372 LAND REFORMmilitary officials were left out. He confessed that he had been trying to work
out a solution for some form of redistribution or limitation since he ascended
the throne in 1776, but he been unable to do so.
In 1795 he commented that ifhe could only restore the office-land (chikchOn)
system (in actuality prebendal grants to incumbent officials only) adopted by
King Sejo in 1466 and then extend it by granting land to the scholars and com-
moners, the Choson dynasty would deserve ranking as the fourth sage dynasty
along with the Hsia, Shang, and Chou of Chinese antiquity. In any case, he took
no steps to implement it.^47
The government also rejected two other plans, one to force wealthy landlords
to rent some of their land to poor or landless peasants, and another to grant own-
ership rights to landless peasants who reclaimed unused land to protect them
against the return of the original owner who had the legal right to stake a claim
to the property. While none of the officials at court was willing to overturn this
legal protection of ownership, Chongjo ruminated that it might be possible to
grant a cultivation right to the squatter.
King Chongjo was willing to accept a proposal for a three-year tax exemp-
tion for reclaimed land since such a law was already on the books but had been
neglected by local clerks. He was not willing, however, to extend the tax exemp-
tion to five or ten years because he could not afford to forfeit the revenue for so
long. Even the idea of a three-year tax exemption for slash-and-burn cultivation
in the hills was rejected because the law provided for taxation of any cultiva-
tion of this type; only the appeal to prohibit illegal exactions by the clerks received
a positive response from government officials. The government showed little
enthusiasm for the recommendation to recruit landless vagrants, settle them in
sparsely populated regions, and grant state support for the purchase of tools,
oxen, and irrigation ditches. The Border Defense Command even rejected a
request to carry out a nationwide cadastral survey to prevent the continuation
of tax collections on land that was no longer arable, or to clarify boundaries to
prevent disputes and lawsuits over trespass violations or illegal seizures of land,
preferring simply to order magistrates to inspect crops or conduct partial sur-
veys. No order was made to carry out a long overdue national survey.4^8
In short, what was ostensibly King Chongjo's ambitious attempt to consider
all the possibilities of reform ended in dismal failure. The most radical proposal,
land limitation, was a puerile attenuation ofYu Hyongwon's more ambitious pro-
gram, but even far less ambitious suggestions than these were fully stymied by
the king's ministers, who were obviously unwilling to countenance any weak-
ening of landlord prerogatives.
TASAN (CHONG YAGYONG)
The Early Land Reform Plan
While little excitement was to be expected from the court, one of the greatest