In Joseon Korea every household owed the crown tribute: fish, fruit, paper, whatever the court and its offices needed. It was charged per household, whatever the household owned, and often in goods the village did not make.
So middlemen stepped in. They delivered the goods on a village's behalf and billed it afterward at several times the price, sometimes far more.
HOW THE OLD TAX WORKED
Village
Each household owes local goods.
Middleman
Delivers the goods, then bills the village at a markup.
Court
Receives the goods it asked for.
1 fish = 10 mal of rice
One extreme case on record. A mal is a measure of grain.
In 1608 reformers tried something else in the province around Seoul. Pay in rice, and pay by land: in time the rate settled at twelve mal for each gyeol of farmland. A household with little land would owe little. The great landowners would owe the most.
TWO WAYS TO TAX
Before: by household, in goods
LandTax owed
Little land
Some land
Much land
Every household is charged, whatever it owns.
After: by land, in rice
LandTax owed
Little land
Some land
Much land
The land is charged. More land, more tax.
A schematic. The bars are not real figures.
They knew it, and resisted. So did the middlemen. At court, opponents warned that the state itself would collect less. The reform spread one province at a time and reached the last in 1708, a hundred years after the first. The question underneath it has outlived the dynasty.
WHO STOOD WHERE
FOR THE REFORM
The burden falls unevenly and the middlemen are draining the villages. Charge the land.
Among them: Yi Won-ik, who launched it in 1608, and Kim Yuk, who drove it through the 1650s.
AGAINST IT
Landowners would pay more, and the state itself might collect less.
Large landowners, the middlemen, and at court a group of officials led by Kim Jip and Song Si-yeol.
Each case is summarized in our words, not quoted.
A HUNDRED YEARS
Province by province, from the first to the last. Pyeongan and Hamgyeong in the north, and Jeju, stayed outside it.
STILL ASKED
Should a tax follow the household, or what the household owns?
Arguments over flat charges, property taxes and wealth taxes still turn on the same choice.
WHAT HISTORIANS CALL IT
대
dae
great
+
동
dong
same
+
법
beop
law
Daedongbeop, usually translated as the Uniform Land Tax Law.
gongnap
공납
Tribute: local goods each household owed the crown.
bangnap
방납
Delivering tribute for a village and billing it at a markup.
gyeol
결
A unit of farmland sized by harvest, so poorer soil made a larger gyeol.
THE SERIES
Tomorrow: the fight at court, and the minister who would not let it drop.