REDISTRIBUTING WEALTH 339entrusted [control over the people] to their stewards [kiin 1." Yu noted that these
agents or stewards were public servants subject to state control, probably lords
of minor territorial or political units who were absorbed into larger states or fiefs.^82
Yu probably meant that in a feudal polity the grant of ch 'aellp and sikse was jus-
tifiable because the grantees had responsibility for governing the population of
their domain and were under the control of the central authorities, arrangements
that were totally at odds with a centralized bureaucratic system.
Nevertheless, ch 'aeup and sikse prebends were correct in one sense: they rep-
resented a feudal mode of land tenure the intention of which was to underline
the proper distinction between the rulers and the ruled, the sadaebu elite and
the peasant cultivators. Paraphrasing Mencius, Yu stated that the payment of taxes
and tribute (ch 'ulse and kongsang) was the responsibility of "the men of the fields
[yain]; studying the [moral] Way, performing official duties, and consuming taxes
[sikse I was the job of the scholars [sa] and the men of superior virtue [kunja]."8}
Using a land system to maintain this difference of status and function in soci-
ety was "a universal principle and also the intention of the ancients." But in feu-
dal times it was done by granting fiefs (ponggon). Yu subsumed both the ch 'aeup
and sikse types of grant within the general category of ponggon (granting of
fiefs), implying also that feudal relations were a thing of the past and never to
be restored. One could only adapt ideal feudal principles to a centralized bureau-
cratic present. 84
In the centralized bureaucratic age, however, the nature of the relationship
between the sadaebu and the peasant cultivators was different. Since in bureau-
cratic times the sadaebu had no source of income but official salaries, they were
forced to rely on their own devices for a living when out of office. In fact, it
would appear that things had to be this way if the ruler or central government
were to have a free hand in recruiting its officials and in adhering to strict stan-
dards of merit and pcrformance. "Even though the (aebu of the latcr age who
did not hold office differed from the common people in terms of their houses
and residences, they were [otherwise] the same as the men of the fields [yain].
How much more so in the case of the scholars [sa] who never served in office?
This is the reason why the prebendal grant [sikse] method was not fully imple-
mented even though it appears to be the intention of the ancients."85 In other
words, the rulers of centralized bureaucratic regimes destroyed the proper sta-
tus barrier between common peasant and scholar-official and had no desire to
provide prebends to a feudal nobility.
Yu acknowledged, however, that even in the age of the centralized burcau-
cratic state there had been times when rulers did issue prebcndal grants, such as
a grant of half the land tax echo) on people's land (II/illjon) (i.e., land privately
occupied or owncd by individuals, whether landlords or small proprietors), but
experience showed that this method caused more problems than it cured. R6 Under
a system of centralized control prebends would not be concentrated in a single
place as in the case of a fIef in a feudal system, but "small parcels of land set
aside for prebendal grants lsiksejiji] would be spread around several thousand