Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais

OFFICIAL SALARIES AND EXPENSES 835

had been a serious problem for peasants because too many clerks had been used

for this job, he allowed only one or two to perform this task. By establishing the

correct procedure, simplifying the process, and putting it under the officials, he

hoped to restrict interference by clerks by confining their responsibilities only

to receiving written documents. Yu specified that the amount of paperwork

required be reduced to about three days by discarding the current requirement

that the complete land registers (chon an) be copied out in triplicate every year;

instead he simply permitted records of damaged land to be inserted into the tile.

Finally, he allowed that the district magistrate would petition the governor for

the cost for repairing walls, moats, and official buildings, and the throne for spe-

cial budgeting for any large projects.^40

Procedure for Disbursement of Official Funds

Yu declared that his system would require a calculation of the price of all the

above-mentioned goods and services and extra considerations for wear-and-tear

or replacement costs in terms of their rice value (chormi) and payment by the

government's treasuries to each bureau each month. The Minisfry of Taxation,

in other words, would "make disbursements" (chiha) from "government funds"

(kyongbi) obtained by regular revenues. The Ministry of Taxation would then

summon the designated purchasing masters or agents (chringjuin or simply chl/ill)

to take charge of the purchase of paper, firewood, and other goods as the "trib-

ute middlemen" (kongmul chuin) had done under the taedong system. The cur-

rent practice of demanding bedding, paper or its value in cloth for stationery

used in lawsuits, and firewood, torches, and candles used in capital bureaus by

levies on the people would be abolished. Furthermore, all office expenses tra-

ditionally paid for by income from office expense land (konghaejOn) would be

eliminated and provided by ordinary tax revenues from government fundsY

Yu also charged that yamen or government offices unjustly levied surtaxes of

rice and cloth on peasants in addition to ordinary tribute. Runners working as

constables in legal or criminal cases demanded fees for their own support, mil-

itary garrisons had the clerks squeeze the soldiers for their expenses, and clerks

in magistrates' yamen extorted wood and fuel from soldiers on duty. The Royal

Secretariat in the capital demanded that any magistrate who left his position had

to pay them a "pen debt" (p' ilch 'ae), which they collected by levying another

cloth surtax. Yu remarked that all these practices had in fact become accepted

practice, and officials did not seem to realize that the situation was deplorable.^42

FULL SALARIES FOR ALL OFFICIALS

Ancient Principles

One ofYu's contributions to the literature on financial reform was his idea that

the creation of a fund raised by revenues from the land tax - a key feature of