Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty - James B. Palais

CASH AND ECONOMIC CHANGE 989

TABLE 12
SEIGNIORAGE ON COPPER CASH,
Amount of Copper for 1 yang of Silver
Year Copper (in kiln)
1706 8·3
ca. 1723 1.5
ca. 1780 1.2
ca. 1810 1.0

1706-1814

Profit on Minting

Year Profit(%)

1731

[775

1798

1814

50

30

20

10

Not until 1828 did King Sunjo turn to copper mining as the solution to the

problem of supply by establishing the Kapsan copper mine in Hamgyong Province

and developing it into a major source of copper. In 1836, it was reported that

domestic supplies had replaced Japanese imports and reduced the price of cop-

peron the market, and by the I 840S there were twenty-seven active copper mines

in the countryY

Prior to the expansion of copper supplies by Japanese imports and domestic

mining, the shortage of copper forced the government in the late eighteenth cen-

tury to consider more economic alternatives to "penny" coins, like imported cash,

multiple-denomination cash, silver currency, paper money, or paper notes.

Seven requests for multiple-denomination cash were made in the reign of King

Chongjo and two more at the beginning of Sunjo's reign, but none of these pro-

posals was accepted and no more requests were made after 1816 until the Tae-

wongun adopted a 100-cash coin in 1866. The only adaptation to proposals for

increasing the face value of coins was a gradual decrease in the weight of the

coin, from .25 yang of copper (in 16787), to .20 yang in 1724, to .17 yang in

1752, and .12 yanK in 1757. In other words, the weight of the standard coin

dropped to half its original weight by 1757,31

Despite the evidence of increased liberalization of trade, the introduction of

mining, and government willingness to mint more copper cash, these develop-

ments did not lead to the indigenous creation of more advanced media of

exchange, such as multiple-denomination cash, silver coins, paper money, bills

of exchange, or banks.

Conflicting Views of Practical Scholars on Cash

Pak Chega and U Chi5nggyu. In light of the economic developments of the
eighteenth century, it was not unusual that some of the practical scholars of the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries approached the problems of cash
and commerce from a different perspective than either Yu Hycmgw6n or Yi Ik.
The most significant development in that period was an increase in the number
of late eighteenth-century scholars who were awestruck by the advanced tech-
nology, commerce, and culture of late Ch'ing culture during the reign of
Emperor Ch'ien-Iung, and they usually argued in favor of emulation of Ch'ing
commercial practice, including either the minting or importation of more cash.