734 REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONregulations for community compacts in 1659. The K'ang-hsi emperor expanded
the number of imperial exhortations to morality from six to sixteen by his own
Sacred Edict in [670, and the Yung-cheng emperor expanded them still further
in 1724, increased the personnel of the community compacts, and required semi-
monthly lecture sessions in 1729. Imperial edicts were issued periodically there-
after to extend compact organizations throughout the empire, but the purpose
of the compacts shifted more to local control than mutual admonition and moral
instruction, especially after 1724. A number of Chinese scholars promoted both
the Sacred Edict and the community compacts, but most officials could not be
bothered with them, scholars of character could not be found to function as lec-
turers, and the lecture sessions had become a routine and lugubrious burden for
both scholars and commoners alike. In any case the Ch'ing community com-
pacts never received much publicity in Korea.
Kung-ch'Lian Hsiao listed reasons why the compacts did not succeed in China
in the Ch' ing dynasty, and most of them seem to fit the Korean situation as well.
The general insufficiency of production was not high enough to sustain any altru-
istic concern for others, the appeals of the non-Confucian popular religious move-
ments and bandit bands to the illiterate peasants were far greater than Confucian
propaganda, the heads of the community compacts used their positions to wield
power, and the nature of the compacts themselves were transformed when they
took over the tasks of the pao-chia and t 'uan-licn and became the equivalent of
a local gendarmerie and militiaY
In Korea implementation was obstructed ostensibly because of the sufferings
of the population from famine, but what was probably far more important was
the popular mistrust of any excessively rigorous mechanism of control and reg-
ulation that would have extended the arm of punishment from the magistrate
directly into the village, particularly in defense of a hierarchical social struc-
ture that was the ideal of the Confucian-educated elite.
Some opponents of the community compacts did point out that they might
become more oppressive than the magistrates and clerks if they were taken over
by unrighteous individuals, local landlords, or central government officials, and
in fact the regulations devised by T'oegyc and Yulgok, in particular, could not
have convinced too many peasants that they could obtain justice through the
community compact when forced to bow and kowtow to the mighty. Contrary
to the declamations of the moralists, slaves and nothoi of yangban wanted to
escape the debilities of their status, and commoners preferred to run away from
their military service taxes or buy themselves official titles to gain some respect
from socicty.
The advocates of community compacts thought of themselves as spokesman
for social harmony and justice, but they hoped to ensure it by adopting a strict
and regimented system of social organization that would have eliminated almost
any opportunity for the untrammeled conduct of private life.