LATE CHOSON PROPOSALS 367
increase in production allowed a growth of population (from 9.8 to 12.3 million
according to Michell), but also greater vulnerability to drought and disease, lead-
ing to a leveling of population by the eighteenth century, and a slight decline in
the nineteenth.
If one were to look for parallels to this Korean experience, the closest one
might be what Bray has described as the Green Revolution begun in the Sung
dynasty in which production was increased by land reclamation, irrigation, water
control, multiple-cropping, commercial agriculture, regional specialization,
and the development of the silk and tea industries. There was also the expan-
sion of production through migration into central and southwest China in the
eighteenth-century Ch'ing dynasty, after which "population growth overtook agri-
cultural production," leading to rural impoverishment.^39
One of the main differences between China and Korea, however, was that the
increase in agricultural production and the greater development of the commercial
economy in the Ch'ing as well as Sung periods, was followed by a rapid increase
in popUlation, whereas the Korean population appears to have leveled off after
1693 and subsequently fluctuated between ten and twelve and one-half million,
somewhat similar to the stabilization of the Japanese population at thirty-five
million in the late Tokugawa period.
We will see in part 6 how the development of copper currency in the late sev-
enteenth century and later undoubtedly indicated the expansion of surplus prod-
uct that was sold on the market. On the other hand, that surplus production was
not great enough to create the accumulation of sufficient capital to fuel a take-
off phase for rapid economic growth, let alone sustain the continuation of pop-
ulation growth in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, if Michell's popUlation
figures are to be believed. At the current stage of our knowledge, it would be
safer to disclaim some of the arguments about the magnitude of the advance in
production and productivity.
Nineteenth-Century Peasant RebellionThe nineteenth century was a period of serious peasant rebellion: the Hong
Ky6ngnae rebellion of 1812, the Imsul rebellion of 1862, and the peasant upris-
ing of 1894 that accompanied the revolt of the Tonghak religious movement in
search of religious toleration. While maldistribution oflandownership and oner-
ous conditions of tenancy were important contributing factors in these revolts,
they were not the only ones. Unfair distribution of the tax burden and the cor-
rupt behavior of magistrates and clerks contributed to discontent as well.
Even though the core area of the [862 rebellion was a section of Ch611a
Province that had a long history of tenant disputes, the rebels directed their attacks
against the government and its officials rather than the landlords. Although gov-
ernment investigators were not necessarily the most objective analysts of the
rebellion, their opinions are the only records we have, and they identified the