Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais

MILITARY SERVICE SYSTEM 545

was made Taesama (grand controller of horse, a name borrowed from the Chi-
nese Chou period). and given formal control over all three units.'o

Similarities with Yu Hy6ng'>l'on 's Plan

What is particularly striking about the reform measures of 1704 is how many

of the measures were similar to the refoffil program of Yu Hyongwon. Yu had

proposed the elimination of permanent. salaried soldiers and the conversion of

all service to rotating duty soldiers backed up by support taxpayers paying rates

that might vary but in most cases would he two p'i! of cloth. He would have

reduced the capital guards to 17,SoO rotating service soldiers (12,500 Five Guard

soldiers and ahout 5,000 Military Training Agency soldiers) and presumably

another 52,500 support taxpayers, or a total of 70,000. The 1704 reform pro-

gram was far less ambitious, but still it achieved an T T.5 percent cut in the over

300,000 rotating soldiers and support taxpayers of the Five Military Divisions.

Two key features of his program - troop reduction and establishment of a uni-

form tax rate of two p' i 1 per support taxpayer - were adopted in 1704.

By returning to regulations of the early Chason, Yu would have left out of

military service and tax obligations only registered students in school; sons of

scholar-official families would be required to serve, albeit in elite guard units.

He would have rationalized the marines and naval system by bringing then into

the ordinary rotating service and support tax system and shifted responsility for

marine (and sailor) service to residents of coastal areas. Finally, he would have

retained the use of slave soldiers (sog'ogun) as a local reserve, but paying a rate

double that of commoner support taxpayers.

Under the regulations of 1704 sons of yangban who failed annual school qual-

ifying examinations were not returned to service but were required to pay tines

equivalent to the commoner support tax rate. Several of his ideas for rational-

ization of naval and marine service such as reallocating service from the inland

to the coastal population, and setting quotas for ships and crew happened to be

adopted at this time. For that matter, the treatment of slave support taxpayers

(at least for marines) by assessing the same rate of support tax as that paid by

commoners was better than what Yu had in mind. The only matter not taken care

of was the abolition of permanent soldiers of the Military Training Agency, but

so many officials had pointed out over the years that there was so little to be

saved anyway because of the large number of rotating duty soldiers and sup-

port taxpayers that would have to be found to replace them that it was hardly

worth the effort. Even the program of rationalizing the organization of the Five

Military Divisions by creating uniform and halanced units to eliminate both con-

fusion and inequality in the treatment of soldiers could be regarded as similar

in spirit if not detail to Yu Hyongwon's thinking.

In other words, without reference to or knowledge ofYu Hyongwon's ideas,

the program of 1704 shared some of the goals and solutions put forward by that