76 EARLY CHOSON DYNASTYfinally succeeded in establishing domination by war or compromise over all the
daimyo of Japan.
This political consolidation was accompanied by reforms that expanded cen-
tral control over the fiscal resources of the country. In 1591 Hideyoshi completed
a national cadastral survey and established a uniform land tax of two-thirds of
the crop that provided regular income for the daimyo, who functioned as his
chief military vassals. He subordinated the previously independent samurai, or
local warriors, to the daimyo and himself by eliminating their proprietary rights
over their fiefs.^34 In short, he created a powerful military force based on a decen-
tralized, feudal structure of semiautonomous authority several times more pow-
erful than the apparently fully centralized regime of the Choson dynasty in Korea.
Lack of Defensive Preparations in Choson
By contrast, the centralized power of the Choson state had come unraveled by
the end of the sixteenth century. Korea was weakened politically by feuding
bureaucratic factions in the capital, fiscally by the corruption of the bureaucratic
apparatus and the failure to maintain tax revenues by the land and tribute taxes,
and militarily by the neglect of defense, the under-registration of the adult male
population for service, the exemption of slaves and yangban from military duty,
the lack of training, and the failure to adopt firearms.3^5
The court of King Sonjo failed to make any basic plan for national defense
despite the threat of an invasion, and took only desultory steps to send border
commissioners to the frontier and to repair some walls and moats. At the begin-
ning of the war the Korean army used only three walled towns as bases for its
operations, Pusan, Tongnae, and Kimhae, while other major towns like Sangju
and Ch'ungju had no military protection at all.3^6
There were a number of signs of Korean military weakness and lack of prepa-
ration in the decades before the invasion. In 1582 Yulgok recommended the
recruitment of the nothoi of yangban (sool) for service, permission for slaves
to purchase their freedom in return for joining the army as frontier soldiers, and
the creation of an army of 100,000 men, of which 20,000 would be stationed in
the capital and 10,000 in each province. The last proposal was rejected by Yu
Songnyong at the time on the grounds that it would cause more damage than it
would help, but he must have rued the day he uttered those words when he found
himself on the Yalu River in 1592 after the Korean army had been destroyed by
Hideyoshi's forcesY
In 1588, the provincial governor, Cho Un'hol, urged that twenty abandoned
strategic islands off the coast be immediately fortified and used as naval bases.
In 1590 Yi Hangbok recommended stationing forces at Pusan and strategic spots
such as K yonnaeryang and Kogum Island to block any Japanese advance by sea.
Kim Seryom warned about the likelihood of a Japanese attack in the third lunar
month, and he proposed establishing two new naval bases, one in the middle of