安興梁 對策으로서의 泰安漕渠 및 安民倉 問題

The Canal across T’aean Promontory

Rice collected for taxes and tribute from the southwestern region of the peninsula was forwarded via coastal waters to the capital, Navigational difficulties were encountered off T’aean promontory where the waters are turbulent, Shipwreck of boats loaded with rice was a yearly event, and the royal government contemplated the excavation of a canal that would by-pass the area by cutting across a distance of some three miles at the base of the promontory. After a laborious period of exerting chisel. hoe and human strength over a rocky terrain punctuated with a series of engineering upsets, the canal system was finally completed, only to face another unforeseen difficulty - the difference of tidal levels was too vast to make the waterway navigable. An alternative was improvised: to unload the cargo at a point south of the canal, transport it by land, and reload it aboard vessels at a point to the north; two warehouses were established at each of the points; but this scheme too failed because of the fact that the southern bay was inaccessible at ebb tide. The whole remedial effort lasted from 1395 A.D. to 1669 A.D. as the central monarchy stubbornly tried for a way-out of the recurring losses in one recorded shipwreck, the loss involved 6,000 sok of rice sunk, comparel with about 70,000 sok in the average annual yield for the southeastern region, as well as 200 crew members drowned, despite primitive engineering and crippling partisan feuding.