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Kim Yuk (; 1580 – September 1658) was a Neo-Confucian scholar, politician and writer of the Joseon Dynasty. His art name was Chamgok () and Hoejŏngdang (), his courtesy name was Paekhu (), and his posthumous name was Munjŏng (). He came from the Cheongpung Kim clan ().
Kim Yuk served as the Chief State Councillor of the Joseon dynasty in 1651 and 1654 through 1658. He was grandfather of Queen Myeongseong.
Thanks to his family background, however, Kim Yuk had the opportunity to be taught by famous scholars Sŏng Hon and Yi I, and had a close relationship with and , who became the Neo-Confucianism leaders and part of the power elite after a couple of decades. In fact, Kim Yuk's mother was the granddaughter of a brother of Cho Kwangjo.
At that time, Kim 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.Chung Seong-heeㆍChang Seon-hwan. Kim Yuk () - The Great Statesman of Joseon who devoted his life to Daedongbeop, Great Men in the Korean History, NAVER Encyclopedia.
When he was 13 years old, Kim Yuk had to undergo the Imjin war. While he moved to the countryside to seek shelter, 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. Kim 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 Kim Yuk passed the jinsagwa (literary licentiate examination) in 1605, which allowed him to enter the Sungkyunkwan as his great-great-grandfather had. In 1610 as a student of the Sungkyunkwan, he submitted the petition to King Gwanghaegun three times to forgive and restore his resentful teacher Sŏng Hon and to reinstate Five Wise Men ousted in the previous literati purge. The next year, he initiated a campaign at the Sungkyunkwan to expel Chŏng Inhong in power from the Registry of Confucian Literati (), who had criticized the great scholar Yi Hwang. Contrary to his wish, he was expelled from the institution. He had to move to Jamgok-ri (), Gapeong-gun, Gyeonggi Provice, and became a farmer to make a living. He studied harder than before in a self-exile. During that period from 1613 to 1623, Kim Yuk, denying King's pardoning, managed to get along, and experienced and witnessed the real peasant life in the countryside.
In 1624, Kim Yuk passed the kwagŏ, 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 Kwal in 1624, he escorted King Injo to Gongju. After the incident, Kim Yuk served at Eumseong-gun, Chungcheong province and various ministries in the capital city. When he left Eumseong, its inhabitants were thankful of his good governance and erected a commemorative monument.
In January 1627 when Late Jin (later Qing dynasty) mounted up a military pressure on the northern territory of Joseon, Kim Yuk asserted to put the first priority to alleviate the residents' burden by suspending the resident registration law.
In 1632, Kim Yuk was in charge of the funeral service of Queen Inmok.
In the winter of 1643 when Crown Prince Sohyeon was taken as a hostage to Shenyang, Kim 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.
His public career was represented by reform-oriented policy making. Right after the Jeongmyo invasion by the Late Jin (Qing) army in 1627, Kim 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 Kim 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, Kim Yuk took it into consideration that:
Judging from his personal experiences as a peasant at Jamgok-ri and a front-line public official at Eumseong, Chungcheong province, Kim 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 Kim 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.From the viewpoint of economic history, the tax rate on farm land was comparatively low in the Joseon dynasty. In the early era of the dynasty, it was 10 percent of the products, which was lowered to 5 percent by King Sejong, who wished to practice the Confucian idealism. In consequence of Daedongbeop, the fiscal revenue increased by 20 percent for the central government. The tax burden including indigenous products was lowered by a half or, in some cases, one fifth of the previous taxation. Thereafter, the population and the gross domestic products grew up to three times than before. The economic growth rate was estimated to be 0.2 percent on average. It was not so bad in view of the world average before the industrial revolution. Kim Ki-cheol, Interview with Prof. Lee Heon-chang: Preference of Song Si-yeol to Kim Yuk caused Joseon to deteriorate, March 13, 2020. While he served as Governor of Chungcheong province, Kim 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.Upon implementation of Daedongbeop, the peasants in the Chungcheong region were largely relieved of burdensome indigenous products. It was said that they were dancing at their farm land as they paid to the local government officials only a smaller amount of rice or cotton cloth.
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.
Kim Yuk tried to persuade King Hyojong to adopt Daedongbeop. At last in 1651, King Hyojong endorsed Daedongbeop in Chungcheong province. Unavoidably, Kim Yuk was departed from the mainstream bureaucrats represented by Kim Jip () and Song Si-yeol (), and caused the separation of anti-Kim Sandang (산당, 山黨, meaning 'the Mountain Party') and pro-Kim Handang (한당, 漢黨, meaning 'the Han River Party').Lee Heon-chang, op. cit., pp. 231, 260. Kim 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.
Kim Yuk was eager to make his thoughts on economy and pragmatic ideas to be realized in real life, for example: Ibid., pp. 438ˆ439.
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, Kim Yuk sought cooperation from power elite groups regardless of their fractional belonging. Although he belonged to the Westerners faction, he was taught by Cho Hoik from the Southerners faction, and close relationship with other politicians like Kim Se-ryeom, Cho Gyeong, etc. from the Southerners faction.
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