Joseon-Style Standing Army (2)

Sejong spoke to the ministers gathered in the Pyeonjeon.

“What do you think of the new military-service proposal put forward by Jiphyeonjeon Eung-gyo Kim Daebung? Speak freely and without reservation.”

At that, Minister of War Choe Yun-deok was the first to step forward and answer.

“I, Choe Yun-deok, Minister of War, submit my answer. I believe that, if we wish to reduce the burden on the people while securing the soldiers necessary to defend Joseon, we should proceed as Eung-gyo Kim Daebung proposed in his memorial.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Because the new military-service proposal is a way to minimize the hardships suffered by the soldiers.”

Sejong, too, knew very well that, as Choe Yun-deok had said, the conscription system proposed by Kim Daebung could ease the hardships of men serving military duty.

No, this was precisely the part of Kim Daebung’s proposal that Sejong liked most.

And now that Choe Yun-deok, who was recognized as Joseon’s foremost military expert, had expressed his support as well, Sejong was pleased.

However, Sejong continued to respond as though he were hearing something he knew nothing about.

"When you speak of the soldiers’ hardships, what exactly do you mean?"

"The thing those serving military duty find most painful is not the physical hardship or the fear that they might be sent to war and die, but the painful fact that their families left behind in their hometowns will have no means of supporting themselves while they serve."

As Choe Yun-deok had said, the greatest reason soldiers dreaded military service was the loss of labor that occurred when the head of a household was dragged into the army.

A family could somehow endure during the agricultural off-season, when little labor was needed for farming, but if the strongest able-bodied man and head of the household were absent during the busy season...

They would easily miss the time for sowing or harvesting and ruin that year’s crops.

Then the soldier’s family would be driven to the brink of starvation or forced to sell themselves as slaves to a yangban household in the village.

"When I followed my father on campaign to suppress the Japanese pirates, the number of soldiers under my command who deserted, despite knowing they would be executed if caught, reached several dozen. Half of them succeeded in deserting. Those who failed and were captured were interrogated harshly and then beheaded. Before carrying out their executions, I asked them why they had attempted to desert. Only a few said they had deserted because they were afraid of going to war and dying. Far more said that if they continued serving military duty like this, their wives and children and elderly parents would inevitably starve to death, and that they had deserted because they felt they had to return home."

"Was that truly the case?"

"Yes, it was. At the time, I beheaded every one of them without mercy in accordance with military law, but my heart ached terribly all the same."

Whatever their circumstances, those who deserted during a war or while serving in the military could not be allowed to live.

Especially on the eve of war, if someone who attempted to desert were spared execution because his circumstances were pitiful, the other soldiers would think that getting caught while attempting to desert would not necessarily result in death...

Everyone would begin deserting one after another.

If that happened, military discipline would collapse completely, and the Joseon army would fall apart before it even set out to suppress the Japanese pirates...

They had no choice but to impose severe punishments.

Moreover, even in peacetime, all the able-bodied men brought into the army had families to support, and inwardly, they must all have wanted to return home immediately and care for their poor families...

If the army showed leniency because of their unfortunate circumstances, desertions would occur one after another here as well.

'The system itself is at fault, but there is nothing to be done.'

And when men protested that they had always paid their taxes faithfully whenever the country demanded them and had lived diligently, yet were now being dragged into military service and told to defend the country while letting their wives and children starve, Choe Yun-deok could not bring himself to answer them. All he could do was turn away and pretend not to hear.

That memory could not be forgotten. It remained lodged in a corner of his heart to this day.

"Until now, I have known very well that making soldiers serve military duty in alternating rotations placed an unbearable burden on them, but I thought it was unavoidable because it was necessary for the country... Yet, as Eung-gyo Kim Daebung said, if we conscript unmarried fifteen-year-old jeongnam (adult males) for three years of military service and then permanently exempt them from rotational service afterward, it seems to me that we would no longer place the same tremendous burden on those serving military duty. I am therefore pleased to recommend this proposal."

"Once a man becomes the head of a household and starts a family, he must take responsibility for his wife and children as well. Before that, however, he is responsible only for himself, so if the country provides him with food, the burden placed on him will be greatly reduced. Moreover, if we conscript able-bodied men throughout the country, we will be able to maintain a considerable number of soldiers, making it much easier to prepare for emergencies."

The greatest headache when preparing for war was conscripting soldiers.

Those already serving military duty could simply be dispatched to the front, but if their numbers were insufficient, additional conscripts had to be drawn from among the civilians...

The administrative effort, time, and supplies required for that were all considerable.

However, if a fixed number of soldiers were kept under conscription at all times, the process of additional conscription could be skipped, making it much easier to prepare for dangers such as war.

"Furthermore, we will not merely conscript soldiers and have them do nothing but military training. We will also have them build facilities needed by their districts. That way, we can maintain the troops needed to defend Joseon while also contributing to the nation’s prosperity. However, maintaining so many soldiers would require an enormous amount of money. Whether the national budget can bear that cost is another issue... What does the Minister of Taxation think?"

At Sejong’s words, Minister of Taxation Jo Gye-saeng immediately replied.

"Thanks to the implementation of Bangwonbeop and the discovery of all the concealed fields hidden throughout the country, the budgets of the court and the local government offices have now become exceedingly ample. Therefore, maintaining a force of around 100,000 soldiers should not pose any great difficulty."

The 100,000 soldiers mentioned here did not mean soldiers equipped with full arms and armor.

It meant that it would be possible to feed 100,000 soldiers like the Yellow Turban rebels who often appear in works such as Romance of the Three Kingdoms—soldiers armed only with farming tools such as hoes, bamboo spears, and sickles, or with extremely crude spears.

With Joseon’s current productivity and budget, it was impossible to provide weapons and armor to all 100,000 soldiers.

Of course, according to a prediction Kim Daebung had made, it would probably become possible if they were given a little time...

In any case, by current standards, it was impossible to equip them properly.

“Furthermore, if every person in the country must serve military duty to defend the nation, how could the yangban be completely exempt merely because they are yangban?”

Minister of Taxation Jo Gye-saeng’s bombshell nearly threw the entire court into an uproar.

Amid the confusion, Sejong tilted his head and asked,

"Then are you saying that the yangban should also serve military duty as soldiers alongside ordinary commoners?"

Jo Gye-saeng denied this with a stern expression.

"Given the distinction between high and low status, how could the sons of yangban serve military duty as soldiers alongside the common people? However, the yangban are people who possess considerable wealth, so I believe they should at least be obligated to contribute part of their wealth as taxes to help maintain the soldiers in the districts where they live. That is also what Kim Daebung wrote in his memorial, and I agree with him."

Implementing a system of universal conscription for everyone in Joseon was realistically difficult.

If Dolsoe, a slave in a yangban household, Gapdol, a tenant farmer, Kim Mal-dong, the son of a merchant family, and the young master of a high-status yangban household all belonged to the same unit and had to serve together, it was obvious that endless fights would break out.

The yangban young master would look down on a low-status soldier senior to him, and even the military officers would not dare say anything to him about it.

If that happened, the army, which was supposed to uphold the principle of unquestioning obedience to superior orders, would become a complete madhouse, and endless disputes and protests would pour forth from every unit across the country.

That was why Kim Daebung had excluded slaves from conscription for the time being, while seeking to maintain fairness by making the yangban subsidize national-defense expenses through taxes instead of conscripting them.

"Even if we collect only ten seom of white rice each year from each yangban household in every district, we could gather 1,000 seom in a small district and as much as 10,000 in a large one. Of course, we would need to make suitable adjustments for yangban households that have difficulty paying ten seom... But would it not be good if we could use that rice to purchase the soldiers’ uniforms, provide their food, and even equip them with weapons?"

“Does anyone disagree with the Minister of Taxation’s proposal?”

None of the ministers present had any particular grounds for opposing it, nor did they feel any need to do so.

Had they been told to pay a certain percentage of their income, they would have protested that the tax was far too burdensome.

But ten seom of white rice was not an excessive burden for Hwang Hui or any of the other ministers.

Chief State Councillor Hwang Hui answered on behalf of them all.

“If His Majesty commands the yangban to fulfill the obligations they bear as yangban, what person would dare oppose him? However, I would like to suggest that it would be even better if the names of those who paid ten seom of white rice were posted inside the barracks where the soldiers could see them, so that their honorable names might be passed down.”

The soldiers would not be extraordinarily grateful merely because the yangban had paid ten seom of rice.

Yet if any yangban refused to accept such 'praise' accompanied by the posting of his name, he would be treated not as a human being but as a man possessed by the ghost of Goryeo.

It was a kind of pressure intended to make the yangban serve their military duty in this form, at least.

“Good. Then we shall do that, and the person who will carry out all this is...”

Hwang Hui hurriedly cut in at Sejong’s words.

“There is no one else suitable for this task besides Jiphyeonjeon Eung-gyo Kim Daebung. Although he is young, every official in the court recognizes his abilities... Your Majesty should personally entrust him with this important responsibility, nurture him, and eventually have him replace this old man who does nothing but consume the court’s rice.”

Sejong accepted Hwang Hui’s request.

However, the part at the end about wanting to resign was so irritating to Sejong that he decided to pretend he had not heard it.