COPPER CASH AND THE MONETARY SYSTEM 869
and dismiss him ifhe failed. Hyojong accepted Kim's advice, appointed Pak to
the post of temporary tomb guardian (Ch'ambong), and passed the order to the
Ever-Normal Bureau.^28
The revised regulations provided that one mal of the eight mallk'll;l taedong
rice tax in years of normal production, or two mal when rice was short and too
expensive would be replaced by payment in cash, an obvious benefit to the tax-
payers and a real inducement to use cash. These tigures do not jibe with our
knowledge of the taedong tax rate, which varied from province to province, but
in 1655 the tax rate was two p' il in cloth or sixteen mal in rice in Kyonggi and
Kangwon provinces, but not in Ch'ungch'ong. Hence eight mal appears to have
been the commuted rice payment for one-half of a two-p'it tax. Allowing one
mal of eight mal to be paid in cash might indicate one-sixteenth of the overall
taedong tax (one-fourth if two mal were payable in cash), a modest decrease
from Hyojong's previous ruling to allow one-tenth the tax to be paid in cash.
In addition, shops would be established in Kyonggi as well as Hwanghae and
P'yong'an to promote the use of cash. Half of the cloth redemption payments
for punishment would be allowed by the Ministries of Taxation and Punishments,
the Seoul Magistracy (Hansongbu), and the Slave Agency (Changyew()n). One-
fifth of the old tribute products owed to capital bureaus and one-third of the rice
and cloth rations paid by the Ministries of Taxation and War for hired or ser-
vice labor for the capital bureaus would also be paid in cash. Because the value
of currency had been subject to fluctuations, he proposed that the government
set the value of cash and rice against silver, 600 mun of cash equivalent to I sam
(15 mal) of rice or I yang of silver. Thus, I mun of cash would be worth '/4 toe
(or '/40 mal) of rice. Finally, the government would maintain its strict prohibi-
tion against melting or converting cash to other uses.
Nonetheless, the historian who wrote the Sitlok account inserted his own neg-
ative assessment of the reform because he noted that despite the prohibition
against the melting and conversion of cash to pots, pans, and other utensils, secret
smelters had already been in operation in the hills. reducing the supply of cop-
per still further. He estimated that since the cash reserves of the Ever-Normal
Bureau were all disbursed to the provinces, they amounted to less than two or
three hundred thousand strings of cash, which he estimated was barely equiva-
lent to the household property of ten chung'in (hereditary technical clerks)
employed and living in the capital. Thus, despite Kim's claim that the currency
law was not being enforced and that more detailed and harsher revisions were
necessary, the Sillok historian inferred that the real reason for the failure of cash
to circulate widely was the shortage of cash itself.
Every time [the law1 was revised, the people immediately suffered a loss in
profit, and all those knowledgeable about it believed it was wrong. The king also
disliked it but Kim Yuk still stubbornly defended it. Pak Susin was a rather com-
mon and inferior resident of the capital who once managed a "house" Ielk, busi-
ness'?] by employing a number of woodcutters. Because somebody said he was