DEBATE OVER MILITARY TRAINING AGENCY 467
men shared Yu's views even though they undoubtedly had never met him nor
heard of his ideas.
The court discussion, however, revealed that the presumptions of Yu and the
king were naiVe and unrealistic because there were so few adult males of com-
moner status, let along idle, unregistered yangban, who could be called upon to
fill the slots for 90,000 rotating duty soldiers or support taxpayers that would
be needed to replace the 6 to 7 thousand permanent soldiers of the Military Train-
ing Agency. The supply of men had been reduced by exemptions for yang ban
and other means of evasion used by commoners, and many of the high officials
like Yu Hyogyon sought to registcr these cvaders and enlist them for service. It
was not just intellectuals divorced from responsibility like Yu Hyongwon who
were capable of perceiving the rot that had pervaded the military system
because of yangban privilege, but awareness and occasional individual action
was nol enough 10 remedy the problem. By the seventecnth century evasion had
become a way of life for 100 many men, a right expected by many, not a viola-
tion of a limited few. Therefore, what Yu thought would be very easy - to enroll
more men as support taxpayers - was, in fact, very difficult if not impossible.
Furthermore, several court officials revealed that the troops of the Military
Training Agency were not that good; in fact they were a plague on the capital
population because they were in poor physical condition, neglected their train-
ing to engage in business in competition with thc merchants, swaggered around
intimidating civilians, sometimes joined with thieves, and posed the threat of a
military coup against the king himself. Neither Yu Hyongwon nor King Hyonjong
himself was deterred by thesc drawbacks, for both men were determined to prc-
servc the agency, and the king succeeded in doing so no matter what the cost.
After King Hyonjong's dcath, the final decision on the Mililary Agency was
taken by Minister of War Kim Sokchu, the most powerful official at the time
because King Sukehong had chosen to concentrate control of the major military
units in his hands. Kim decided to preserve the agency and combine the Special
Cavalry Unit of the agency with the Crack Select Soldiers in the new Forbidden
Guard Division as a means of securing his own control and the domination of
his Westerner faction as well, for political power replaced national defense or
economic reduction of cost as the primary determinant of military policy.
Yu's plan to increase the number of support taxpayers for every category of
duty servicemen, not just the Military Training Agency, was adopted by the court,
but instead of alleviating the tax burdens on the commoner population, it actu-
ally increased them. As time passed, more rotating duty soldiers were autho-
rized for ncw units. and for each new man on actual duty, cight to tcn more were
needed to form a group or pool for each tour, and each of these required three
support taxpayers on the average. Since not enough men could be found, the
local officials had to use tricks to justify the levying of increased taxes, which
meant imposing extra taxes on families by registering animals, babies. and the
elderly, the same kinds of predatious oppression that had been visitcd on the
peasants a century beforc.