664 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
Yonsan'gun, Chungjong had initially given the censorate liberal rights to
impeach regular officials. When their criticism became a political threat to the
kiag aad hiS' owa oflieialS', however, he checked their power oy frequently dIang-
ing the censorate staff and finally purging the leading spokesman of censorate
rights, Cho Kwangjo, in 1519.53
Yu softened Yulgok's original request by suggesting that censors be allowed
leave or temporary transfer without docking their salaries if their request were
plausible, but he joined with Yulgok in opposing transferring them to a noncen-
sorate position and demanded that they be forced to resume their duties as cen-
sors. If they qualified for a transfer, they would not be allowed a second transfer
unless they stayed on duty for a considerable period of time and compiled a record
of superior performance. Yu wanted to restrict transfers for illness by requiring
a minimum time interval of three months after the last illness. All officials request-
ing illness permits of absence would be compiled every ten-day week and dis-
missed if they did not recover in three months, and any official discovered feigning
illness for obtaining leave or transfer would be investigated and impeached.^54
The Nine-Year Term of Office. Although the average tour of duty for officials
was less than the legal standard, Yu was still alarmed that the standard tour was
only three years, renewable for another three years. He advocated the classical
nine-year term to counteract the clerks and runners whose long-term presence
gave them too much power. He pointed out that young officials hoping for suc-
cessful careers cared nothing about accumulating expertise in their job and pre-
ferred frequent transfers and the use of connections, influence, or even luck to
gain rapid access to the highest rank. They feared nothing more than being mired
in the lowest ranks because of long terms of service, but Yu hoped that the review
of past performance and special recommendation for competent officials was
the best method to open opportunities for high rank.
Yu wanted to return the basis for promoting officials to education and per-
formance on duty, rather than blind careerism bred by the degeneration of hun-
dreds of years of routinized administration. Although careerism was supposedly
not a problem in classical times, after the creation of bureaucratic government
in Ch'in and Han times, officials were appointed without any consideration of
their intelligence, posts were "changed with annoying frequency, and the minds
of the people throughout the world were day-by-day directed toward the busy
race for office." After over a millennia of experience in China, "customs and
mores became shallow and thin, order was lost and law was abandoned, and
nothing could be done right in conducting all the affairs of government." In other
words, the standards and values of regular bureaucrats had been lowered not
simply by neglecting to promote the small number of good officials, but by rou-
tinizing personnel practices in general. The only solution was to restore the moral
basis of government service.^55
Nine-year terms of service would be particularly useful in rectifying the prob-
lems of provincial rule, but the government was afraid that provincial gover-
nors and army and navy commanders might accumulate military power and rebel