TRIBUTE AND THE TAEDONG REFORM 789Ch'ungch'ong Province, but he did remark that it would be possible to adopt the
taedong reform some time in the future without first revising the tribute ledgers.3^0
The conservative tide of opinion began to shift slightly in favor of the tae-
dong reform when in 1646 Second Minister of Taxation Yi Sibang, who had
previously opposed the taedong system in 1623, now decided to support it because
the tribute burden in Ch'ungch'ong was twice as high as Cholla even though it
had less land. Although he won over two other ministry officials to his position,
Ch'oe Myonggil, however, the leading opponent of the plan in 1624, blocked
any chance of a change in policy by insisting that the taedong system was only
a revenue-raising measure and would not provide relief to the peasants)'
It is clear that Kim Yuk's attempt to spread the taedong reform to Ch'ungch'ong
Province was blocked by the fear that a new surtax on land would either con-
stitute a new and additional tax or be perceived as such by the taxpayers. By
exaggerating the amount of revenue that the new surtax would generate, he opened
himself to the charge that he was simply trying to sweeten the pill of a new tax.
Even though he was obviously guilty of either a miscalculation of expected rev-
enues or a purposeful deception, he also believed that those problems were minor
compared to the continuation of a thoroughly corrupted and unbalanced tax sys-
tem like the current combination of tribute in-kind and uncompensated labor
service in transporting the tribute items. Any reform of major magnitude
required a willingness to take certain risks, but in this instance King Injo adopted
the conservative advice of his Ministry of Taxation.
Following the conservative mood of the times in 1646, King Injo also decided
to cancel a special land tax for Hwanghae and P'yong'an provinces called the
Western provision tax (soryangmi) or the Mao or Chinese provision tax
(moryangmi, tangnyangmi), a rice surtax of 1.5 mal/kyol established in 161 I on
Kado (Ka Island) just off the Hwanghae coast to provide rations for the troops
of Ming general Mao Wen-lung. Even after Mao's garrison was withdrawn, the
surtax had been kept on in the name of a special rice tax (pyolsumi). In com-
pensation for this extra burden on these two provinces after 161 I, their tribute
quotas were shifted to Ch'ungch'ong and Cholla provinces, but in 1646 when
the Western provision tax was canceled, the original tribute quotas were returned
to Hwanghae and P'yong'an provinces, providing some relief in tribute demands
for Ch'ungch'ong and ChOlia. As things turned out, a special rice tax was retained
in Hwanghae Province, but the rate was dropped from seven to five mal/kyol
and the revenue was used to buy tribute to present to the Ministry of Taxation,
in effect converting it into a taedong-type of land surtax.
In P'yong'an Province, as well, a partial implementation of taedong princi-
ples was adopted when thirteen districts along the direct route of travel to China
were required to pay a grain tax at a rate of five mal/kyol, and twenty-nine other
upland districts paid a rate of six mal/kyol. Of this amount, three mal (60 per-
cent of the revenue from the lowlands and 50 percent from the uplands) was
used to buy tribute for the Ministry of Taxation, and the other three mal was
kept in the province for military expenses and hiring horses.