TRIBUTE AND THE TAEDONG REFORM 795Provincial officials were ignoring the taedong provisions to compensate peas-
ants for labor service, and were spending surplus taedong rice revenues for them-
selves. Song Siy6l claimed in 1657 that officials spent funds as soon as they
received them and then attempted to replenish what they had spent by levying
extra taxes, a perversion of the formula for setting tax quotas on the basis of
anticipated expenditures (yangch 'ul wiip). In any case, he preferred the time-
honored procedure of limiting their expenditures to revenues actually received
(yang'ip wich ·u/).
If there did happen to be a surplus of revenues, officials and clerks loaned
them out at interest for their own profit rather than keeping them as a reserve,
and tribute agents and underlings of capital bureaus were also buying inferior
merchandise on the market at prices lower than authorized by the government
to earn profits for themselves. He therefore asked that the taedong tax be cut to
provide relief to the peasants.^45
King Hyojong did not respond to Yi Man'ling's proposal, but he did not believe
that there was sufficient evidence of success in Ch'ungch'6ng Province to jus-
tify Kim Yuk's proposal in 1654 to extend the taedong system to Ch6lla. In 1656,
Kim Yuk complained that in Ch61la the required labor service assessed for the
repair of thirteen warships that had been lost at sea, or the substitute cloth taxes
to pay for this service (yokp '0), was costing peasant families about fifty to sixty
p'il. "The people of Ch6lla were in great sorrow and wondered why [the king]
only loved Ch'ungch'6ng and took no pity on usT' lfthe Ch'ungch'6ng taedong
surtax of ten mal/kyol were adopted, not only the repair of warships but also the
costs of royal tribute could be financed as well.^46
In 1657, Kim Yuk claimed that the several million people of Ch6lla had been
clamoring for the adoption of the law in their province, but their desires had
been frustrated by the opposition of fifty-odd magistrates. Since peasants were
already paying over sixty mal of rice per kyol to meet their tribute obligations
under the tribute contract system, the adoption of the taedong surtax would reduce
their taxes to less than one-fifth their current burden and meet all revenue require-
ments for the province as well. Contrary to Yi Man'ling's earlier assertion, Kim
argued that despite the opposition of the Ch'ungch'6ng magistrates to the tac-
dong system, the peasants were overjoyed with it, and the province had become
the envy of its neighbors.47
Hyojong ordered his high officials to discuss Kim's proposal in September,
but they had become cautious after censor Yi Man'ling's insistence that no fur-
ther extension of the taedong law be enacted until a full study be conducted of
its effect in Ch'ungch'6ng. Minister of Taxation Hong My6ngha and Minister of
the Right Yi Huw6n warned that even though coastal residents favored the law,
there was no maritime transport system established in Ch611a to send tribute prod-
ucts to the capital so that they could be purchased on the open market, and in
any case the population of the upland region was opposed to the taedong sys-
tem altogether. Two months later, the next Minister of Taxation, Ch6ng Yusong,
objected to open market purchases of goods by the government because expe-