476 MILITARY REFORM
Yu Kye also pointed out that the discriminatory exemption of yangban from
military service or payment of the cloth support taxes was a product of the mid-
dle period of the dynasty, and not an institution created by the founders.During the age of the fathers of the dynasty, the sons and younger hrothers
of branch lines of the sadllf'hu [i.e., the jis(}, all male relatives except for the
eldesl sons and heirs] were immediately upon birth regarded as adult males
[nwnjong]. There was no distinction made between noble and base [kwich 'On,
in this case yangban vs. commoners since slaves were not allowed to serve at
this time], and each of them was assigned to a guard unit. By this means the
will of the people was settled and service obligations among the people made
equal.
But in the last several generations, the country's laws and customs have
become lax and people think only of benefiting themselves. The descendants
of the scholar-officials have never again had their names listed on the guard ros-
ters. And it is not only the rhona fide] scholar-officials [sahli] for whom that it
is true. for even in the case of the impoverished branch lines of [yanghan] living
in remote villages. there are none of them who do not regard it as a mark of
great shame to have their names put on the guard rosters. Thus. today the 50-
called guardsmen are all from the ranks of the various types of base status, a
thorough controversion of the old system of our forefathers.
We have a country small in area and population. Even if we used the labor
force of everyone in the entire country to provide support for the soldiers, we
probably would still not have enough. How much worse is the situation when
we make further distinctions among those few people that we do have so that
80 or 90 percent of the people live a life of ease and idleness while the rest of
the people of good status [nmgminJ are left alone to hear the hurden of military
service. Confucius once said: "Do not be concerned ahout how little [people
have L hut do he concerned lest they he treated unequally: do not he concerned
about how poor people are. hut do be concerned lest they be discontenl."!OYu Kye also remarked that inequality in the distribution of military obliga-
tions among adult males was the main source of discontent in the minds of the
people. Everyone with an opinion on the question believed that the way to reform
the military registration system was to assign all the "silk-clad and hatted ones"
(officials or yangban) to military units as at the beginning of the dynasty. Nev-
ertheless, he acknowledged that if they were suddenly to be returned to the mil-
itary rolls after over a century of exemption from military duty and idleness,
they were bound to be both shocked and resentful. It was, therefore, not possi-
ble to return to a system of universal military service for men of all statuses, but
a compromise of sorts could be achieved.
Since what the yangban hated most was the stigma attached to military ser-
vice by having their names listed on the military registers, the problem could
be solved simply hy "allowing" all those types of privileged persons currently