. When his term ended and he prepared to leave, local custom dictated that residents present the departing official with a farewell gift of eight horses. Choi Seok broke with that custom in a striking way — he returned all eight horses, plus a ninth: a foal born to one of the mares during his tenure. Rather than simply following convention, he gave back more than he'd received.
After this, the practice of gifting horses to departing officials in Seungpyeongbu disappeared entirely. Residents built the Palmabi monument to honor Choi Seok's integrity, and it's considered the earliest example in Korean history of a monument erected to celebrate a local official's honest governance. The stone monument itself has had a rocky history — first erected in the late Goryeo period (late 13th century), it fell and was re-erected, and was completely destroyed during the Japanese invasions of the 1590s. In 1616, the scholar-official Yi Su-gwang arrived as magistrate of Suncheon and had the monument rebuilt the following year, in 1617; it has survived intact ever since. In 2021, it was upgraded to Korean Treasure status. An act of refusing eight horses ended up, seven centuries later, as a national treasure.