Chapter 182
Human beings are animals that live according to habit.
That is why people repeat similar tasks every day, eat the foods they like over and over, listen repeatedly to their preferred genres of music, and wait for their favorite TV program to begin before turning on the television.
Thus, by the time people reach their forties or fifties, the music they listen to and sing along with often remains the music that was popular when they were in their twenties, regardless of what songs are currently in fashion.
When one sees elderly people enjoying trot songs, it is because trot was the music that was popular when they were young.
Conversely, people have a strong tendency to view anything new and unfamiliar with prejudice and reject it, whether it is good or bad.
In other words, no matter how good a system I devise and propose, people in other regions will resist it and refuse to cooperate before they even put it into practice.
‘The people of Jinhae County are the sort who would believe me even if I said I could make yakgwa out of meju.’
“But Lord Eung-gyo, what kind of system are you specifically planning to implement?”
“I intend to refer to the Qin dynasty's fifteen-household system and manage the people by grouping them into units of five households.”
“Wasn't that the harsh law implemented by Shang Yang?”
The Oga-jaktong system I intend to implement could certainly be used as a tool to oppress the people.
When Shang Yang introduced the fifteen-household system in Qin, he was able to gain a complete understanding of the population and the property they possessed.
That could clearly be called a beneficial function of the fifteen-household system, but the problem was that this fellow Shang Yang applied collective responsibility in units of five households.
Whenever one person in a group of five households failed to perform military service or pay taxes, every person belonging to the same tong—the organization formed by grouping five households together—was subjected to severe punishment.
Even during the persecution of Catholics in late Joseon, the negative effects of the Oga-jaktong law modeled after the fifteen-household system were brought to bear: if even one person among five households turned out to be a Catholic, everyone in that person's tong was severely punished.
‘Collective punishment should be eliminated as much as possible.’
It is only natural for the person who committed a crime to be punished, but punishing innocent family members or neighbors as well is extremely wrong from the perspectives of both fairness and justice.
As history progressed toward the modern era, awareness that collective punishment was unjust gradually spread, and the scope of its application continued to shrink with each passing age.
“The Qin dynasty's fifteen-household system became a harsh law that tormented the people because Shang Yang applied collective punishment and drove them into a corner. And although Qin ultimately fell because those who followed the Legalist school looked down on benevolence and righteousness, is it not also an undeniable fact recorded in the histories that after employing that man Shang Yang, Qin rapidly grew from a small state on the frontier into a nation powerful enough to unify all under heaven?”
“That is true.”
“I believe that, if it benefits the people, it is the proper duty of a subject who draws the state's salary to accept even the institutions of barbarians. And His Majesty is already appointing even merchants to official posts, so has Joseon not already become a nation that does not question the origin or status of anything, so long as it benefits the people?”
According to the research of a Japanese scholar, among the three countries of Northeast Asia in the fifteenth century, Joseon was the country where the greatest number of inventions and discoveries of a scale capable of significantly influencing history took place.
Considering that Ming was unquestionably the world's strongest nation at the time, that should have been impossible by any reasonable standard...
The reason it was possible was that Japan was in such a state of chaos that it had no time to think about innovation or anything else, while Ming had shut its doors of its own accord, declaring that it was the greatest nation under heaven and had no need for such things as innovation...
Yet Sejong, during this period, sought to advance the country by borrowing not only the wisdom of Ming but also that of the Arabs known as the Huihui.
I, too, am prepared to follow King Sejong's example and accept anything at all that Joseon needs.
Whether a cat is black or rainbow-colored, all that matters is whether it catches mice.
“All right, then. I shall now explain the system I have devised.”
“It sounds as though this will take some time, so please do not stand here uncomfortably while speaking. Let us go inside the main hall and discuss it there. And who are these two young gentlemen who came with you?”
“Very well. These two are my disciples.”
The magistrate immediately summoned a servant with a gesture and ordered him to escort Gwon Ram and Han Myeong-hoe to their lodgings.
I had repeatedly told him to prepare thoroughly, and I had strongly emphasized that he was to serve them plenty of good food...
Those two fellows were going to be served so much food that I wondered whether the table legs might snap.
It would be rude to refuse such hospitality, and traveling ought to come with pleasures like this as well...
I would let them prepare a sumptuous feast today, then tell them to serve only a modest five-dish table setting starting tomorrow.
“All right, let us go inside.”
As soon as we entered the magistrate's office and sat down, the magistrate hurriedly brought the Four Treasures of the Study and assumed a posture ready to take notes.
Looking at him, I could see a solemn determination in his expression, as though he were a man about to go to war.
“I told you not to feel pressured. Good heavens, anyone would think I was some goblin that went around snatching people away.”
The magistrate averted his gaze after hearing my words.
It meant that he did not agree with me.
No, ever since I had made Sejong exercise to improve his health, all the officials at court had been freed from working late...
Thanks to that, the officials in Hanyang must have gained time to care for their families and enjoy leisure, greatly improving their quality of life.
What I wanted was for people to focus solely on work while they were working, then rest freely and comfortably after leaving work.
“All right, then. You will be busy with official duties as well, so I shall explain the essentials as quickly as possible. If there is anything you do not understand, feel free to ask questions at any point.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Even if I finish explaining everything, if a problem arises because there was something you did not properly understand, I will be in a difficult position as well. So if you have anything to ask, be sure to ask before moving on.”
This is what causes newly hired employees the most trouble.
If they ask about something they do not know, they are scolded with, “You don't even know that?” But if they do not ask and try to proceed, they are scolded for proceeding without knowing anything or asking questions.
A good superior should understand that kind of difficulty.
“First, group the households in each village into units of five and call each unit a ban, then group five bans together and call them a tong.”
“Then, if a village has ten or more tongs, do you intend to group those together as well?
“I do not think there will be any need to go that far in Jinhae. Each tong will contain twenty-five households, which means that roughly 150 people will live in one tong, does it not? There may be more than five tongs in a village near the county office... but even a village with three tongs will be difficult to find once one moves only a little farther away. In very remote places, there may even be cases where a single tong cannot be filled.”
“That is true.”
In the myeon-ri system created by Han Myeong-hoe, twenty-five households were called a ri, and five ris were grouped together and called a myeon.
The plan was to appoint an ijang and a myeonjang, along with various other officials, in order to establish a system of local governance...
In that system, they organized the ris and myeons without taking into account the fact that villages were quite far apart in the countryside.
There was no major problem at the level of a ri, which consisted of twenty-five households.
However, I heard that the myeon, formed by grouping together 125 households, caused considerable problems because villages that were quite far apart were forcibly lumped together.
To exaggerate the matter somewhat, it was as though my next-door neighbor were Pocheon City in Gyeonggi Province, but I were assigned to Chuncheon City in Gangwon Province, forcing me to travel dozens of kilometers to Chuncheon just to obtain a copy of my resident registration record.
‘This problem would not arise if people were simply grouped with nearby Pocheon or another neighboring city.’
Therefore, I had no intention of creating any unit larger than a tong of twenty-five households and causing confusion.
“Therefore, I have decided that there is no need to establish any further regional divisions above the tong level, so we will not do so. Above that, without distinguishing areas by the number of residents, villages will form ris, and the land around the county office will be divided into eastern, western, southern, and northern areas to form the myeons.”
“This will certainly make it easier for the county office to manage the people. To be honest, managing remote villages in far-flung corners of the county was truly grueling.”
“That is why you had no choice but to entrust their administration to the yangban who lived there. Yet the county office had no institutional justification for entrusting the management of the people to the yangban, so you could not do that either.”
It was certainly possible to make the people obey by leveraging the yangban's status-based authority and the power of their wealth.
However, since the state had not officially granted them authority, confusion was bound to arise in one way or another.
Moreover, although the yangban and the commoners lived in the same village, their perspectives on the world differed, and there was an enormous gap between their standards of living.
Cooperation itself was difficult.
However, if we formally created organizations called tong, ri, and myeon in this way, it would give them a reason to work together, making it much easier to manage them as a group.
“You should recommend suitable people to serve as ijang and myeonjang, and appoint them as well.”
“Yes, Lord Eung-gyo. But the people will think that strengthening control will lead to higher taxes. Will they really cooperate willingly?”
Of course they would hate to do it.
“Of course they will not want to cooperate. That is why I came to Jinhae myself.”
And I passed on to the magistrate the techniques for persuading the people.
I even told him exactly how he should phrase things.
“All you have to do is say it like this.”
The magistrate nodded after hearing me.
“I am glad you understand.”
**
Not long afterward, Jinhae Magistrate Park Sang-gi summoned everyone who would be taking on the roles of banjang, tongjang, ijang, and myeonjang.
He intended to persuade them himself using the techniques he had learned from Kim Daebung.