458 MILITARY REFORM
ita! units when Ho Chok engineered Yu Hyogyon's replacement ofYi Wan as
commander of the agency and Yi Yobal's appointment as commander of the
Royal Division.
Yu Hyogyon was also put in charge of the new special unit of the Military
Training Agency (Hullyon-byoltae) established in 1669. The core of the unit con-
sisted of troops who had served under Yu in the Royal Division. These were the
men Yu sent out to the villages as secret recruiters to inform on so-called idle
adult males (hanjong) who had evaded military service, and when he was severely
criticized by the yangban for this action, it was only because of Hyonjong's pro-
tection that he escaped impeachment. Yu was also responsible for expanding
the Military Training Agency from five to six thousand men, contrary to the intent
of Song Siyol to eliminate it by attrition. Thus, the agency and its special unit
became the basis of the Southerners in the military establishment by 1674, the
year of the second mourning rites controversy.33
Crack Select Soldiers ({lid the Rites Issue of 1674Tension between the two factions was exacerbated when Hyojong's queen, Queen
Inson of the T6ksu Chang clan, died in 1674, and the degree of mourning that
Dowager Cho had to observe for her was debated again. The debate was con-
ducted along the same lines as before, but this time Hyonjong rejected Song
Siyol's argument and chose the longer mourning. He had obviously become sen-
sitized to the question of his own legitimacy in the intervening years, but he still
took no action against the Westerners.
Nonetheless, the stage was then set for the first in a series of bloody purges
that marked King Sukchong's reign (r. 1674-1720). After Hyonjong 's death later
in 1674, King Sukchong quickly indicted all officials - mostly Westerners - who
argued for the lesser degree of mourning in 1659, stripped Song Siy61 of his
office warrants. and sent him into exile. As a result the Southerner faction found
itself in power.3~
Sukchong's Purge of Southerners, 1680
When Sukchong came to the throne in 1674 the Southerners were in a stronger
position than ever before, but they still did not monopolize all military units. They
controlled the Military Training Agency and the Royal Division, but Westerners
Kim Man'gi and Kim S6kchu had charge of the Anti-Manchu Division and the
Defense Command at the Namhan fort, respectively, as well as influence over
the Crack Select Soldiers (Ch6ngch'ogun) attached to the Ministry of War,35
The minister of war had become concurrent commander of the Crack Select
Soldiers, which had been increased to 6,250 men in 1668, as well as 700 For-
bidden Soldiers (Kiimgun), and since other, lower officials of the Ministry of
War had no connection with the Crack Select Soldiers, they were almost like
his personal troops. Since the Crack Select Soldiers and the Forbidden Soldiers