CASH AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 981years be banned, the Border Defense Command modified the proposal by agree-
ing only to ban private shops competing in the sale of necessities.
Once the power of the licensed shops in the capital to ban competition had
been cracked, they too began to compete with private merchants in the provin-
cial capitals by establishing warehouses and wholesale operations, and they too
sought to manipulate prices by gaining control over supply, often with the col-
lusion of officials and clerks of government offices. 18
The establishment of unlicensed monopolies had serious repercussions when
the merchants of the capital and the so-called Five Rivers cornered the rice mar-
ket and drove the price "ten times" higher than normal in 1779. The govern-
ment banned the practice but without success. A similar crisis occurred in the
rice market in 1786, and unlicensed merchants continued to make inroads into
the profits ofthe monopoly shops by cornering the supply offish, tobacco, ramie,
and other products. Wealthy businessmen from P'aju and wholesalers from Seoul
took over part of the tobacco crop, and yangban commercial entrepreneurs in
the capital contracted directly with peasant ramie growers in seven districts in
South Ch'ungch'ong Province to buy their crops and market the product. Pri-
vate merchants set up shop in markets outside the downtown Chongno licensed
market area. in places like Yangju, P'och'on in the northeast. and Nuwonjom in
the northern outskirts, and Songp'a and Samjon in the Kwangju area, to inter-
cept products flowing into the capital and sell them in competition with the
licensed merchants.
The licensed merchants in Seoul complained in 1754 that the Songp'a mar-
ket was supposed to be held only six times a month but in fact merchants there
stockpiled goods and sold them on a daily basis. In 1789 licensed fish merchants
pointed out that whereas they had previously bought the whole catch from com-
mercial ships that arrived in Seoul, now ships only sold one-tenth their cargo
and kept the rest to sell themselves, and in 1807 they complained that officials
had failed to stop private merchants in P'aju, Songp'a, and Samjondo from cor-
nering the fish market. By the nineteenth century the private wholesalers were
able to develop nationwide networks, including not only major cities but also
areas of production, crucial junctions along transportation routes, new market
towns, and export market towns like Uiju and Tongnae, and even centers of pro-
duction, whereas the licensed merchants' wholesale activities were confined
mainly to the consumption markets of the major cities. 19 There was also grow-
ing resentment against the wholesalers who interfered with the earnings of small
merchants. In 1781, the third inspector of the Office of Inspector-General, Ku
Su6n, remarked that
I have heard recently that the system of wholesale monopolics I togo J has just
appcarcd whereby one merchant gains control over others and does not permit
them to make their own private [and independent] purchascs. Wealthy people
form their own kyle' organizations [kyebang] and buy up products at cheap prices