TRIBUTE AND THE TAEDONG REFORM 805of national grain taxes (32.5 percent), including 230,789 sam of 492,222 som
of national rice taxes (46.9 percent). Chima suffered severe loss and destruction
after Hideyoshi's invasion, but still accounted for similar proportions of land
and grain taxes. Tn 1646, it only had 200,437 kyol of registered land, less than
half the previous amount, but still paid 75,720 som of the 272,9 I 2 siim of national
grain taxes (27.7 percent), including 38,281 som of the 95,422 slim of national
rice taxes (40 percent).6K
Transfonnation of Tax Structure. The taedong reform transformed the tax struc-
ture of the dynasty. In 1717, the governor ofCh'ungch'6ng, Yun H6nju, reported
that the total of all legal and regular taxes levied on land was twenty-five mal/kyo!
in rice, of which twelve mal (the rate had been dropped from thirteen mal) (50
percent) represented the taedong surtax, six mal (25 percent) the land tax (semi)
and rice surtax for the three types of troops (samsumi), and six mal (25 percent)
the miscellaneous expenses, district levies for pheasants and chickens, and wood
and coal for fue1.6~ What this meant was that the old tribute tax that consisted
of something in the range of half of the national tax receipts was converted to
a system that required the open circulation of goods and stimulated the market
and merchant transactions as the main means of supplying goods where needed.
To a large extent these activities were already practiced under the pangnap sys-
tem of illicit tribute contracting, but the taedong reform removed all legal bar-
riers to trade in goods with government tax revenues.
Abolition oftaedongfor Upland Cholla. T667-68
Opponents of the taedong system, however, did not give up the fight against it
just because King Hy6njong had extended it to Ch511a. In 1664 Pae Ki and other
scholars from Ch511a Province demanded abolition of the system in the upland
region of the province because taxes had been assessed more severely on the
uplands than on the lowlands since the tum of the century. [n the first cadastral
survey made after the [mjin War in 1603 the government had lowered the grade
of classification for the fertility of land in the coastal or lowland regions because
it had been devastated and peasants had fled to the hills, where they first began
to reclaim land in the uplands. Consequently in subsequent years the quality of
land in the uplands was assessed at a higher rate, and taxation of the upland
region became several times heavier than the coast by 1663.
Pae and the others also charged that the commutation rate for the cost of cloth
in rice or grain for tax payments had been set at 6.5 mal for each 35 "foot" length
of 1 p'il of cloth, but the quality of cloth had improved from the standard 5 sung
(180 threads) to 6 or 7 sting, and the length had increased from 35 to 39 "feet,"
so that the price of a bolt of cloth had gradually risen by 6 or 7 toc (siing, i.e.,
.6 or .7 mal) per bolt. This was equivalent to a 9.2-10.7 percent price increase
(in grain) for I p'i! of cloth, which was equivalent to a tax increase for those
peasants who paid the tlledong tax in grain.
When the merchants demanded better quality cloth in payment for the purchase