560 MILITARY REFORM
that it would constitute a new form of oppression on taxpayers. Conversely, if
it were set so low as to guarantee a light tax on the popUlation, it would not raise
enough revenue to meet expenses. In short, the point had been reached where
the minimum tax rate on households necessary to match the loss in revenue from
a tax cut on adult males appeared to be too high for the king to accept, at least
according to the information he was getting from his fiscal experts. In addition,
there was powerful opposition to any status-blind tax on the household that would
include the yangban.3°
Yongjo held a second public mccting outside the Honghwamun in which he
declared his sincere concern for the people and his desire to consult public opin-
ion. He also declared that when he had been crown prince (in the early 1720S)
he had favored adoption of the household cash tax even though the argument
had been made at the time that any tax that was levied on slave householders as
well as others would be destructive of proper social status (myongbun). He
believed in the principle that anyone with a household ought to pay a household
tax, and that the long suffering of the yangmin (men with good status) had to
be alleviated hy adoption of an equal service system. He even stated that cut-
ting the tax rate to one 17 'il would constitute a betrayal of popular wishes. Most
of the officials in attendance, however, opposed imposition of a household tax
on yangban primarily because it really meant an additional tax even though it
was supposed to replace an onerous tax, and hence was a violation of the Con-
fucian norm to reduce taxes to a minimum.^31
Censor-General (Sagwan) Yun K wangeh'an also opposed the household cloth
tax and when YOngjo asked him what other means were available to make up the
loss from a one-p'il tax cut, he replied that King T'aejong of the early fifteenth
century had not adopted a household tax because it did not conform to the prin-
ciple of rectification of names, that is, it was not the appropriate catcgory for mil-
itary support taxes. The Sillok historian took umbrage at this statement: he
castigated the officials of the time for their lack of new ideas except for Censor
Yun's proposal to eliminate the Royal Treasury, and criticized Chong Ingnyang
and the other high officials for failing to support the idea. Of course, writing a
quarter century after the fact, he knew full well that the opportunity for major
institutional reform had been missed in 1750, and he chose this spot to record
one of his most serious objections to the progress of the court discussions: "Equal
service was just a matter of knocking down something in the East and build-
ing it up in the West [robbing Peter to pay Paul], taking something away from
the root and adding it to the branch. There was a major reform in name, hut
there was none in fact, and in the space of an instant the evils it produced were
tremendous. ".12
One additional point remains to be made about the conference this day - the
role of K won Chok, the admirer ofYu Hyongwon. The previous day Kwon had
not attended court but he was praised by Chief State Councilor Cho Hy6nmyong
because he had bothered to write a lengthy and valuable memorial even though
he was eighty years of age and in declining health. Yongjo, however, replied