840 FINANCIAL REFORM AN 0 THE ECONOMYor yamen. None of the clerks and runners serving district magistrates and none
of the male and female slaves in the capital as well as the provinces was granted
grain rations or salaries, and had no choice but to steal and embezzle goods to
support themselvesY
Yu concluded therefore that every functionary of the state, no matter was his
rank or status, was entitled to a government salary: "From the highest minister
of state lKyongdaebu, i.e., Ching and Ta-fu] down to commoners lsain], men
of noble status [kwija] will have enough to provide for ancestral rituals for all
their relatives, while people of base status [ch o/~ja] will have enough to sup-
port their parents and take care of their wives and children."53
Yu 's Salary ProposalYu was determined to put the Korean system back on the track established by
the Han dynasty salary schedule by converting all salaries to a rice equivalent,
set in kok, the equivalent of the hu used in Han times and valued at 10 malar
pecks of grain. Since the Korean sam was then worth IS mal, not 10, Yu pre-
ferred using the kok as the main unit of account and redefining the sam as 10
mal. The highest ranking IA official would receive 600 kok (6,000 mal, or 400
contemporary sam) a year, and the lowest regular official of rank 9B would receive
60 kok, or a ratio of 10/,. The ratio of salaries between the highest and lowest
functionaries, from chief state councilor to boy clerk in the provinces who would
be paid 144 mal/year (14.4 kok, see next section), was 41.^7 /" a relatively modest
differential compared to other dynasties. Actual payment of salaries would be
divided: one-third in cash, one-third in white rice, one-sixth in hulled millet,
and one-sixth in yellow beans.^54 Since Yu mentioned elsewhere that partial cash
payments could take place after "cash was put into circulation" (haengjlJn), we
might presume that he hoped to encourage the use of copper currency to facil-
itate trade. 55
Yu believed that he could adapt ancient Chinese principles to the realities of
contemporary Korea. Although Korean tax revenues were only a fraction of those
in China, it would be simple to coordinate actual revenues with the smaller num-
ber of Korean officials to provide compensation to officials and their families.
Since he had already proposed land grants to officials, the income from them
would be calculated together with salaries for office to determine their total
income. Salaries would be paid monthly rather than the current quarterly pay-
ments to provide adequate compensation during intercalary months, and a high
official of Tangsanggwan rank would be granted retirement benefits such as a
half-salary and an exemption of part of his state land grant after the age of sev-
enty. To tide the nation over the financial burden of providing salaries for all offi-
cials, he suggested that initially the government might provide only one-half or
two-thirds of his salary schedule, and then increase them to the full amount later.^56
Superfluous costs to the government would be reduced by abolishing mili-