The Commercial City of Hanyang (1)

In premodern societies, even a slight improvement in living standards led to a sharp increase in population.

A classic example of this is China.

Even in the early Qing, China's population was only around one hundred million, but once peanuts and sweet potatoes spread widely, the population shot up to four hundred million in no time.

Judging from cases like that, I had expected to some extent that Joseon's population would increase as living standards rose and food supplies improved, but...

"Minister of Taxation, what did you just say? How many people did you say Hanyang had?"

"Until the year before last, Hanyang's population was just under one hundred and twenty thousand. But according to a recent survey, it has nearly reached one hundred and forty thousand. You know better than I do why, so I needn't spell it out, do I?"

In the words we learned in our social studies textbooks, rural-to-urban migration was taking place.

Put bluntly, unless steam engines emerged in Joseon and an Industrial Revolution took place...

No matter how much commerce developed, the proportion of people working in agriculture would never fall below the proportion working in all other industries combined.

Even during the Edo shogunate, when premodern commerce had developed to an extreme degree and merchants used the 'power of money' to push around even daimyo and the shogunate...

the proportion of merchants, artisans, and others like them was only six percent of the total population.

The proportion of samurai, who could in a way be considered the equivalent of the yangban and jungin, was only seven percent as well.

By contrast, farmers made up eighty-four percent of the population.

Therefore, the regional extinction we so often worry about as a result of capital-region concentration would not occur.

'Even so, if we simply watch Hanyang's population increase like this, hell will break loose.'

"Yes, my lord."

"According to Hanseongbu's projections, Hanyang's population will exceed two hundred thousand within the next ten years."

"People who cannot obtain land to farm as tenants would rather come to Hanyang and find a new job so they can live a proper life than spend their whole lives as day laborers or thugs in their hometowns. So this trend will continue for the foreseeable future."

"The area within ten li of Hanyang's walls could accommodate two hundred thousand people—or perhaps even three hundred thousand at a stretch. But the question is whether all of them could secure a stable livelihood (a job providing a steady income)."

At present, Hanyang's rapidly expanding population is driving up consumption within the city, while commerce throughout the country is developing around Hanyang...

the number of jobs in Hanyang was far greater than the number of workers who could work there.

Because of this, even without introducing laws such as a minimum wage, every merchant guild and workshop was paying its workers enough to live with some breathing room.

Otherwise, the workshops and merchant guilds would have trouble securing enough workers.

But if the supply of labor exceeded demand...

'The specter of communism will begin to haunt us, won't it?'

"That is certainly a serious problem."

"Ironworks Magistrate..."

"Then we should start with the major towns throughout all eight provinces and make it possible for workshops and merchant guilds to establish themselves there."

"Would that solve the problem?"

"It would resolve a considerable part of it."

Transportation was extremely inconvenient during the Joseon era.

In Korea, people can travel from Seoul to Busan in as little as three hours, but even at the fastest pace, getting from Hanyang to Busan now takes at least three days.

For that reason, moving goods or people even once was extremely difficult.

Consequently, most of the common people living in the provinces, who made up the majority of Joseon's population, spent their entire lives without ever leaving their home county.

For hundreds of years to come, this situation would continue, but if merchant guilds and workshops catering to such people moved in, they could hardly fail to prosper.

Those who established merchant guilds or workshops in provincial towns would hire employees to work in the town where they had settled, and the newly hired employees would naturally be people who had lived in that town from the beginning.

"Why do you think the people coming to Hanyang are making the journey in the first place? Even if they want to farm as tenants, there is no suitable land available, so surely they are coming to Hanyang hoping to work as porters for a merchant guild, at the very least?"

"That's right."

"Unlike a yangban like you or me who passed the civil service examination, a life in a strange land must be extremely difficult for poor commoners. Most of those who came to Hanyang must have done so because, if they did not, they would truly have starved to death. They have to make a living even if it means never seeing the family, relatives, friends, and neighbors they left behind in their hometown again."

Even as recently as the 1980s, I have heard that people living in the same apartment building in Seoul would share food with one another, and when someone had to leave home, the neighbors would watch the place for them.

Even though rice-paddy cultivation had not yet become widespread and mutual labor exchange was not yet commonplace...

in Joseon, where villagers pooled their labor and took turns helping one another whenever the busy farming season required more hands, how strong must the ties between neighbors have been?

Deciding to abandon all those human relationships and leave for Hanyang, where they knew no one, would have been an enormous, once-in-a-lifetime decision.

"In the end, people are making such a difficult decision to come to Hanyang because of the need to make a living... If we establish merchant guilds and workshops in the county-seat towns throughout the country where the common people live, then even those who were considering going to Hanyang in search of work might remain in their own towns."

"Yes, exactly. The county-seat town may be somewhat far from the area where they live, but they could still walk home to see their families during the holidays. Working there would be less daunting than working in Hanyang."

"Good. Then let's try to stem the flow of people into Hanyang that way."

"If that happens, the lives of the common people living in the countryside will become somewhat more prosperous than they are now."

If we offered various benefits and encouraged merchant guilds and workshops to take root in the regions, production of local specialties and all sorts of other goods would flourish.

Then the supply that had always fallen short of the common people's demand would increase, and the prices of goods would fall as well.

'If they start causing an uproar over collusion and the like, all we need to do is smash them over the head with a mace until they come to their senses.'

"Let's settle the Hanyang issue that way. I recently read in an official report that the rice-transplanting method had been implemented in earnest since last year in Jinhae, where the Ironworks Magistrate first began his official career. Apparently, the people's incomes have increased considerably as a result."

"Do you know how much they increased?"

"They harvest barley in spring and rice in autumn, so the amount of grain available to eat has effectively doubled. And since the local yangban do not collect tenant rent on barley, the benefits flowing to the tenant farmers must be even greater."

The yield of barley and rice from the same area of land was nearly identical.

Therefore, if we assumed that tenant farmers harvested two units of barley and two units of rice each year, and half-share tenancy applied to both barley and rice, the tenant farmers' actual income would be one unit of barley and one unit of rice...

But since no tenant rent was levied on barley, the tenant farmers would be able to keep two units of barley and one unit of rice.

In other words, compared with before the rice-transplanting method was used, they obtained roughly three times as much food.

"Thanks to that, the people are farming while singing songs of peace and prosperity, and they urged the county magistrate to hurry and submit a memorial. According to the memorial he submitted, every young wife was pregnant. Apparently, they are all having children without hesitation, saying that they can raise them without letting them go hungry."

"The population will grow considerably."

"There are currently 21,457 people living in Jinhae County."

...... That was a full 1,200 more than before I took office.

That amounted to roughly six percent population growth. If calculated as a birth rate, just what percentage was that?

"In every part of the country where the rice-transplanting method has been introduced, the population is expected to increase sharply in this way. Perhaps Joseon's population will exceed seven million twenty years from now."

According to the current household registers, Joseon's population stood at roughly six million.

But the population would increase by one million in a mere twenty years?

This was possible because people could afford to have more children now that making a living had become easier, and because the threats of famine and disease had diminished considerably, so it should have been cause for celebration, but...

'If the population grows without a plan, the country will collapse.'

"The population is increasing too quickly."

"The rice-transplanting method has been introduced, new fields are continually being cleared, and commerce is expanding, so there should be no problem for the time being."

Even before chemical fertilizers were introduced, Joseon's eight provinces had supported a population of as many as twenty million.

So an increase from six million to seven million would not cause people to starve to death.

"A growing population is certainly a good thing, but we must clearly establish measures to deal with it as well."

The most urgent problem right now was Hanyang.

If the population continued to increase this rapidly, all sorts of problems, including sanitation issues, would arise.

If an epidemic swept through even once, thousands of people would die...

'If I know about it, of course I have to stop it.'

"The most urgent place right now is Hanyang."

"I suppose so."

"And the most important issue is sanitation."

"Sanitation? You mean keeping the body clean? What in the world does that have to do with the population increasing?"

"If human waste is not properly managed, it will contaminate the water, and epidemics will spread."

At the mention of an epidemic, the Minister of Taxation's face turned pale.

"And besides that, I feel there is a great deal in Hanyang that I need to set right."

If I'm going to do it anyway... I might as well do it properly.

If I did a sloppy job, people would die in droves, but if I did it properly, I could help thousands, even tens of thousands, just as I had in Jinhae County...

Then it was better for me to work a little harder and make everyone happy.

"Please recommend me for a position in Hanseongbu."