804 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
by the taedong tax would be stored as insurance against any future crop disas-
ters, or loaned out at interest to maintain a fresh fund to pay for costs, and records
would be kept to prevent any waste. Funds from the Ever-Normal Bureau (Sang-
p'yongch'ong) would be also used as a reserve in case of shortages. To ensure
fair tax distribution, the smallest of the four categories of districts paid only one-
twelfth the amount required of the largest ones.
Taxes Replaced by Taedong Tax. In Cholla Province some taxes collected for
royal tribute were retained in the province for the governor to purchase special
types of food and other items for presentation to the national Royal Ancestral
Shrine (Chongmyo). Magistrates were authorized to obtain local tribute prod-
ucts for the entertainment of foreign visitors, furs and pelts for royal tribute,
clerical costs for the triennial household (census) registers, fees for the manu-
facture of nitrates and explosives, expenses in transfer ceremonies for magis-
trates transferred prior to the expiration of their full tern1 of office, provincial
examinations for civil and military candidates, and musicians. A serious omis-
sion from the taedong financial system, however, was the continuation of arbi-
trary levies on the people for payments of pheasants. chickens, ice. and firewood
used by the district magistrate.^66
Benefits and Weaknesses. Han Yongguk felt that although the half-dozen types
of tribute or labor service that were not eliminated did preserve the legality of
arbitrary tribute or service levies, the taedong system was rational and modem
because on balance it eliminated most of the unplanned, arbitrary, and exces-
sive collections of the tribute system. It improved the distribution of taxes by
replacing communal taxpaying by administrative district with a more equitable
system of individual taxation. It simplified the multifold and various types of
tribute payments to rice and cloth taxes, reduced transport costs by allowing
upland areas to pay cloth instead of rice, prohibited all irregular levies beyond
those specified by law, and reduced government costs by setting prices to be
paid for the purchase of tribute goods and dividing provincial districts into four
categories to determine the level of their tax expenditures. It also provided spe-
cial measures for supplementary funds if tax revenues fell short. and replaced
compulsory labor service with wage payments.
As a compromise with existing conditions, however, the taedong regulations
excluded currently tax-exempt land owned primarily by members of the privi-
leged elite from the taedong surtax, permitted tribute levies of common items
of consumption, and allowed governors to demand special and rare products
from areas in their jurisdictions for the consumption of prestigious visitors. Han
argued that these compromises were produced by the constraints of what he called
the "feudal state system."6^7
Extension to C/u)//a. Kim Yuk had believed that extension of the taedong sys-
tem to Chi)]]a was particularly urgent because of the importance of the province
to agricultural production and the need to alleviate the tax burden on the provin-
cial population. In 1587. Cholla had 442, I 89 kyoi ofthe national total of 1,5 ro, I 94
kyo! of land in the country (29.3 percent), paid 353,744 som of 1,087.477 som