MILITARY REORGANIZATION 525a number of constraints of which Yu was apparcntly unaware. Since almost every-
one at court was concerned lest the Manchus discover any major military prepa-
rations, even Hyojong deemed it impossible to begin a program of fortification
in the northern provinces. He preferred a policy similar to the strategy adopted
prior to the second Manchu invasion of 1637, to concentrate on defense of strate-
gic locations around the capital. Thus, he pushed hard for construction of redoubts
and fortifications along the coast of Kanghwa Island and wanted to move peo-
ple there on a pcrmanent basis, even supporting the idea of using men from Ch611a
and assigning the governor of that province to the defense of the island. He also
wanted to build a string offorts from Hwanghae Province through Kyonggi and
Ch'ungeh'ong, even to and including Chima Province, with Kanghwa Island as
the linchpin and the Namhan fort south of Seoul as another major base.
He was opposed not only by the economic specialist Kim Yuk, then minister
or the left, but the other two highest civil officials of the time as well. Kim's
objections were that the economic situation was too bad to warrant the extra
burdens on peasants close to starvation, and that winning the minds of the peo-
ple was more important than building walls and moats. The debate continued
through the late 16505 but progress was slowed by these objections.^64
Yu Hyongwon was, like King Hyojong, most interested in the building of defen-
sive walls and moats, probably because of the inadequacy of existing ramparts
to check the advance of the Japanese and Manchus over the previous seventy
ycars. Like a variety of other subjects, he was inspired by classical wisdom as
well as contemporary experience, and the Chinese classics taught that the meth-
ods involved in wall construction had a moral as well as technical component.
Good rulers were obliged to build strong walls and deep moats for the protec-
tion of their own people. The Rites of Cholt recorded the existence of a special
official (the Chang-ku) to supervise this kind of work, and another (Ssu-hsien)
in charge of maps to ascertain the most strategic spots for the construction of
defensive fortifications. The Book of Changes described strategic forts, the Book
of Poetry and the Mencius praised the rulers who constructed them. Mencius
even commented that rulers who failed to build forts in the strategic, precipi-
tous places in the realm would eventually be chased out or destroyed. The dimen-
sion of walls was even preserved in classical accounts and commentaries, and
the length was graded according to the ranks of the feudal nobles of Chou times.
Another important feature of ancient wall construction were provisions for
scheduling the work at just the right time of year. The Tso-chuan commentary
and the commentary ofHuAn-kuo (ofthe Sung period) on the Spring andAutumn
Annals both stressed this point; the former noting that construction was to start
when the Dragon Star appeared in the heavens and be completed when the sun
reached the zenith. Besides the obvious symbolic significance of adjusting human
actions to the rhythms of the heavens, the aspiring sage ruler had to make sure
that compulsory labor service did not take peasants away from planting, har-
vesting, and other fundamental tasks of production and livelihood. Rulers of some
of the feudal states of Chou times were also described as planning all aspects