A History of Korea (41 page)

Qualifying examinations for appointments to civil office were carried out at two levels—saengjin-kwa (so-kwa) and mun-kwa (
tae-kwa
). The saengjinkwa examinations were of two kinds. Whereas the
saengw
ŏ
n-kwa,
or the classics licentiate examination, tested candidates on China’s Four Books and Five Classics, the
chinsa-kwa,
or literary licentiate examination, examined skills in composing such Chinese literary forms as poetry, rhymed prose, documentary prose, and essay writing to discuss a specific topic. Each of the two examinations selected 100 successful candidates every three years. Those who passed one of the two examinations were called sangw
ŏ
n, or chinsa, and could sit for the higher mun-kwa examination. To become successful candidates in munkwa,
typically 33 in number, they had to survive both the
ch’o-si,
or preliminary examination, and the
pok-si,
or second-stage examination. The former selected 240 successful candidates, and the latter picked 33. Finally, those who passed the
ch
ŏ
n-si,
or palace examination, held in the king’s presence, were individually ranked and assigned to various office ranks between the 6th junior (12th rank) and the 9th senior (17th rank), and to the corresponding government posts in accordance with their examination grades. When an incumbent official passed the examination, his rank was raised one to four ranks.

The civil examinations were held regularly every three years, and thus the examination was called the
singny
ŏ
n-si,
or triennial examination. In time, the examination was held more frequently than every third year. These irregular examinations included the
ch
ŭ
nggwang-si,
or augmented examination, conducted to celebrate a national festivity such as the ascension of a new monarch; the
py
ŏ
l-si,
or special examination, held to commemorate other auspicious occasions, including the birth of the future crown prince; and the
als
ŏ
ng-si,
or royal visitation examination, held for students of the S
ŏ
nggyun’gwan when the king visited there to perform sacrificial rites at the Confucian shrine in the national academy.

The
mu-kwa
, or military examination, was also held every three years and selected 28 men. Skills in military arts were tested, especially archery, as well as one’s knowledge of military science. Like the civil examination, the military exam was held in three stages. During the Korean-Japanese War of 1592–1598, every Chos
ŏ
n male of commoner status or higher could sit for the military examination, thus allowing many sons of the yangban by second wives, who were of the lower chungin class, to undertake successful careers as military officers.

To select technical specialists, the Chos
ŏ
n dynasty established four
chap-kwa,
or miscellaneous examinations: the
y
ŏ
k-kwa,
or translation-interpretation exam; the
ŭ
i-kwa,
or medical exam; the
ŭ
myang-kwa,
or astronomy exam; and the
yul-kwa,
or law exam. These chap-kwa examinations were also carried out every three years and selected a total of 46 men—19 for the y
ŏ
k-kwa and 9 each for the
ŭ
i-kwa, the
ŭ
myang-kwa, and the yul-kwa. The yangban always derided these specialized technical studies and examinations, and generally it was the youth of the chungin class who devoted themselves to these studies and sat for examinations on a hereditary basis.
³

The kwag
ŏ
system produced a bureaucracy based on personal merit rather than bloodline, placing men of intellectual inclination and philosophical training in charge of government machinery. But this also put government service
exclusively in the hands of the upper class, namely, the yangban. Also, because it stressed scholarly, literary, antiquarian, and historical interests, it produced an impractical bureaucracy.

In the early Chos
ŏ
n period, the population is estimated to have numbered some five million. The people of Chos
ŏ
n were largely divided into four social classes—the yangban, chungin,
sangmin,
or commoners, and ch’
ŏ
nmin. Whereas in the Kory
ŏ
period the yangban had included both civil and military officials, in the Chos
ŏ
n dynasty the term referred to social status, specifically the ruling elite class. Members of the yangban class were largely descendants of the newly emerged literati class of the late Kory
ŏ
period. The chungin was comprised of hyangni of the countryside, technical specialists who passed the chap-kwa examinations, and the like.

The vast bulk of society was comprised of people in the sangmin class, mainly peasant farmers, craftsmen, and merchants. These people carried the main burden of producing life’s daily necessities and paying taxes. Confucianism, which sought to maintain the social and political status quo and disdained material goods, commerce, and reconstructing society through industrial and commercial development, stressed the importance of farmers as the producers of rice and other foodstuff while minimizing the value of industry and commerce. As a result farmers or peasants, who made up the overwhelming majority of the sangmin people, had a higher status than craftsmen and merchants.

Slaves comprised the most significant component, some 95 percent, of the ch’
ŏ
nmin class, which in the early period amounted to one-third of the total population. In the late Kory
ŏ
period many commoners had fallen into slavery as a result of hardships. Since the reign of King T’aejong, the government emancipated these commoners-turned-slaves, and, moreover, some 100,000 slaves owned by Buddhist temples became commoners or public slaves. In these ways the number of slaves greatly decreased.

Slave status was strictly hereditary, and the Chos
ŏ
n law accorded a child the status of his or her mother. As their owners’ possessions, slaves were bought and sold, turned over to others, and inherited by heirs, but owners were forbidden to punish slaves to the point of death. Although slaves were called the “hands and feet of the s
ŏ
nbi (yangban)” and moved at their beck and call, commoners
—even slaves—could own slaves. In some cases, a master’s goodwill could result in the emancipation of a slave.

Slaves were either public slaves possessed by the government or private slaves owned by individuals. Public slaves included those who supported themselves and paid a kind of head tax, particularly in cotton cloth, and those who were mostly artisans and manufactured industrial products at the behest of government offices for a certain portion of the year. Government slaves had better living conditions than private slaves, and were allowed opportunities to earn unlimited wealth. Privately owned slaves included
solg
ŏ
nobi,
or household slaves, and
oeg
ŏ
nobi,
or nonresidential slaves. Whereas the former performed every kind of labor in their master’s house, the latter kept house for themselves but cultivated their master’s land and paid a fixed fee to their owners.

Besides slaves, social and economic outcasts also constituted a small group in the ch’
ŏ
nmin class. These lowborn people engaged in such occupations as butchering, tanning, wickerwork, and entertainment on a hereditary basis, and lived together in separate hamlets. To assimilate them into the general farming population, King Sejong, in 1423, gave them farmland and called them paekch
ŏ
ng, the term originally used to designate general peasant farmers. Thus outcasts of lowborn status were treated in same manner as commoners, but they did not become peasant farmers. They pursued their hereditary occupations uninterrupted and were treated as ch’
ŏ
nmin. Thereafter the term paekch
ŏ
ng designated lower-class people in humble occupations.

Chos
ŏ
n’s class structure was not as rigid and closed as that of Kory
ŏ
. In this early period upward mobility, although a singular phenomenon, was not impossible. Nevertheless, Chos
ŏ
n was certainly a hierarchical society.

Like the earlier kingdoms, the Chos
ŏ
n dynasty was based on the concept that the monarch formally owned all of the nation’s land. What is meant by “formally” is that the state and government recognized private ownership rights to land but levied taxes on the land. With regard to public land, including land confiscated from Buddhist temples, the state directly collected rent, usually 10 percent of the harvest. With private land, allotted to those of high rank or office holders, the government granted the recipients only the right to collect rent, but the original landowners still held ownership rights.

The Kwaj
ŏ
np
ŏ
p, promulgated in 1391, stipulated that both incumbent and former government officials were to receive land allotments as a substitute for
salary in accordance with their rank in the 18 office-rank structure. Only the land in Ky
ŏ
nggi province around the capital was allocated to prevent extending the economic strength of the new ruling elite into the countryside. In principle, the land was allocated to recipients for life only. But an official’s widow, if she did not remarry, was allowed to retain a portion of her husband’s land, and, similarly, if both parents were deceased, part of their land could be held for fostering the children. The former was called
susin-j
ŏ
n,
or fidelity land, and the latter
hyuryang-j
ŏ
n,
or fostering land. In these ways, land allocated to officials could be held hereditarily.

With the increased number of persons newly eligible to receive land allocations, available land under this program ran short. Within a few years of its promulgation, controversies arose over how this problem would be solved. In 1466 King Sejo replaced the Kwaj
ŏ
np
ŏ
p with the
Chikch
ŏ
np
ŏ
p,
or Office Land Law, in which land was to be allotted only to incumbent officeholders. But this new system also could not sustain itself for long, and in the mid-sixteenth century it was abolished. At this point officials received only a stipend in kind.

Besides lands allocated to officials under both the Kwaj
ŏ
np
ŏ
p and the Chikch
ŏ
np
ŏ
p, several other land allotment programs exacerbated the problems of land allocation. Above all, grants of
kongsin-j
ŏ
n,
or merit subject land, increased. The founding of the new dynasty and the ensuing succession struggles added to the number of merit subjects to such an extent that a great deal of land was granted to them as kongsin-j
ŏ
n. In 1392, for example, King T’aejo allocated kongsin-j
ŏ
n to 43 merit subjects according to their merits. Thereafter his successors followed suit, and vast areas of land were granted to merit subjects whenever political changes occurred. From the beginning it was recognized that lands allotted to merit subjects were hereditary property and might be confiscated later only as punishment for very serious crimes. Increasing kongsin-j
ŏ
n led to a shortage of land that could be allocated to prospective officials, a situation aggravated by the fact that
kun-j
ŏ
n,
or military land, was assigned to junior military officers who were required to serve as professional military men. Additional allotments included
naesusa-j
ŏ
n,
or royal household land, given to the royal family to finance itself; and
konghae-j
ŏ
n,
or public agency land, allocated to central government offices to defray their expenses, although this allocation soon came to an end and was replaced by receipts for land and tribute taxes. To meet their expenses, the local government, local schools, Buddhist temples, and provincial and local military garrisons were all granted land allotments. These allocations of land to individuals and organs
were the result of the poorly developed monetary economy in this early Chos
ŏ
n period.

As time went on, certain aspects of the landholding pattern of the Kory
ŏ
period reappeared. Between generous grants to merit subjects and the enterprise of some leading families, large estates reappeared, owned by yangban bureaucrats in the capital.

In return for cultivation rights, peasant farmers were required to pay a land tax, which the Kwaj
ŏ
np
ŏ
p set at one-tenth of the harvest. To lighten the peasants’ burden King Sejong, in 1444, displaying his great concern for the livelihood of the peasantry, lowered the tax rate to one-twentieth. The land tax was levied differentially in accordance with six grades of fertility and weather conditions, which were judged by nine criteria. Thus, for example, the tax burden on peasant farmers was relatively light when lands were barren and was reduced in less productive years.

The unit measuring the area of farmland was still the ky
ŏ
l. At the time when the Kwaj
ŏ
np
ŏ
p was promulgated in 1391, the total amount of farmland throughout the country was no more than 600,000 to 800,000 ky
ŏ
l. Thereafter, land surveys indicated that farmland increased to 1.20 million ky
ŏ
l and 1.72 million ky
ŏ
l in the reign of T’aejong and Sejong, respectively, as a result of confiscation of Buddhist land, acquisition of territory in the northern region, and reclamation of tideland. Some 90 percent of farmland was public land on which, as noted, the government directly collected rent. Although Sejong reduced the tax rate from one-tenth to one-twentieth, national revenues did not decrease because there was an increase in the total ky
ŏ
l of farmland.