Korea's Fight for Freedom Part 2

The affair started on the evening of December 4th; the reformers remained in the palace until the afternoon of December 7th. Then General Yuan Shih-kai, the Chinese leader, approached the palace gates and sent in his card, demanding admission. The Queen had already smuggled a message out to him begging his aid. The j.a.panese soldiers on guard refused to allow him to enter. He gave warning that he would attack. He had 2,000 Chinese troops and behind them were fully 3,000 Korean soldiers and the ma.s.s of the population.

Takezoi weakened. He did not want to risk an engagement with the Chinese, and he declared that he would withdraw his Guard, and take them back to his Legation. Young General So drew his sword threateningly, and told him that they must stay and see it through. The j.a.panese captain in command of the troops was as eager for a fight as was So, and the Minister was for the time overruled.

A great fight followed. The Chinese sought to outflank the reformers, and to force an entry by climbing over the walls. One of the personal attendants of the King suddenly attacked the new Premier, Hong Yung-sik, and slew him. The Korean soldiers seemed to disappear from the scene as soon as the real fighting started, but the students and the j.a.panese did valiantly. They claimed that they shot fully three hundred Chinese. The great gate of the palace still held, in spite of all attacks. But the ammunition of the defenders had at last all gone.

"Let us charge the Chinese with our bayonets," cried So. The j.a.panese captain joyfully a.s.sented. But Takezoi now a.s.serted his authority. He pulled from his pocket his Imperial warrants giving him supreme command of the j.a.panese in Korea and read them to the captain. "The Emperor has placed you under my command," he declared. "Refuse to obey me and you refuse to obey your Emperor. I command you to call your men together and let us all make our way back to the Legation." There was nothing to do but obey.

While the Chinese were still hammering at the front gate, the j.a.panese and reformers crept quietly around by the back wall towards the Legation. The people in the building, hearing this ma.s.s of men approach in the dark, unlit street, thought that they were the enemy, and opened fire on them. A j.a.panese sergeant and an interpreter were shot down on either side of General So. Not until a bugle was sounded did the j.a.panese inside the building recognize their friends. The party staggered in behind the barricades worn out. So, who had not closed his eyes for four days, dropped to the ground exhausted and slept.

He did not awake until the next afternoon. He heard a voice calling him, and started up to find that the j.a.panese were already leaving. They had resolved to fight their way to the sea. "I do not know who it was called me," said So, afterwards. "Certainly it was none of the men in the Legation. I sometimes believe that it must have been a voice from the other world." Had he wakened five minutes later, the mob would have caught him and torn him to bits.

The j.a.panese blew up a mine, and, with women and children in the centre, flung themselves into the maelstrom of the howling mob. The people of Seoul were ready for them. They had already burned the houses of the Progressive statesmen, Kim, Pak, So and Hong. They tried, time after time, to rush the j.a.panese circle. The escaping party marched all through the night, fighting as it marched. At one point it had to pa.s.s near a Chinese camp. A cannon opened fire on it. At Chemulpo, the coast port twenty-seven miles from Seoul, it found a small j.a.panese mail steamer, the _Chidose Maru_. The Koreans who had escaped with the party were hidden. Before the _Chidose_ could sail a deputation from the King arrived, disclaiming all enmity against the j.a.panese, but demanding the surrender of the Koreans. Takezoi seemed to hesitate, and the reformers feared for the moment that he was about to surrender them. But the pockmarked captain of the _Chidose_ drove the deputation from the side of his ship, in none too friendly fashion, and steamed away.

The reformers landed in j.a.pan, expecting that they would be received like heroes, and that they would return with a strong army to fight the Chinese.

They did not realize that the revolutionist who fails must look for no sympathy or aid.

The j.a.panese Foreign Minister at first refused even to see them. When at last they secured an audience, he told them bluntly that j.a.pan was not going to war with China over the matter. "We are not ready yet," said he.

He then demanded of the reformers what they were going to do with themselves. This was too much for So Jai-pil. His seniors tried to restrain him, but in vain, "What way is this for Samurai to treat Samurai?" he hotly demanded. "We trusted you, and now you betray and forsake us. I have had enough of you. I am going to a new world, where men stand by their bonds and deal fairly with one another. I shall go to America."

A few weeks later he landed in San Francisco, penniless. He knew scarcely any English. He sought work. His first job was to deliver circulars from door to door, and for this he was paid three dollars a day. He attended churches and meetings to learn how to p.r.o.nounce the English tongue. He saved money enough to enter college, and graduated with honours. He became an American citizen, taking a new form of his name, Philip Jaisohn. He joined the United States Civil Service and in due course was made a doctor of medicine by Johns Hopkins University. He acquired a practice at Washington, and was lecturer for two medical schools. Later on, he was recalled to his native land.

The Korean reformers themselves saw, later on, the folly of their attempt.

"We were very young," they say. They were the tools of the j.a.panese Minister, and they had inherited a tradition of political life which made revolt seem the natural weapon by which to overthrow your enemies. They learned wisdom in exile, and some of them were subsequently to reach high rank in their country's service.

There is a sequel to this story. The King and the Court regarded Kim Ok-kiun as the unpardonable offender. Other men might be forgiven, for after all attempted revolts were no novelties. But there was to be no forgiveness for Kim.

A price was put on his head. a.s.sa.s.sins followed him to j.a.pan, but could find no opportunity to kill him. Then a plot was planned and he was induced to visit Shanghai. He had taken great pains to conceal his visit, but everything had been arranged ahead for him. Arriving at Shanghai he was promptly slain, and his body was carried in a Chinese war-ship to Chemulpo.

It was cut up, and exhibited in different parts of the land as the body of a traitor. The mortified j.a.panese could do nothing at the time.

Years pa.s.sed. The j.a.panese now had control of Korea. One of the last things they did, in 1910, before contemptuously pushing the old Korean Government into limbo, was to make it issue an Imperial rescript, restoring Kim Ok-kiun, Hong Yung-sik and others--although long dead--to their offices and honours, and doing reverence to their memory.[1]

[Footnote 1: Curiosity may be felt about my authority for many of the particulars supplied in this chapter. Accounts published by foreigners living at Seoul at the time are of use as giving current impressions, but are not wholly to be relied on for details. A very interesting official report, based on information supplied by the King, is to be found in the unpublished papers of Lieutenant George C. Foulk, U.S. Naval Attache at Seoul, which are stored in the New York Public Library. A valuable account from the j.a.panese point of view was found among the posthumous papers of Mr. f.u.kuzawa (in whose house several of the exiles lived for a time) and was published in part in the j.a.panese press in 1910. I learned the conspirators' side directly from one of the leading actors in the drama.]

III

THE MURDER OF THE QUEEN

"We are not ready to fight China yet," said the j.a.panese Foreign Minister to the impetuous young Korean. It was ten years later before j.a.pan was ready, ten years of steady preparation, and during that time the real focus of the Far Eastern drama was not Tokyo nor Peking, but Seoul. Here the Chinese and j.a.panese outposts were in contact. Here j.a.pan when she was ready created her cause of war.

China despised j.a.pan, and did not think it necessary to make any real preparations to meet her. The great majority of European experts and of European and American residents in the Far East were convinced that if it came to an actual contest, j.a.pan would stand no chance. She might score some initial victories, but in the end the greater weight, numbers and staying power of her monster opponent must overwhelm her.

The development of Korea proceeded slowly. It seemed as though there were some powerful force behind all the efforts of more enlightened Koreans to prevent effective reforms from being carried out The j.a.panese were, as was natural the most numerous settlers in the land, and their conduct did not win them the popular affection. Takezoi's disastrous venture inflicted for a time a heavy blow on j.a.panese prestige. The j.a.panese dead lay unburied in the streets for the dogs to eat. China was momentarily supreme. "The whole ma.s.s of the people are violently pro-Chinese in their sentiments," the American representative stated in a private despatch to his Government, "and so violently anti-j.a.panese that it is impossible to obtain other than a volume of execrations and vituperations against them when questioned," A semi-official j.a.panese statement that their Minister and his troops had gone to the palace at the King's request, to defend him, made the matter rather worse.

The affair would have been more quickly forgotten but for the overbearing att.i.tude of j.a.panese settlers towards the Korean people, and of j.a.panese Ministers towards the Korean Government. Officially they advanced claims so unjust that they aroused the protest of other foreigners. The att.i.tude of the j.a.panese settlers was summed up by Lord (then the Hon. G.N.) Curzon, the famous British statesman, after a visit in the early nineties. "The race hatred between Koreans and j.a.panese," he wrote, "is the most striking phenomenon in contemporary Chosen. Civil and obliging in their own country, the j.a.panese develop in Korea a faculty for bullying and bl.u.s.ter that is the result partly of nation vanity, partly of memories of the past. The lower orders ill-treat the Koreans on every possible opportunity, and are cordially detested by them in return."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Problems of the Far East," London, 1894.]

The old Regent returned from China in 1885, to find his power largely gone, at least so far as the Court was concerned. But he still had friends and adherents scattered all over the country. Furious with the Chinese for his arrest and imprisonment, he threw himself into the arms of the j.a.panese.

They found in him a very useful instrument.

Korea has for centuries been a land of secret societies. A new society now sprang up, and spread with amazing rapidity, the Tong-haks. It was anti-foreign and anti-Christian, and Europeans were at first inclined to regard it in the same light as Europeans in China later on regarded the Boxers. But looking back at it to-day it is impossible to deny that there was much honest patriotism behind the movement. It was not unnatural that a new departure, such as the introduction of Europeans and European civilization should arouse some ferment. In a sense, it would not have been healthy if it had not done so. The people who would accept a vital revolution in their life and ways without critical examination would not be worth much.

Few of the Tong-haks had any idea that their movement was being organized under j.a.panese influences. It did not suit j.a.pan that Korea should develop independently and too rapidly. Disturbances would help to keep her back.

When the moment was ripe, j.a.pan set her puppets to work. The Tong-haks were suddenly found to be possessed of arms, and some of their units were trained and showed remarkable military efficiency. Their avowed purpose was to drive all foreigners, including the j.a.panese, out of the country; but this was mere camouflage. The real purpose was to provoke China to send troops to Korea, and so give j.a.pan an excuse for war.

The j.a.panese had secured an agreement from China in 1885 that both countries should withdraw their troops from Korea and should send no more there without informing and giving notice to the other. When the Tong-haks, thirty thousand in number, came within a hundred miles of Seoul, and actually defeated a small Korean force led by Chinese, Yuan Shih-kai saw that something must be done. If the rebels were allowed to reach and capture the capital, j.a.pan would have an excuse for intervention. He induced the King to ask for Chinese troops to come and put down the uprising; and as required by the regulations, due notice of their coming was sent to j.a.pan.

This was what j.a.pan wanted. She poured troops over the channel until there were 10,000 in the capital Then she showed her hand. The j.a.panese Minister, Mr. Otori, brusquely demanded of the King that he should renounce Chinese suzerainty. The Koreans tried evasion. The j.a.panese pressed their point, and further demanded wholesale concessions, railway rights and a monopoly of gold mining in Korea. A few days later, confident that Europe would not intervene, they commanded the King to accept their demand unconditionally, and to give the Chinese troops three days' notice to withdraw from the land. The King refused to do anything while the j.a.panese troops menaced his capital.

The declaration of war between j.a.pan and China followed. The first incident was the blowing up by the j.a.panese of a Chinese transport carrying 1,200 men to Korea. The main naval battle was in the Yalu, between Korea and Manchuria, and the main land fight, in which the Chinese Army was destroyed, in Pyeng-yang, the main Korean city to the north. The war began on July 25, 1894; the Treaty of Peace, which made j.a.pan the supreme power in the Extreme East, was signed at Shimonoseki on April 17, 1895.

Before fighting actually began, the j.a.panese took possession of Seoul, and seized the palace on some trumpery excuse that Korean soldiers had fired on them and they had therefore been obliged to enter and guard the royal apartments. They wanted to make their old friend and ally the ex-Regent, the actual ruler, as he had been in the King's minority but he did not care to take responsibility. j.a.panese soldiers turned the King out of his best rooms and occupied them themselves. Any hole was good enough for the King.

Finally they compelled the King to yield and follow their directions. A new treaty was drawn up and signed. It provided

1. That the independence of Korea was declared, confirmed, and established, and in keeping with it the Chinese troops were to be driven out of the country.

2. That while war against China was being carried on by j.a.pan, Korea was to facilitate the movements and to help in the food supplies of the j.a.panese troops in every possible way.

3. That this treaty should only last until the conclusion of peace with China.

j.a.pan at once created an a.s.sembly, in the name of the King, for the "discussion of everything, great and small, that happened within the realm." This a.s.sembly at first met daily, and afterwards at longer intervals. There were soon no less than fifty j.a.panese advisers at work in Seoul. They were men of little experience and less responsibility, and they apparently thought that they were going to transform the land between the rising and setting of the sun. They produced endless ordinances, and scarce a day went by save that a number of new regulations were issued, some trivial, some striking at the oldest and most cherished inst.i.tutions in the country. The Government was changed from an absolute monarchy to one where the King governed only by the advice of his Ministers. The power of direct address to the throne was denied to any one under the rank of Governor. One ordinance created a const.i.tution, and the next dealt with the status of the ladies of the royal seraglio. At one hour a proclamation went forth that all men were to cut their hair, and the wearied runners on their return were again despatched hot haste with an edict altering the official language. Nothing was too small, nothing too great, and nothing too contradictory for these const.i.tution-mongers. Their doings were the laugh and the amazement of every foreigner in the place.

Acting on the j.a.panese love of order and of defined rank, exact t.i.tles of honour were provided for the wives of officials. These were divided into nine grades: "Pure and Reverend Lady," "Pure Lady," "Chaste Lady," "Chaste Dame," "Worthy Dame," "Courteous Dame," "Just Dame," "Peaceful Dame," and "Upright Dame." At the same time the King's concubines were equally divided, but here eight divisions were sufficient: "Mistress," "n.o.ble Lady," "Resplendent Exemplar," "Chaste Exemplar," "Resplendent Demeanour,"

"Chaste Demeanour," "Resplendent Beauty," and "Chaste Beauty." The j.a.panese advisers inst.i.tuted a number of sumptuary laws that stirred the country to its depths, relating to the length of pipes, style of dress, and the attiring of the hair of the people. Pipes were to be short, in place of the long bamboo churchwarden beloved by the Koreans. Sleeves were to be clipped. The topknot, worn by all Korean men, was at once to be cut off.

Soldiers at the city gates proceeded to enforce this last regulation rigorously.

j.a.panese troops remained in the palace for a month, and the King was badly treated during that time. It did not suit the purpose of the j.a.panese Government just then to destroy the old Korean form of administration. It was doubtful how far the European Powers would permit j.a.pan to extend her territory, and so the j.a.panese decided to allow Korea still to retain a nominal independence. The King and his Ministers implored Mr. Otori to withdraw his soldiers from the royal presence. Mr. Otori agreed to do so, at a price, and his price was the royal consent to a number of concessions that would give j.a.pan almost a monopoly of industry in Korea. The j.a.panese guard marched out of the palace on August 25th, and was replaced by Korean soldiers armed with sticks. Later on the Korean soldiers were permitted to carry muskets, but were not served with any ammunition. j.a.panese troops still retained possession of the palace gates and adjoining buildings.

Another movement took place at this time as the result of j.a.panese supremacy. The Min family--the family of the Queen--was driven from power and the Mins, who a few months before held all the important offices in the kingdom, were wiped out of public life, so much so that there was not a single Min in one of the new departments of state.

Victory did not improve the att.i.tude of the j.a.panese to the Koreans. While the war was on the j.a.panese soldiers had shown very strict discipline, save on certain unusual occasions. Now, however, they walked as conquerors. The j.a.panese Government presented further demands to the King that would have meant the entire trade of Korea being monopolized by their countrymen.

These demands went so far that the foreign representatives protested.

The new j.a.panese Minister, Count Inouye, protested publicly and privately against the violent ways and rascalities of the new j.a.panese immigrants pouring into Korea. He denounced their lack of cooperation, arrogance and extravagance. "If the j.a.panese continue in their arrogance and rudeness,"

he declared, "all respect and love due to them will be lost and there will remain hatred and enmity against them."

Several of the partic.i.p.ants in the _emeute_ of 1884 were brought back by the j.a.panese and Pak Yung-hyo became Home Minister. He was very different from the rash youth who had tried to promote reform by murder eleven years before. He had a moderate, sensible program, the reform and modernization of the army, the limitation of the powers of the monarchy and the promotion of education on Western lines. "What our people need," he declared, "is education and Christianization." Unfortunately he fell under suspicion. The Queen thought that his attempt to limit the power of the King was a plot against the throne. He received warning that his arrest had been ordered, and had to flee the country.

Count Inouye ranks with Prince Ito as the two best j.a.panese administrators sent to Korea. He was followed, in September, 1895, by Viscount General Miura, an old soldier, a Buddhist of the Zen school and an extreme ascetic.

The Queen continued to exercise her remarkable influence over the King, who took her advice in everything. She was the real ruler of the country. What if her family was, for a time, in disgrace? She quietly worked and brought them back in office again. Time after time she checked both the j.a.panese Minister and the Regent.

The j.a.panese Secretary of Legation, f.u.kashi Sugimura, had long since lost patience with the Queen and urged on Miura that the best thing was to get rid of her. Why should one woman be allowed to stand between them and their purpose? Every day she was interfering more and more in the affairs of state. She was proposing to disband a force of troops that had been created, the Kunrentai, and placed under j.a.panese officers. It was reported that she was contemplating a scheme for usurping all political power by degrading some and killing other Cabinet Ministers favourable to j.a.pan.