A Reexamination of the Joseon Dynastys fangna system from a regional and national perspective

The fangna system was a distinctive phenomenon of the Joseon Dynasty in which fangna agents substituted farmers in delivering tribute goods, effectively becoming intermediaries responsible for collecting tributes on behalf of the ruling elite. Initially devised under the broader gongna (tribute-collection) system to alleviate the burden on farmers and facilitate tribute collection by local officials, the fangna mechanism was intended to offer convenience to both the people and the government. However, due to inherent flaws within the gongna system, the abuses of the fangna system intensified over time. It ultimately increased the burden on farmers, undermined state tax revenue, and gave rise to collusion between officials and merchants, bureaucratic corruption, and a widespread societal pursuit of profit at the expense of ethics. In response to these issues, the Joseon court proposed a range of countermeasures: legally punishing fangna behavior, gradually reforming the corve and tribute systems, emulating Chinese institutional models, streamlining administrative procedures by implementing direct government collection and delivery of tributes, and eliminating intermediaries. These efforts yielded certain results, contributing positively to increased fiscal revenue and the development of handicrafts and a commodity-money economy. Nonetheless, in the later stages, the negative side effects of these measures became increasingly evident and even showed signs of resurgence. To prevent a revival of the fangna problem, reform-minded scholars of the Joseon Dynasty presented new countermeasures to the king, including policies such as local production for local tribute and the monetization of taxes. These reforms reflected a shift toward the Ming Dynastys yitiaobianfa (Single Whip Law), under which various taxes were unified and converted into silver payments. Based on a thorough examination of the causes of fangna abuses and the corresponding solutions, this paper provides a micro-level historical reconstruction of the fangna phenomenon. By comparing it with Chinas yitiaobianfa, the study reveals the influence of Chinese institutional models on the evolution of Joseons tribute and labor systems. On a macro level, the paper compares Eastern and Western power structures, focusing first on the relationship between the sovereign and local agentsnamely, the dynamic between royal authority and the bureaucratic classand second on the collusion between officials and merchants, a distorted fusion of power and economy evident in the fangna phenomenon. The paper seeks to explore the manifestations and underlying causes of such phenomena in traditional Eastern and Western societies.