54 EARLY CHOSON DYNASTYMonetary policy in early Choson began with two failed attempts to introduce
paper money. In 1401 King T'aejong adopted Ha Yun's proposal to revive the
printing of paper money (chOhwa) and to prohibit cotton cloth as a medium of
exchange to force the public to accept paper money. He created the Aid Bureau
(Sasomso) to issue the bills in 1402, but after the value of the money plummeted
in value he abandoned the project after only two months and abolished the Aid
Bureau in 1403.
In 1410 T'aejong tried to introduce paper money a second time to alleviate
the chronic fiscal deficits, but this time he not only forbade the use of 5-sae cloth
and the cheaper ch 'up 0 as media of exchange, but also prohibited the very weav-
ing of 5-sae cloth itself, and cut up the cloth in the capital warehouses. He set
the value of the new bill at one p'il of cloth and one mal of rice, and ordered
that paper money be accepted in lieu of grain, beans, and cloth payments for
prebendal rents under the kwajon system of 1389. Paper money was also to be
used for one-third of salaries to officials, monthly taxes on merchants and arti-
sans in the capital and peddlers in the provinces, tribute cloth taxes on persons
of base status, taxes on fishing, boats, and bridges, household cloth taxes, prices
for handicraft products made by artisans, and for a time redemption payments
by criminals to avoid corporal punishment. He also ordered government gra-
naries or warehouses sell rice and other commodities for paper money, or use
government reserves of paper money to purchase cloth on the market.
T'aejong could hardly be faulted for any lack of determination and effort to
achieve the monetization of the economy, but his methods did not succeed because
merchants, wealthy individuals, and artisans ignored the order to tum in their
cloth currency and continued to use it for market transactions, or left their shops
in the city and traveled out to the provinces to conduct business in cloth with-
out government interference. Ordinary peasants, however, whose holdings in
cloth currency had now been declared illegal, were left without means. The gov-
ernment conducted house-to-house searches to eliminate the illegal possession
of cloth, but the effort only had the effect of interrupting normal commerce with-
out gaining public confidence in paper money. Miyahara T6ichi has concluded
that T'aejong's paper money policy did not succeed because economic condi-
tions were not ripe for it.^77
After 1415 T'aejong began to consider the prospect of minting copper coins.
When the value of a paper bill had dropped in value to no more than '/, toe (1
toe = .10 mal) of rice, and famine conditions exacerbated economic difficulties
in 1423, Sejong authorized the minting of the Chason t'ongbo (Chason Circu-
lating Treasure) copper cash, abolished the use of paper money, and authorized
officials to buy up what was left on the market with copper cash.7^8
Managing copper cash, however, was hardly less difficult than paper money
because of the shortage of copper. Only 17,107 strings of cash were produced
in 1424 and 1425. At royal command the provinces remitted a total of 100,425
kiin (110,468 Ibs.) of copper from its warehouses to the center, and the Court