TRIBUTE AND THE TAEDONG REFORM 779
of the Easterner faction), who noted in 1594 that the substitution of rice or cloth
payments for tribute and the conversion of tribute levies to a land tax were already
being practiced, but that no attempt had been made to create a uniform and reg-
ular system of taxation based on a survey of land in each district. As a result
these land taxes for tribute varied anywhere from one to ten mal/kyol of rice,
and corrupt clerks in the capital bureaus were charging extra for transportation
costs. Even though peasants paid one hundred times more than the legal tribute
requirements, the state itself only received about IO to 20 percent ofthis amount
and the difference went into the pockets of the tribute contractors, district trib-
ute clerks, and capital bureau clerks and runners. Furthermore, royal tribute (chin-
sang) was even more corrupt than ordinary tribute.
Yu Songnyong then echoed Yulgok's earlier recommendation that the tribute
required from one province be calculated and adjusted to the amount of land in
the province to ensure a uniform rate of tribute taxes for every district, payable
in cloth, rice. or beans. He estimated that not only would a uniform tax of one
to two mal/kyol pay for capital tribute, but that additional levies of tribute for
special occasions (pangmul) could also be eliminated by an additional land tax
of a few toe or less, payable in rice, cloth, or beans. The costs for royal tribute
might also be abolished by the same method.
Yu proposed that specific granaries in each province be designated as repos-
itories for the land surtax for tribute and that the government set a schedule of
fair and uniform prices in cotton for goods that would be purchased on the mar-
ket. He assumed that emergency requirements for military expenses or state needs
could be met by reducing demands and diverting funds stored in rice and beans
in tribute warehouses to those purposes.
He also mentioned that in Ming China there was no requirement to collect
tribute to pay any foreign emperor, nor did they have any equivalent for special
royal tribute (chinsang) like Korea. Instead all thirteen provinces paid silver to
the Kuang-Iu-ssu that was used to purchase goods to be presented at court; if
there were any emergency needs, the emperor would simply finance them from
silver reserves by ordering a reduction of his own consumption. The Chinese
thus did not have to transport tribute or mobilize artisans to make items to be
shipped to the capital. Yu Songnyong's inspiration, therefore, did not derive solely
from the ideas of Yulgok and Chong Ch'ol, but from the replacement of silver
taxes for grain and service already in use in Ming China (cf. Cho Han). His pro-
gram incorporated three major elements previously proposed: substitution of
land taxes for tribute items, replacement of labor service in transport and other
activities by a land surtax to pay for hired labor, and state regulation of rice and
cloth equivalency rates for substitution payments to prevent overcharging.^16
Under the pressure of war King Sonjo approved the recommendation to allow
rice payments in lieu of ordinary tribute (but not royal tribute) as well as for
support payments for rotating capital soldiers and personal tribute (sin 'gong)
to support rotating official slaves sent to the capital (sonsang nobi). After a good
crop was harvested in 1594, he approved reducing the land tax substitute for