MILITARY FINANCE 497
considerable body of opinion present throughout the bureaucratic hierarchy that
was more progressive, at least on this question, than Yu Hyongwon.
Although opinion was obviously divided, Sukchong still had more than enough
support to make a favorable decision, including two of his three top state coun-
cilors. The opposition had taken its toll, however. Now, even though he reiter-
ated his preference for the household cloth system over all other alternatives,
he agreed to postpone it until crop conditions improved in a few years, and then
he would adopt it in the capital area first. He asked for discussion of a bill for
a major registration effort instead, and appears to have also ended the experi-
ment in P'yong'an Province. The decision did not bring the debate over the house-
hold cloth tax to an end, but it probably scotched the best chance it had for
adoption until 1750. It also laid the groundwork for the decision to combine the
Special Cavalry Unit of the Military Training Agency and the Crack Select Sol-
diers into the new Forbidden Guard Division later that year, in conjunction with
attempts to reduce troop quotas.4'
VARIABLE AND LOW-RATE MILITARY CLOTH TAXESAfter the attempt to institute the household cloth tax on all families irrespective
of status, the attention of reformers shiftcd back to administrative measures like
reductions in the number of duty soldiers and in the tax rates for support tax-
payers. The first of these has been treatcd above, but the second has yet to be
discussed.
Even before 1682 both civil and military officials had occasionally reduced
tax rates for support taxpayers, but they did not do it specifically to alleviate
the burden on those taxpayers. They did it to solve the shortage of adult males
in the ranks of their own units by otlcri ng a lower tax rate than normal to draw
men away from other districts or units. While this stratagem succeeded in solv-
ing their problems, it was bound to leave vacancies in the units the new recruits
left behind. This practice was called low-rate (h6ryc'5k) service, and it was ini-
tiated by officials on their own authority (referred to as samosok) -not with
the approval of the central government. But, as with so many practices, the cen-
tral government tolerated the practice because it had become so common and
even openly acknowledged a distinction between regular quota (aegnaeyok) and
extra-quota service taxes (aef?,oeyok), defined as tax payments outside the con-
trol of the central government.
Regular quota support taxes were levied at rates of two or three p 'il, but extra-
quota support taxes at two or one p'il. Officials even began to devise new types
of service at the lower one-p 'il rate to attract peasants seeking a way to reduce
their taxes. By 1699 there were an estimated w,ooo of these extra-quota sup-
port taxpayers. The method was used by all kinds of officials at central and provin-
cial levels. Peasant demand was so great for low-rate service that officials or
commanders of some units often issued blank warrants without informing the
district magistrates.^42