PROVINCIAL AND LOCAL ADMINISTRATION 687
service altogether as long as inherited slavery could not abolished. Even though
some felt that service by female slaves was essential for service, at least as cooks
in palaces and offices, others regarded men as superior to women in every job
and pointed out that male servants performed all the work in the king's Royal
Cuisine Office (Saongwon). It would be better that female slaves in service to
government agencies be sent home and required to pay tribute to the Court for
Providing Aid (in charge of currency) (Sasomsi), which also controlled respon-
sibility for collection of tribute from slaves. In addition, until the present hered-
itary slave law was abolished, children of slaves would be registered on the slave
records according to current regulations. Yu's response to government service
for female slaves was consistent with his hope to alleviate some of the evils asso-
ciated with hereditary slavery, a unique protest against the dominant male chau-
vinism of contemporary mores.^29
POST-STATIONS AND GRAIN-TR;\NSPORT GRANARIESIn the mid-seventeenth century there were forty-one chiefs of post-stations (Ch'al-
bang), double the twenty-two that existed in Koryo times. Yu intended to reduce
the size and expense of this system. He pointed out that in ancient times spe-
cific military garrisons did not have to be created because district magistrates
were held responsible for the first line of defense against foreign invasion. The
number of post-stations could be reduced as well by transferring responsibility
for the transmission of documents to district magistrates. Only naval garrisons
served by rotating duty soldiers could not be so easily eliminated. Management
of the horses and equipment associated with post-station and communication
service did require a separate management staff, but economy could be achieved
by placing a single chief (Ch'albang) in charge of a number of post-stations, an
easy way to allocate resources economically because of Korea's small sizc. .")
The Maritime Transport Granaries (Choch'ang), however, were distinct from
other provincial agencies. In the Koryo period there were twelve transport gra-
naries established along rivers in the southern provinces for internal transport,
and ten along the coast for maritime transport of tax grain to the capitalY Pos-
sibly the number of granaries had fallen into disuse during the period of disor-
der of King Yejong's reign and the period of military rule in the late twelfth
century. In the fourteenth century, most tax grain for the capital had to be sent
inland because of the frequent plunder of the seacoast by the Wako pirates, and
at the beginning of the Chason dynasty there were only four granaries along the
coast and five on rivers. During Hideyoshi's invasions in 1597 districts along
the coast stopped submitting taxes to the grain transport granaries for trans-
shipment to the capital and hired private vessels to ship the grain directly them-
selves. The cost of the ships for both river and maritime transport was born by
the granary workers and sailors who were given tax exemptions as compensa-
tion, but it was insufficient to defray the severity of the burden.
There were no regular officials for the river transport granaries and the provin-