462 MILITARY REFORMfacing a fiscal crisis, and relations between the Westerners and Southerners had
become hostile,
As he had done a decade earlier, Song proposed that the Military Training
Agency be reduced by attrition. Any musketeer that wanted to return to the coun-
tryside should be allowed to do so, and any vacancies due to death or desertion
could be replaced by rotating duty soldiers of the Royal Division. Eventually
the agency and Royal Division would be run the same way and would function
like the Northern and Southern Armies of the Han dynasty.
Song then launched into a very questionable argument, that the rotating duty
system of the Royal Division was preferable not just because it was more eco-
nomical, but also because its troops were in a far better state of readiness - more
so than the professional soldiers of the agency:The soldiers of the Royal Division live in their village where they practice and
work at their skills, but the musketeers [of the capital] just take their ease and sit
around at home. Once when I accompanied the king on a royal progress to
Oneh'on, I saw how the soldiers of the Royal Division were able to run quickly
back and forth while all the troops of the Military Training Agency had fallen
out of ranks and flopped down exhausted by the side of the road.Song then recounted that King Hyonjong had decided to justify a reduction
of 1,000 musketeers in the agency by transferring a very large number of ivory
soldiers (abyong) -aides of high military officers - from the provinces to the
Royal Division, but the agency's commander in that period, the now purged
Southerner, Yu Hyogyon, failed to carry out reductions.^44
Ultimately. Song's recommendations were ignored by both Kim Sokchu and
King Sukchong despite the dominant position of the Westerner faction at court.
In 1682, Kim only proposed reducing the permanent troops of the Military Train-
ing Agency by 707 men, from 5,707 to 5,000, and transferring them to the cat-
egory of rotating duty soldiers of the Special Cavalry Unit of the agency. He
also recommended fusing the 13,949 soldiers of the Special Cavalry Unit of the
agency and the 3,773 soldiers of the Crack Select Soldiers into a single For-
bidden Guard Division. One might surmise that now that Kim, himself, was in
control of the government and army, there was no need to disband an important
military unit.
After certain adjustments were made, the new Forbidden Guard Division was
designed to have 14,098 rotating duty soldiers in 105 companies. Each soldier
was assigned three support taxpayers, which yielded a total of 42.294, but in
actuality a number of other miscellaneous types of soldicrs and their support
taxpaycrs were to be attached to the Forbidden Guard Division, more than dou-
bling its numher to 90,000 duty soldiers and taxpayers. Some of thcse additional
troops were to bc called the Forbidden Guard Special Unit (Kumwi pyoltae) to
serve alongside thc regular Forbidden Soldiers (Kumgun).~5
The final regulations. however, provided for a somewhat smaller force: a pool