조선후기 羅里鋪倉의 설치와 운영

Abstract

With a sudden rise of extreme weather patterns from the mid-16th century to the 17th century in the Joseon Dynasty, the extreme weather pattern called 'little ice age' occurred worldwide. Jeju also suffered the most horrible natural disaster in history, called 'Gyeongsin Great Famine(庚辛大飢饉)' in the 11th to 12th years of King Hyeonjoing's reign (1670-1671) and 'Eulbyeong Great Famine(乙兵大飢饉)' in the 21st to 22nd years of King Sukjong's reign (1695-1696). As a result, more than 1 million people in Joseon froze to death, got sick or starved to death. Therefore, the Joseon government implemented the relief policy to address the political and economic crisis situation from a series of natural disasters. In the 18thcentury, Joseon was additionally establishing public warehouses to address the national redistribution system and the issue of profits from distribution. The established public warehouses mostly focused on relief activities by moving the grains between regions and purchasing grains, which used to supplement the exhausted finance due to the frequent relief policy. Naripo Warehouse(羅里鋪倉), installed in Impi(臨陂) in Jeolla Province(全羅道) in the 2ndyear of King Gyeongjong's reign (1722), also was designated as an exclusive relief agency under the trend. Naripo Warehouse sent the grains stored in Naripo to Jeju in a lean year of Jeju and brought the local products from Jeju in return, including brim of Gat(凉臺), fish and sea mustards(甘藿), and sold them. Then the warehouse purchased the grains with the proceeds and sent the grains to Jeju. In other words, it was the first goods distribution example between Jeju and mainland led by the Joseon government. However, Naripo Warehouse lost its original functions and purposes due to the frequent evil effects occurred during operation including the corruption in the middle of the distribution channel by work-level officials, exhaustion of Naripo rice, delay of collection of miscellaneous things from Jeju and lack of transport. As a result, Naju(羅州) Jemin Warehouse(濟民倉) took over the function of relief in the 10th year of King Jeongjo's reign (1786). It is thought that operation of Naripo Warehouse by the central government was the best choice to fulfill the two purposes of securing the national finance led by the government and relieving the local residents under the changing market economy rather than concluding it as one of the failed policies due to the limit of the government operated business. In other words, establishment of Naripo Warehouse itself holds a great significance by raising the relief fund through the exchanges of goods with other regions in terms of production conditions, and this can be regarded as very developmental in the existing relief policies.