854 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
the tribute system, but by shifting tribute to land, it had become a kind of feu-
dalland rent imposed on the peasantry. The percentage of tenants among peas-
ants expanded and rental rates increased to as high as 70 to 90 percent of the
crop. Ultimately, corruption and injustice in land distribution and taxation became
one of the three major sources for peasant rebellion, especially in the imsul rebel-
lion of 1862 in the south.7^5
Although Yu's writings on the taedong system was celebrated in the late eigh-
teenth century revision of the Munhonbigo by Yi Man'un, there is no evidence
to indicate that Yu's attempt to expand taedong principles to finance all gov-
ernment costs including the salaries of clerks, runners, official slaves, local irreg-
ular officials, and chiefs of yangban associations was ever adoptedJ^6 Although
he showed great foresight in many of his recommendations, he was still a crea-
ture of the mid-seventeenth century because he derived inspiration from the tide
of refonn that accompanied the gradual adoption of the taedong system. Had
his program been adopted, and had all salaries of all functionaries and all admin-
istrative costs of government yamen been funded by government tax revenues,
it might have improved the probity of government officials and reduced the vol-
ume of corruption. Unfortunately, his program would have depended on an effi-
cient and dutiful registration of land, let alone nationalization and redistribution
- a chimerical wish considering the preference of officials and clerks to main-
tain the status quo. The subsequent decline of the land and taedong tax systems
after 1700 indicates that private competition for land and insatiable greed by
officials and clerks required something better than government salaries or the
self-policing mechanisms of the centralized bureaucracy.