Book II 219“You established rank lands^89 in Kyŏnggi Province and decided in favor
of the literati. You raised troops by establishing a military colony in each
county and provided lands to local clerks and ferry workers. Now, the lands
were administered by fixed statutes, and the country governed by well-
made laws. As everyone had boundaries of one’s own, one neither invaded
nor dispossessed another of property. As the abuses of monopolizing lands
disappeared, numerous people were able to gain lands for cultivation and
abode. As taxes and corvée labor were reduced, widows and widowers no
longer had to worry about their clothing and food. With the generous
increase of stipend, the avarice of officials decreased. With the public ware-
houses filled with goods and grain, the government expenditure became
sufficient.
“Your Majesty, along with me, became outraged watching avaricious
officials exploiting the people and incompetent commanders nurturing for-
eign enemies. So you asked the government to appoint grand councilors to
the task of patrolling various provinces, with the power to either dismiss or
promote local officials. As the discipline of border garrisons was restored,
the worries about our troops finally stopped, for they now held together with
courage to fight; and as the law was more strictly enforced in the prefectures
and counties, the custom of rapacious exploitation also ceased. To prevent
district magistrates from being selected among local clerks, you raised their
official rank and carefully employed the candidates from those who were
recommended and guaranteed by the Censorate and Six Ministries. The
sound of worries and lamentations began to disappear from villages, and
the vagrant people who had abandoned their hometowns had the joy of set-
tling down.
“Searching for the yamen clerks who either ran away or hid themselves
changing their career, you let them return to their old jobs at home. Rejecting
powerful local families and cunning people who harassed the residents, you
levied taxes and labor service on the households, which were hidden and
unregistered. Then you installed a magistrate in each district and station-
master in each post station, so that empty places turned into towns and vil-
lages, and barren lands with bush and grass became paddies and farm fields
- The stipend land allocated to the members of the official class in accordance with the
rank level each had attained. The rank land was limited only to the Kyŏnggi region around the
capital. “The reform of private landholding signified the destruction of the old economic order
and the establishment of a new one by the rising literati class.” (Lee Ki-baik, p. 164)