996 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
Yu Hyongwon's because he advocated multiple-denomination copper, gold, and
silver cash, but these ideas were by no means innovative at the time. Further-
more, he showed no inclination for an aggressive expansion of copper, gold,
and silver mining that was eventually only partially remedied by the establish-
ment of the Kapsan copper mine in 1828.
Won Yuhan has explained the failure to mint multiple-denomination cash until
1866 to conservative resistance to change, domestic tranquillity and the absence
of any military threat, and popular distrust of coins if their face value was greater
than the intrinsic value of the metal. There was also a fear of inflation in com-
modity prices, and the expectation that multiple-denomination cash would only
increase savings and profits by usurers, weaken the central government control
of the money supply, stimulate thievery by increasing the value of cash. and sully
the mores of the population in general. Won argued that these factors also
explained the limitations on the capacity for change and adaptation as a whole.^43
The problem with Won's analysis is that his list of obstacles is too inclusive
and general, and he failed to search for fundamental problems. A number of
officials had proposed means of increasing the money supply and using more
convenient forms of money, but the kings of the dynasty were not willing to try
these alternatives and back them by adequate policies. Furthermore, even the
scholars who advocated multiple-denomination cash were not really radical sup-
porters of commercial and industrial development and growth.
Tasan's conservatism may not have been identical to the conservativism of
the seventeenth century and earlier where men opposed the transition from grain
and cloth to copper cash. It was closer to the limited reformism ofYu Hyongwon,
who believed that Korea was destined to catch up to the economic principles of
early Chou, if not late-sixteenth century Ming China (or in Tasan's case, early
nineteenth-century Ch'ing China) and develop commerce to the point where it
could playa useful function in easing the transmission of goods from areas of
surplus to areas of shortage. The primacy of agriculture remained the dominant
economic principle of the Chason dynasty and the practical learning scholars
as well, with the possible exceptions of Yu Suwon and Pak Chega.
Cash in the Nineteenth CenturyAlthough all cash remained in the form of the "penny," once the supply of cop-
per was increased by domestic mining after 1828, the volume of minted cash
increased appreciably, by 5,001,100 yang or 500 million coins between 1807
and 1857, more if the amount minted by the new mint established at the Ham-
gyong Provincial Governor's headquarters in Hamhung in 1862 could be cal-
culated. In addition, the profits of seigniorage were only 10 to 12 percent in 1807,
1814, and 1825, but after the founding of the Kapsan copper mine in 1828, they
increased to 20 to 27 percent in 1830, 1832, 1855, and 1857 (see table 13).
The expansion of minting had also been accompanied by a breakdown of the
government's policy to concentrate all minting in the Ministry of Taxation, a