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9. Encouraging Agriculture
- University of California Press
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408 book VI the cloth tax on households, not individuals; second, to levy the military cloth tax on kyŏl of land, not on either individuals or households; third, to collect the military cloth tax in cash instead of cloth; and fourth, to levy taxes on men of leisure who are neither Confucian scholars nor members of a yangban family. These four arguments, conflicting among themselves, are too singular to be unified into one law. CHAPTER : ENCOURAGING AGRICULTURE Agriculture is beneficial to the common people. Although they themselves are supposed to know the ways to improve their lives through agriculture, they are not capable because of their ignorance. The former kings, therefore, taught and promoted agriculture to the people. I have observed that there were always rewards and reprimands in the laws made by former kings. There were always rewards in their encouragement of agriculture , and their encouragement was not made without rewards. Likewise, in their reprimands there were always punishments, and their reprimands were rarely given without punishments. In the law of the Han dynasty there was a statute about recommending officials who rendered service to the development of agriculture, which clearly confirms the importance of encouraging agriculture. Nowadays officials are selected on the basis of their writing skill and compositions on heroes like Xiang Yu and the Duke of Pei [Liu Bang], which hardly contributes to the interests of the state, as well as the people. If we select officials from those who are the most dedicated to the work of agriculture and drive out those who are least concerned about agriculture from the district, the customs of the people will soon be enhanced, and the national strength will grow day by day. The planting manager [caoren], who appears in Rites of Zhou, examined whether or not the crops and soil were suited to each other. When he soaked crop seeds in water, he used oxen for the red and hard soil and goats for the reddish brown soil. (The water in which the crop seeds were soaked was made by boiling the bones of oxen and goats.) The paddy supervisor [daoren], who was responsible for the cultivation of rice, dug the ground and gathered the water by making dams and dykes; he drew in the water by making aqueducts and let it flow through ditches; he made the water 186. This refers to the hop’oron, the idea of levying the cloth tax on households instead of individuals , which was popular during the reign of Sukchong. 187. This refers to the kyŏlp’oron, the idea of collecting military taxes in cloth. The idea of levying military taxes on kyŏl of land later developed into collecting military taxes in coin or rice. 188. This idea is called yup’oron. The proponents of this idea contended that all men of leisure (hanyu), especially members of yangban families and Confucian scholars (yusaeng), should pay the military cloth tax. Taxation 409 level even by using ridges and levees and held the water in a reservoir; and he released the water through small water channels and cultivated the field, holding a sickle. To make observations, those who are extremely ignorant are the people, and what is extremely sophisticated is agriculture. That is the reason that a superior man talented in agriculture must teach and guide the people, making them select the crops good for the soil and at the same time produce convenient tools and equipment that can facilitate their work of farming. This is the way to execute the law of agriculture. The people of our land, however, from old days till now, have engaged in farming as they pleased, never paying attention to the teaching of the superior man. This has led to wrong selection of crop seeds, poor preservation of the seeds, and the lack of rules in sowing seeds. Thus they sometimes plow land that they have already sowed or sow seeds without plowing the land. Since this type of weird and careless farming is practiced everywhere, it is no small matter. The ways of farming in China are quite different from ours. Their farming, as I believe, originated from the teaching of Suiren and has been handed down to the present time. If the magistrate sincerely teaches the people and makes them discard their primitive ways and understand the true nature of agriculture, and if he finally succeeds in making one of the districts produce a good result and other districts soon follow its example...