870 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
talented and he himself claimed that if he were appointed, he could see to it that
the circulation of cash would be achieved, Kim Yuk heard of it and recommended
him to the court. Unfortunately, Pak got sick and died.^29The Sillok historian obviously resented Kim Yuk's choice ofPak Susin for the
management of cash policy because he was a commoner who lacked an official
position, and this attitude may have betrayed his own personaf bias as the main
reason for his opposition to the policy. The contemporary historian, Won Yuhan,
accepted the Si flak account as a completely trustworthy explanation of the rea-
son for the failure of the cash policy and the weaknesses of Kim Yuk's charac-
ter, and he also concluded that people lost confidence in cash because there was
too little of it in circulation. Won also found additional testimony about Kim
Yuk's intractable disposition from Hyojong himself, who remarked in 1656 that
Kim was "stubborn and uncompromising in nature, would never stop until com-
pleting what he wanted, and would pay no attention even though the world said
he was wrong. People praised him for his strength, but those who did not share
his views rejected him, and that is why most thought he was wrong."3^0
On the other hand, Won omitted considering the extenuating circumstances
in this case. Kim had just submitted his resignation from office because when
he had been in charge of the Ever-Normal Bureau and the Office for Dispens-
ing Benevolence, the two agencies in charge of cash and the taedong taxes, he
had given 70 strings of cash and 2,000 yang of silver alloy (paekkum) to two of
his clerks with dispensation to trade them for goods at a profit for the purpose
of promoting the circulation of cash in Hwanghae and P'yong'an provinces, but
the governor of Kyonggi Province later charged them with illegal activity and
charged that they be arrested and punished. Kim offered his resignation because
he took the blame for the actions of these two clerks and claimed that he was
only thinking of the nation's good without a thought of the consequences. He
said that his neglect was even more serious because Hyojong's decision to use
cash had only then occurred and was under considerable attack, so that his mis-
take had threatened the success of the policy. Hyojong may well have criticized
Kim's character because he felt piqued by Kim's involvement with the two clerks,
but he refused either to accept Kim's resignation or order the punishment of the
clerksY
Furthermore, Yi Man'un, who wrote the first revision of the Munhonbigo after
1782, simply described the cash policy at this time without any negative com-
ments about Kim Yuk or Pak Susin. He prefaced his summary of this revised
legislation with a brief synopsis of the important role that Kim played in the
attempt to introduce cash into Korea after his second mission to Ming China in
(^16) 5°,31
King Hyojong's Abandonment of Copper Currency, 1656
King Hyojong himself finally decided to bring down the curtain on his attempt