468 MILITARY REFORMFinally, the system of rotating duty soldiers created a serious flaw in main-
taining the crucial sharpncss and readiness necessary for troops and troop units,
They lost their edge and some of their skills during long periods when they were
off duty, and the system of local training was insufficient to solve this problem,
The only thing that saved the country from another potential disaster was that
there were no longer any major military threats to the nation: the Japanese pulled
in their horns and abandoned their agressive ways after 1636, and the Manchus
established firm control over China after 1644, and removed the threat of inva-
sion from barbarians in the north or northeast.
Yu Hyongwon did have a partial solution to one of the main defects of his
proposal - finding a sufficient number of adult males to replace the permanent
soldiers of the Military Training Agency -by reducing overall troop quotas in
the capital guards and provincial forces (scc chap, 13) and drastically curtail-
ing exemptions of men from service on the grounds of yang ban status or cor-
ruption. He spelled out provisions to achieve this in his chapters on education,
recruitment, and land distribution, but few active officials wanted to eliminate
yangban privilege and put an end to illicit exemptions. As a result somc offi-
cials sought to solve the problem by abandoning the very concept of military
finance through support taxpayers and shifting to a different source of tax rev-
enues - a method that Yu abjured because it did not conform to traditional ways
of supporting troops in Korea.