DISINTEGRATION OF THE EARLY CHOSON 81it wanted to maintain the principle that each province had responsibility for its
own defense.^54
Yu was also in error in dating the origin of the system of dispatching the mobile
border commander and other field officers from thc capital. The practice of dis-
patching civil officials with concurrent military command rcsponsibilitics to the
provinces during emergencies had been used at thc beginning of thc dynasty,
abandoned in the mid-fifteenth century, and then readopted with a change in the
titles of such officers in 1488, long before the Japanese attack in 1555. This revival
probably occurred because of the decline in effectiveness of the local chin' g-
wan garrisons, and its revival meant that the central government was assuming
command responsibilities in place of the provincial army and navy comman-
ders (Py6ngsa, Susa) whose authority must have been reduced.
In 1555, just after the Wak6 pirates were defeated, the Border Defense Com-
mand (Piby6nsa) realized that a system in which command over provincial or
local forces was vested in capital officials was fundamentally flawed and
decided to cease the dispatch of commanders from the capital and appoint the
provincial governors as concurrent mobile inspectors (Sunch'alsa), the title of
the fourth official down in the chain of command of capital civil officials dis-
patched as military commanders over armies in the field (as established in 1488).
When the threat of another Japanese attack occurred in 1558, however, the gov-
ernment reverted to the practice of sending a supreme mobile inspector
(Tosunch'alsa, the third ranking official in the 1488 chain of command) from
the capital, probably because it lacked confidence in the provincial chin' gwan
system.^55
The mobile border commander (Sunhy6nsa) was simply a new name created
in 1558 for the old mobile inspector (Sunch'alsa), who was the assistant of the
supreme mobile inspector (Tosunch'alsa). This was done to avoid confusion since
in 1555 the provincial governors had been given the title of mohile inspector as
a concUlTency. The other two officials, the defense commander (Pang'6sa), and
the auxiliary defense officer (Chobangjang), mentioned above werc not estab-
lished until 1570 when the government received reports from Tsushima that
armed Japanese pirates had appeared. Kim Sumun, who had fought against the
Japanese in 1555 as magistrate of Cheju (island), was merely appointed a mobile
border commander in Ky6ngsang (not Ch611a) Province in 1558.
Contrary to Yu's perception, thc dispatch of commanders from the capital had
been general policy since the Three Ports Uprising (Samp 0 waeran) of Japan-
ese residents in those ports in 1510. When generals (Taejang) or defense com-
manders wcrc scnt from the capital they brought a small contingcnt of their own
troops with them. Thc provincial troops, both rank and filc, wcrc simply
assigned to the capital commanders either as core or auxiliary units; they were
not separated from thcir commanding officers or their units.,6
On the othcr hand, at the time of the 1555 incident it had become clear that
the regular soldiers assigned to garrisons were untrained for fighting, so that
commanders dispatchcd from the capital had to recruit and mobilize whomever