942 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMYand had to be replaced. As for other possible alternatives to cash, Yi suggested
three types that he had personally witnessed. In his youth he had noticed a kind
of ordinary bolt of cotton cloth used in the market that was fairly wide and short
in dimension called the chorvangmok, then another type of cotton called the ham-
sanp'o that usually was of poor weave and turned black but was only used by
private families in making purchases at early morning or evening markets, and
lastly, a small coin (soch on) that was one fourth the weight of a "large coin"
(taejbn). YOngjo said he had seen neither paper money nor the choryangmok
cotton bolts, but he was still opposed to cash because since its introduction "the
minds ofthe people and the mores of the time have gradually become more con-
trary and mistaken." He could not abolish cash, however, until he found a suit-
able replacement, and he directed his court officials to continue discussing
alternatives.^22
Two months later Yongjo convened another court audience to discuss a suit-
able replacement for cash and reform of the military support tax system
(yangyc'5k) simultaneously. The conference must have been a deep disappoint-
ment to him because only three officials were willing to accept any medium of
exchange other than cash; the thirteen others who expressed their views either
denigrated alternate choices or argued that cash was indispensable to the econ-
omy. Nonetheless, the testimony of the officials revealed an interesting variety
of opinions about the relationship between principles of taxation, interest rates,
prices, and the medium of exchange.
Minister of Punishments So Myonggyun and Magistrate of Seoul Kim Tong-
p'il supported reinstatement of Hong Ch'ijung's compromise plan and urged
Yongjo to continue collecting the military support tax in cloth and forbid the
military divisions and units from accumulating cash reserves, but not primarily
because cotton cloth was necessarily superior to cash as a medium. Kim Tong-
p'il, for that matter, was really in favor of minting more cash but he also retreated
to Hong Ch' ijung 's compromise. Instead of trying to defend the superiority of
cotton or any other medium to cash, however, he forthrightly admitted that not
only bolts of common cloth but even paper money were worse than copper cash
as the failure of the fifteenth-century experiment with paper money had demon-
strated.
Censor-General Song Chinmyong argued that if the king chose to abandon
cash for either of these alternatives, he would be forced to reinstate it soon after
and so damage the prestige of his reign that the people would take it as a sign
that the dynasty was declining rapidly toward its own demise. Cash savings in
the private and public sector were so extensive that the king had no alternative
but to mint more. Kim Tongp'il also pointed out that since every country in the
world had been using cash since ancient times, the main problem was not the
physical nature of the medium but finding the right way to manage it.
Kim also told Yongjo that if he abolished cash as legal tender, it would wipe
out the monetary value of both government and private cash savings, anger poor
debtors by obliterating the cash they already possessed and needed to pay their