朝鮮後期の京軍と鄕軍

Abstract

The establishment of the Heullyeon Togam, or Military Training Agency, was an epochal event in the military system of the Joseon Dynasty, which was transformed into the system of hired soldiers. However, the Confucian literati of the time, who had the ideal of peasant soldiers in the well-field system of ancient China, criticized the changes. In addition, the state's finances could not support the hired soldiers. Therefore, the three military divisions or the Military Training Agency, the Royal Division (Eoyeongcheong) and the Forbidden Guard Division (Geumwiyeong) partially adopted the rotation system of provincial peasant soldiers to replace the hired soldiers. The reform was motivated by the undervaluation of hired soldiers, who were usually recruited from the city market, and the overvaluation of peasant soldiers, who were usually considered honest and hardworking. However, peasants in the provinces avoided military service, and the state often exempted peasant soldiers from military service in times of famine. Thus, the ideal reform of replacing hired soldiers with peasant soldiers was not realized in the late Joseon period, and the gap of peasant soldiers was filled by hired soldiers. The quality of the hired soldiers, recruited from the city market, was not high, and the intensity of their military training was not sufficient. Despite all these shortcomings, we can find the merits of the early modern military system, in which the peasants were relieved of the heavy burden of military service in the capital and the provinces.