CHAPTER 13
Military Reorganization,
Weapons, and Walls
1his chapter will cover three topics related to military affairs in Yu's writings:
the reorganization of the military structure, including the positioning of units
and the distribution of power between the capital, the countryside, and the fron-
tier; the strengthening of technical capabilities in weapons and modes of defense
construction like walls and moats; the insistence on shifting Confucian educa-
tion from civil matters exclusively to a balance between civil and military train-
ing. These ideas werc related to three serious weaknesses in the Korean defense
establishment. The first includes the poor organization of existing units, the exces-
sive number of troops in the capital, and the strategically disadvantageous place-
ment of provincial garrisons. The second relates to the technological backwardness
of the Korean military compared to its neighbors, China and Japan, and the third
refers to the low level of preparedness and low morale of Confucian-trained offi-
cials and military leaders of the past century.
As in most other cases, Yu took an approach toward thesc three mattcrs on
the basis of his own strong commitment to Confucian norms and values and the
wisdom of the Chinese tradition, but the question is whether the solutions pro-
vided by that tradition provided much hope for successful reform.
PRINCIPLES OF REORGANIZATION
Elimination (~fthe New Capital Units
In a footnote to his list of the types of soldiers he would retain in a reformed
military system, Yu categorized military units in existence in the mid-seventeenth
century in two ways: the old system (kuje), which consisted of those units estab-
lished from the beginning of the dynasty to the Imjin War (1392-1592) and
described in the existing law codes, and the new system (sinje), which included
those units established after 1592. He saw his main task as paring down super-
fluous units and creating a simpler organization, but he chose to do it by restor-
ing the fundamental organization of the early Choson period rather than by
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