The Western account of political realism stresses that politics is outside ethics, having its own distinctive principles that are internal to it, thus being irreducible to some foundational moral principles and values. This dominant account of political realism, however, is deeply a-cultural, failing to note that politics is always embedded in a specific culture composed of distinctive moral principles and practices. This chapter explores multiple visions of political realism advanced by Korean Neo-Confucians – hence, varieties of “Confucian realism” – when they wrestled with addressing various kinds of contingencies in their own political circumstances through the use of “the expedient” or taking a “Xunzian turn.” This chapter explores the core ideas of each Korean Neo-Confucian thinker discussed in the book, and shows how they could strike the middle ground between Confucian moral economy and the political reality in which they found themselves, thereby generating a sense of reality from within Confucianism.