MILITAR Y FINANCE 479istered with capital agencies were actually paying tribute, Hyojong expressed
indignation:
Some time ago, the Chief of the Bureau of Royal Relatives [YOngdollyong],
Kim Yuk, wanted to collect cloth taxes from the idle lyanghan] and vagrants,
but this would really be hard to do even though L too, wanted to do it. But how
could we help but collect the full tribute due from the 190,000 lofficial] slavcs
in order to pay for military needs? Wouldn't one's blood run cold at thc prospect
of the government not doing what it ought to do while the strength of the coun-
try is waning every day? Set up a Directorate Ilogwnl to handle il.'9Hyojong forthwith established the Directorate for Investigation of Slave Sta-
tus (Nobi ch 'uswae-dogam) to make sure that all persons falsely claiming good
or commoner status be returned to slave status, making them liable for cloth
tribute payments to the state. Now that slaves were also required to perform mil-
itary service, it was more important to rcturn those who had escaped it and reg-
ister them for military duty or support tax payments than to allow thcm freedom.
Hyojong then set forth the special rules for deciding incl.ividual cases, hut he
also permitted some exceptions to the law. If the grandfather of a person claim-
ing good status had passed the kwamok (highest civil service examination),
saengwon or chinsa (classics or literary licentiate) examinations (and therefore
been granted good status), the law limited elevation to good status to the grand-
father; it was not to he passed hereditarily to his descendants including the
claimant. On the other hand, if the claimant's father and he (as grandson) had
on the basis of the grandfather's accomplishment illicitly claimed good status,
he would not be returned to slave status if he obtained a ~pecial royal pardon
for his criminal evasion of duty. In other words, Hyojong sought to exercise
leniency by making exceptions to the rule exempting only a single generation
from slave status by passing examinations.
If one's father had passed the hmmok, saengH'on, or chinsa examinations and
a son illicitly claimed inheritance of good status, or if a son or grandson had him-
self passed either the military, saengwtm, or chinsa examinations, but his father
and grandfather had illicitly and falsely claimed good status while never pass-
ing these examinations themselves, then such persons would be allowed to pay
a fine without being returned to slave status. (Women would be treated the same
as men under these regulations.) Furthermore, anyone descended from a slave
who had passed these examinations three or more generations earlier would also
be allowed retention of status on payment of a fine, but only if the person vol-
unteered the information to the authorities. If, however, a person in this situation
failed to make confession and was either reported by another or discovered by
official investigation, his name would then be returned to the slave registers.
Hyojong himself pointed out the contradictory goals of this measure. On the
one hand, he said he was trying to make up for the failure of the government
over the last century to maintain accurate slave registration and rectify the many