CONFUCIAN STATECRAFT 45land allotments for everyone it consisted of a grant of one kyong (roo myo) of
land for each adult male peasant, four-fifths of which was a returnable grant to
the state for redistribution after the recipient's death (kubunjon), and the other
one-fifth of which was permanent (yongopchon), with a percentage of the crop
payable as cllo to the state.
He also objected to the distribution system of the early Koryo period because
it granted only tax revenue income (the ello or ehonjo) to men of official rank,
officials, "idle" sons of officials without posts (han 'in), merit subjects, descen-
dants of officials, and favored immigrants from abroad, but it did not grant or
guarantee plots to the ordinary people. They were simply allowed to cultivate
and "occupy" the land that they cultivated. Without any state control, those who
possessed the most labor power and had the most influence occupied the most
land, while those who lacked those attributes had no choice but to rent land and
pay half the crop to the landlords and even more for the costs of transportation.
The net result was that "the rich became richer," while the poor were forced to
take to the road, pursue the debased occupations of commerce and handicrafts
to make a living, or take up banditry.
Chong. however, was distressed when he realized that his plan never had any
serious chance of adoption because it conflicted with the material interests of
"the old families and hereditary lineages" (kuga sejok) who opposed Yi
Songgye's desire before he became king to carry out the ancient system of pro-
viding land grants to everyone. In short, the provisions of the kwajon system of
1390-9 I to provide prebends for the royal house, civil and military officials
and their unemployed sons (hallyang), and the soldiers and other petty officials
who performed some official function for the state without guaranteeing a plot
to all peasants was but a weak compromise compared with the perfection of the
ancient Chou system.^59
Furthermore, despite the arguments of many Korean scholars that Yi Songgye
was supported by a class of small-to-medium landowners seeking to break the
power of the ruling class of large landlords, most of the leading officials of the
new Choson dynasty were members of clans that had long pedigrees of high
status and possessed ample amounts of land and slaves.^60 They were hardly inter-
ested in promoting any reform that would have stripped them of their family's
possessions.
In Kyonggi Province the recipient of a prebend was referred to as the "land-
lord" (chOnju) and the peasant owner-cultivator of the prebend as the "tenant-
guest" (chOn' gaek). The latter was subjected to certain disabilities over and above
the simple payment of a specified "tax" (eho) to the prebend holder in lieu of a
state official. While the cho rate was limited to 10 percent of the crop, the owner-
cultivator of the land had to provide firewood, charcoal, fodder, and transportation
costs to the "landlord" (prebend holder) and his tax collection agents who col-
lected the "tax" directly from him.6[
Yi Kyongsik and a number of scholars have pointed to this aspect of the bur-
dens of tenant-guests to indicate that the tenant-guests were still landowners,