866 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMYconducting the business of everyday life. "The peasants in the fields, the resi-
dents of the towns. and the patrons of the makkOlli Igrog] shops only thought
of finding a few grains of rice to get through the vicissitudes of the next day,
and when because of their empty bellies their parents. wives, and children sought
the breast of sustenance. they never thought that having a few coins of cash on
them to take home would ever be of any aid in surviving."24
While the circulation of cash throughout the economy was deemed to be ben-
eficial, it should have occurred as a matter of course, and not been coercive.
Coercion had created obstacles against currency and caused problems in both
public and private life. Officials were making private profits in the name of pub-
lic duty, and residents of the northwest were suffering hardship from the pol-
icy. High ministers and loyal officials in the capital failed to study the policy
adequately and used force to implement the use of cash in the name of benefit-
ing both the nation and the people without taking cognizance of its ill effects.
In fact. the whole apparatus of the state was bound to a policy of deceit because
officials believed false stories and refused to believe accurate accounts: gover-
nors, magistrates, and scholars selected for court appointments did not know
the basic intention of the court's policy, nor were they or any court officials will-
ing to speak clear! yon the deficiencies of the program; they onl y confirmed that
it was possible to put cash into circulation, and they were encouraged in this by
disreputable profiteers. The only solution was for Hyojong to summon all impor-
tant capital officials to submit their honest views on the situation and carry out
changes that would take into account the needs of the people themselves.^25
Yi Kyongyo did not object to the use of metallic currency itself since it was
fully justified by both classical and historical precedent in China, but he did claim
that economic conditions and popular attitudes were not appropriate for it, and
forcing the use of currency by punishment had only created a tyrannical regime
without any prospects for success. His conservatism. in other words. was osten-
sibly not based on any Confucian or ideological commitment to the priority of
agriculture over commerce. but on the impropriety of a forced-draft transfor-
mation of a backward economy. Nevertheless, his complaints. like those of Kim
Suhang the previous year, resembled the standard resistance to change in almost
any age by people unwilling to pay the costs associated with creating a pre-
sumably more beneficial system.
The Use of Cash for taedong Tax Payments, I 654Kim Yuk was undaunted by this kind of conservative opposition. In late I6S4,
he tried to spread the use of cash by requiring it for taedong tax payments for
the upland districts of Ch'ungch'ong Province. Although many residents of the
area complained about the tax, Kim noted that the tax should not have caused
them too much suffering because the taedong tax was only two p 'il of cloth per
kyol of land when the peasants wove the cloth themselves. On the other hand,
those who could not weave cloth had to buy cloth on the market, and during a