The Only Good Way to Command Subordinates Is Dignity and Trust. Since Dignity Is Born of Integrity and Trust Results from Sincerity, the Magistrate Cannot Make Them Obey Him Unless He Shows His Integrity and Sincerity.
When Xie Shangcai27 was magistrate of Yingcheng, Hu Wending28 visited him at the yamen. When he was about to enter the gate, he noticed that the yamen underlings were standing in the yard as if they were figures made of either earth or wood. This was because they were struck with admiration for the personal dignity and sincerity of Xie Shangcai.
Xue Jingxuan [Xuan] said, “One must not have partiality in the slightest degree. If one shows partiality, his subordinates will surely despise him because they are aware of being treated unfairly. I used to have a servant years ago. Finding him a smart fellow, I frequently employed him in various missions, and other servants were reluctant to deal with him. Finally I had to dismiss him. Although this is a little thing, it gives us a lesson that one who is a magistrate must treat his men without any preference at all.”
Military Officers [Kungyo] Enforcing the Law Are Rough and Violent. The Tyrannical Behavior of These Men Must Be Strictly Restrained.
Those who are born in town and neither have education nor hope to become good men, indulging in rough and wicked behavior, usually take a military career. They drink with entertaining girls and take away property of the people by force. Their profession can be classified into three categories: first, guard officers, who include regiment commander [ch’ŏnch’ong], battalion commander [p’ach’ong], and so forth; second, military officer [kungwan] or director of the military affairs section [pyŏngbang changmu]; and third, sheriff [p’ogyo] or law-enforcement officer [t’op’odojang].
Gate guards harass people for their own purposes. However, if their tactics do not work, they designate people as either company commander [ch’ogwan] or banner-unit leader [kip’aegwan] so that they have a hard time. If those selected for such assignments try to evade the command, the gate guards grab them and ask for bribes or force them to stand duty during the busy agricultural season. Hence the magistrate must investigate these abuses.
If law-enforcement officials are appointed marshals or agents on a mission [ch’asa] to represent the magistrate, they demand bribes and collect money from the people as if they have gained powerful positions. So wherever they visit, people treat them with wine and noodles, butchering chickens and pigs. Knowing these problems in advance, the magistrate should not dispatch marshals lightly unless there is an emergency like treason.
I have observed that the magistrate who is incompetent in handling his job often dispatches marshals from the beginning for the purpose of collecting taxes and grain, and these marshals are called “superintendent” [kŏmdok]. They take away calves and pull out cauldrons, binding the people, including the old, and slapping them on the face. Consequently, wherever the marshals pass by, doors are smashed and villages are destroyed. The magistrate, therefore, should not unleash these tigers to devour the people and accumulate his wrongdoings; it would be much better for him to receive the lowest grade in the evaluation of his job performance for failing to collect taxes on time.
Law-enforcement officers [p’odo kungwan] are generally big bandits, whether they live in the capital or in the countryside. They have a secret connection with thieves and divide stolen goods with them. Sometimes they free the thieves to steal, providing them with information. If the magistrate tries to capture the thieves, the officers secretly notify them so that they can escape the danger. If the magistrate intends to execute the thieves, the officers secretly instigate the jailers to release them purposely. Their ways of committing irregularities are countless and hard to list. The most atrocious evil they practice has to do with their inspection of the market. The job of inspecting the market is usually assigned to law-enforcement officers, and their inspection is hardly different from sending thieves into the market to steal the merchandise in it. Although they are fully aware of what goes on, the merchants cannot complain even if their rice and cotton are taken away, because they are more afraid of the law-enforcement officers than of tigers. For this reason merchandise is kept away from the market, and commerce is halted. Therefore, the magistrate cannot afford to neglect overseeing the conduct of these law-enforcement officers.
So-Called Gatekeepers [Munjol] Are Slaves of the Old Days Hired by the Yamen. They Are the Ones among the Yamen Underlings Who Are the Most Difficult to Amend.
Gatekeepers are also called by various names, such as guards of the day [ilsu] or runners [saryŏng] or patrols [najang]. Originally rootless wanderers, these people used to be clowns or stage performers, so they are the ones most difficult to change by attempts to edify them. Nevertheless, they have as many as five powers in their hands: first, the power to guard the gates [hon’gwŏn]; second, the power to execute physical punishments [changgwŏn]; third, the power to imprison people [okgwŏn]; fourth, the power to collect various fees [chŏgwŏn]; and fifth, the power to arrest [p’ogwŏn]. Because they are granted these five privileges, the common people are afraid of them as if they were hyenas. Nevertheless, the magistrate overlooks their atrocious behavior, and the people suffer greatly.
The power to guard the gates is something like this. When people bring lawsuits to the yamen, these gatekeepers block them if they find that the lawsuits are related to grievances against subofficial functionaries who are their colleagues. Then the complainants return home in tears after wasting a few days wandering around. The magistrate, therefore, must make sure, repeatedly admonishing and instructing his subordinates, that the common people are made to feel as comfortable as if they entered their mothers’ houses when they visit the yamen. If his subordinates still continue to violate the law, he must chastise their crimes with the maximum penalty.
The power to execute physical punishments is basically like this. If flogging is done lightly despite the intensity of the magistrate’s indignation, one must suspect that there was bribery. On the contrary, if flogging is too severe when there was no sign from the magistrate for such harsh treatment, it is possible that the flogging was carried out in personal resentment. It is allowable to a certain extent to forgive a mock flogging secretly even if it was done for bribes. You can laugh about it in secret. (Since the convict has already paid for his crime by offering bribes, spending money out of his own property, it is not necessary to try to wound the man seriously by heavy flogging.) However, it is certainly not right only to watch a guard who, motivated by his personal malice, is severely flogging a convict. The magistrate should immediately restrain the guard from punishing the convict too severely and at the same time investigate secretly if there is anything concealed. If any wrongdoing is found, it must be dealt with strictly.
The power of imprisonment indicates fastening or unfastening the cangue around the neck of a convict. This will be discussed in detail in the section on punishments.
The power to collect taxes [wielded by the gatekeepers] is the sorest burden on the people. According to the law, the local government land [kwandunjŏn] is supposed to be cultivated by subofficials and official slaves, and the size of the land varies from 20 to 16 or 12 kyŏl depending on the size of the district. The rice produced from this land originally belonged to the gatekeepers. However, as the law and morality of the country deteriorated, the magistrate became the landlord of this land, and the gatekeepers were relegated to being his managers. So the people have no choice but to entertain them, serving food that costs as much as 50 p’un for each table, and they pay hundreds of p’un for the delivery of the magistrate’s order. During the harvest season of barley, rice, cotton, and other crops, the gatekeepers send out old men and women to beg for money for their purposes. This harassment, which is called tongnyŏng or chogon or nagase, is routine for avaricious gatekeepers who are used to exploiting the people.
The power to arrest works as follows. If the magistrate summons commoners, who can dare to defy his order? When it occurs that a commoner or a soldier makes a false accusation, the magistrate in good faith quickly sends out marshals [ch’asa] for investigation. When a red-colored warrant called hongch’ŏp issued by the magistrate (which is stamped with an official seal) arrives in the village, there is a so-called courtesy fee [yejŏn] that amounts to 500 p’un in the case of the rich and 200 p’un in the case of the poor. Because the red ropes in the hands of the marshals make the people scared, the whole village makes a fuss, preparing wine and butchering pigs in order to entertain the marshals. This is the reason that the magistrate should not dispatch marshals lightly unless bandits come out to attack the village.
The Scheming of Government Slaves Can Take Place Only in the Granary. However, Since Yamen Clerks Are Also Working in the Granary, the Magistrate Should Treat the Slaves with Benevolence Unless Their Stealing Is Serious, Preventing Them from Committing Further Wrongdoings.
Among all the subfunctionaries, the job of government slaves is the hardest one. Attending slaves (sino or kŭpch’ang) have to stand in the yard of the yamen all day long with no break; a head slave [suno] takes charge of supplies; artisan slaves [kongno] are busy making articles and appliances; stable slaves (kuno or kujong) raise horses and hold parasols; room slaves (pangno or pangja) heat the rooms and clean the toilets. However, regardless of their assignments, these slaves have to follow the magistrate when he travels. Despite the hard work that they perform, only the kitchen slaves who are in charge of the meat supply or the storage room, who are called p’ono and chuno, respectively, and granary slaves [ch’angno] are paid for their service. The payments they receive, however, are not more than a few sŏk of rice that fell on the ground in processing. Is this not pitiful? Granary slaves usually take charge of both granary jobs and gardening. When they become gardeners [wŏnjŏng], they have to work day and night to grow vegetables but have to borrow money to provide required supplies for the use of the yamen. By the time they are appointed granary slaves, they are completely exhausted. Fully aware of this situation, the magistrate should treat the government slaves with compassion and benevolence, and that is the best way of governing them. The only thing about which the magistrate should be careful is paying attention to the granary slaves, preventing them from practicing trickery. Since the circumstances of individual districts are all different, the magistrate should be more wary and strict in preventing the trickery of government slaves if the slaves of his district are unusually powerful and abusive.
An attending slave who is abusive and manipulative raises his voice and sharply reprimands the commoners who brought lawsuits to the yamen, while the magistrate keeps silent; he shouts aloud, whereas the magistrate talks gently; he keeps on complaining, while the magistrate speaks little; he also reveals information that his boss is still ignorant of; and he orders a man to be flogged even without the magistrate’s permission. As a result, slaves like him provoke resentment in the people and damage the dignity of the magistrate.
The head slave goes out to the market to purchase goods for the office but actually takes them away from the merchants by paying the minimum price under the pretext of buying for the government. I have already mentioned this, as well as the ways of preventing it.
Skilled slaves supervise the manufacture of such articles as ropes, straw shoes, bamboo containers, wooden chests, earthenware, and iron vessels, but because they are unrestrained in using these goods, they always ask for more of them from the manufacturers. This is one of the reasons that Buddhist temples are decayed and impoverished, and the mining villages are destroyed.
When there are sacrifices or banquets [in the yamen], leftover food should be equally distributed to government slaves. When there is one who suffers extremely from hunger and cold, the magistrate should provide him with food and clothes and look after him as if the man were his household slave. Then he will deserve to be called a good magistrate. Since government slaves serve the magistrate as their superior, although it is for a limited time, the magistrate cannot help treating them with benevolence.
There are sometimes undesirable items of property in the yamen, which raise a moral dilemma for the magistrate. If he uses them, he puts his integrity in danger. Not using them, however, is tantamount to wasting them. Under these circumstances it is advisable to distribute such things to government slaves, who are always underpaid despite their hard work. Fines for illegal slaughtering of cattle and violating the prohibition of private brewing of wine, or confiscated timber, or the skins, tendons, and horns of cows, or stolen goods that have no owner belong to the so-called undesirable items of property.
As for official female slaves [kwanbi], there are two kinds. One is entertaining girls [kisaeng], who are also called chut’ang. The other is female slaves [pija], who are also called sugŭp. Although entertaining girls are poor, they normally have patrons who help them. Therefore, it is not appropriate for the magistrate to support them. The only thing he can do for the entertaining girls is not to ask them to sew his clothes with their dirty hands. The ones who most deserve his sympathy are female government slaves with ugly faces. In the cold winter they wear dresses made of hemp, and in the hot summer they wear cotton clothes. With hair all entangled, they are busy day and night, drawing water and preparing meals. If the magistrate pays attention to the plight of these female slaves, comforting them with kind words, providing clothes and grain, and granting their wishes (things like exempting their husbands from military service) after asking about their husbands, would this not be nice? An outstanding magistrate who is competent in governing cannot avoid having complaints from his subordinates. However, if three groups of petty clerks and subfunctionaries29 all show resentment toward their magistrate, would it not be distressing? The magistrate who is resented by the strong and admired by the weak for his generosity is truly benevolent.
I often hear that the magistrate of a neighboring district enjoys himself with singing and dancing, spending fortunes for entertaining girls who take the money for granted. If he spends half the money for his entertainment on those poor female government slaves, they will never forget his benevolence throughout their lives. If the magistrate can establish his good reputation while others are provoking the spread of dirty rumors about themselves, what benefit could be greater than that? On the day when he returns home, if the entertaining girls are delighted to see his departure, talking and laughing at the south gate of the wall, and the female government slaves are very sad about his departure, all crying, he deserves to be called a good magistrate.
Han Kwangjŏn,30 former magistrate of Yean, governed various districts over the years. He particularly looked after male and female government slaves with benevolence and love. Whenever he departed from a district, those slaves cried aloud.
Making adulterous women into government slaves is not allowed not only by our law but also by The Great Ming Code. In olden days, if a lewd woman committed adultery and her husband really wanted to make her an official slave, it was allowed. This law, however, is now often ignored and abused by the magistrate. When a commoner who initially reported that his wife ran away with a man expresses his desire to retain her after she has been found and caught, the magistrate ignores his request and makes the woman an official slave. Furthermore, he orders official female slaves and entertaining girls in his yamen secretly to discover women engaging in adultery and later makes them government slaves against their will. In cases like this, facts and lies are often confused, and thus injustice is done to those women.
Once a woman is made an official slave and registered in the official documents, her children are supposed to inherit her social status and become slaves. Therefore, the magistrate whose rule is based on benevolence must not take this matter lightly. If the original husband of the woman who is to be made an official slave really wants to have his wife back, or unless a lewd woman volunteers to become an official slave, the magistrate should not coerce a woman to become an official slave.
The Magistrate Should Look After the Pages [Sidong] Who Are Born Physically Weak and Reduce Their Penalty if They Do Commit Wrongdoings. However, Once They Become of Age, He Should Treat Them in the Same Way as He Deals with Other Yamen Attendants.
A page is a boy servant [t’ongin], and he is also called chiin. The tricks of the pages are as follows: They stamp forged documents or steal examination certificates during the preliminary local examination or a test paper for writing contests. They closely observe the movements of the magistrate and spread rumors to the outside, fabricating words and accusations, and this is not a trivial matter to be ignored. However, in the case of a young page, only beating with a light stick [t’aehyŏng] is appropriate. People nowadays prefer to use the punishment of beating with a heavy stick, which is certainly not right.