OFFICIAL SALARIES AND EXPENSES 831delegation of about forty to fifty people. Under the taedong law operating in
some provinces the Office for Dispensing Benevolence (Sonhyech'ong) had pro-
vided the cost for buying some of the items involved in entertaining envoys, but
Yu argued that since it had not funded the construction of permanent hostels
everywhere, it would be better simply to abolish the current system altogetherY
Yu justified these proposals by appealing not simply to abstract reason or eco-
nomic logic, but to the superiority of classical precedents established in late Chou
China. The states of the late Chou period appointed officials to receive visitors
and envoys, including those from enemy states, and paid the cost of their upkeep.
In contemporary Korea, however, there was neither an office nor a system to
take sole responsibility for hostels for foreign envoys and guests. Not only did
the district magistrates, local clerks, slaves, and the rural population in general
have to abandon their work to provide for the entertainment of visitors, but the
highest officials in the capital also had to devote their time to this task as well.
"This is a situation where the state can be driven to ruin without waiting for a
war to occur." In addition to establishing permanent hostels in the districts, offi-
cials in the capital could be selected to administer these tasks, even as a con-
current appointment.}}
Finally, Yu complained about the exorbitant costs required to pay for the cer-
emonies that accompanied the departure of magistrates, garrison commanders,
educational officials, and post -station chiefs who had finished their term of office
and the welcoming of their replacements. Requisitions of men and horses. food,
utensils, and banquets were so onerous that the practice had become one of the
major evils in local administration and had been responsible for "destroying the
livelihood of the people." Some peasants had been recruited as bearers and were
sometimes required to stay in the capital for long periods: others had to pay sev-
eral p'il of cloth taxes to provide support. In the case of Hungdok (Hlmgdok-
hyon), a district of only 1,000 households, the magistrate had been changed ten
times in nine years and the total levy on the population to pay the expenses of
the ceremonies and transportation came to 700 tong (35,000 p'if, or 3.88 p'if
per household per year).
He also cited the words of Cho Hon in the late sixteenth century that the Korean
system was especially egregious because transfers of officials occurred too fre-
quently. No sooner had they arrived at their posts than thcy spent the entire accu-
mulated resources of the district before being transferred elsewhere, and every
time a change was made the people had to pay for the transfer ceremony and
travel costs for an average trip of about three hundred miles. The Chinese did
not have this problem because they required all officials to pay their own mov-
ing costs even for distances of over three thousand miles.
Yu proposed to reduce costs and limit the number of authorized attendants
for provincial officials in transit. The provincial governor and his assistant (Tosa)
and the provincial army and navy commanders and their aides (Uhu) could only
be accompanied by three or four clerks and slaves if they were traveling to the
capital. Possibly the ceremony for the departure of local officials from the cap-