628 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONto reduce their numbers and improve their quality only by recruiting the most
qualified men.
Ordinary clerks (Sori) would be subdivided into two grades, attendants
(Sujong) for specific regular officials and those assigned to the post (Chikeh'ong).
These clerks would then provide the only pool for the selection of the best men
for promotion to the chief clerk positions. Procedure for the selection would
combine a minimum of nine years' of experience followed by an examination
held at the Ministry of Personnel. The clerks would be examined on the Clas-
sic of Filiality (Hsiao-hsiieh) and the Four Books in addition to the laws and the
Dynastic Code (TaejOn), writing in the square or exact style, and mathematical
calculations. His superior assistant officials would also have to guarantee in writ-
ing that the candidate was without fault or had committed no criminal action.
The process of selection of superior clerks and chief clerks owed more to the
procedure of examinations than what Yu would have retained for recruiting reg-
ular officials. After six years of duty as a chief clerk the Ministry of Personnel
would hold triennial examinations to test them on their knowledge of the Six
Classics and the Family Rites (Chia-li) in addition to the other texts. Those who
passed the test would receive an increase in salary and an additional grant of
land, similar to the recommendation of Chong Tojon at the beginning of the
dynasty to test high-level clerks to raise the quality of their work.^54
Current practice called for the downward transfer of clerks (Sari) who had
completed a tour of duty to the post of a post-station clerk (YOksung). By installing
a system for examining and recommending ordinary clerks (Sari) for promo-
tion to the post of chief clerk (Noksa), he was seeking to restore the support and
prestige for clerks that had declined in the early fifteenth century when the posi-
tion of clerks was reduced to enhance the status and power of regular officials.
On the other hand, Yu was not willing to allow clerks the right to promotion
to the regular bureaucracy after completion of their tour of duty, a practice that
had existcd in the early Choson period. In early Koryo times chief clerks had
high status because many of them were recruited from families of officials or
the local gentry, called hyangni, and they were eligihle for promotion to regu-
lar official positions after seven years and six months of service, nine years in
the late fourteenth century. Until the mid-fifteenth century the approximately
400 to 500 chief clerks could still obtain a promotion to a regular post, but it
became more difficult because they first had to serve a minimum of eight to thirty-
one years of service as a clerk - or twenty-two years on the average - depend-
ing on the office they had worked for. Nonetheless, by the late fifteenth century
there were more promoted clerks than passers of the civil service examination
who were appointed to regular posts, and 2.2 percent of the passers of the civil
service examination (munkwa) had also been active chief clerks. To clear the
glut of expectant clerks awaiting transfer to regular office, the Ky/Jngguk taejon
(law code of 1469) reduced the required term of service for clerks who had
reached rank 6B as an irregular official to about eight years, after which a chief
clerk could be appointed to district magistrate or a military sinecure (ch 'eajik)