Yu's ANALYSIS OF CURRENCY 913believed that Yu was totally unrealistic to expect that Korea had the financial
capacity to import this much cash from Japan, but if his estimates were revised
downward to a more realistic estimate of the money supply necessary to replace
grain (and cloth) in taxes, his proposal would not have appeared so outlandish.^54
As we will see later, he was aware that despite a national cash shortage it was
also quite possible to experience a cash surplus and commodity price inflation,
but he assumed that local variations could be managed by ever-normal price sta-
bilization methods. Stability in prices at the national level had to be guaranteed
by minting enough cash for the nation as a whole.No Private Minting, No Cash to CopperYu believed that care had to be taken to inform the entire population at the begin-
ning of the year that cash would be circulated later to Tax Collection Centers
(Tohoegwan) in each province to allow taxpayers to pay their taxes in cash. To
guarantee the quality and amount of the cash minted by the government, the pri-
vate minting of cash would be forbidden. To prevent any reduction in the amount
of cash in circulation. the government would also forbid private persons from
melting cash down to make utensils. Although both the Han and T'ang dynasty
governments in China had punished private minting by execution, he recom-
mended less brutal punishments: one hundred strokes for the perpetrator and
sixty strokes, increased labor service, or exile for the master of the shop or res-
idence involved; one year's transportation for neighbors of the perpetrator in the
mutual security group, and sixty strokes to urban ward or village chiefs. As was
common, informants were to be rewarded with the guilty party's property, and
confession in advance of discovery would exempt one from punishment.Cash and Ta.res and SalariesTo succeed in guaranteeing the permanent adoption of cash throughout the econ-
omy, the government had to order the use of cash in the payment of taxes and
official salaries, but he did not hold to his previous minimum requirement of 50
percent of all taxes and salaries. He was willing to settle for only one-third of
the land tax, whether it was due to be paid in rice or cloth, and one-third of all
government expenditures, from the king's own expenses to the salaries of clerks,
slaves, and soldiers. He also allowed that the proportion of cash payments might
be reduced to 20 or IO percent in remote places in the countryside until cash
circulation penetrated those districts. The district magistrates would be respon-
sible for collecting cash taxes, not the tribute middlemen still engaged in trib-
ute contracting (pang nap ) in provinces where the taedoJ1g replacement for tribute
in kind had not been adopted. By reducing his minimal requirement for taxes
and salaries from one-half to one-third the total, Yu's proposal really appeared
less radical than what the government had attempted in the reigns of Kings Injo
and Hyojong. On the other hand, his demand for the minting of millions of coins