798 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
role, capping what should be regarded as a significant and remarkable reform
effort. Contrary to other areas of administration, the taedong reform provided
an example of success for others interested in reform.
Upland Districts in C/u)/la, 1662Prior to his death, King Hyojong left instructions with Song Siy61 to postpone
further discussion of the upland districts in Cholla until the fall. After King
Hy6njong ascended the throne, Chief State Councilor Chong T'aehwa reported
that since five of the upland districts actually favored the taedong system, it would
be wiser to adopt it for the whole province rather than those five districts alone.
Debate continued into 1660, however, over the complex question of the
grain/cloth commutation or conversion rate as well as the surtax rate on land.
The government had to determine a tax rate that would guarantee sufficient rev-
enue to replace the tribute goods without imposing too heavy a tax burden on
the population, and it had to set a commutation rate setting the price of cloth in
grain that would not discriminate against upland residents who had to pay their
taxes in grain equivalents of cloth. Thus, the tax rate was set in cloth at two p'il
of cloth per kyrJI, but only those districts designated to pay their tax in cloth would
pay the tax at this rate. Other districts would pay in grain according to the com-
mutation rate. That commutation rate, by the way, was not necessarily the same
commutation rate used for the land tax, or for other provinces.
Furthermore, even though the taedong surtax was assessed in either rice or
cloth, officials frequently discussed total tax revenues not by listing both rice
and cloth revenues separately but rather by combining them into a single fig-
ure, most usually in tenDS of rice measured in mal. In other words, the mal would
then become a unit of account rather than units of rice itself, and the cloth tax
revenues would be converted to mal according to the government's rice/cloth
commutation rate.
In Ch'ungch'6ng Province, the tax rate was two p 'il/kyol and the rice tax was
thus ten mallky/jl (i.e., a five mal/p'il grain/cloth commutation rate). The com-
mutation rate was supposed to ensure exact equivalency whether the tax was
paid in cloth or grain, but if peasants living in districts in which the taedong tax
had to be paid in cloth did not weave the cloth themselves, they had to buy it
on the market. If the market price of cloth was higher than the five mal/p 'il com-
mutation rate fixed by the government, it cost them more than the legal grain
tax equivalent often mal/kyol to pay their taedong tax; if the market price were
lower, the peasant taxpayer would have benefited by a smaller paymentY Since
the price of rice was cheaper in Ch611a Province than in Ch'ungch'6ng because
production was higher there, the government decided that the taedong tax rate
often mal/kyiil that was used for Ky6nggi and Ch'ungch'6ng provinces was too
low for ChOlla Province and had to be raised to thirteen mal/kyol to ensure suf-
ficient revenue. This action then required raising the rice/cloth commutation rate
for the upland region of Ch611a to six and one-half mal/p 'il rather than the five