380 LAND REFORM
S6 YUGU
According to Kim Yongs6p, another representative of the new tide of rational
planning and efficiency in agricultural production was the scholar-statesman,
S6Yugu, son of a family of experts in agricultural methods, who authored a num-
ber of texts on the subject. In his later writings, presumably around 1820, S6 set
forth a new program for the gradual elimination of landless peasants and ten-
ancy and the creation of a more collective form of agriculture.6s
Like Tasan's second plan, S6's program did not involve a massive confisca-
tion of private property from the landlords and rich peasants because he feared
that they might rebel against the government. Instead, he believed that expan-
sion of the military and civilian colony lands (tunjan or kwandunjan) that had
been created to support soldiers on the frontier or pay for expenses of magis-
trates' yamen and some offices in the capital would provide the basis for the
creation of state farms. He recommended that the state use its own capital to
buy land for the creation of colonies of about 400-800 kyang (400,000-800,000
myo, or 147.2-294.4 acres at 0.°368 acres per myo, according to S6's defini-
tion. see helow) of land each and to absorb excess landless peasants by recruit-
ing them for labor on the colony lands. The mode of management of the colonies
would be reorganized to emulate the methods of successful peasants by using
capital to invest in tools, fertilizer, irrigation projects, and advanced methods
of production.
S6 planned to organize the colonies internally in emulation of the well-field
system, dividing them into units of 10 kyang laid out in perfect squares, sur-
veying the land and recording it in detail according to the fish-scale registers,
and marking the major subdivisions by sluices and waterways. Like Yu
Hy6ngw6n, he also wanted to replace the kyal-hu method of calculation and mea-
surement with the kyang-myo system of the Chinese, adopt a "survey foot" defined
as 6 "Chou feet" and use it as the basis for measuring a myo (i.e., 100 square
"feel"). The kyang, or 100 myo. in contemporary terms would have been equiv-
alent to 4,444 p 'yang or 3.68 acres, and the 10 kyang subunit would have been
36.8 acres (i.e., 0.0368 acres/myo).66
Each of these ro-kyong squares would be staffed by five peasant households,
provided with tools, four oxen. and two carts. The state would own the land and
provide the tools and equipment, and the peasants would cultivate the land jointly
and receive wages (probably double the current rate on the market), food, and
housing in compensation for their work. Kim Yongs6p pointed out that the sys-
tem was similar to Tasan's early yojon system, except that in Tasan's system the
peasant would work as an individual and would receive compensation based on
an exact calculation of his work time.
S6 also prescribed that the land would be plowed by two oxen pulling a dou-
ble plow rather than the usual method of a single ox pulling two plows, to ensure
deeper plowing and more efficient utilization of the land. The method of trans-
plantation in wet-rice cultivation in Ky6ngsang Province and the three-furrow