Gim Yuk


Gim Yuk or Kim Yuk was a Korean Neo-Confucian scholar, politician and writer of the Korean Joseon Dynasty. His nickname was Jamgok, Hoejeongdang, a courtesy name was Baekhu, and his posthumous name was Munjeong. He came from the Cheongpung Kim clan.
Gim Yuk served as prime minister of the Joseon dynasty in 1651 and 1654 through 1658. He was Grandfather of Queen Myeongseong and 6G-Great-Grandfather of Queen Hyoui.

Biography

Family history

Gim Yuk was born on July 14, 1580 at Mapo, Hanyang, where his maternal grandparents lived. His Great-Great-Grandfather Gim Shik, who had supported Jo Gwangjo at Seonggyungwan by criticizing then ministers in power, was sacrificed during the literati purge in the year of Gimyo. After the incident, his family including his father, Gim Heung-wu, were excluded from the central government.
Thanks to his family background, however, Gim Yuk had an opportunity to be taught by famous scholars Seong Hon and Yi I, and had a close relationship with Kim Sang-yong and Kim Sang-heon, who became the Neo-Confucian leaders and power elite after a couple of decades. In fact, Gim Yuk's mother was the granddaughter of a brother of the above-mentioned Jo Gwangjo.

Early life

From childhood, Gim Yuk was called a prodigy as he learned by heart the whole Thousand-Character Classic at the age of five. In 1588, his grandfather, Gim Bi was appointed as head of Gangdong-gun, Pyeongan-do, his father moved to Gangdong with family members. There, Gim Yuk was fortunately educated by Cho Ho-ik, who had studied under a great scholar, Yi Hwang and currently in exile at Gangdong.
At that time, Gim Yuk was a boy of literature. When he was 12 years old, he wrote some essays and biographies of famous pundits. While he was reading the Learning for Minors. he was quite impressed by the words of Cheng Hao, "Whoever starts as a public official has an earnest mind to love the objects can help people." He bore in mind that only a public official can help people to live well.
When he was 13 years old, Gim Yuk had to undergo the Imjin war. While he moved to the countryside to seek shelters, he did not stop reading books. During the war, his father passed away at the age of 31. At the deathbed, his father told him to enhance the family grade by studying hard, and to avoid any liquors. Gim Yuk kept his promise for life. His household deteriorated significantly, and his mother also died. He had to depend on his father's sister for living.
After Gim Yuk passed the jinsagwa in 1605, which allowed him to enter the Seonggyungwan as his great-great-grandfather did. In 1610 as a student of Seonggyungwan, he submitted the petition to King Gwanghae three times to forgive and restore his resentful teacher Seong Hon and to reinstate Five Wise Men ousted in the previous literati purge. The next year, he initiated a campaign at Seonggyungwan to expel Jeong In-hong in power from the Registry of Confucian Literati, who had criticized the great scholar Yi Hwang. On the contrary to his wish, he was expelled from the institution. He had to move to Jamgok-ri, Gapeong-gun, Gyeonggi-do, and became a farmer to make a living. He studied harder than before in a self-exile.
During that period from 1613 to 1623, Gim Yuk, denying King's pardoning, managed to get along, and experienced and witnessed the real peasant life in the countryside.

Royal and public service

In 1623, a military coup by the Westerners faction succeeded to dethrone King Gwanghae. And a new King Injo was enthroned. In consequence, the public officials ousted by the previous government returned to the newly organized administration. Gim Yuk in seclusion was the first among them. He was appointed to a post in the royal law enforcement organ. But he was not satisfied with it.
In 1624, Gim Yuk passed Gwageo, the literary civil service examination, receiving officially the highest marks. Now, he started his official career both at Hanyang and in the country. During the rebellion by Yi Gwal in 1624, he escorted King Injo to Gongju. After the incident, Gim Yuk served at Eumseong-gun, Chungcheong province and various ministries in the capital city. When he left Eumseong, its inhabitants were thankful to his good governance and erected a commemorative monument.
In January 1627 when Late Jin mounted up a military pressure on the northern territory of Joseon, Gim Yuk asserted to put the first priority to alleviate the residents' burden by suspending the resident registration law.
In 1632, Gim Yuk was in charge of the funeral service of Queen Mother Inmok.

Diplomatic missions

During his public career, Gim Yuk was assigned to the diplomatic mission to visit Beijing, capital city of the Ming dynasty three times.
In the winter of 1636, he visited Beijing to pay a seasonal courtesy call. In Beijing, he heard of the outbreak of the Byeongja invasion of the Qing Army and the humiliating surrender of King Injo. He was allegedly crying day and night in Beijing. Upon arrival from Beijing, he recorded the diplomatic envoy's diary called Jocheon Ilgi, in which he described the civilized foreign country as well as the corruption of the Ming bureaucrats and confusing atmosphere of the Ming society.
In the winter of 1643 when Crown Prince Sohyeon was taken as a hostage to Shenyang, Gim Yuk was assigned to be held responsible for taking care of the crown prince at the Qing court. When he returned to Joseon, he tried to get rid of evil practices to care for the diplomatic missions in the northern territory.

Reformist policy-maker

In 1638, he was appointed as the governor of Chungcheong province. After he surveyed the fiscal base of the province and ongoing taxation results, Gim Yuk was convinced the necessity of implementing Daedongbeop in his jurisdiction. Daedongbeop, which had been enforced in Gyeonggi province since 1608, was purported to replace the taxation in kind like indigenous products to the unitary taxation of rice in a certain amount as explained below.
His public career was represented by reform-oriented policy making.
Right after the Jeongmyo invasion by the Late Jin army in 1627, Gim Yuk was an advocate to support inhabitants of Pyeongan province and Hwanghae province, which were devastated by the war, to make a living. He proposed to separate the labor work levied on the inhabitants of Pyeongan province and Hwanghae province into ordinary farming and service in the army. He also asserted to cultivate military farms in the idle land to prepare for another war with enemy to the north.
Nationwide implementation of the said Daedongbeop was Gim Yuk's consistent efforts throughout his career. Once he said, "Colleagues around me laugh at me because what I speak of is only Daedongbeop from the beginning to the end." It was his firm belief based on the real world that Daedongbeop would stabilize the living of common people and ensure the fiscal soundness.
Apart from Daedongbeop, Gim Yuk took it into consideration that:
Accordingly, Gim Yuk thought it imperative to stabilize the living of common people by curtailing taxation, and to prevent the alienation of public sentiment. He forwarded his thoughts to other public officials as well as King Injo and King Hyojong.

''Daedongbeop'' as unitary taxation

While he served in the administration, Gim Yuk advocated Daedongbeop to be implemented nationwide. As a matter of fact, Daedongbeop was test-implemented at the suggestion of Hahn Baek-gyeom in the name of Daegong Sumibeop in Gyeonggi province. The policy proposal was endorsed by then Prime Minister Lee Won-ik and came into force in September 1608 by setting up Seonhyecheong at Hanyang.
Judging from his personal experiences as a peasant at Jamgok-ri and a front-line public official at Eumseong, Chungcheong province, Gim Yuk had got a firm belief that Daedongbeop was the best solution to alleviate the burden of peasants and to prevent corruptive practices of local government officials and merchant-middlemen. A half of fiscal revenues had to be supplemented by indigenous products of the region. Its purport seemed to benefit common people in the country. The problem was the intentional exploitation by the local government officials and merchant-middlemen. Occasionally, they demanded in collusion regional products which were hardly available owing to flood, drought or harmful insects, or even refused the direct provision of farmers on account of defects or quality of goods.
So Gim Yuk's countermeasures included the unitary taxation of 12 mal per gyeol. It may be interpreted as 5 mal by the modern measurement over eight thousand pyeong or 26,450 square meter. It's reasonable for a tax payer.
While he served as Governor of Chungcheong province, Gim Yuk realized that it was urgently necessary to replace the indigenous products contribution system with Daedongbeop which called for proportionate sharing of rice produced at the farm land.
However, factional interests were divided on the issue of Daedongbeop. If Daedongbeop was implemented nationwide, it was largely to the benefit of farmers and common people. On the contrary, Confucian scholars and wealthy gentlemen in the country could find few benefits from the new system. Local government officials would lose the source of fringe benefits. That's why Daedongbeop failed to be continuously implemented beyond Gyeonggi province. Opponents argued that its nationwide implementation would cause the decrease of fiscal revenues.
Gim Yuk tried to persuade King Hyojong to adopt Daedongbeop. At last in 1651, King Hyojong endorsed Daedongbeop in Chungcheong province. Unavoidably, Gim Yuk was departed from the mainstream bureaucrats represented by Kim Jip and Song Si-yeol, and caused the separation of anti-Gim Sandang and pro-Gim Handang. Gim Yuk was criticized as stubborn to the extreme. Even at his deathbed, he was wishing that Daedongbeop should be expanded to Jeolla province, which was finally completed in 1657 by his successor Seo Pil-won, Governor of Jeolla province.

Other pragmatic policies

In addition to Daedongbeop, Gim Yuk stressed on the use of currency or coin. Until then, only rice and cotton cloth were traded in exchange for merchandise. He asserted the circulation of coins would be conducive not only to distribution of goods but also to securing fiscal revenues. In 1651, Sangpyeong Tongbo was first circulated in the metropolitan area and the Northwestern territory.
In this regard, he suggested the government to permit the private persons to develop silver mines across the country.
Gim Yuk was eager to make his thoughts on economy and pragmatic ideas to be realized in real life, for example:
Gim Yuk was the best reformist-statesman of the Joseon dynasty. Regardless of the mainstream Neo-Confucianism, he paid attention to how to stabilize the living of common people. It was possible because Gim Yuk had an advantage of the descendant of a famous Gimyo martyr, and he was open-minded to pragmatism rather than philosophically oriented. He knew the limitation of a human being. As a matter of fact, he was taught by Neo-Confucianist Seong Hon and belonged to the Westerners faction. But he managed to make a transition bridge to the Silhak school in the next century.

Assessment

Sometimes, he was called a Wang Anshi of Joseon by his critics and opponents. Truly, Gim Yuk was an unprecedented statesman of far-sighted view and action in that:
Gim Yuk's thoughts and policies are assessed to have a big influence on the Silhak movement in the 18th century.

Legacy

Thanks to Gim Yuk's reform, the impoverished state revived and fiscal revenues increased. However, the power elite groups were indulged in factional strife-based disputes on the Confucian courtesy issues over royal funeral services. As the mainstream Neo-Confucianist Song Si-yeol took power, such pragmatic policy ideas as proposed by Ryu Seong-ryong and Gim Yuk were excluded in governing the nation. In the age of King Yeongjo and King Jeongjo, it seemed the Joseon dynasty and people enjoyed a renaissance.
When King Jeongjo died abruptly in 1800, the maternal relatives of royal family meddled in the policy-making and administration continuously, the Joseon dynasty came near to demise. For the sake of policy-making like Daedongbeop, Gim Yuk sought cooperation from power elite groups regardless of their fractional belonging. Although he belonged to the Westerners faction, he was taught by Cho Ho-ik from the Southerners faction, and close relationship with other politicians like Kim Se-ryeom, Cho Gyeong, etc. from the Southerners faction.
How can we find a Gim Yuk in this progressive/conservative camp logics-dominated society? What if a conservative Song Si-yeol adopted a progressive Gim Yuk's policy? Is it possible now in Korea? In the 19th century, Joseon could be no more a rival competitor to Japan in East Asia, which had accumulated its power domestically.

Works