464 MILITARY REFORM
rotating duty soldiers divided into six groups of of 5,563 men on two-month
shifts, and 90,000 support taxpayers - altogether 120,000 soldiers and taxpay-
ers combined. Given the hardship in finding unregistered adult males (hanj6ng),
this was simply an impossible task.
He also had a completely different view about the talents and characteristics
of the agency soldiers. He remarked that because its musketeers grew up around
the king's capital guards, they were far better than the provincial soldiers; they
were quick, nimble, bright and intelligent, kept their appearance in trim, and
were ready to serve at any time. For that matter, he shared the departed King
Hy6njong's conviction that the Military Training Agency should never be totally
eliminated.^47
In any case, after 1680 Kim S6kchu was able to concentrate control over the
military in a way that H6 Ch6k only dreamed of. He was appointed commis-
sioner of the new Forbidden Guards from 1682 to 1684, and held the posts of
commander of the Military Training Agency, and concurrent commandant of
the Taehung fort near Kaes6ng.^48 Even after he was promoted to third state coun-
cilor and could no longer command the Forbidden Guards, Sukchong made Kim
a special palace guard officer so he could have some troops under his command.
A few days before his death he received the unprecedented concurrent appoint-
ments as commander of the Forbidden Guards and minister of war.
Sukchong's motive for approving the formation of the Forbidden Guard Divi-
sion in 1682 is important because it reveals what the aims of policy on troop
quotas and military organization were at the time. After Kim S6kchu's death in
1684, when an official proposed abolishing the new Forbidden Guard Division,
Sukchong angrily rejected the proposal and made a surprising revelation of his
reason for establishing it. He reminded his officials that when H6 Kyun's Sam-
bok conspiracy was uncovered in 1680, Kim S6kchu, who was then minister
of war, had no troops under his command to check such political threats to the
throne. He claimed that was the reason he had made the minister of war con-
current commander of the Forbidden Guards in 1682, but as Yi T'aejin has pointed
out, it was Kim S6kchu that Sukchong wanted to provide with a personal com-
mand, not simply any minister of war.^49 Kim S6kchu needed the extra power
after 1680 because of his rivalry with other members of the Westerner faction.
For that matter, even after the Westerners split into the extreme anti-Southerner
Patriarch's Faction (Noron) and the moderate Disciple's Faction (Soron) in 1683,
the dispute over control of military forces took place within the Patriarch's Fac-
tion, primarily among those related by marriage to queens. 50
After Sukchong came to the throne in 1674, Kim S6kchu was able to gain
influence through his connections as a consort relative, but when Sukchong's
queen, the daughter of Kim Man'gi, died in 1680, she was replaced by a second
queen of the Min family, Queen Inhy6n. Her father, Min Yujung, and paternal
uncle, Min Ch6ngjung, began to oppose the control of the military exercised by
Kim S6kchu and Kim Ikhun. All four men were members of the Patriarch's Fac-
tion, but that was not enough to keep them together. The need for new units and