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

LAND REFORM: COMPROMISES 305

age distribution of the average family. If the farmers were diligent in their work,
they would be able to overcome the problem of relatively small land allotments,
and, in any case, the custom of mutual aid and relief in the villages would serve
to prevent starvationy6
Another argument used to denigrate the well-field model was that it required
broad flat plains to layout squares of 100 myo. Yu, however, cited a discussion
among the Ch'eng brothers and Chang Tsai in which all three agreed that the
problem of irregular topography could be solved by the use of mathematics to
calculate fractional areas. In places with hills or rivers a farm family could be
granted 100 myo by allocation of several smaller unitsY7
Lin Hsiin, of course, did not hold to the Ioo-myo plot. He favored the 50-myo
unit, which was not sanctified anywhere in the classical literature, but he
reached his conclusion by adopting 100 myo as a basic or standard unit of allot-
ment and then calculating actual man/land ratios and production figures in his
own time. He concluded that the optimum situation would consist of a Ioo-myo
unit cultivated by two pu (male farmers or farm families). Production would vary
from 50-100 piculs (sam) each, which would be more than sufficient to sup-
port their families. The average plot per farmer or farm family would then work
out to 50 myo. In addition, Lin calculated the tax yield that would be produced
by a tax rate of 10 percent, and the amount of land to be set aside for homes and
schoolsyH Lin's technique was identical to the method proposed by the Ch'eng
brothers and Chang Tsai, even though he failed to support the literal interpre-
tation of the well-field 100-myo unit.
One other element of the well-field model was mentioned briefly by the Sung
writers - the establishment of units of land area fixed in the landscape by means
of elevated ridges, the so-called rectification or establishment of land bound-
aries (kyanggye). Chang Tsai, for example, noted that fixed boundaries were nec-
essary if there were to be any hope of creating a lasting system in the face of
the subversive effects on a well-field land system by the depredations oftyran-
nical rulers and corrupt officials of later periods. He argued that contrary to the
conventional wisdom that the destruction of land boundaries on the well-field
system took place in a relatively brief period of time in the Ch'in state (by Shang
Yang), in fact it was a protracted processY9Yu Hyongwon's criticism of Lin Hsiin,
that he failed to provide for the creation of fixed boundaries in his program of
land reform, was undoubtedly derived from Chang Tsai's views.

Defense of Rich Landlords: Wang An-shih and Yeh Shih

Not all Sung writers and statesmen agreed with the optimistic forecasts of the

proponents of land limitation. Some of them, including ardent reformers rather

than conservative defenders of property, made powerful arguments for the pos-

itive contributions made to society by the rich landlords, but Yu did not include

any of these arguments in his survey of Sung thought.

Wang An-shih in the late eleventh century, possibly the most well-advertised