978 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMYof more "pennies" as the only solution to the cash shortage - strangely enough,
the conclusion that Yu Hyongwon had reached as part of his argument for a pro-
gressive reform to liberate seventeenth-century Korean society from the prim-
itivism of a cashless economy. King YOngjo, by contrast, arrived at the same
conclusion independently, but from the opposite direction. Desirous of return-
ing to the less complex realm of the cashless economy, he was forced to admit
that it was no longer possible to do so, and he settled for penny cash as the least
of evils.
Yu, however, had seen fit to layout a scheme for maintaining price stability
in a cash economy, and one of its most important measures was to ensure a suf-
ficient money supply by liberal importation of copper. A few days after YOngjo
made his decision, Kim Chaero and Pak Munsu agreed that it had to be done.
Pak warned, however, that the country was lacking a sufficient supply of metal
to provide an adequate money supply for the nation. Copper could be obtained
from the Japanese in Tongnae but not in great quantity -an accurate assessment
of the current situation. On the other hand, despite YOngo's aversion to melting
down brassware to obtain its copper, brassware was in fact plentiful because
everyone owned some, from the royal palace and highest officials to the lowest
commoners. If it were used to provide the material for minting more coins, the
cash crisis could be solved.
As a result, YOngjo authorized the minting of 500,000 yang of cash (50 mil-
lion coins or 50,000 strings) by capital agencies, the governors of P'yong'an,
Kyongsang, and Cholla provinces, the magistrate of Kaesong, and the Naval Com-
mand for the southern provinces (T'ongnyong). Whatever the total money sup-
ply was at the time, in 1731 and 1742 Yongjo had authorized the minting of
800,000 rang or 80 million coins, two-thirds of what Yu Hyongwon had esti-
mated as a minimal money supply to assure the successful adoption of copper
cash in the economy. Yongjo reluctantly agreed to this policy, postponing these
decisions at tirst for seven years, and then an additional eleven years, a far cry
from the more aggressive support for cash and commerce that Yu Suwon rec-
ommended in the 173os.'4
The Sillok account of the decision was a poor summary of the complex dis-
cussion that had been raised over a number of important issues. It only stated
that most officials opposed Pak Munsu's proposal to mint silver currency, and
that Yongjo dismissed it as nonsense but did concede that silver cash might be
used to pay military expenses.'s A fuller discussion of the debate would have
revealed that YOngjo rejected the importation of cash from China because it would
violate the Korean ban on the use of cash along the Yalu River border and yield
Korean control over its currency to the Chinese. He abandoned the idea of mul-
tiple-denomination cash because of the opposition of a number of officials and
"public opinion," undoubtedly dominated by rich, conservative residents of the
capital who were afraid of inflation and wanted to preserve the high value of
cash and the protits of moneylending for as long as possible. Because of their