DEBATE OVER MILITARY TRAINING AGENCY 463
of 12,700 regular, rotating-duty soldiers (exclusive of special troops, clerks, and
officers) organized into 100 companies of 127 men cach, with 5 companies in
each of 20 battalions, and 5 battalions in each of 4 regiments. Ten companies
or 1,270 men werc to serve at anyone time for a two-month period; half that
number during the four months of the year when agricultural work was heavi-
est. Although figures for total support personnel are not available, one might
deduce that since each soldier was assigned 3 support taxpayers, therc should
have been an additional 38, I 00 taxpayers, for a combined total of at least 50,000
men, 60,000 if miscellaneous types of soldiers are included.^46
Ccrtain measures were taken to cut costs, such as reducing the Military Train-
ing Agency by 707 men and shifting thcm to the new Forbidden Guard Divi-
sion, where presumably some of them might liberate rotating soldiers to bc
converted to support taxpaycrs. By tightening up the organization ofthe rotat-
ing troops, about 3,600 of them were converted to support taxpayer status, alle-
viating the pressure for rcgistering new men for this purpose.
Nonetheless, the numbcrs of the Special Cavalry Unit of the agency and the
Crack Select Soldiers and their support taxpayers had almost doubled in num-
ber between 1669 and 1671 even though the purpose of those two units was to
reduce costs and tax burdens on the peasantry. At the same time the Military
Training Agency was supposed to be reduced as the new rotating service sol-
dicrs were created. The new Forbidden Guard Division retained most of the
expanded rotating service soldiers and support taxpayers while retaining a 5,000-
man Military Training Agency of permanent, salaried troops - contrary to the
recommendations of Song Siyol, who wanted to phase out the agency's perma-
nent salaried soldiers. Officials at court were aware of this and the issue was
debated yet another time.
Second State Councilor Min Chongjung noted that the only justification for
the expansion of the Special Cavalry Unit of the agcncy was the supposition
that thc salaried soldiers of the Military Training Agency would bc rcduced. Fus-
ing the Spccial Cavalry Unit with the Crack Select Soldiers to create a ncw divi-
sion would eliminate whatcver hope there was for the abolition of thc Military
Training Agency. In addition, the troops of the agency were of no value and thcre
were already so many separate divisions and units in the Korean military, that
unity of command had been fractured.
Minister of War Kim Sokchu, who proposed the formation of the Forbidden
Guard Division in the first place, defended his idea along the same lines as Yi
Wan's argument over a decade before. He agreed with the idea of replacing long-
term salaried soldiers with the Special Cavalry Unit troops who were financed
by their own support taxpayers, but since such a radical change could not be
carried out overnight, his recommendation to shift about 700 agcncy troops to
the special unit would garner an annual savings of 6.780 sam of grain and 127
tong of cloth for the Ministry of Taxation.
He argued that replacing all the Military Training Agency's troops would also
be too expensive becausc it would require replacing thcm with a pool of 30,000