CASH AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 975song or "stars") with a (face?) value of 2 yang (equivalent to 200 copper coins)
of cash (an increase of 400 percent in the value of cash since 1680). YOngjo
asked him why anyone would want to continue using copper cash if they could
have silver. and Pak assured him that even if that were true, there was enough
silver in the country to replace copper cash entirely with silver coins. Practi-
cally, however, it would not be necessary to mint all the silver into coins right
away, just 200,000 yang of silver coins each year (equivalent to 20 million cop-
per coins - an apparent underestimate of the money supply) until silver replaced
copper cash.
Yongjo told Pak he was talking nonsense, presumably because he thought that
it was absurd to think that Korea could either mine or import enough silver to
replace copper cash. Song Inmyong, however, took Pak's suggestion more seri-
ously. He recalled that when he had traveled to China during an official embassy,
the embassy was accompanied by a few Oiju merchants with the right to trade
in ginseng (p 'alp 0), and they had about 80,000-90,000 yang (of silver by weight,
not silver coins) with them. Of this amount 80,000 yang was high-grade silver
(ch 'On'un) and 10,000 yang was pure silver (chOng'un). Nonetheless, he did not
know where such large quantities of silver were to be found.
Yongjo mentioned that ChOng Soksam had once told him about silver min-
ing operations in China, and Song noted that even though there was not enough
silver in Korea, it might be possible to mine about 200-300,000 yang. What he
knew of the situation in Beijing, however, was that the use of silver was con-
fined to the top (the government, or the highest levels of society?), while cop-
per cash was used in the side streets, but that the Chinese, by contrast, had more
than enough copper cash. He said that Pak must have been talking about the sil-
ver in the silver shops attached to the Ministry of Taxation. He suggested that
the military divisions and agencies should dispatch officers to investigate how
much silver could be mined to estimate whether enough could be found to pay
for the daily food and clothing needs of the soldiers.
YOngjo said that Pak's recommendation was somewhat different from the chief
state councilor's recommendation that silver be used alongside copper cash.
YOngjo was afraid that the government might end up violating the canonical
Confucian prohibition against competing with merchants for profit by seeking
control over silver, a strange attitude since he had not raised the same reserva-
tion about government minting of copper cash. In any case, Pak assured him
that it was not his intention to do so, and he guaranteed that silver coinage would
not cause any loss of profit for the merchants. He would not have proposed any
plan by which the court would be responsible for causing trouble for the mer-
chants by competing with them for profits.
A number of court officials provided strong support for silver coins. Kim Sang-
gyong said he had canvassed the views of many ordinary people and found that
they opposed any abolition of cash and favored the idea of using silver currency
as well. Ku S6nggyo, an official in the Military Training Agency, thought that
it was a shame that silver was not being used as currency in Korea since it was