DEBATE OVER MILITARY TRAINING AGENCY 453
Seoul; they committed robbery in broad daylight and no one dared stop them;
some even joined gangs and became part of the capital underworld. Their arro-
gance and brazenness was virtually unlimited. Song told of an incident that
occurred when he and H6 Ch6k were on the king's f1agship on a return from a
royal progress. An escort ship under H6's command was taken over by the
agency's soldiers without authorization. H6 personally told them to stop, but
they paid no attention to him even though he happencd to be a high ranking
taesin official and also concurrent assistant commissioner (Chejo) of the Mili-
tary Training Agency itself. It was only when he asked Yi Wan (commander of
the agency?) to order them to return the boat that they did so, and even then, Yi
made no attempt to punish them. Later, at court, when Song was about to tell
the story to the king, H6 Ch6k stopped him in his tracks by flashing a fearful
glance in his direction.
Song was really concerned about the possibility of a coup against the throne
by soldiers of the Military Training Agency because it had happened before.
Could it be possible. he asked, that "His Majesty is the only one who has not
heard about the incident in the fourth month of 1627')" At that time a soldier of
the Military Training Agency, Kim Yej6ng, held a secret meeting with 200 agency
troops behind a Buddhist temple. They set up an altar. wrote out a declaration
to Heaven, killed a chicken to make a hlood oath of brotherhood, and prepared
to attack the palace. Before they could can'y out their plans Kim got roaring
drunk and stabbed one of his own party. Fearing that the victim would take
revenge by reporting his role in the conspiracy to the authorities, he tried to save
his own neck at the expense of his fellow conspirators by reporting the plot to
the agency commander. The conspirators were arrested and executed, but Kim
Yej6ng obtained a pardon from King Injo. Song remarked that the reason the
agency troops were able to get this far in their conspiracy was because they were
thoroughly familiar with weaknesses in the palace guard arrangements, knew
all the nooks and crannies in the walls, and formed close ties with the officials
of the palace administration to gain information about everything that went on
in the royal quarters. 2~ Song concluded that for all the above reasons the agency
had to be phased out by attrition, a process that would take seven or eight years.
Then all troops in the capital would be under the command of two generals (pre-
sumably the Five Guards and the Royal Division?) just like the Northern and
Southern Armies (capital and imperial guards, respectively) of the Han dynasty.
Failure to Reduce the MTA by Attrition. Song noted that, as a matter of fact,
King Hy6njong had confirmed his ideas by ordering the selection of new men
to staff the special unit of the Military Training Agency, hut the men in charge
of recruitmcnt had not fulfilled their charge. Instead of reducing the agency by
attrition, they had allowed it to remain at full strength so that the new troops of
the special unit were just an additional source of harassment to the people of
the capital. "Even though in name the old system has heen changed. in fact,
whereas at first we had one [unit] that was impossihle to hear, now we have two
of them."2) But this statement does not reflect accurately the king's fundamen-