16세기 朝鮮의 官 주도 鄕政과 豪强律 = The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Chosŏn’ the Establishment of Local Government (hyangjeong, 鄕政) and Central Government’s Law on the Powerful (hogangyul, 豪强律)

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Joseon government sought to harmonize the stability of the peasants and the existence of tenancy system. Thus, the Joseon government responded to the problem of rural villages by controlling the resistant powers and establishing a centralized government. The major policies were the strengthening of the law of prohibiting accusations against local magistrates by people(部民告訴禁止法) and the power of the Suryeong (Chief Provincial Officials), the deterrence of a uniformed enforcement of village code (鄕約) for all counties and prefectures (郡縣) around the country, establish the Law on the Powerful (豪强律) to control the locally powerful groups in the villages. The direction of such policies was to strengthen the discourse on the powerful that was led by the central government. The most notable among these policies was the Law on the Powerful, which was a punishment for those who disturbed the order of the villages and are resistant to the official government, such as extorting the land of peasants, concealing private slaves, threatening the chief provincial official and other local officials, refusing to pay taxes (貢賦), and not repaying back loans on time. These people were designated as ‘hogangpumgwan’ and with their family; they were forcibly moved to the frontiers and border areas. Due to this law, the governance of the rural villages were tied to relationships between the central government (官) and the peasants (民), and between the king (君) and his subjects (臣). However, this law also widely caused the opposition from the landlords in the rural villages who were on the path to growth, revealing the limit to strengthening the ruling system.