786 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMYrate had been reduced from fourteen to nine mal/kyO!, and that the other five mal
was a request for an additional tax to cover provincial costs.
At the beginning of the next year the Taedong Agency explained that it had
suggested that the revenues from the five mal/kyol portion of the taedong tax be
retained in the province to pay for provincial expenses, transport, and royal and
local tribute because the people of the province had mistakenly thought that the
taedong proposal was intended to be a "half-taedong" system that would only
replace ordinary tribute sent to the capital bureaus while the district magistrates
would be left to harass the peasants by collecting their own tribute levies with-
out any uniform standards.
The Taedong Agency, however, was determined to limit taxes to anticipated
expenditures (yangch 'ul wiip), contrary to established convention. They sent out
staff officials (Nangch'ong) to Ch'ungch'ong and Cholla to examine provincial
taxes, the expenses of each district, local tribute and service paid to the provin-
cial governor and provincial army and navy commanders, the costs of royal and
local tribute and horse transportation, and the taxes collected on each kyO[ of
land cultivated by the people, and they compared their statistics with the ledgers
forwarded by the provincial governor to the capital. On the basis of this detailed
survey they concluded that the taedong levy need not exceed fOUl1een mal/kyol,
of which five mal would pay provincial obligations. They intended only to use
this in Ch'ungch'ong, and then wait until a similar investigation were done for
Cholla before the taedong rate was set for that province. They also explained
that they had submitted this memorial to correct the king's misconception about
their original plan, and they were submitting the Ch'ungch'ong governor's
ledgers to aid him in reconsidering his decision. Injo, however, refused to con-
cede that he had misconstrued the plan; he merely explained that he had pro-
hibited the adoption of the five mal/kyol "additional" tax because the governor
had not been thorough in his investigations to implement the reform and it was
not timely to impose this tax at the time.>5
There was no clear edict, however, to rescind his previous order to extend the
taedong system to the three provinces because he only ordered that regulations
in other provinces be adopted. It was obvious, however, that he was ready to
cancel the taedong system for all provinces except Kyonggi because he later
rejected Royal Secretary Cho Ik's strong demand that the system not be aban-
doned. Cho argued that abolition would only benefit corrupt officials at the
expense ofthe people, and that Chu Hsi would have supported the taedong reform
because he had always been concerned about reducing discriminatory inequal-
ity between the rich and poor. lnjo merely said that he had already made up his
mind on the issue, that is, that he was about to cancel it. 26
Nonetheless, he did change his mind early in 1625 when a number of stu-
dents and scholars from Kangwon Province petitioned that the taedollg system
be retained because the people of that province liked it. He then adopted Yi
Won'ik's recommendation to keep the taedong law for Kangwon Province alone
(possibly because landlord resistance was not as strong there), and he set the