736 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
Yu's PLAN FOR KOREAN LOCAL-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONIn laying out his proposed regulations for the organization of a mutual-respon-
sibility system for rural villages, Yu adapted the types illustrated in his history
of that institution in China. He proposed the establishment of a system based
on five families, to be called a t'ong, headed by a t'ong chief (T'ongjang). Ten
t'ong or fifty families would make one i headed by an Ijang, or the head of a
fifty-family unit. Each natural village, what Yu called a neighborhood village
(pug un ch 'Olli) and defined as consisting oftwo fifty-family units, would be called
a kye, known in common parlance as a village kye (tonggye). The village kye
would be divided in two parts, corresponding to the two fifty-family units, and
its chief officials would be called the upper and lower kye chief (Sanggyejang,
Hagyejang). Their main function was to participate in funeral and mourning rites,
while other forms of mutual aid were to be left to the subdistrict village com-
pact association.
Yu called the subdistrict the hyang, equivalent to the Korean myon or county,
and specified that it would be created at intervals of 10 i (about 3.3 miles), headed
by a subdistrict chief (Hyangjong) and four assisants and two agricultural offi-
cials called Saekpu. The hyang was tied into Yu's system of land distribution
and was to correspond to 500 kyong of territory, or 700 kyong if some of the
land was uncultivated. Calculations had to be made about the density of popu-
lation so that the size of a hyang could be adjusted to the population density,
rather than the other way around, with a suggested maximum of 600 kyong of
territory. The hyang would also have one Yakchong or chief official of the sub-
district community compact (hyangyak), similar to the situation in contempo-
rary China.
The cities would also be divided into territorial wards (pang) consisting of
approximately 500 families in the T'ang manner and headed by ward chiefs
(Pangjong). Municipalities would also have a ward association chief to assume
subdistrict compact functions for his ward, similar to the duties of the yakchong
in the rural areas. The government would pay salaries to all functionaries in the
mutual responsibility system.
In the countryside, officials of the system were to be selected and appointed
from "commoners advanced in years who are diligent and straightforward." In
the urban wards, however, appointment was to be restricted to a more elite group:
either quota or nonquota students in official schools, or sons of high officials
with the protection privilege (yullm), or relatives of royalty provided they were
"pure, fair, and straight." The rural agricultural officials (Saekpu) were respon-
sible for transmitting government orders, collecting taxes, and "pressing [the
people] to pay them by the deadlines." The T'ongjang, Ijang, and Pangjong were
also charged with reporting any peasants who left their villages without per-
mission or the arrival of newcomers from other areas, and they were subjected
to a fine if they failed to do SO.4
It is obvious from the description of duties that Yu was concerned with mobi-