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

324 LAND REFORM

tible to corruption, and more likely to ensure fair and progressive taxation. He
reported that at the beginning of the Choson dynasty the kyiJl was defined as
equivalent to 57 Chinese myo (8.64 acres at 6.6 myo per acre?), and taxes were
kept uniform by calculating production from six grades of land in a bumper crop
year. The standard difference in productivity between each of the six grades was
12 siJm, and the taxes were levied at a standard rate of '/20 or 5 percent of the
crop (see table r).

Grade
(land)

2

3

4

5

6

TA B LE I

RICE PRODUCTION AND TAX BY GRADE

Rice Production

(unhulled) (sam) (hulled) (siJm)

80 40

68 38

56

44

32

20

28

22

16

10

'" One toe equals .1 llIal.

Tax

30 mal (2 siJm)

25 mal 5 loe'

21 mal

16 mal 5 toe

12 mal

7 mal 5 toe

Later in the dynasty the government adopted a system of six specific grades
of ky61, each with a different area. The kyO! was defined as a square consisting
of 100 "feet" oflength on each side, but to provide for six different sizes of kyal
there had to be six different standards, linear '"feet" defined in units of the "Chou
fOOL" Yu listed the lengths of the six standard "feet" and gave the equivalent
area of the six kvi51 in terms of the Chinese myo ('/100 ky6ng) at the time.3^6 Note
that grade 1 land was 4.22 times more productive than the lowest, grade 6 (see
table 2).

TABLE 2
RELATION OF FERTILITY AND SIZE OF FIELDS
Grade of kyol Area in my a Ratio (xl grade I)

36

2 44.7 pun I.24

3 54.2 pun I.5^1

4 69 1.9^2

5 95 2.64

(^6 152) 4·22
Yu also summarized the difference between the two systems as follows: "Under
the ky()ng method of measuremcnt the area of the land is the same but there are
grades of tax in accordance with the fertility of the land. Under the kyol system