SLAVERY 229and special fund raisers were given quotas of blank napsok warrants that they
peddled in their districts. The practice was continued well into the 1620S and
1630S because of the government's need for revenue.
Since the freedman now became liable for taxes and commoner labor service,
none but the wealthiest of slaves could have afforded the burden, and many may
have slipped back into slavery.8^3 Since the masters suffered the loss of the cap-
ital investment in their freed slaves and future tribute payments, in 1637 the gov-
ernment decided to grant the owners official rank as compensation for their loss,
but the value of these rank grants soon fell because so many were given out.
The government tried to limit the number of liberated slaves by raising the price
of manumission from about 15 to 50 sam between the r 590S and 1670. Even
though this price was a mere fraction of the 750 sam demanded in 1485, the
rigid wall of discrimination had been breached by the time Yu Hyangwan was
writing his essay on slavery, but the price still remained high enough to block
wholesale manumission by purchase.^84
Attitudes toward Liberalization
Liberalization of the rules for manumission were caused by necessity, for the
very existence of the Korean nation was at question. It would be a mistake to
think that measures loosening the lines of status demarcation were greeted with
acclamation on the part of the slaveholding elite. In 1593, the famous Yu Sangny-
ang attacked the slaveholders for opposing the recruitment of able-bodied pri-
vate slaves as sogo soldiers.85 Nevertheless, he made no humanitarian appeal
to alleviate the suffering of slaves. In fact, he was probably more concerned about
the excessive service requirements on a shrinking commoner population. And
his proposals were not that radical: he only briefly hinted that the king might
adopt the land and slave limitation proposals of the late Former Han dynasty;
he did not suggest that the slavery be abolished.
Nonetheless, the national crisis forced some officials to justify the existence
of slavery. During Hideyoshi's invasions Yi Hangbok argued that Heaven was
responsible for the distinction between noble and base people, but it had noth-
ing to do with human wisdom or ignorance, nor was it a characteristic of man's
basic mind or nature at birth. It was connected with the tradition of social sol-
idarity based on the relationship between men of virtue (kunja) and "small" or
ordinary people oflesser moral capacity (soin). The men of virtue had the respon-
sibility of governing, and the ordinary people had to support them, and between
the two the family of man was established. This tradition endured for over a
thousand years and had become thoroughly ingrained in the customs of the peo-
ple and laws of the state. If any change were to be made in the slave laws, "You
would have to make the sons and daughters of the sabu [scholar-officials] all
personally take care of, support, and do the cooking lin the family] just as they
do in China." In other words, the children of the aristocrats were so pampered
by their slaves who did all the household labor that they would have to undergo