Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais

20 INTRODUCTION

ods for the recreation of national defense in the face of Manchu surveillance. He

had to decide whether the economic changes stemming from the taedong reform

of the tribute system, the expansion of market and commercial activity, and the

introduction of currency into the economy should be checked in favor of a return

to the simpler economy of early Chason times, or accepted and promoted. In

general, he had to decide whether to maintain fundamental principles or adjust

to changing circumstances and, devotee of Confucian statecraft wisdom as he

was, he had to find a way to apply that lore to the problems of his age.

FORMAT OF THE BOOK: PARTS II-VI

This book will be divided into five sections (Parts II-VI) to deal with the major
topics that Yu discussed in his Pan' gye surok. In each case, the presentation of
Yu's ideas will be fit into the context of the previous history of the institutions
involved and the development of those institutions after his death to illustrate
the source of the influences on him, and the influence of his ideas on subsequent
policies.
The first three parts of the book will be related to the central question of inher-
ited status, particularly the yangban ruling class and the slaves. Part II on Social
Reform will explore Yu's solution to two questions: what he regarded as a thor-
oughly inappropriate manner for the education and recruitment of officials that
had resulted in the domination of officeholding by a closed group of yangban,
and the suffering and injustice visited on a third of the population and the loss
of their services to the state by the system of hereditary slavery. Part III on Land
Reform will discuss Yu's conclusion that the main cause for the maldistribution
of wealth was the concentration of private landed property in the hands of the
yangban and landlords, and his proposals for eliminating this system and
achieving an equitable redistribution of land. It will also disc-ss the subsequent
history of land reform thought and policy to the early nineteenth century to ueter-
mine whether Yu's ideas had any influence on policy, and whether they set in
motion a progressive movement leading to more radical or modern solutions.
Since the allocation of service was also related to the weakness of national
defense stemming from exemptions and nonregistration of yangban and slaves
on the basis of inherited status and other privileges, the material in Part IV on
Military Reform will discuss Yu's methods for solving this problem. Part IV will
also deal with national defense in general, including strategy, tactics, weapons,
and fortifications, in order to judge the flexibility and receptivity to new devel-
opments, but the section will end with coverage of developments in military orga-
nization and service from Yu's death to the end of the nineteenth century. In that
period the Ch' ing peace eliminated any foreign military threat and shifted Korean
attention to the financial problems relating to the support of the military. As mil-
itary defense shifted away from strategy, tactics, and weapons to finance, the
distribution of service and taxation once again returned to the center of atten-
tion. This meant that the inequity in the distribution of that burden based on