The so-called “well-field system” (chŏngjŏnje 井田制), a field allotment and taxation method based on the operation of nine identical plots, long functioned as the dominant land system of East Asia and was admired by Mencius and Zhu Xi 朱熹. However, in the mid-Chosŏn 朝鮮 period, Han Paekkyŏm 韓百謙, a Neo- Confucian scholar, surveyed farmland on the outskirts of the walled city of P’yŏngyang 平壤 and contended that the land system there, allegedly established by the ruler Kija 箕子 of the Shang 商 dynasty, differed from the original wellfield system of the Zhou 周 dynasty. He explained that the site in P’yŏngyang was in the shape chŏn 田, not the chŏng 井 pattern of Zhou. Han maintained that the government should institute land reform based on a rearrangement of how land was partitioned. Critics of Han, however, argued that not all the arable land around P’yŏngyang was composed of chŏn-shaped plots and claimed that land reform would not be a realistic solution but rather a burden to the people. Han’s idea was significant in that it triggered a debate on land reform. As a result, many scholars called for the adoption of a 10% tax rate aimed at stabilizing the people’s welfare. The well-field debate is a true reminder that Chosŏn scholars believed that a successful land system was a precondition for realizing benevolent governance based on Confucian and Mencian thought.
목차
Abstract Introduction Han Paekkyŏm’s Survey of P’yŏngyang and His Ideas on Land Reform Debates among Neo-Confucian Scholars over Han’s Ideas Views Regarding the Pattern of Land Partition in P’yŏngyang The Well-Field System and Land Reform Debates Fulfilling the Confucian Ideal References
한국연구원은 1970년 5월 한국 민속의 각 분야에 걸친 자료의 수집과 학술적 연구를 목적으로 '한국민속연구소'로 출발하였다. 그 후 1973년 5월 연구 분야를 확대하며 민속뿐만 아니라 한국학 전반에 걸친 연구를 위해 '한국학연구소'로 개편하였고, 다시 1989년 3월 한국의 국제적 위상의 부상과 함께 한국학 연구의 중요성이 높아짐에 따라 '한국학연구원'으로 확대, 개편하였다. 한국학연구원은 한국학 전반에 걸친 연구를 통해 지역과 민족문화 발전에 기여하며 한국학의 세계화를 위해서 학술활동을 강화하고 나아가 내·외국인에 대한 한국문화 교육을 담당하고자 한다.