PART V
Reform of Government Organization:
Introduction
Sincc Yu Hyongwon had a lengthy and comprehensive agenda for the reform
of seventeenth-century institutions, it should be no surprise that he devoted con-
siderahle attention to the structure and operation of the centralized bureaucratic
system of mid-Chason Korea. Not only did the bureaucracy function as the agency
for the implementation of royal commands, but it was responsible in large part
for the maintenance of order and the stability of the regime in power, accord-
ing to how efficiently and honestly it was able to carry out its duties. Imple-
menting royal commands went far beyond the diurnal transmission of daily
decrees to include the functions of advising the king, presenting proposals, and
solving problems. These tasks were mainly the functions of administrative agen-
cies at the capital, which devised its own plans or funneled ideas from the lower
levels of the bureaucracy to the king, and then worked in coni unction with him
to determine policy. Most Confucians believed that success or failure in initiat-
ing successful reform plans at this policy-making level depended on the qual-
ity of the king and the officials he chose to staff these supreme administrative
agencies. For a scholar like Yu, however, who was committed to analyzing the
defects in existing institutions, it was also essential to e<mect the organization
and mode of operation of government agencies.
Yu divided his discussion of matters pertaining to government organization
and operations into several parts. He devised structural changes, including the
rational reorganization of agencies to eliminate waste and create better efficiency
and he discussed rules and regulations pertaining to the handling of bureau-
cratic personnel, including terms of office and procedures for the review of per-
formance. He also wrote a separate chapter on rites as opposed to laws as a
means of inducing conformity to regular procedures in ceremonies, commit-
ment to specific moral values, and limitations on arbitrary, ostentatious, and
profligate habits of expenditure. In addition, he worked out measures for local
control as well as structural rearrangement oflocal institutions. These measures579