906 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
to him that a large amount of copper had been used by the Korean people to
make bowls, basins, and other implements, and the dozen or so Buddhist monas-
teries and temples located in almost every district of the country must have had
a large number of bronze bells, He did not suggest that these utensi Is and bells
would necessarily have to be melted down to mint cash, but he did argue that if
the nation'8 entire resources could be mobilized, it should not be difficult to raise
funds to pay for copper and tin imports, Furthermore, since domestic copper
ore was in short supply, the state would not have to worry too much about ille-
gal private or mining or counterfeit minting of cash that might depreciate the
value of the coins. Again, Won Yuhan accused Yu of being unrealistic and imprac-
tical because Korea did not have the financial resources to import large quanti-
ties of copper from Japan.^43
Lack afLeadership at the Top
Yu did believe that the real responsibility for the failure of cash policy had to
be ascribed to the lack of leadership by the man at the top (wisangjiin) of gov-
ernment, although he could have been referring to "men at the top," including
the king's highest ministers and advisers as well, since his classical Chinese (han-
mun) text did not distinguish between singular and plural. He pointed out that
King Sukchong of Koryo wisely ordered the adoption of cash but failed to pro-
vide guidance for ensuring that it would be put into permanent circulation, some-
thing that cash itself could not have achieved on its own, or by any natural process.
The main means for providing guidance was for the government simply to col-
lect taxes in cash and use that cash to pay for official purchases and expenses.
Sukchong had failed to do this because he was content merely to issue cash to
high officials and soldiers on a one-time basis and set up wine shops in the wards
of the capital to accept cash for payment for a limited service rather than con-
vert all or part of the tax system to cash.
To indicate his flexibility in the face of resistance to conversion of the tax and
salary system to cash, Yu was willing to accept a more moderate conversion to
cash of just half official taxes and salaries as the minimum requirement for achiev-
ing a permanent adoption of cash as the main medium of exchange. He made
this concession because he thought a certain minimum amount of cash in cir-
culation and a minimum volume of cash and frequency of transactions had only
to be reached to break through the logjam of obstructionism. To illustrate his
point he used the metaphor of the gates of irrigation dikes in controlling the flow
of water into the fields. Cash was like water but could not flow easily if the dikes
were closed. Only if the manager ofthe dikes tripped open the gates would the
water then cascade freely into the fields. Without the guidance of the ruler in
providing stimulus for the flow of cash, even China would not have succeeded
in promoting the use of cash.