472 MILITARY REFORMquota of soldiers and support taxpayers combined located in six of the eight
provinces and assigned to the Five Military Divisions (Ogunyong) that defended
the capital region in 1704. According to a Reform Bureau (Ijongch'ong) investi-
gation, the total came to 307,926 men distributed as shown in table 6:TABLE 6
TROOPS OF THE FIVE MILITARY DIVISIONS (OGUNVONG), 1704
Unit Quota
Military Training Agency 49,816
Royal Division
Forbidden Guard Division
General Army
Defense Command (Namhan Fort)
TOTAL106,27^0
91 ,69^6
21,021SOURCE: Kagyong /jongchong-diingnok, Ogunmun kaegunje pyont'ong ch6rmok [Reform
Bureau record of the divisions: Reform bill for the reorganized Five Military Divisions], cited in
Chong Yonsik, "Yangyok kyunilhwa," p. 155 n. I 30.
This figure is close to the 290,000 recorded by An Chongbok for the mid-
eighteenth century. An's figure is less because of the approximately 10 percent
quota reduction enacted in q04. The pre-reduction figure should be compared
with the period prior to the 1627 Manchu invasion to get the sharpest contrast,
for at that time the Military Training Agency had only about 6,000 permanent,
salaried soldiers and few support taxpayers, and the Defense Command and For-
bidden Guard Division, and its earlier components, the Special Cavalry Unit of
the Military Training Agency and the Crack Select Soldiers, had yet to be cre-
ated. And when the Crack Select Soldiers were first established in 1638, there
were only 1,100 rotating soldiers, with another 3,000 taxpayers. The Royal Divi-
sion had only been increased in size in 1652, and consisted of a much smaller
number of a few thousand permanent and rotating soldiers in the 1 620S. I I Keep
in mind that most of the 307,296 men in 1704 were taxpayers, probably about
three-fourths of them (230,000), and that of the remainder of rotating soldiers
only one of eight or ten (depending on the number of shifts or groups into which
they were divided) were actually on duty at anyone time. Compare this total
with Yu Hyongwon's proposal for a total capital guard force, which would have
required only 70,000 men: a restored Five Guards of 12,500 men (plus 37,500
support personnel, or a total of 50,000), and a Military Training Agency of about
20,000, that is, about 5,000 rotating soldiers and 15,000 support taxpayers. Since
Yu favored dividing rotating soldiers into eight shifts, only 2,187 would have
been on duty at anyone time, in addition to about 200 royal bodyguards, and a
number of gate and wall guards and capital police.