976 FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY
the most plentiful precious metal in the country, and Song Inmyong said that
although he did not know what the size of the immovable cash reserves were,
it would be a good idea to have the Ministry of Taxation exchange its cash reserves
for silver as a means of recirculating idle copper cash in the market.
YOngjo asked the officials to provide concrete ideas about what form silver
currency would take before he would approve the idea. Kim Chaero asked if
ten-song silver would be best? Pak Munsu also favored the use of ten-song sil-
ver for currency, but Song Inmyong said that (even?) seven-or eight-song sil-
ver could not be put into circulation in Korea. Pak Munsu thought that Korean
silver was similar to Japanese silver, and Kim Sanggyong said Korea had been
importing even more silver from Japan in recent years, suggesting that any short-
age of silver could be satisfied by imports. Kim Yangno agreed with using sil-
ver, but thought that Japanese silver was different from Korean. Kim Sangsong
thought it would be all right to use (both Japanese as well as Korean silver), but
that the policy would only be acceptable as long as the government did not end
up competing with merchants for profit.
Others raised the question of the domestic supply. Min Ongsu thought that
there was a lot of high-grade silver (ch 'On 'un) in Korea but not much in the sil-
ver shops. When he had been traveling along the Western Route (between Seoul
and Oiju in the northwest), he had collected 50,000 yang, and also heard that
the provincial military commanders and district magistrates must have collected
more than 120,000 yang or so. The supply of silver in the silver shops varied
from time to time, but he believed that the people would not be opposed to the
idea of having silver circulate with copper cash. Chief State Councilor Kim
Chaero mentioned that since silver miners were currently not producing much
silver and the taxes they paid to the Ministry of Taxation had not been that large,
he did not anticipate that much silver would be obtained by mining. YOngjo finally
asked whether further minting of cash would be necessary if silver currency were
adopted, and Pak Munsu said that it could not be dispensed with. He thought
that silver should just be used to pay for military expenses.
Silve r Imports from JapanThe participants in this debate had only limited knowledge of the extent of the
Korean silver trade with Japan. Trade with Japan was renewed in 1609 but
declined after 1637 when private Korean traders dealt directly with the J apan-
ese in the smuggling of sulphur, gunpOWder, muskets, and swords. They also
began to engage in a triangular smuggling trade with China and Japan, selling
ginseng for silver through Tongnae to Japan, and using the silver to import Chi-
nese goods.
Although figures from the Japanese side for the export of silver to Korea are
not exact, Tashiro Kazui had estimated that silver exports averaged about
17,000 pounds per year from r684 to r695 and then dropped to about halfthat
amount because Korean traders were reluctant to accept a series of new coins