TRIBUTE AND THE TAEDONG REFORM 773Yu was, of course, attentive to Yulgok's criticism of the oppressive aspects of
tribute demands, in particular the surtax levied on peasant households to pay
the cost of obtaining tiger skins (homaemi). Originally intended to stimulate the
capture of tigers to reduce the threat to the population, the quota of two or three
tigers a year had become a source of extortion when the capital bureaus rejected
skins for being too small and demanded additional funds in cash and grain. Yul-
gok wanted to abolish the levy altogether and merely encourage villages to set
traps outside the village without levying a quota on them. If a government office
wanted tiger skins, they could simply buy them from trappers or merchants.^4
Yu mentioned that in 1567 Chief State Councilor Yi Chun'gyong proposed a
reform of the tribute system right after King Sonjo came to the throne, possibly
a reference to Yi's recommendation to establish a Directorate for Rectification
of Tribute (Chonggon-dogam) that was accepted by King Sonjo in 1570. Yu also
cited the plan Yulgok presented in 1569 for abolishing pangnap contracting that
Sonjo never adopted.^5 What Yu referred to but did not cite was Yulgok's sharp
critique of the tribute system in his "Questions and Answers at the Eastern Lake"
(Tongho mundap). In this essay Yulgok was especially critical of the extrava-
gant demands by Korean kings for their own special royal tribute (chinsang),
in violation of the classical, moral injunction for frugality by a king of true virtue.
Yulgok charged that in his own time the smallest and pettiest items of con-
sumption and the vast resources of the sea were thoroughly inspected for selec-
tion as tribute for the king's cuisine, "leaving hardly anything left over" for the
people's consumption. "The sage kings of ancient times believed that one man
should govern the empire, not that the empire should make offerings for the sup-
port of one man."
Yulgok argued that even if royal tribute were retained, the king was obliged to
reduce quotas to demonstrate his love for the people. He deprecated the popular
view that royal tribute was a necessary and sincere fulfillment of the subject's
loyalty to his monarch because the real way to show love and respect for the ruler
was to govern the state well and ensure the wealth and prosperity of the com-
mon people's income. He recalled that in the court ofthe sage emperor Shun, his
esteemed ministers had demonstrated their loyalty by criticizing Shun's use of
lacquerware at his own court rather than simply offering more gifts to him.
Yulgok mentioned that the tribute system had not been oppressive in the early
Choson dynasty because the people were required to pay tribute items directly
to the magistrate, who then remitted them to the bureaus in the capital. There
was no opportunity for clerks and runners to deceive the officials or interfere
with tribute payments, but as time passed clerks and runners obstructed direct
payment of tribute to the king (pangnap) and demanded payment in rice and
cloth at elevated prices. Since respect for law had fallen into decline by that
time, no methods were devised to solve the problem other than prohibiting sub-
stitute payments and ordering peasants to pay tribute in kind, but the peasants
were forced to rely on contracting because they had long since ceased produc-
ing quota goods. The substitution of rice and cloth payments in tribute contracting