Hi friends, I'ma get right to the point. I've decided to dedicate some time to studying Korea during the Joseon Dynasty(ideally, the closest to the year 1500, and 1510 I could). I'm particularly interested in Warrior elites, and the specific titles of generals, common soldiers, etc. If you have any info you can give me, with sources, I'd be most appreciative, thank you!
Talk about obscure interests ! Well,if you've done any reading into this,you must've come into a big roadblock,in that there are no real resources in English for this type of information (which actually says a lot about the scarcity of Korean scholarship in English,in all honesty). Sadly,I don't believe you'll be able to progress very far in this search without at least a passable understanding of Hangul ( 한글 ) or Hanja ( 한자, 漢字) as most of the titles you seek are in the Joseon Annals/Veritable Records ( 조선왕조실록 or Joseon Wangjo Sillok). As I,too,lack the literacy to read the Joseon Annals on-the-go,I'm afraid I won't be of much help to you,but I do have a few clues to (hopefully) point you in the correct direction for the early-mid Joseon.
Firstly,if you're thinking of Joseon-era military organization in that they had to 'follow' superiors based on their official rank,you have the wrong idea. Joseon-era militaries did not follow the Chinese method of mobilization in that they all were mobilized and then reported to the overall commander-in-chief with a clear chain of command. Joseon-era militaries consisted of both the 'Joseon Army' and private armies as evidenced here with the majority of manpower overwhelmingly concentrated in the latter. Aristocrats had one, Buddhist temples had one and nearly anyone of importance in the court at Hanseong would probably have been able to at least levy one. This is one of the issues why ranks in the Joseon military are so hard to categorize; Every such army had their own ranking system with their own ranks. While similarities,such as the rank of Hogun (roughly meaning General) were common, their rankings often varied based on the local flavour.
Secondly, even if you wanna look at military ranks specifically,you have to at least take a glance at their civil rank as well. Joseon Korea practiced civil service examinations as well,imported from China but separated the different aspects. The Gwageo ( 科擧 ) were the national service examination,which were then further subdivided into 3 genres,the literary examinations (mungwa: 文科),the military examinations (mugwa: 武科), and miscellaneous examinations (japgwa: 雜科) which tested stuff like medicine and technical engineering. Theoretically, any aspiring member of the military could simply pass the Singnyeonmugwa held once every 3 years and join one of three groups ;Gapgwa, Eulgwa, and Byeonggwa depending on how well he did in the exams with the highest ranks being bestowed to the Gapgwa. This rank bestowment,however,was civil;the military rank came after. Broadly speaking,Joseon Korea had 18 'ranks' spanning from 'senior first rank' jeongilpum down to 'junior ninth rank' (jonggupum, 종9품) and this was the 'official rank' for any general in the Joseon army. To just get a famous example from Samuel Hawley's Imjin War,the admiral Yi-Sun Sin's title when he first began was Manho (naval officer) in the region of Balpo but that was his role; His actual rank was Jongsapum (4th rank but technically 8th rank out of 18). Moreover,in reality,becoming any military position of high rank,would probably necessitate an appropriately high civil rank,coupled with powerful backing in court.
Finally,there is a sorta hint we can use to see how 'high ranking' Joseon generals were (I don't know of the specifics of Joseon military ranks below that of colonel) and that was their court dress. All Joseon officers wore a Mandarin square (흉배 hyungbae) in front of their official court attire,a culture imported specifically from Ming China, with the squares themselves imported from China and it was specific in that military officers would have squares depicting animals while civil officers would have squares depicting birds. Joseon Korea took to this system with aplomb with a singular exception ; the highest 2 tiers of military and civil officers depicting lions and cranes respectively were banned for Korean usage by the Chinese as they reserved that right for themselves. Hence, Joseon Korea only started making those kinds of squares in the Qing era (circa 1700s) . In this famous picture of Park Munsu ,shown here, you'll see he's wearing a crane,the highest tier of literary officer available,which reflected his role as King Yeongso's right hand and spymaster. Hence,if you see a Korean military officer with panthers in his square,he'd be lower-ranked than,say, a guy with a tiger or a leopard !
Please note,however,that the nature of Korean politics did not necessarily mean that a tiger-officer would necessarily command a man with,say, a seahorse (yes,really). During General Sin Rip's defence of Chungju in 1592,he had to wait and play nice with Gyeongsang Provincial Governor Kim Su to merge their two forces together despite General Sin being nominally of higher rank. Similarly, Admiral Won Gyun was Admiral Yi's immediate superior despite them being nominally of equal rank (Won was commander of the Gyeongsang Western fleet,Yi the commander of the Jeolla Eastern fleet) simply because he had better connections with the court in Hanseong.
To be honest, I feel kinda bad for writing so much and yet saying so little. Hence,I'll just give you the resources I feel will be able to give the answer you seek. This paper (written in Korean) mentions the importance of military costumes in the Joseon era and attributes rank to the quality of the clothing the generals wore. Samuel Hawley has written a book on the Imjin War,which goes into the nature of ranks a little,available here though the time period is a little late (late 1500s as compared to your desired early 1500s). If you want the direct answer to your question,I'd recommend you search the records of the Hunryeondogam online (the military training office of Joseon Korea),such as the ones found in the Jangseokgak collection,specifically the gunyeong deungrok (military-related records) but I don't believe those are easily found online. Finally,I'd recommend scouring the English books on Joseon Korea such as A Review of Korean History, Vol.2: Joseon Era and Sources of Korean Tradition, Vol. 1: From Early Times Through the 16th Century (Introduction to Asian Civilizations) of which I can heartily recommend the latter,even if it's not militarily focused. As a final addendum (though please take this with a grain of salt),I managed to search out a complete list of Joseon military ranks on a blog of all places describing a historical drama called Faith (2012 신의) available here. While the author does not cite her source,she mentions that it was stated by the characters in said show in Episode 5,so you might want to try looking at the sources that the drama used in its citing of the Joseon military ranks,though I make no promises to its veracity. Anyways,I hope this has, at least a little, helped you a bit!
Sources
Samuel Hawley's The Imjin War
Samuel Bieler's Private Armies in the Early Korean Military Tradition (850-1598) .2011.Penn History Review.Volume 19,Issue 1
Jung Ha Yum and WooHyun Cho's A Study on Military Costume of Hunryeondogam in the Mid and the Late Joseon. 2013.Journal of the Korean Society of Costume,Vol. 63, No. 8 pp. 171- 187
Michael J Seth's A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present
Special Mention : Bruce Cuming's Korea A Place in the Sun ( I actually recommend this purely because it's one of the single most important books for anyone attempting to understand Korean History; why it's like that now,what is the national zeitgeist like now etc etc. It has nothing to do with Joseon Korea military ranks but eh it's probably the single most important book for any uninitiated member attempting to study Korean history!)