CONFUCIAN STATECRAFT 51development reflected a devolution from earlier periods in Korean history in
which the circulation of currency reflected a larger volume of trade and a more
vigorous economy. Was this devolution, however, the result of a conscious appli-
cation of part of the Neo-Confucian statecraft program at the beginning of the
dynasty?
It certainly was not the result of a continuation of economic policy toward
commerce and currency in previous periods. Iron was probably used as a means
of exchange in raw metallic form back in the ancient Chason dynasty in the third
century before Christ and continued in the southern part of the Korean penin-
sula in the first several centuries after the birth of Christ. Gold and silver were
used as media of exchange in the Eastern Okcho and Silla states to serve the
needs of the wealthy, possibly in coin form. Chinese coins were used in Korea
at least since the third or fourth centuries B.C. Coins from Han dynasty China,
particularly a 5-shll coin dated A.D. 14 and molds for minting them, and multi-
ple-denomination 50-cash coins as well have been discovered in the Kiimhae
region in the south and on Cheju Island. During the long period of peaceful rela-
tions with Tang China, Chinese coins circulated in the Silla kingdom after its
unification of the Korean peninsula in the late seventh century.
In the Koryo dynasty in the tenth century, copies of an eighth century Tang
dynasty coin were minted in Korea with a Korean inscription on the back, and
at the end of that century King Songjong ordered the minting of cash (most likely
iron) in 996, the first state-sponsored coin in Korean history. Licensed shops
were established in Kaesong, the Koryo capital, and the use of both Chinese and
Korean coins flourished in the context of active trade with Sung China, the Liao
and Chin dynasties in Manchuria and North China, and Japan in the tenth through
the mid-thirteenth centuries.
In King Sukchong's reign an official was appointed in 1097 to oversee cur-
rency, and in I 101 a Directorate of the Mint (Chujon-dogam) was established.
Shortly thereafter silver cash (ilnbyong) in the form of the shape of the Korean
peninsula and weighing one catty (kiln, 1.1 lbs.) was minted for use in foreign
trade. Counterfeiters continued, however, to reduce the value of silver currency
still further by adulterating it with copper, and this drove the better government
silver currency out of the market. After King Sukchong's reign (1096-1105),
commerce declined and cash was rcplaced by grain and cloth as the main media
of exchange.7^5
Commerce and trade were reduced severely by the series of Mongol invasions
of Korea in the thirteenth century, but once Mongol control of Korea was estab-
lished after 1259, commerce expanded under the Yuan dynasty, and 100,000
bundles of Chinese paper money including the Sung hlli-tzu and the Y iian pao-
eh 110 bills were imported into Koryo for circulation. Silver coins were minted
in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries but, again, adulteration with
copper by counterfeiters drove silver coins from the marketplace by 1392.
Ramie cloth (map 0), therefore, was the dominant material used for currency
in the Koryo period, and it was measured by the sae, a unit defined as eighty