MILITARY REORGANIZATION 505
as a group to one of the Five Guard units in the capital and would not be trans-
ferred from one unit to another except for unusual circumstancesY
The total force of the capital contingent of the revived Five Guards would
consist of 12,500 men, five 2,500-man regiments of five 500-man battalions for
eaeh of the Five Guards. Yu did not say just how many troops would serve on
eaeh shift and for how long, but if they were organized into eight shifts or groups
for two months of service as ordinary infantrymen were supposed to be, then
1,562 men would be in the capital at anyone time.
Yu's regulations for duty, however, prescribed a force of one battalion or less
from each of the Five Guards to serve for three-day shifts inside the palace
grounds. This would require more than 1,562 men to be stationed in the capital
because there were 2,500 men in five battalions. Even if each battalion were
under strength, about 300 men each, you would need a reserve force of at least
another 1,562 men to relieve those on duty aftcr their three-day stint. Yu may
have intended the soldiers to rctum home after their three-day tour, but this would
have required a lot oftraveling back and forth, once a week or so. It would appear
that Yu did not really work out the logistics of his program in sufficient detail,
and he may well have underestimated the numher of troops required and the
cost of the system. 10
Yu's system of assigning peasants living in districts near the capital to the same
unit in the capital guards was designed not only to use village cohesion as the
basis for solidarity inside military organizations - a principle derived from the
classical militia ideal - but also to eliminate the use of city dwellers for guard
duty, the equivalent of modem-day city slickers. He was familiar with the sorry
reputation of the the troops of the Military Training Agency, and he blamed it on
their long-term service in the capital and the corrupting intluence on their hehav-
ior hy their association with sharpslers and slick traders in the big city. Yu men-
tioned that Ch'i Chi-kuang of the Ming had, in fact, warned against this: "The
worst people you could recruit [for service] are the slippery people from the mar-
ketplaccs and wells; and the second worst people you could recruit are the wily
and tricky people. The best you can use are only the old and true people from
the villages and fields, and the second hest you can recruit are veterans."
Yu punctuated this advice with his own endorsement: "Ch'i Chi-kuang really
knew what he was talking about, didn't he?" The capital guards were filled with
these crafty city folk who spent all their time scheming to make money, lazily
neglecting their duties, becoming more arrogant and undisciplined, and fight-
ing with the city residents until both sides hated each other with a passion. I I By
confining the area for the recruitmcnt of the capital guards to the vicinity of the
capitaL Yu had in mind the hardy peasants of Kyonggi Province, possihly a prod-
uct of an anti-urban bias shared by most rusticated scholars.
Gate Guards and Night Patrol. In addition to the Five Guards, Klim'o night
patrol. and the gatc guards, Yu made special plans to retain the Inner Palace Guards
(NaegClmwi) as well. hut he insisted on reducing its quota. He pointed out that
at the beginning of the dynasty the Kw)ngguk taejon code of 1469 called for