MILIT AR Y REORGAN lZA TION 507ordered its abolition in his new society, nevertheless he adopted many of its
administrative features, such as the triennial interval between tests, the division
into preliminary and final examinations, and quotas for each province. In the
initial examination 500 would be taken, and 50 in the final, compared to the
quota of 190 and 28, respectively, in the current military examinations.
Although the Five Guards in the capital might all be mohilized in time of
war, their normal duties were to bc confincd to specific guard responsibilities
and they would not be asked to act as police for the capital as well. Yu wanted
to create a separate capital constabulary (sun 'gyong kunsa) consisting of four
special battalions to patrol the capital at night and guard the palace and capi-
tal gales - the Kum'o, Kammun, Songmun, and Igwi battalions. Nighttime patrol
of the capital was currently performed in a haphazard way. The Ministry of
War appointed patrol officers (sunjang) from unemployed high-ranking
(tallgsanggwan) officials every three nights, and borrowed troops from thc Five
Guards to go on patrol. Yu believed that night patrol was so important to the
security of the capital that a separate agency staffed with its own officers and
troops was a necessity. He intended to restore the Kum'o Guards, which had
performed that function in the beginning of the dynasty. and specified that all
its soldiers would be recruited from men living in the neighborhood of the cap-
ital. 15 Every night the Kum'o battalion would furnish from 200 to 400 patrol
troops. Some would be assigned to the existing network of police boxes (p 0)
at intervals of three i (three quarters of a mile) with a staff of five constables
and one commanding officer, much like the system used in the colonial era and
present-day south Korca. The rest would go on patrol throughout the city in
squads of five or ten men.lo
Yu believed it was extremely important to maintain strict distinctions between
the duties of each unit to eliminate confusion and keep command and respon-
sibility clear. He strongly opposed using soldiers of the Military Training
Agency for night patrol and police functions, insisting that its troops should be
limited in number and restrictcd to guarding the cxterior of the palace walls and
performing special duty inside the walls, supplementing the rotating soldiers of
the Five Guards, whose main task would be interior palace patrol. 17
Yu's main complaints about the current way the capital guard was organized
indicate a number of serious deficiences in his own time. He observed that the
troops were poorly educated and lacked training as soldiers. They were inade-
quate for their duties as guardians of the king and palace, night watchmen, and
constables. The units functioned likc the personal battalions of their comman-
ders because the govcrnment had allowed them to recruit their soldiers directly
from thc countrysidc. Troops trained for field battle were used for tasks for which
they were not adequately trained. The overlap of responsibility was too con-
fusing, and there were no restraints on the number of constables and guards.