Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais

310 LAND REFORM

flourish, bribery was the easy thing to do, and there was no foresight in the

administration of punishments. The minds of the people were unsettled and

customs were emde.

In general there was no one who could again take chargc of the affairs of the

world. People in charge of the state in this later age merely delayed for time, and

there was no reign that lasted as long as the Three Dynasties of antiquity [san-

tail. From time to time there were sage mlers and good advisers who were good

at government affairs, but the effects of their mle did not last for long, and the

reason for this was that there was no basis for the essential core of the world

[ch onha taech e]. It was like a case of a man who builds a room; if he does not

build it straight on the foundation ... , then it topples over. lOS

Yu was not arguing here for the reproduction of the well-field system in toto,
just the creation of a structure of government that could restore society as a whole
to order, and he presumed that the reform of the land system based on princi-
ples embodied in the well-field system was critical to this end.

Even though there might he a ruler who wants to govern I well!. if he does

not rectify thc land system, then the production of the people can never be stabi-

lized, taxes can never be equalized, [the numbers of] households and population

can never be made clear, the rank and file of the army can never be put in order,

lawsuits can never be stopped, punishments can never be reduced, bribery can

never be eliminated, and mores can nevcr be restored to health. There has never

been a person who can govern and teach [thc people] in a situation like this.

What is the reason for a situation like this? Land is the great root of the realm.

Once the root is established, all things will follow along and there is nothing that

will not be done conectly. If the great root is in confusion, in all other matters

there will be nothing that is not done inconectly.106

It then followed that the well-field system provided the model for rectifica-
tion of the land system, and the essential features of the well-field system could
be reduced to a few necessary principles. The first of these was the concept of
kongjon, which was transformed from the lord's field of the Chou feudalism to
the concept of public or national ownership of land in the post-Chou age of cen-
tral bureaucracy. The lord's square in Mencius's description ofthe well-field pat-
tern was called kongjon, but in later periods the term underwent a change in
meaning and became public, national, or state land. Yu not only used the term
in this sense, but also argued that the principle of state or national ownership of
land was inherent in the meaning of the term in the Chou well-field context. 107
By so doing Yu borrowed the convention that conferred legitimacy on public
ownership in the era of centralized bureaucracy, thcreby enabling the state to
issue land grants and demand the return of land from grantees after their eligi-
bility had run out to securc a system of equal or equitable distribution of land
to peasant families. In addition, the well-field system also entailed the use of