52 EARLY CHOSCm DYNASTYwarp threads by Cheng Hsuan in his commentary on the funeral rituals of the
classic I-Ii (The Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial). Cloth was generally divided
into two categories of fine cloth (sep () and rough cloth (ch 'up 0). According to
the I-Ii ceremonial hats were woven from fine black threads of 30-sae cloth, or
2,400 warp threads, and the ceremonial court gown was woven of I5-sae cloth
with 1,200 warp threads. In the twelfth century, however, Chu Hsi questioned
these numbers since in his own time it was difficult enough to produce fine cloth
of 20 sae, and even I5-sae cloth could only be woven of the finest silk.
Yi Ik, an eighteenth-century Korean scholar, however, insisted that the Kore-
ans of the Unified Silla period had been able to weave fine cloth of 30-40 sae
and in fact presented it to the Tang emperors for tribute, and the Samguk sagi
(The History of the Three Kingdoms) in Korea also recorded that cloth of 26 and
28 sae was woven for men and women of the chin' gol or true bone aristocracy.
Nonetheless, by latc Koryo times no cloth was woven finer than 20 sae, and after
the establishment of the Choson dynasty in 1392 fine cloth (sep 0) of 12 sae was
presented as tribute to the Ming emperor or the Korean king.
The bolts of cloth used as currency had a smaller thread count and were less
valuable. The standard bolt called correct cloth (chDngpo) consisted of 5 sae
and was woven first in ramie but then replaced almost entirely by cotton by the
mid-fifteenth century. Types of cloth of a cheaper grade called ordinary cloth
(sangpo) or rough cloth (ch'upo), had lower thread counts of 2 or 3 sae and
were about half the value of correct cloth. Because rough cloth was the cheap-
est, its increasing use in the market inflated the prices of commodities and drove
out the more expensive correct cloth in accordance with Gresham's law.
In the last year of the Koryo dynasty, 139 I, King Kongyang accepted Pang
Saryang's recommendation that the Korean government mint copper cash,
allow it to circulate with paper money, and abolish the use of rough cloth (ch 'up ()
for currency. The office of currency was replaced by the Paper Money Treasury
(Chasom chohwago), which printed paper bills valued at one p'il of 5 sae "cor-
rect cloth" (ramie cloth), or 1/,0 p'i! of cotton cloth (myonpo), or one mal of rice
each in the style of the Sung and Yuan notes, but the paper bills rapidly lost
value (declining to one toe or 1/10 mal of rice and 1/100 p 'il of myonp 0 per bill)
and only nine months later in 1392 both paper money and the Paper Money Trea-
sury were abolished.
Nonetheless, initiative and support for the printing of paper money came from
active officials in the central government who were influenced by thc Chinese
monetary conditions, advanced since the Sung dynasty. Yi Songgye, the subse-
quent founder of the Choson dynasty, may have been responsible for this rever-
sal of policy for political rather than economic reasons because as virtual military
dictator of the Koryo government in 1392 he may have been opposed to any
monetary measure that would increase the financial resources of the tottering
Koryo dynasty.
In short, Korea was more advanced in the development of commerce, trade,
and monetary instruments in the Silla and Koryo periods than it was after the