MILITAR Y FIN ANCE 485
are like to one another; why should we doubt in regard to man as if he were a
solitary exception to this? The sage and we are the same in kind."26 In other words,
the Confucian tradition contained within it a moral and philosophical justifica-
tion for a eertain degree of human similitude, if not perfect equality, that had to
be adapted to the more advertised principles of distinction and hierarchy. This
idea in Mencius also formed the basis forYu Hy6ngwon's arguments against slav-
ery, but it was evidently distorted or misquoted by Yi Tanha to justify natural
inequality, a kind of Freudian slip produced by an aristocratic environment.
Yi's alternative to the household cloth tax was a large-scale registration to put
the military rosters in order, but even that measure had to be put off because of
currcnt famine conditions. In the meantime he wggested returning to the early
Choson Five Guard system, which required all sons of officials to be assigned
first to elite guard units like the Loyal Aide and Loyal Obedient Guards in the
capital before taking the civil-service examinations or holding office. Then the
elite guardsmen who were students of literary affairs might he enrolled in the
National Academy and Four Schools (sahak) in the capital and the government
schools in the provinces (hyanggyo), and the students of military affairs could
be assigned to the Inner Forbidden Guards (Naegumwi) or other units. All the
rest. who did not qualify as legitimate students, would be required to stand duty
as a rotating service soldier or pay the military support tax. Thc additional rcv-
cnues would help to reduce the depletion of state rcsources by Guard soldiers,
reduce the number of untaxed idlers, and fill the service ranks.
What is really significant about Yi Tanha's position on this problem was that
he was both an opponent of a household cloth tax because it would have been
imposed on yangban households, and an advocate of a return to the Five Guard
system of military service, which would have required greater yangban partic-
ipation as servicemen. His ideas only differed from Yu Hy6ngwon's plan in cer-
tain details. For example, he did not mention examination passers and degree
holders, who presumably would retain their exemptions from military service.
Yu would have abolished the examination system and made performance in school
the main criterion for service exemption. On the other hand, it is significant that
both Yu and Yi harked back to the early Choson system that both believed required
service of all but elite guard membership for the privileged few. It suggests that
Yu's supposed egalitarianism was but a hair's breadth separated from Yi's respect
for hierarchy because both men approved a return to thc Five Guards system
that required yang ban unemployed as officials or not in school to stand for spe-
cial service in elite guard units. This coincidence was not happenstance, because
both had a very strong respect for difference and hierarchy. as long as it was
based on moral criteria.
Furthermore, both Yu and Yi Tanha opposed the equal (if not progressive) tax
scheme geared to current demands for independent financing. Yi justified his
opposition because he felt it would tax yangban or scholar families on an equal
basis with commoners, Yu because it would have departed too much from tra-
ditional principles of actual labor service and the militia idca.