Jangyongy?ng, the central military camp which was founded and managed under the leadership from King Ch?ngjo (b. 1752~1800, r. 1776~1800), played two essential roles; one was as the royal guard office, and the other was as a financial institution. Thi...
Jangyongy?ng, the central military camp which was founded and managed under the leadership from King Ch?ngjo (b. 1752~1800, r. 1776~1800), played two essential roles; one was as the royal guard office, and the other was as a financial institution. This thesis scrutinizes the dual roles of Jangyongy?ng by comparing with those of conventional military camps and other financial institutions and examines its influence.
In seventeenth century, the main central forces of later period of Chos?n became established as five camps: Hully?ntogam, K?mwiy?ng and ?y?ngch?ng which were three camps in the capital, and Su?ch?ng and Chongyungch?ng which were camps in Ky?nggi province. There had been a continuous argument for almost a century to reduce the organization of these camps because of the excessive cost of maintenance of those camps. King Ch?ngjo planned to merge Chongyungch?ng into Su?ch?ng with the purpose of reforming the five camps, but his plan foundered. The major policy regarding military during King Ch?ngjo’s reign then focused on founding a new royal guard institution and expanding it to a military camp. Supported by this policy, Jangyongy?ng was promoted while the opposition to it was identified as the conspiracy against the king.
Jangyongy?ng was established as a royal guard institution in 1783 and enlarged to a military camp in 1788. In 1793, it was divided into two parts ―the inner camp in the capital and the outer camp in Suw?n― and became a huge organization with almost twenty thousand members, which seemed to be far from the earlier argument to reduce the central forces. While Jangyongy?ng was expanding, Su?ch?ng and Chongyungch?ng were reduced drastically. However, the capital camps were not reduced significantly despite the required high budget. While Hully?ntogam, the core of central forces, maintained its military roles, Jangyongy?ng concentrated on guarding the inner part of royal palace and performing the missions related to the Crown Prince Sado (b. 1735~1762), King Ch?ngjo’s biological father.
Founding a new military camp inevitably led to the fiscal issues. Although earlier Jangyongy?ng was financially supported by the royal court, eventually it required much more revenue than before after becoming a military camp. Jangyongy?ng financially depended on Py?ngan province, the last resort of central finance to secure their revenue. There were multiple appointments showing the evident relationship between Jangyongy?ng and Py?ngan province: the governor of Py?ngan province (Py?ngan gamsa), as the financial director of Jangyongy?ng (hyangsaek chejo) or the magistrate of Suw?n (Suw?n yusu); the military commander of Py?ngan province (Py?ngan by?ngsa) was appointed as the cavalry captain of Jangyongy?ng (s?ngi by?ljang) and vice versa. Jangyongy?ng easily acquired its required revenue from Py?ngan province through above appointments. However, the problems of hwangok and tunj?n in that region were reported, as a side effect.
The yearly revenue of Jangyongy?ng according to the financial documents written in 1802 was estimated to be 83,000 s?k in the value of rice. This scale of revenue of Jangyongy?ng was second to that of Hully?ntogam among military camps, and close to the land tax revenue of Hojo, the head ministry of finance. Jangyongy?ng was financially supported by managing hwangok and tunj?n, and procurements from other institutions. Excess revenue was transferred to support the large-scale projects to revere the Crown Prince Sado, such as constructing his tomb or Hwas?ng castle. However, both the accumulation of massive finance and the projects which was financially supported by Jangyongy?ng could not garner a wide range of support among the vassals.
With the conventional system and its problems remaining, Jangyongy?ng was enlarged to a size of original military camps. The outcome was reinforced King’s power and aggravated chronic problems of the national finance and burdens of people. King Ch?ngjo also understood the serious problems incurred by Jangyongy?ng. Nonetheless, Jangyongy?ng continued performing its role as a military camp and a financial institution to support the King. After King Ch?ngjo’s death, his vassals agreed to the revocation of Jangyongy?ng to resolve the urgent financial problems. As a result, Jangyongy?ng was abolished in 1802 without strong resistance.