542 MILITARY REFORM
the Five Military Divisions amounted to an I 1.5 percent service or tax cut. The
Military Training Agency"s 49,816 troops and taxpayers (of which only about
5,000 could have been permanent, salaried soldiers) was only reduced by 787
men, while the biggest cut of 19,317 was sustained by the Royal Division, bring-
ing it from 106,270 to 86,953 men.SThe Uniform two-p'il Support Tax RateReduction of troop quotas was accompanied by an attempt to establish a uni-
form and equal tax rate on all support taxpayers of two p 'il per person per annum.
This goal required two operations: reducing the highest three-p 'il tax rate to two
p'i! for support taxpayers not only for frontier cavalrymen, but also for civilian
forms of labor service such as grain transport sailors, tile and pottery workers,
musicians, and artisans. The rate for support taxpayers for marines had been
reduced to two p 'il ever since the adoption of the method of "combining" a third
taxpayer was adopted in 1665, but now the third taxpayer was to remit his pay-
ment to the Border Defense Command in the capital.
Although some one-p 'il rates were confirmed by the reform, as in the case of
support taxpayers for the J urchen Quelling Guards (Ch6ngnowi) and fishermen,
some types of illicit low-rate (usually one-p'il) service were eliminated, par-
ticularly in the case of men attached to the Namhan f01t. Since abolishing the
one-p 'il rate would result in a doubling of the tax rate on the individuals involved,
crcating a uniform (or "eq ual") tax seems to have been the objective, rather than
simply reducing all tax rates. Orders were also sent out to the provinces to com-
mands and garrisons at all levels to set the rate for support taxpayers for all forms
of commoner service (yangy6k) at two p 'il. In addition, the government set fixed
tax quotas for specific units and categories of support taxes to eliminate arbi-
trary and excessive levies by commanders and officials, defined a forty-foot length
of six slingmok cloth as the standard bolt to be paid by regular cavalry and infantry
support taxpayers. and established cash and grain conversion rates (to be
adjusted for price fluctuations). The standardization of both cotton and ramie
cloth was more strictly defined by weave count as well, to eliminate manipula-
tion of cloth payments by corrupt clerks.6
The decision in 1704 to retain a system primarily organized around support
taxpayers in conjunction with a uniform two-p 'il tax rate were both elements in
Yu Hyongwon's reform proposals. Even though other parts ofYu's reform pro-
posals were not adopted at this time, the adoption of the two-p'il rate at least
provides an opportunity to test the validity ofYu's argument that it would pro-
vide relief to the support taxpayer.
A Cloth Fine on Dismissed Students
Finally, the Reform Bureau issued regulations imposing a fine on students who
were dismissed from school by failing their school examinations, an ameliora-