MILITARY REORGANIZATION 51 Ithe peasants residing: in the district, and each district walled town was still vul-
nerable to attack by concentrated, superior forces.
Furthermore, the chin 'gwall system deteriorated before it was tested, and it
may be that the seeds of that deterioriation were found within the system itself.
Since district magistrates were civil officials who at best were more interested
in tax collection than military training and defense, they began to reduce troop
strength to collect substitute cloth payments, and they neglected the periodic
training of the peasant soldiers. Because the country was not subjected to major
inland invasions, the internal army garrisons in the district walled towns were
neglected or ceased to function. Then when Japanese raids along the coast began
to increase in frequency after 1500, the coastal towns, garrisons, and naval bases
had to bear the brunt of the attack, and attention was shifted to the build-up of
naval garrisons.
Another flaw of the chin 'gwan system was that the bases and chains of com-
mand of the army and navy were kept so distinct that cooperation between the
services was impossible during wartime. Even in emergencies, provincial army
commanders could not mobilize marines assigned to the coastal bases and the
provincial naval commanders could not command soldiers ~~ssigned to army gar-
risons. Thus when the naval bases were attacked by Japanese pirates and raiders,
the only way to adjust to the new situation was to increase troop strength in the
coastal bases by shifting the permanent assignments of peasant infantrymen at
inland garrisons to duty at the naval bases, stripping those inner army bases of
their troop strength. It was only after the the Somp'o WQCf"{Jn uprising of Japan-
ese residents at the Three Ports in 15 I 0 that some attempt was made to allow
interservice command, primarily by allowing provincial army commanders con-
current jurisdiction over marines or naval garrisons.^27 In other words, contrary
to Yu Stmgnyong's idealistic image of the solid phalanx of rear garrisons and
defense lines backing up the front line of coastal garrisons, the actual experience
with Japanese attacks in the late fifteenth century demonstrated that the chin 'g-
wan system was at tirst too rigid and static and did not allow the mobile and flex-
ible transfer of troops from inland areas to points of vulnerability along the coast.
Even after the government decided to drain the inland areas of troops by reas-
signing them to the coastal garrisons and naval bases, laxity in the administra-
tion of the naval bases led to a shift in naval defense strategy. At first each naval
base maintained a force of marines on permanent duty on men-of-war, trained
constantly and kept on alert so that the first line of defense against a naval attack
would be a fleet of ships at sea. Because commanders of naval bases failed to
maintain the ships and men in a constant state of readiness, however, after 1484
the government decided to begin construction of morc formidable forts and
redoubts at the naval bases to provide land-based defense against attack from
sea. Because it was recognized that it was no longer possible to maintain a fleet
at sea. the effect of the shift in strategy was to convert naval bases into land or
army bases, and soon the marines were replaced by land troops. Since the sys-
tem of inland army bases had already fallen into desuetude, by the beginning