948 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMYthroughout the country he had learned that the regressive structure of the mili-
tary support tax was more important than cash or interest rates. The burden of
that tax fell most heavily on the yangmin or commoner peasants because of the
tax exemption granted to yangban, scholars, and students (yugyosaeng), and that
the yangmin peasants had to increase their burden of debt to the wealthy to pay
taxes. The families of the scholars, officials, and students paid no tax at all, while
the commoner families paid at the rate of two p 'il per adult male, or six to twelve
p 'il per household if they had three to six adult males. He therefore advocated
that Yongjo begin by cutting the military cloth support tax rate by one p'il, and
then move toward a major reform by establishing a uniform rate of one p 'il per
adult male for all forms of service for all families from the highest minister of
state to the ordinary commoners (somin). The expansion of the tax base would
lower the family tax and increase revenue simultaneously.
Even though Chong Uju thought that the regressive military support tax was
more important than cash and interest in explaining the economic burden on the
peasants, he still fclt that cash was not necessary for stabilizing peasant welfare
and the general economy. It deserved to be abolished and replaced by another
medium of exchange, but not until the Ministry of Taxation and all military divi-
sions and units that held cash reserves spent it to pay for their expenses. Of course,
this policy would have made the merchants and private persons who accepted
cash from the government the ultimate losers by then declaring that the cash
they would have just received would no longer be legal tender!
Yun Sun, by contrast, dismissed the objection that abolition of cash would
cause tremendous losses of both government reserves and private wealth because
the cash could readily be converted to brass utensils that were in popular demand
in Korea. The metal might then be exported to Japan, but even if the export out-
let for brass at the Japanese enclave (Waegwan) at Tongnae were closed, the
exchangc value of the copper in cash could be calculated in cotton or rice and
gradually sold off for the manufacture of weapons or utensils. saving the
wealthy from the disaster of a complete loss oftheir cash reserves. He estimated
that it would take about a decade for the country to use up the national cash sup-
ply for these purposes. Since the poor peasants would be overjoyed at the order,
Yun urged the king to make a decision on their behalf.
Yun had to have been thinking of the welfare of the common peasant at the
expense of the government's finances and the wealth of private families with
large cash reserves because it is hard to imagine why any person of property
would savor the prospect of salvaging some of their cash savings by converting
it to metal tools or utensils as long as cash remained more valuable than those
items. Certainly many practical officials had already complained over the poten-
tialloss of their cash reserves that would result from the king's decision to abol-
ish cash, and they were undoubtedly too embarrassed to express their fears over
a personal financial loss.
Yun urgcd that YOngjo summon the mental determination to follow in the active
tradition established by the first two kings of the dynasty, T'aejo and T'aejong,