POST-IMJlN DEVELOPMENTS 113Yu W6ndong has argued that an economic transformation began around the
seventeenth century as merchants began to accumulate capital and use their con-
trol of money to win advantages from a central government that was facing a
severe shortage in its finances. Instead of government repression of the com-
mercial sector. the state shifted to special favors for some new merchants in the
form of grants of monopoly privileges for the six shops of the capital, but this
by no means signified recognition of free market principles. Furthermore, those
merchants who were granted monopoly privileges also had to endure heavy bur-
dens from the demands of the royal palace and central bureaucracy to supply
goods at fixed and often uneconomic prices, and to pay bribes and kickbacks.4s
CONCLUSION
By the middle of the seventeenth century Korea was just barely recovering from
the shock administered by the two Manchu invasions of 1627 and 1637. the sec-
ond of which imposed a heavy burden of tribute on the economy even though
the effects of war from those two invasions were minor by comparison with the
devastation of the Imjin War. The unhappy result of those invasions revealed
only too clearly that the major defects in military service and defense had not
been remedied by the reform efforts that were undertaken after 1598.
The most important method used to expand the pool of soldiers was the recruit-
ment of slaves for military service. but little was done to incorporate the draft
evaders at the top of society, the relatives of yangban officials and those of lesser
status who bribed th'e military registrars to delete their names from the rosters.
The talk of rebuilding forts and redoubts and arming the troops with muskets
was not fulfilled in practice. Yu Songny6ng's idea about reorganizing domestic
garrisons to create a phalanx of district units to back each other up in case of
invasion was ncver really carried out. What had become worse was that Korean
difficulties were exacerbated by factional politics. the intrusion of domestic polit-
ical considerations into military strategy, and the disastrous adoption of a hos-
tile foreign policy toward the Manchus just when they werc growing to the height
of their military power. King Injo, who was on the throne from 1623 to 1649,
did little to stem bureaucratic factionalism because he owed his throne to the
Westerner faction, and he could only mediate between splits that occurred within
that faction between the Young and Elder Westerners, and between the advo-
cates of the defense of the capital versus the northern frontier. If anything. he
contributed to a poisoning of the political atmosphere by presiding over not only
the possible assassination of his son, Crown Prince Sohyon. but also the offi-
cial murdcr of his princess. children, and in-laws. The behavior of both king
and high officials did not inspire much admiration.
In thc domestic realm. the destruction of arable land and the loss of popula-
tion had created tremcndous hardship, but it also reduced population pressure,
and the introduction of new agricultural techniques appeared to have increased
yields. Nevertheless, the mode of control over land did not change because large