562 MILITARY REFORMwho imposed an additional tax burden not only on the people, but on their descen-
dants in perpetuity, so some other method besides the household or land tax even
as supplements to a partial tax cut had to be found, He declared that if any short-
ages in revenue resulted from it, he would meet the deficit by cUlling his own
consumption. 14
Yongjo then made a formal announcement of his decision to cut the .vangyok
rate in half. He explained why he had decided to reject all other alternatives.
The per capita cash tax (kujon) would be destructive of respect for social status
distinctions (myongbun) because it would be levied on both masters and slaves
(!) within the same family. A cloth tax on land (kyo/po) would be tantamount
to an additional tax since there were already regular taxes assessed on land. Even
though the household cloth tax appeared to be the best system, people were sure
to be disturbed if the current tax were cut by one p 'il and household taxes were
levied to make up the difference. "[If! retain the current I military cloth tax, half
the country will be angry, but [if! adopt the] household cash tax, the whole coun-
try will be. The minds of the people should be settled, not stirred up."
But what he was really thinking was that if he adopted the household cloth
tax, a signifIcant minority of privileged yangban and successful tax evaders would
be upset and might organize a repeat performance of the imsin rebellion of 1728,
whereas retention of the current cloth tax on adult males of good status only
with a 50 percent rate cut might create a fiscal crisis, but it would alleviate the
immediate suffering of the peasantry and buy off the yangban. In other words,
Yongjo's abandonment of the household cloth tax was as much a product of his
own reluctance to antagonize yangban interests as the overt opposition of court
officials and capital scholars.
The practical learning view, as represented by K won Chok, the disciple of
Yu Hyongwon's thought. was no help, for both household and land taxes were
ruled out of order by the more archaic approach to reform. Land reform, even
in his watered-down version, and return of yangban to actual physical service
in military units. were so outmoded and unacceptahle that nohody wanted to
hear of them.
Shifting his attention to ways of cutting costs by abolishing troop units, YOngjo
concluded that the threat of domestic rebellion virtually prevented any major
reordering of the Five Military Divisions established after 1592. He remarked
that the Military Training Agency, the unit most frequently criticized because
of the expense of permanent, salaried soldiers, was not the only flawed institu-
tion in the military establishment. By this he meant that as a unit with a con-
tingent of permanent soldiers on duty in the capital, he could at least count on
them for support in case of a domestic political crisis. By contrast. he pointed
out that neither the Forbidden Guard Division nor tbe Royal Division were use-
ful in any major emergency because their force consisted of provincial troops
(hyanggul1) who served on duty on rotation (!pace Yu H yongwon and Song Siyol).
But it was not the quality of their performance as rotating duty soldiers that both-
ered him, but their political dependability. During the imsin rebellion of 1728,