The two great wars against the Japanese and the Manchu in the late 1500s and the early 1600s led the Koreans to be involved in a series of debates aiming at the rejuvenation of the dynasty in trouble. Existing studies tend to understand that depending...
The two great wars against the Japanese and the Manchu in the late 1500s and the early 1600s led the Koreans to be involved in a series of debates aiming at the rejuvenation of the dynasty in trouble. Existing studies tend to understand that depending on their different socioeconomic bases, the debaters were divided into two different groups in terms of the goal and method of the reform. In particular, the tribute tax reform was the hottest issue and thus mentioned in detail by a number of scholars such as Yu Hy?ngw?n in provinces as well as officials in the central government. With emphasis on a new understanding of Yu's discourse on the tribute tax reform, this paper examines whether Yu's proposal was really a product of his socioeconomic situation which distinguished him from other reformers.
Most proposals for the tribute tax reform of the time took it for granted that the government should first estimate the amount of possible tax in-come and then make a budget: the principle of yangip wich'ul (量入爲出). To all the debaters, the Taedong Law was understood as the most possible plan for the realization of the adult male field system (ch?nj?nje 丁田制), the ideal land system in antiquity, as well as the principle per se. Although Yu seems to have not fully supported the Taedong reform, his point was not an opposition to the reform principle itself but a criticism of the reality in which the principle was compromised and even violated. Since the late 1500s, in short, the debaters and their proposals differed from each other in the extent of the application of the principle to the reality, not in the methodology of the application.