Roy A L D I V I S 10 N MOD E L 409men in the capital, including the transport of vast amounts of grain from the
Huai and Yangtze river basins to the capital, and the dispatch of capital armies
to trouble spots in the provinces. He also deplored the lack of experience in com-
bat and training among officers and men, and shortages in rations and provi-
sions for the permanent soldiers.^46 yu Hyongwon agreed with Ou-yang Hsiu and
Su Shih and concluded that the cessation of militia service and its replacement
by professional soldiers since the early eighth century had created serious prob-
lems of military defense for China through the Ming dynasty.47
The Modern Critique of the fu-ping System
The enthusiasm of institutional reformers like Ou-yang Hsiu and Yu Hyongwon
for the fu-ping militia system is to be explained in part by their unfamiliarity
with the defects of that system in actual operation. Hamaguchi Shigekuni, who
has recently studied the fit-ping system, admired it because it was more eco-
nomical than the cost of maintaining a large standing army, and it raised the sta-
tus and prestige of soldiers by requiring that recruitment be limited only to men
of "good" status as opposed to vagrants and criminals.^48 On the other hand, it
proved deficient in building national strength because the che-ch 'ungJu were
established in only 90 of the 320 prefectures (chou) in the ten circuits (tao) of
the empire, and two-thirds of these were located in the nineteen districts around
the capitals at Ch'ang-an and Lo-yang to defend against rebellions against the
throne, a problem similar to what occurred in Korea in the 1620S and 1630s.49
Equal distribution of military service burdens among the commoner peasant
population could not have been achieved either because many categories of per-
sons were exempted from service. These included slaves and persons of base or
inferior status, guest and vagrant households not registered as commoners, most
merchants and artisans who were registered as commoners but who did not receive
land grants, Buddhist and Taoist monks, all functionaries of the state from reg-
ular officials to lowly clerks, close relatives of high officials, imperial nobles,
merit subjects, and those commoner peasants who lived in districts where che-
ch 'ung-fu were not located. 50
Hamaguchi also believed that not all commoners were required to serve dur-
ing peacetime, and when they were called up, only one of every three adult males
was required to serve. Nor were the men called up annually. Rather a recruit-
ment was held once every three years to fill vacancies. The amount of service
performed varied with the distance of one's residence from the place of service.
Men who lived close to the place of service would be required to serve twice a
year for a month each time, while those at the greatest distance might serve one
tour of two months every eighteen-month interval. An adult male would be liable
for service from the age of twenty-one Lo fifty-nine, and during that interval he
had to serve one three-year term on frontier guard dutyY Since these limita-
tions on the principle of universal service and the types of legal exemptions were
typical of military service in Choson, Yu Hyongwon might not have been as enthu-