216 SOCIAL REFORMKongmin 's Attempt at ReformDespite King Ch'ungnyol's defense of hereditary slavery, there was still pres-
sure on the throne to restrain the predatory slave masters from illegal enslave-
ment of commoners. As early as 1269, special commissions were established
to investigate the status of slaves for the purpose of settling disputes among slave-
owners and appeals for manumission by those forced into slavery. On the other
hand, some kings even condoned violations of the law by the slaveowners or
competed with them to accumulate their own slaves.^29
By the end of the Koryo dynasty the decline in royal power left private inter-
ests free to enslave defenseless debtors and commoner peasants. The judicial
courts of the government were flooded by petitions from slaves for manumis-
sion on the grounds of illegal or unjust enslavement, and by lawsuits over own-
ership among family relations, a situation exacerbated by the destruction of the
slave registers during the Red Turban invasions of 1361.30 The commoner pop-
ulation liable for taxation and service to the state declined as more peasants were
forced into slavery or commended themselves voluntarily to wealthy and pow-
erful households to evade starvation and the depredations of the tax collectorY
Paradoxically, the apparent increase in the number of slaves and the deterio-
riation in their condition were also accompanied by a loosening of restrictions
against opportunities for office and upward mobility. A number of slave revolts
occurred from the late twelfth through mid-thirteenth century, more as a result
of the frustration of rising expectations than as a manifestation of abject
despairY From the thirteenth century on slaves, ex-slaves, or descendants of
slaves, some of whom were eunuchs, began to be used as confidantes of mili-
tary rulers or appointed to office. After the establishment of Mongol rule, many
of them served as close retainers of Korean kings who found themselves hum-
bled and forced to compete with a number of hostile forces: Mongol emperors
and officials, Korean consorts of Mongol emperors, and Korean bureaucrats allied
with rivals for the throne.^33 This development, an obvious violation of the legacy
ofT'aejo, antagonized the Confucian bureaucrats who, as educated men trained
in morality and statecraft, felt that the use of slaves and eunuchs as ministers to
the king made a travesty of government.
When a reform movement began in the 1 350S under the aegis of King Kong-
min, the movement was compromised because the official in charge of the
agency to review slave suits and petitions for manumission was the king's
favorite, Sin Ton, the son of a slave woman, and a Buddhist monk to boot. The
king did not want to abolish slavery altogether, just to gain greater control over
the peasant population by stripping the slaveowners of illegally enslaved per-
sons. The slaveowners, however, viewed any manumissions as an invasion of
their interests, especially when the son of a slave was rendering judgment in
disputes between slaveowners. Naturally, they accused him of freeing any and
all slaves who petitioned. Although some Confucian scholars and bureaucrats