832 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
ital might be eliminated, or they might be welcomed at their home towns and
sent off ceremonially to their next posts. While the government would pay the
costs of an official proceeding to his post from the capital or reimburse him for
out-of-pocket costs from his home town to his post, the official himself would
take responsibility for hiring bearers and horses for transporting his family
between posts. When he left his post, his own district would pay his cost and
his petty officials would escort him to the border of the next district.
Yu also prescribed a list of travel costs for officials by rank ranging from a
low of 15 mal for a low-ranking magistrate to a high of 30 mal for a magistrate
of an important district (Puyun, Tohobusa) for every 100 i (33 miles) of distance
over 100 i. For long distance trips, he could be given a customs-station pass to
enable the station to pay the bills and deduct the cost from their own funds. Provin-
cial governors, army and navy commanders, educational officials (Kyogwan),
and post-station chiefs (Ch'albang) would be required to take their families with
them so that they would settle in their districts and get to know the population
better, and the government would provide travel costs matching the above sched-
ule for long tours of duty.
Yu pointed out that the Chinese had more reasonable regulations because an
official assuming a post in the provinces had to use his own draft horses and his
private attendants to transport his family belongings, and the people in his
assigned district were only obliged to meet him at the district boundary. He was
even opposed to allowing districts to provide riding and draft horses for trans-
porting officials and their families to reduce the burden on the post-station sys-
tem because he feared that the peasants would ultimately bear the costs whether
the districts or post-stations had responsibility.
Yu also felt that currently government offices were stocked with a variety of
private as well as public materials and there was no system of rigid accounting
to prevent the mixture and confusion of the two, especially when envoys and
guests arrived to be entertained. A system of budgeted costs should provide for
a basic quota of rice that could be stored in advance and paid out to meet costs.
Since the cost in rice would be allocated to officials, they would not have to list
the cost of each item like honey, oil, pheasants, and chickens, but could allo-
cate available funds as they saw fit. Then "there will no longer be the evil situ-
ation whereby official and private expenditures in an official yamen are mixed
together."34
Local Government Costs
Yu capped his discussion of government finance by drawing up a budget of
salaries and administrative costs for every unit of government. one example of
which should illustratc his mode of thought. His scheme of local organization
provided for four grades of prefectures and districts: the Tohobu, Pu, Kun, and
Hyon. Converting Yu's kok (10 mal) to the mal and sam (15 mal) for easier com-
parison with contemporary units, the budget for the Tohobu would be 11,190