Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART 1: THE EARLY CHOSON DYNASTY, 1392-1650

Confucian Statecraft in the Founding of Choson

The Disintegration of the Early Choson System to 1592

Post-Imjin Developments in Military Defense and the Economy

PART 2: SOCIAL REFORM: YANGBAN AND SLAVES

Introduction

Remolding the Ruling Class through Education and Schools

New Schools: Conservative Restraints on Radicalism

Slavery: The Slow Path to Abolition

Conclusion

PART 3: LAND REFORM

Introduction

Land Reform: Compromises with the Well-Field Model

Redistributing Wealth through Land Reform

Late Choson Land Reform Proposals

Conclusion

PART 4: MILITARY REFORM

Introduction

The Royal Division Model: Rotating Duty Soldiers and Support Taxpayers

The Debate over the Military Training Agency, 1651-82

The Search for Alternative Modes of Military Finance

Military Reorganization, Weapons, and Walls

The Military Service System, 1682-1870

Conclusion

PART 5: REFORM OF GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION

Introduction

The King and His Court

Reforming the Central Bureaucracy

Personnel Policy

Provincial and Local Administration

The Community Compact System (Hyangyak)

Yu Hyongwon's Community Compact Regulations

Conclusion

PART 6: FINANCIAL REFORM AND THE ECONOMY

Introduction

Tribute and the Taedong Reform

The Taedong Model for Official Salaries and Expenses

Copper Cash and the Monetary System

Yu Hyongwon's Analysis of Currency

The Cycle of Inflation and Deflation

Cash and Economic Change after 1731

Conclusion

Epilogue: The Complexities of Korean Confucian Statecraft

Notes

Glossary

List of Kings of the Choson Dynasty

List of Names

Bibliography

Index

Seventeenth-century Korea was a country in crisis?successive invasions by Hideyoshi and the Manchus had rocked the Choson dynasty (1392-1910), which already was weakened by maladministration, internecine bureaucratic factionalism, unfair taxation, concentration of wealth, military problems, and other ills. Yu Hyongwon (1622?1673, pen name, Pan'gye), a recluse scholar, responded to this time of chaos and uncertainty by writing his modestly titled Pan'gye surok (The Jottings of Pan'gye), a virtual encyclopedia of Confucian statecraft, designed to support his plan for a revived and reformed Korean system of government.

Although Yu was ignored in his own time by all but a few admirers and disciples, his ideas became prominent by the mid-eighteenth century as discussions were underway to solve problems in taxation, military service, and commercial activity. Yu has been viewed by Korean and Japanese scholars as a forerunner of modernization, but in Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions James B. Palais challenges this view, demonstrating that Yu was instead an outstanding example of the premodern tradition.

Palais uses Yu Hyongwon's mammoth, pivotal text to examine the development and shape of the major institutions of Choson dynasty Korea. He has included a thorough treatment of the many Chinese classical and historical texts that Yu used as well as the available Korean primary sources and Korean and Japanese secondary scholarship. Palais traces the history of each of Yu's subjects from the beginning of the dynasty and pursues developments through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. He stresses both the classical and historical roots of Yu's reform ideas and analyzes the nature and degree of proto-capitalistic changes, such as the use of metallic currency, the introduction of wage labor into the agrarian economy, the development of unregulated commercial activity, and the appearance of industries with more differentiation of labor.

Because it contains much comparative material, Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions will be of interest to scholars of China and Japan, as well as to Korea specialists. It also has much to say to scholars of agrarian society, slavery, landholding systems, bureaucracy, and developing economies.

Winner of the John Whitney Hall Book Prize, sponsored by the Association for Asian Studies

James B. Palais was professor of history at the University of Washington and the author of Policy and Politics in Traditional Korea.