792 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMYfor all three provinces in the south, the king indicated he still favored the three
mal/kyat rate, but only for Ch'ungch'ong Province. A few days later Kim Yuk
agreed even though it was not as good as a higher tax rate, and Yi Sibang also
argued that tax revenues would be insufficient. Hyojong said it would be worth
testing the three mal/kyat surtax in Ch'ungch'ong first to decide whether the peas-
ants or the private merchants (sajuin) would end up paying the greater part of
the tax, but Yi insisted that the taedong system should be adopted immediately
because it had worked well in Kangwon Province. Ho Chok reaffirmed his pre-
vious advice that the reform be confined to Ch'ungch'ong Province because its
tribute burden was almost double that of ChOila even though it had only 140,000
kyat ofland to Cholla's 190,000 kyal, but he supported Kim Yuk's and Yi Sibang's
preference for the higher taedong rate because it would cover all administrative
and transportation costs as well as tribute.
When the conference apparently ended with Hyojong's decision to adopt a
three-mal surtax for Ch'ungch'ong alone, Kim Yuk obtained Hyojong's approval
to put Yi Sibang and Ho Chok in charge of implementing the order. In the next
few days, however, Hyojong changed his mind and decided in favor of the higher
taedong rate and signified his willingness to adopt the views of Kim Yuk, Yi
Sibang, and Ho Chok for a more ambitious policy of eliminating all miscella-
neous charges for goods and services as well as tribute payments.3^6
When King Hyojong finally promulgated an edict decreeing adoption of the
taedong system in Ch'ungch'ong Province in the fall of 165 I, he recounted how
the tribute system had only provided an opportunity for the capital tribute mid-
dlemen (kyangjuin) to reap twenty to thirty times the value of tribute items by
their market transactions in the pangnap scheme and double the tax burden on
the local districts. He noted how officials had been split between those who pre-
ferred keeping but reforming the tribute regulations and those who wanted sub-
stitute rice or cloth for tribute in kind, and he gave full credit to Kim Yuk for his
forceful and persuasive advocacy of the taedong system.37
Ching Young Choe has asserted in his study of this case that extension of the
taedong throughout the country was prolonged, among other reasons, by "the
characteristic ... weakness of the authority of the king and the absence of any
other co-ordinating and directing center of government operations." He also
argued that bold decisions required a king of "exceptionally strong character
and of constructive and realistic imagination," and that the taedong system had
been advanced by "a few reformers" who responded to a "grave national cri-
sis."3^8 Choe's conclusions were generally valid, but in this instance the advo-
cates of reform were well placed in the highest ranks of the central government,
and the king himself had been favorably disposed to it from the beginning of
his reign. He had been constrained against bolder moves not only by the oppo-
sition of wealthy landlords and conservative bureaucrats, but by the fear that
people of moderate wealth and poorer peasants might not trust government
promises to solve their problems by imposing a new tax. Hyojong initially favored
the three-mal rate because the people were more likely to accept a low surtax,