Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais

COMMUNITY COMPACT SYSTEM 711

was needed to settle people down and create a moral basis for social relations
and spiritual values. 10

Confucian Archery and Wine-Drinking Rites

Yi T'aejin has argued that the movement to revive the Yuhyangso in the late fif-

teenth century was led by the idealistic wing of the Neo-Confucians known as

"the scholars of the forest" (sarimp 1:[ or sarim) as part of their effort to cleanse

the mores and morals of local communities by adopting Chinese institutions,

including defining the village according to a set number of households, estab-

lishing village granaries, conducting the local wine-drinking and archery ritu-

als, and replicating the Ui-Family community compact that Chu Hsi had

advocated in the twelfth century. Yi has also argued throughout his work that

the sarimp a and the reform movement of Nco-Confucians was led by small and

medium landowners, a popular thesis among other South Korean scholars as

wcll, but it has not bccn demonstrated by solid empirical research and has been

effectively refuted by John Duncan in his recent dissertation on the Koryo/Choson

transition. 1 1

Chu Hsi's village granary (sach ang), designed to take loans out of the con-

trol of magistrates and put them in the hands of the elite in thc villages, was first

advocated in 1440, tried out in thirtcen villages in Taegu in Kyongsang Province

in 1448, and expandcd in 1450. The policy was supported by a number of offi-

cials and ex-officials committed to Neo-Confucian ideas, but they were cither

driven out of office or retired after King Sejo usurped King Tanjong's throne in

1455.^12
In the late fifteenth century some local yangban led a movemcnt to adopt thc
archery (hyangsarve) and wine-drinking rites (hyang'tllnjurye) of the Chinese
Chou dynasty. As described in the Rites of Chou, the local elite (hsiang ta~fil)
would listen to a lecture from the Ssu-t'u (minister of education) about the laws
of the state, transmit its contents to the head of the local area and select dates
for the conduct of the local archery and wine-drinking rites. The archery rite
was conducted as a means for rectifying the will, not simply as a contest of mil-
itary skill, and the wine-drinking rite was conducted to demonstrate respect and
deference to pcople because of their age, virtue, and moral talents. Chong Toj6n
supported the conduct of both these rites in the I 390s, and King Sejong included
them in his Five Ritual Ceremonies.
Kim ChOngjik, the renowned leader of the sarimpa scholars and officials
according to some current scholars, conducted these two rites during his stint
as district magistrate of Sonsan in Kyongsang Province, and his followers praised
the rites in King S6ngjong's court. In a protracted debate that lasted from ]483
to I488 Kim and his men also supported the restoration of the Yuhyangso because
they thought it reproduced the essence of Chou principles of local self-govern-
ment and was needed to purify the standards of district magistrates and restore
harmony to family relations that had heen disrupted by intrafamily strife over