Marginality and Subversion in Korea: The Hong Kyongnae Rebellion of 1812

3. The Economic Context of the Hong Kyŏngnae Rebellion

66 3  The Economic Context of the Hong KyQngnae Rebellion A s noted in the last chapter, P’yQngan residents performed dramatically better in the civil service examination in the late ChosQn compared to the early ChosQn period. Success in the examination required a long-term commitment, which was impossible without substantial material support from the candidate’s family. Thus the sudden increase of munkwa passers from P’yQngan Province in the late ChosQn bespeaks relative material wealth present in the region. A regionwide rebellion whose preparation spanned more than a year and which involved mercenaries was also possible only with considerable material backing.1 Furthermore, merchants ’ participation in the rebellion was particularly conspicuous and demands explanation. Hence this chapter explores economic conditions of P’yQngan Province during the ChosQn period, especially those economic changes in the late ChosQn that enabled P’yQngan elite to succeed at the examinations and that entailed the emergence of regional merchant groups. In addition, it discusses the economic conflicts that developed between the regional elite, merchants, and the general populace in their relations to the center. the northern economy and the tax administration Geographically, the northern region was mountainous and infertile. There was only a small tract of flat land along the coast, and even it was not considered to be very productive compared to land in the southern provinces. The Economic Context   67 In general, it was understood that the wet fields in the southern provinces were the most fertile, followed by the wet fields of KyQnggi and Hwanghae provinces, while those of HamgyQng, KangwQn, and P’yQngan were the least productive.2 In 1404, the amount of land in P’yQngan Province registered as under cultivation was 6,648 kyQl, only 0.7 percent of the total cultivated land in the country (931,835 kyQl).3 This increased dramatically to 19 percent (308,751 kyQl) in the reign of King Sejong (1418–50), and then stabilized at about 10 percent of the total registered land (150,000 to 170,000 kyQl) until the late sixteenth century.4 After the Japanese invasions (1592–98), cultivated land dropped to 90,000 kyQl and decreased to 47,561 kyQl by 1646, after the Manchu invasions (1627 and 1636), illustrating the truly devastating impact of wars in the region. By 1720 the amount of cultivated land had recovered to 90,804 kyQl, or 6.5 percent of the total registered land, slowly increasing to more than 120,000 kyQl by the mid-nineteenth century.5 Although most land under cultivation was dry-field in P’yQngan Province, the wet cultivation grew steadily, from about 10 percent in the reign of King Sejong to around 17 percent just before the Japanese invasions.6 The 1807 figure still registers 17 percent of the cultivated land as wet-field, which probably reflects the maximum possible land under wet cultivation given the environmental circumstances and the agricultural technologies available in the late ChosQn.7 It is uncertain when or if the northern region began to adopt the method of transplanting rice seedlings, which had been gradually employed since the late seventeenth century in the southern provinces and had contributed to the increase in productivity there.8 Instances of transplanting in KyQnggi Province and KaesQng can be observed in historical records from about the mid-eighteenth century on.9 Yet U HayQng (1741–1812), a late ChosQn Confucian scholar, reports that of the three northern provinces, only the KaesQng area used transplanting. He also reveals that cotton, whose cultivation had been introduced to P’yQngan Province in the mid-seventeenth century, was still less popular than mulberry and hemp as raw material for clothing and bedding.10 Although the amount of registered land in an agrarian society reflects the economic welfare of the people to a certain extent, a more discrete economic picture must also consider the level of taxation by the state and the management of tax revenue. Because P’yQngan Province was located on the northern border, the early administrators of the dynasty set up its tax administration in certain special ways. First of all, the land tax rate was lower than in other provinces. In the early fifteenth century, the tax rate was 20 mal per kyQl, 68   The Economic Context which was two-thirds the rate of other provinces. The overall land tax rate had been reduced to 4 mal for wet fields by the...