COPPER CASH AND THE MONETARY SYSTEM 875
from active officials like Kim Yuk and kings like Hyojong, and the scholars derived
inspiration from the arguments of these men.CONCLUSIONIn Korea higher levels of trade and the use of supposedly more advanced forms
of currency than bolts of cloth or bags of grain had been achieved earlier in the
Silla and Koryo periods. After copper cash had largely disappeared from Korean
markets by the mid-sixteenth century, a number of officials were inspired to rein-
troduce it because of the example of the more advanced and prosperous late Ming
economy and because of the government's need for revenue. The policy was
supported by Kings Injo and Hyojong and a number of officials in addition to
Kim Yuk, but it was not easily sustained because of the public's mistrust of cash
and of government officials, who often used illogical and coercive means to
enforce its use. At times the policy was reversed because of the disruption caused
by the Manchu invasions, which caused the population to question the serious-
ness of the government's commitment to the permanent use of cash, and its penal-
izing of those who had begun to use it. Since the supply of copper was such a
crucial drawback to the policy's success, the failure of the government to ensure
a sufficient supply of cash, or copper to mint cash, to meet the needs for the pay-
ment of taxes, loans, and fines also weakened the willingness of the public to
accept its use.
The record does not seem to indicate that the anti-commercial bias of Con-
fucian thought was the main obstacle to the adoption of copper cash in the first
half of the seventeenth century, despite Won Yuhan's arguments to the contrary.
Although many officials did argue that the peasantry was not ready to accept
cash primarily because they were happy with a subsistence level of consump-
tion, had nothing but simple needs, and did not need or want copper cash, in my
view they did so because of what they perceived to be the state of mind among
the peasantry. It is certainly not clear that the interests ofthe landlords, whether
yangban or commoner, would have been adversely affected by the introduction
of copper coinage into the economy, because as moneylenders and creditors they
could easily have profited as much from loans of cash as loans of grain.
When King Hyojong abandoned the attempt to introduce cash into Korea in
1657, it did not mean the failure of the effort, merely its postponement. After
minting was resumed in 168 I, cash became a permanent feature of the econ-
omy, and part of the reason was that the use of cash in some parts of the econ-
omy continued even after minting had been suspended in 1657. One must assume
that there had been a sufficient increase in the volume of internal trade to sus-
tain the use of cash and the demand for more of it in the leading commercial
areas to ensure its acceptance after 1681.
Yu Hyongwon, who was probably working assiduously on his masterwork in
the period after King Hyojong's decision to cease more minting of cash, was