DEBATE OVER MILITARY TRAINING AGENCY 459
formed the left and right flanks of the king's retinue on progresses, these units
were very close to the throne, equal in importance to the Military Training Agency
and Royal Division. .l^6 From 1663 to 1673 all the ministers of war had been mem-
bers of the Westerner faction, but the minister of war under Sukchong was Kim
S6kchu, one of the few Westerners allowed to remain after the king shifted his
favor to the Southerners. He did so, in part, because Kim was related to
Hy6njong's queen and never got along with Song Siy6P7
One of the men who entered the government after Sukchong became king
was Yun Hyu, a rusticated scholar-official originally affiliated with the Small
NOlthemer (Sobuk) faction who had gone into retirement in protest over the capit-
ulation to the Manchus back in 1636. He came out of retirement only because
he believed the times were ripe for revenge against the Manchus because the
Wu San-kuei rebellion in China (1674) had weakened the Ch'ing regime. He
had originally been on friendly terms with both Westerners and Southerners,
but he sided with the latter on the rites controversy and became friendly with
some hard-line anti-Westerner Southerners like H5 Mok. Tn 1676, his party began
to push for war with the Manchus and restoration of the Office of the Supreme
Commander (Toeh'ech'alsabu, or Toch'ebu), a post that only existed when the
country was preparing for or in the midst of war and required a supreme com-
mand headquarters. It had been dropped during Hy6njong's reign.
Even though the moderate (on foreign policy) Southerner, H6 Ch6k, differed
with Yun Hyu and H6 Mok on political issues, he supported their attempt to
restore the supreme commander's headquarters and sympathized with their desire
to send an expedition into Manchuria, but he obstructed or opposed concrete
measures designed to carry it out. Despite H6 Ch6k's caution, both he and Yun
Hyu realized the political importance of gaining control over a revived supreme
commander's headquarters, but H6 did not trust Yun and sought to gain power
himself. Yun Hyu supposedly anticipated that once the supreme commander's
headquarters was revived and hostilities with the Manchus commenced, H6 would
be appointed supreme commander and sent out to the field in command of the
troops and he, Yun, would be appointed vice-commander and remain behind in
charge of the capital forces, giving him de facto control over the governmentY
Yun Hyu's plans were stymied by H6 Ch6k, who in 1676 had his own fol-
lowers appointed to command positions. H6 and Yu Hy6gy6n, commander of
the Military Training Agency, decided to make Kaes6ng the locus for the supreme
commander's headquarters, built up the TaehUng mountain fort in the vicinity,
and expanded the military colony lands in the area. They established a new recruit-
mcnt examination for soldiers, called the mankwa, and moved troops from the
Military Training Agency and the Royal Division to the Taeh(mg fort. The post
of vice-commander that Yun Hyu hoped to get was never filled.19
Then Ho Ch6k also tried to persuade King Sukchong to place all the capital
guard units, especially the Military Training Agency and Royal Division, as well
as troops of five provinces, under the jurisdiction of the supreme commander's
headquarters, giving him total control of the military, but Westerner Kim S6kchu