16 INTRODUCTIONIn military defense, an optimum system of service for all, given the conven-
tional exemptions of yangban and slaves, a state of readiness blessed by a nation-
wide system of garrisons, and a high state of morale and an uncorrupted officer
corps were all weakened and virtually destroyed. There had been an expansion
of exemptions. replacement of duty soldiers by tax payments, a disappearance
of troops from garrisons, and neglect by officers of the conditions of their gar-
risons and the training of their men in order to profit from support payments
from the taxpayers. In civil administration, a body of reasonably honest offi-
cials and clerks and a modicum of cooperation at the village level between local
officials and their clerks, the local elders and ordinary peasants had been lost.
The clerks, who were shorn of their salaries by the new dynasty, began to scram-
ble for fees and gratuities to support themselves, to accept bribes from men seek-
ing favors, to peddle their influence, and to funnel illicit gains to their superiors
in the regular bureaucracy. Cooperation disappeared as the local gentry lost their
public spirit in their attempts to evade taxes and service, and reinforced their
superiority as landlords and creditors at the expense of the peasantry. The com-
munality and commonality of village life was undermined by divisions of sta-
tus, wealth, and class.
In economic distribution, a reasonable system of distribution based on the
secure possession of plots of land for every peasant family was lost as the ranks
of the dispossessed increased, as smallholders became tenants or hired laborers
of rich landlords, or as the truly distressed commended themselves to others as
slaves. In taxation, a logical, tripartite system of taxes geared to a predominantly
agrarian and noncommercial society in which a grain tax on land, a labor ser-
vice tax on labor, and the collection in kind of special tribute products from vil-
lages was kept to the lowest possible level to guarantee subsistence to the peasant
was left far behind. The tribute system was gradually replaced by private con-
tracting arrangements and illicit market transactions, service was skewed by
marked and conspicuoLls evasion with heavier transfers to those still in the sys-
tem, and the grain tax remained too small to cover official disbursements.
In commerce and industry, a regulated system to restrict commerce and indus-
try to the supply of necessary goods for the ruling class in the capital and bare
necessities for subsistence peasants in the countryside was undermined. Private
merchants had begun to break free from restrictions, engage in both wholesale
and retail trade, accumulate capital, and to comer markets to make larger prof-
its, and private artisans began to abscond from their state employers to produce
goods for the market on their own.
What was the nature of this transition? It certainly represented the degener-
ation of the institutions created at the beginning of the dynasty, but not all such
developments were negative because departures from a restricted and controlled
economy could be regarded by many as favorable and progressive developments
of a freer economy. Can we pin labels on it redolent of the transition from tra-
dition to modernity, like the journey from feudalism to capitalism, from com-
munal land to private property, from bound labor to free labor, from licensed