420 MILITARY REFORMbe applied to any provincial army or navy commander or local garrison com-
mander who extorted funds from any duty soldier to pay for their miscellaneous
expenses or transport costs.
This last regulation was punctuated with a quotation from the venerated Cho
Kwangjo, the great Remonstrator of 1515. Cho, a man extolled in the conven-
tional literature as a hero of the moral purists (the sarimp a) at the tum of the
sixteenth century, provided an admonishment to King Chungjong that had noth-
ing at all to do with moral leadership, exhortation, or persuasion. On the con-
trary, he criticized King Songjong's (r. 1469-94) policy of leniency toward
embezzlement because it had only opened the door to bribery and corruption.
If King Chungjong would only "punish any such transgressions, no matter how
minor, and prohibit all violators from holding office at court, the concern among
officials [over the prospect of a ruined career if caught violating a regulation]
would keep them straight and honest."7^6
In other words, the reason why the moralist Yu Hyongwon believed that he
could retain the current military system and reform it was derived from a dic-
tum handed down by Cho Kwangjo, a good exemplar of muscular Confucian-
ism, that severe punishment of recalcitrant officials could prevent the perversion
of institutional rules and procedures. The reliance on Legalist methods of coer-
cion to reinforce the institutions of Confucian states was by no means an excep-
tion to practical statecraft thinking among officials, but Yu's masterwork was
devoted to the notion that superior institutions derived from classical models
based on moral suasion could provide the way to achieve the reform of con-
temporary institutions. This departure by Yu from the moral and institutional
solution to problems was by no means an isolated instance, and it shakes one's
confidence in Yu's commitment to his own method.
But why should royal interdictions and prohibitions have had any effect under
his system when they did not in the past two centuries') There was little evi-
dence that they would with the current body of officials, but Yu hoped to train
a new body of officials, men who would represent the cream of the crop of moral
men. Undoubtedly his new moral men would not need to be coerced by the threat
of punishment.
Taxpayer Supportfor Long-term Soldiers and ClerksOne ofYu's greatest concerns was the excessive costs associated with profes-
sional, long-term soldiers, but instead of advocating their replacement with mili-
tia, he sought to convert the method of finance for all service whether in the
capital guards or provincial garrisons to the support taxpayer system. Ostensi-
bly, this should not have been that serious a problem because the only military
units that consisted of professional soldiers were the Military Training Agency,
and possibly the Special Cavalry of the Military Training Agency (Hullyon-
byoltae or Pyoltae), and sago soldiers in the provinces, But he was also con-
cerned about men in nonmilitary posts who had to perform labor service for