KING AND COURT 603
dard audience was held daily at the Hall of Convenience (Pyonjon) for his min-
isters, and the court audience was held every other day at the Hall of Rectitude
(Chongjon) for his officials. These conferences began with reports of any alerts
from the network of signal fires strung throughout the hilltops of the country to
warn of foreign invasions, and then proceeded to consideration of criminal cases
and military affairs. The next order of business was to discuss memorials from
officials, impeachments submitted by the censorate, and personnel appointments
by the state council and the six ministries. All discussion was held in the prcs-
ence of the king.
Ho noted that this procedure had been abandoned by thc "wild and lascivi-
ous" King Yonsan'gun, but King Chungjong failed to restore them after Yonsan'-
gun was deposed. In checking the court records for T 537, Ho found that the court
scribes were dutifully writing down "the regular audience is suspendcd" every
day even though the audience had not been held for thirty years, a symbol of
their ardent wish that the procedure might sometime be restored. Unfortunately.
when he found that in last year's records (no date) that thc court recorders had
abandoned their practice of even noting the suspension, tears came to his eyes
because he knew it meant that the methods of the founders of the dynasty had
been destroyed.
He asked Injo to study The Ceremonies of the Five Rites. reinstitute the daily
court audiences. and summon officials who had submitted written memorials
advance to the throne so that he could ask them specifically what their individ-
ual responsibilities were, how much work they had done, how many decisions
they had made, and how much they had spent, and then reward them for their
accomplishments or dismiss them from office depending on what they had done.
Furthermore, all officials in capital bureaus should attend their offices every day
and report what they had done the previous day. If this regimen were followed
strictly, it would become impossible for the clerks and petty ilTegular officials
to take over the duties of the regular ones.^42
Another important factor in Yu's consideration of this problem was the memo-
rial that Cho Hon submitted on Ming procedure at imperial audiences after he
returned from China in 1574. Cho had bcen impressed at the extent of personal
contact betwecn the emperor and his officials. Whenever the Six Boards had
business with the emperor, the officials would "face the throne in reporting the
matter," and if the remonstrance officials "had something they wanted to talk
about, they would hold their written memorial in their hands and personally pre-
sent it to the Emperor." Furthermore, if any of the governors or prefectural mag-
istrates had a report to make to him.
he would take along their clerks and runners and lead them into the court where
they would kneel down right by the stairs close by the Emperor, ... announce
the name of his bureau, his office rank, what state Ikuo, i.e., province] it was,
and what rank official he was in that state .... Even the lowest officials wearing
the smallest hats and the shabbiest clothes were all able to look up to view the