526 MILITARY REFORM
of constmction in minute detail, including distances of travel for workers, food
and provisions, limits on the use of materials, and the setting of deadlines for
labor - all of which were designed to prevent constmction projects from becom-
ing the means for the exploitation of the workers.
Defensive walls became almost a symbol of sage rule. not simply a practical
means of defense. Shih Huang-ti, that evil first emperor of the Ch'in dynasty,
destroyed all the walls of the late Chou feudal states when he unified the empire
in order to subjugate them to Ch' in control. But after the fall of the Ch'in, Emperor
Kao-tsu of the Han ordered wall construction in each district (hsien). As one
commentator remarked: "One can see from this which of the two was broader
in foresight and which of the two [dynasties 1 would last the longest." Ch'iu ChUn
of Ming times described the two acts almost in moral terms: Ch'in Shih-huang-
ti destroyed the walls because he regarded the people of the empire as his ene-
mies and was only concerned that defensive preparations might become a threat
to his security. hut "Kao-tsu, on the other hand, regarded the officials and peo-
ple of the empire as one family and was only afraid they might not have places
in which to dcfend themselves against the enemy. He was afraid that perhaps
he might have to attend the funerals of people who had lost their lives. This spirit
marks the difference between public and private [interest I and is the dividing
point between the preservation and loss [of a kingdom)."6 5
For a more recent example of ancient principles in action, Yu cited the action
of Emperor Shih-tsung of the Later Chou, who in 955 ordered expansion of the
walls of district towns but took pains to keep lahor to a minimum and sched-
uled the work for the winter slack season.^66
In applying the lessons of antiquity Yu showed a tendency for excessive lit-
eralism. just as he did in insisting on the IOo-myo unit for his land distribution
system. He was careful to layout the dimensions of ten'itories and walls of the
various feudal nohles of Chou times and insisted that the principles of estab-
lishing a hierarchy of dimensions for the thickness and circumference of walls
be followed in contemporary Korea. He adjusted his classical literalism to the
contemporary situation, however, by stipulating that the varying sizes of con-
temporary defensive walls be determined in accordance with the size of the area
and amount of population to be defended. Classical wisdom seemed a reason-
able remedy for the contemporary Korean situation because not only were cur-
rent walls in bad repair, missing altogether, or located at some distance from
where the people lived, but also in some cases they were usually too "narrow"
or small in circumference, encompassing only one or two small villages. A bal-
ance had to be struck between areas and populations too small or too large for
adequate defense.
Like his arguments for adjusting the rigidities of well-field dimensions to the
mountainous topography of Korea by using fractional grants, he urged that fixed
quotas of area and population be ignored in certain cases if district towns hap-
pened to be located in a valley or mountain pass. "What we ought to do is take
into account the intent of the ancients and require that [the system of walls] does