Chapter 190
The two major problems that plagued the people in early Joseon were tribute payments and military service.
One was tribute payments, and the other was military service.
Tribute payments had clearly improved after Bangwonbeop was implemented in Joseon.
However, the problem of military service had not been resolved at all until now.
That was why the people of Joseon were still suffering even today.
“In the past, Joseon’s circumstances were too difficult for us to touch the military-service system, but things are somewhat different now.”
Even by a conservative estimate, the current court budget had increased more than eightfold compared to when I passed the civil-service examination, and although the people’s standard of living had never been officially surveyed, it was clear that it had improved considerably.
When making a living became difficult, the people would come to the uichang and cry out for rice loans without anyone telling them to do so.
But once their livelihood problems were resolved, they became reluctant to borrow rice from the uichang, where they had to repay two- or three-year-old grain with newly harvested rice...
One could tell simply from the Ministry of Taxation’s repeated memorials saying that the rice stored in the uichang and the government offices of every district was overflowing and on the verge of rotting.
The people were living comfortably enough that they no longer sought out things like the uichang or hwangok loans.
“Now that the nation’s finances have grown strong, we should reinvest in the people.”
That was why I had submitted a memorial proposing that we completely overhaul the military-service system.
I wanted to reinvest the increased budget to resolve the people’s hardships and build an even stronger nation.
After organizing my thoughts somewhat, I went to the senior officials’ hall of the Ministry of War.
Minister Choe Yun-deok, who was there, greeted me warmly.
“Our Kim Eung-gyo has come?”
Choe Yun-deok and I were not particularly close.
Although we had traveled to Ming together while accompanying the Crown Prince, I had been busy throughout the mission sitting beside him and explaining various new weapons systems.
I had spent my time discussing such matters as slightly altering weapon designs so they would be usable as weapons of intimidation, even if they were difficult to use as primary firearms in actual combat.
I had also gone on and on about how future wars would be dominated by standardized weapons and gunpowder arms, so we had to manufacture as many small-caliber cannons as possible...
Normally, as the seojanggwan, I was supposed to handle all the practical affairs of the mission on the return journey, but because I had been stuck beside the Crown Prince, I could not do so, and Vice Envoy Choe Yun-deok had been saddled with all of it.
‘I thought he would dislike me because of that.’
His unexpected reaction momentarily threw me off, but I soon understood why he liked me.
He had not forgotten that, during the previous campaign to subdue the Jurchen beyond the Pajeo River, the expeditionary force had achieved results beyond its expectations thanks to the careful supply system and other arrangements I had designed.
That made me realize how genuinely grateful he was to me.
In actual history, the Four Counties and Six Garrisons were not established until after the second campaign beyond the Pajeo River, but during this expedition, we had managed to conquer the entirety of the Hunchun and Yanbian regions as defined by twenty-first-century borders.
As a result, Choe Yun-deok had been promoted all the way to senior first rank, a truly rare achievement for a man from a military background.
So he must have felt grateful, while also expecting that remaining friendly with me would give him even more opportunities to earn merit in the future.
Although Choe Yun-deok was an incorruptible official, every Joseon scholar was obsessed with earning great merit for the country and raising the prestige of their family and their own name...
“Yes, my lord.”
“Sit comfortably.”
Once I sat down, Choe Yun-deok got to the main point.
“I read the memorial Kim Eung-gyo submitted. As you said, Joseon’s military-service system is imposing a tremendous burden on the people.”
“Yes, that is correct. When I took office as the magistrate of Jinhae County, I heard the people say that tribute payments and military service were as terrifying as the Grim Reaper, tigers, and smallpox.”
The saying Gajeongmaengeoho—“harsh government is fiercer than a tiger”—did not arise for nothing.
In reality, after paying harsh taxes, people were certain to have nothing left to eat and starve to death...
Unless they had been dragged into a tiger’s den and forced to live there, someone who built a house in an area where tigers frequently appeared might still live for a long time, depending on the tiger’s mood.
“However, I believe you understand as well as anyone why His Majesty, not to mention the ministers of our court, could not casually reform the military-service system.”
“Yes. Tribute payments can produce immediate results simply by introducing and implementing a new system, as we did with Bangwonbeop. But military service... since it is ultimately a matter that requires a great deal of funding from the court, I understand that it is difficult to meddle with lightly.”
In every era, the army was a monster that devoured money.
In fact, until before I took office, nearly half of Joseon’s budget had gone toward the salaries of various professional soldiers, including the Gapsa and Paengbaesu.
Even after allocating that much in stipends, it was far too little to sustain their livelihoods, so the Gapsa had to serve in three rotating shifts and were paid only while they were on duty.
‘That meant they were paid for only four months a year.’
“That is why, in the memorial I submitted this time, I wrote that paying wages even to the soldiers was impossible. To be honest, I would like to pay them as well, but with Joseon’s current budget, it is simply not realistic to provide them with wages.”
“Military service is extraordinarily difficult for the soldiers, yet all we do is barely feed them while they serve. I have always felt this keenly after spending decades as a military man, but whenever I consider this reality, I feel deeply ashamed.”
“However, my lord, although Joseon cannot fully compensate them for their hardships, it is capable of easing that burden to some degree.”
At my words, Choe Yun-deok pricked up his ears.
I had only seen how difficult military service was for the people through documents, but Choe Yun-deok had witnessed it directly for decades as a military man...
He would know better than anyone how much suffering they endured while performing military service.
"The biggest reason the people find military service so painful is that they do not receive sufficient wages while serving. If they were properly paid, poor people might not welcome military service, but they would not regard it as something entirely impossible, either."
There was an incident that set twenty-first-century South Korea ablaze.
It involved an adult man serving as the head of a household in a family where two orphans were barely surviving, whom the Military Manpower Administration ordered to report for conscription because he had reached military age.
As a result, this man was forced to leave his younger sibling at an orphanage during his military service.
What this man had worried about most, they said, was not suffering himself after joining the army, but the fact that his younger sibling would have to go to an orphanage.
Fortunately, once the matter became known throughout the country through the media, lawyers offered to represent him free of charge, and the family’s breadwinner obtained a military exemption before the case went to trial.
Being dragged away to the army while leaving even one younger sibling behind was this painful, yet the heads of Joseon households had to leave elderly parents, wives, and several children behind when they were taken away...
They did not even know when they would be taken.
Even if Joseon could not pay those performing military service, it could resolve the situation of 'having to worry because you do not know when you will be dragged away.'
"Since paying wages is realistically difficult, I think we should instead require every able-bodied male upon reaching fifteen to serve three years of military service, then stop conscripting him afterward unless something truly exceptional occurs."
"If such a law were enacted, men would marry at eighteen, when their military service ended, so they would certainly be freed from the problem of supporting a wife and children."
"And wouldn’t making the conscripted soldiers do nothing but military training every day be a waste of manpower? So, during their free time, they could engage in public-service work, such as building the embankments and bridges needed by the district, maintaining roads, and helping with farming during the busy agricultural season."
That way, the local government offices could make use of their labor, so providing the soldiers with food would not seem like such a heavy burden to the offices.
In the past, assigning three hundred soldiers to a small district like Jinhae County had created the serious problem of emptying the government granary just to feed them...
Now, however, since Jinhae County was being administered with the taxes left after paying the central government, it had more than enough capacity to feed three or four hundred soldiers.
"But if this happens, won’t the soldiers assigned to local government offices receive almost no military training? The local offices are already desperately short of manpower because they have to prepare the rice paddies using the rice-transplanting method and carry out all kinds of public-works projects... They would end up doing construction work every day."
"That would happen to some extent, but even elite troops like the Gapsa and Paengbaesu currently serve in three rotating shifts over the course of a year, do they not?"
Thus, in Joseon, people volunteered for special units like the Gapsa and Paengbaesu to improve their social standing, not to make a living. No one joined for the latter purpose.
That was why there was a property requirement for Gapsa recruitment.
One’s status could be lowborn, but anyone who did not own at least several gyeol of fields was expressly forbidden from applying.
"The soldiers should be able to maintain a force capable of fighting a war with military training once every five or six days. And having every able-bodied fifteen-year-old male throughout Joseon serve three years of military service means, in other words, that we could mobilize them at any time in an emergency."
In other words, if Joseon set its mind to it, it could immediately mobilize tens of thousands of troops, even if mobilizing hundreds of thousands would be difficult.
"In my opinion, this is the best we can do for now, my lord."
After hearing me out, Choe Yun-deok nodded.
“It will certainly reduce the burden felt by the people and benefit the nation. I understand. I will argue for it forcefully in the Pyeonjeon and try to ensure that this proposal passes.”