Korea's Fight for Freedom Part 3

Miura agreed. She was ungrateful. Disorder and confusion would be introduced into the new j.a.panese organization for governing the country.

She must be stopped.

While Miura was thinking in this fashion the Regent came to see him. He proposed to break into the palace, seize the King and a.s.sume real power. As a result of their conversation, a conference was held between the j.a.panese Minister and his two leading officials, Sugimura and Okamoto. "The decision arrived at on that occasion," states the report of the j.a.panese Court of Preliminary Enquiries, "was that a.s.sistance should be rendered to the Tai Won Kun's (Regent's) entry into the palace by making use of the Kunrentai, who, being hated by the Court, felt themselves in danger, and of the young men who deeply lamented the course of events, and also by causing the j.a.panese troops stationed in Seoul to offer support to the enterprise. It was further resolved that this opportunity should be availed of for taking the life of the Queen, who exercised overwhelming influence in the Court."[1]

[Footnote 1: j.a.panese official report.]

The whole thing was to be done according to system. The Regent was made to bind himself down to the j.a.panese. A series of pledges was drawn up by Sugimura, and handed to the Regent, saying that this was what Miura expected of him. He, his son and his grandson "gladly a.s.sented" to the conditions and he wrote a letter guaranteeing his good faith. The j.a.panese Minister then resolved to carry out the plan, _i.e._, the attack on the palace and the murder of the Queen, by the middle of the month. A statement by the Korean War Minister that the disbandment of the Kunrentai troops was approaching caused them to hurry their plans. "It was now evident that the moment had arrived, and that no more delay should be made. Miura Goro and f.u.kashi Sugimura consequently determined to carry out the plot on the night of that very day."[1] The Legation drew up a detailed program of what was to happen, and orders were issued to various people. Official directions were given to the Commander of the j.a.panese battalion in Seoul Miura summoned some of the j.a.panese and asked them to collect their friends and to act as the Regent's body-guard when he entered the palace. "Miura told them that on the success of the enterprise depended the eradication of the evils that had done so much mischief in the Kingdom for the past twenty years, and instigated them to despatch the Queen when they entered the palace."[2] The head of the j.a.panese police force was ordered to help; and policemen off duty were to put on civilian dress, provide themselves with swords and proceed to the rendezvous. Minor men, "at the instigation of Miura, decided to murder the Queen and took steps for collecting accomplices."[3]

[Footnote 1: j.a.panese official report.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid.]

The party of j.a.panese met at the rendezvous, to escort the Regent's palanquin. At the point of departure Okamoto (one of the j.a.panese Minister's two right-hand men) "a.s.sembled the whole party outside the gate of the Prine's (Regent's) residence, declaring that on entering the palace the 'fox' should be dealt with according as exigency might require, the obvious purpose of this declaration being to instigate his followers to murder Her Majesty the Queen."[4] The party proceeding towards Seoul met the Kunrentai troops outside the West Gate and then advanced more rapidly to the palace.

[Footnote 4: Ibid.]

The j.a.panese Court of Preliminary Enquiries, which had Viscount Miura and his a.s.sistants before it after the murder, reported all the facts up to this point with great frankness. I have used its account solely in the above description. The Court having gone so far, then added a final finding which probably ranks as the most extraordinary statement ever presented by a responsible Court of law. "Notwithstanding these facts, there is no sufficient evidence to prove that any of the accused actually committed the crime originally meditated by them.... For these reasons the accused, each and all, are hereby discharged."

What happened after the Regent and the j.a.panese reached the palace? The party advanced, with the Kunrentai troops to the front. Behind them were the police, the officers in charge, and twenty-six j.a.panese. An inner group of these, about half of them, had special orders to find the Queen and kill her. The gates of the palace were in the hands of j.a.panese soldiers, so the conspirators had free admission. Most of the regular troops paraded outside, according to orders. Some went inside the grounds, accompanied by the rabble, and others moved to the sides of the palace, surrounding it to prevent any from escaping. A body of men attacked and broke down the wall near to the royal apartments.

Rumours had reached the palace that some plot was in progress, but no one seems to have taken much trouble to maintain special watch. At the first sign of the troops breaking down the walls and entering through the gates, there was general confusion. Some of the Korean body-guard tried to resist, but after a few of them were shot the others retired. The royal apartment was of the usual one-storied type, led to by a few stone steps, and with carved wooden doors and oiled-paper windows. The j.a.panese made straight for it, and, when they reached the small courtyard in front, their troops paraded up before the entrance, while the soshi broke down the doors and entered the rooms. Some caught hold of the King and presented him with a doc.u.ment by which he was to divorce and repudiate the Queen. Despite every threat, he refused to sign this. Others were pressing into the Queen's apartments. The Minister of the Household tried to stop them, but was killed on the spot. The soshi seized the terrified palace ladies, who were running away, dragged them round and round by their hair, and beat them, demanding that they should tell where the Queen was. They moaned and cried and declared that they did not know. Now the men were pressing into the side-rooms, some of them hauling-the palace ladies by their hair. Okamoto, who led the way, found a little woman hiding in a corner, grabbed her head, and asked her if she were the Queen. She denied it, freed herself, with a sudden jerk, and ran into the corridor, shouting as she ran. Her son, who was present, heard her call his name three times, but, before she could utter more, the j.a.panese were on her and had cut her down. Some of the female attendants were dragged up, shown the dying body, and made to recognize it, and then three of them were put to the sword.

The conspirators had brought kerosene with them. They threw a bedwrap around the Queen, probably not yet dead, and carried her to a grove of trees in the deer park not far away. There they poured the oil over her, piled f.a.ggots of wood around, and set all on fire. They fed the flames with more and more kerosene, until everything was consumed, save a few bones.

Almost before the body was alight the Regent was being borne in triumph to the palace under an escort of triumphant j.a.panese soldiers. He at once a.s.sumed control of affairs. The King was made a prisoner in his palace. The Regent's partizans were summoned to form a Cabinet, and orders were given that all officials known to be friendly to the Queen's party should be arrested.

The j.a.panese were not content with this. They did everything they could, the Regent aiding them, to blacken the memory of the murdered women. A forged Royal Decree, supposed to have been issued by the King, was officially published, denouncing Queen Min, ranking her among the lowest prost.i.tutes, and a.s.suming that she was not dead, but had escaped, and would again come forward. "We knew the extreme of her wickedness," said the decree, "but We were helpless and full of fear of her party, and so could not dismiss and punish her. We are convinced that she is not only unfitted and unworthy to be Queen, but also that her guilt is excessive and overflowing. With her We could not succeed to the glory of the Royal ancestors, so We hereby depose her from the rank of Queen and reduce her to the level of the lowest cla.s.s."

The poor King, trembling, broken, fearful of being poisoned, remained closely confined in his palace. The foreign community, Ministers and missionaries, did their best for him, conveying him food and visiting him.

If the j.a.panese thought that their crime could be hushed up they were much mistaken. Some of the American missionaries' wives were the Queen's friends. A famous American newspaper man, Colonel c.o.c.kerill, of the New York _Herald_, came to Seoul, and wrote with the utmost frankness about what he learned. So much indignation was aroused that the j.a.panese Government promised to inst.i.tute an enquiry and place the guilty on trial.

Ito was then Prime Minister and declared that every unworthy son of j.a.pan connected with the crime would be placed on trial. "Not to do so would be to condemn j.a.pan in the eyes of all the world," he declared. "If she does not repudiate this usurpation on the part of the Tai Won Run, she must lose the respect of every civilized government on earth." Miura and his a.s.sociates were, in due course, brought before a court of enquiry. But the proceedings were a farce. They were all released, Miura became a popular hero, and his friends and defenders tried openly to justify the murder.

j.a.pan, following her usual plan of following periods of great harshness by spells of mildness, sent Count Inouye as Envoy Extraordinary, to smooth over matters. He issued a decree restoring the late Queen to full rank. She was given the posthumous t.i.tle of "Guileless, revered" and a temple called "Virtuous accomplishment" was dedicated to her memory. Twenty-two officials of high rank were commissioned to write her biography. But the King was still kept a prisoner in the palace.

Then came a bolt from the blue. The Russian Minister at Seoul at this time, M. Waeber, was a man of very fine type, and he was backed by a wife as gifted and benevolent as himself. He had done his best to keep in touch with and help the King. Now a further move was made. The Russian Legation guard was increased to 160 men, and almost immediately afterwards it was announced that the King had escaped from his jailers at the palace, and had taken refuge with the Russians. A little before seven in the morning the King and Crown Prince left the palace secretly, in closed chairs, such as women use. Their escape was carefully planned. For more than a week before, the ladies of the palace had caused a number of chairs to go in and out by the several gates in order to familiarize the guards with the idea that they were paying many visits. So when, early in the morning, two women's chairs were carried out by the attendants, the guards took no special notice. The King and his son arrived at the Russian Legation very much agitated and trembling. They were expected, and were at once admitted. As it is the custom in Korea for the King to work at night and sleep in the morning, the members of the Cabinet did not discover his escape for some hours, until news was brought to them from outside that he was safe under the guardianship of his new friends.

Excitement at once spread through the city. Great crowds a.s.sembled, some armed with sticks, some with stones, some with any weapons they could lay hands on. A number of old Court dignitaries hurried to the Legation, and within an hour or two a fresh Cabinet was const.i.tuted, and the old one deposed.

The heads of the Consulates and Legations called and paid their respects to the King, the j.a.panese Minister being the last to do so. For him this move meant utter defeat. Later in the day, a proclamation was spread broadcast, calling on the soldiers to protect their King, to cut off the heads of the chief traitors and bring them to him. This gave final edge to the temper of the mob. Two Ministers were dragged into the street and slaughtered.

Another Minister was murdered at his home. In one respect the upheaval brought peace. The people in the country districts had been on the point of rising against the j.a.panese, who were reported to be universally hated as oppressors. With their King in power again, they settled down peaceably.

IV

THE INDEPENDENCE CLUB

It was a double blow to j.a.pan that the check to her plans should have been inflicted by Russia, for she now regarded Russia as the next enemy to be overthrown, and was already secretly preparing against her. Russia had succeeded in humiliating j.a.pan by inducing France and Germany to cooperate in a demand that she should evacuate the Liaotung Peninsula, ceded to her, under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, by China. Forced to obey, j.a.pan entered on another nine years of preparation, to enable her to cross swords with the Colossus of the North.

At the close of the nineteenth century Russia was regarded as the supreme menace to world peace. Her expansion to the south of Siberia threatened British power in India; her railway developments to the Pacific threatened j.a.pan. She struggled for a dominating place in the councils of China and was believed to have cast an ambitious eye on Korea. Germany looked with dread on the prospect of France and Russia striking her on either side and squeezing her like a nut between the crackers. Her statesmen were eager to obtain egress to the seas of the south, through the Dardanelles, and years before it had become a part of the creed of every British schoolboy that "the Russians shall not enter Constantinople."

It was dread of what Russia might do that caused England, to the amazement of the world, to conclude an Alliance with j.a.pan in 1902, for the maintenance of the _status quo_ in the Far East. j.a.pan, willing under certain conditions to forget her grievances, had first sought alliance with Russia and had sent Prince Ito on a visit to St. Petersburg for that purpose. But Russia was too proud and self-confident to contemplate any such step, and so j.a.pan turned to Britain, and obtained a readier hearing.

Under the Alliance, both Britain and j.a.pan disclaimed any aggressive tendencies in China or Korea, but the special interests of j.a.pan in Korea were recognized.

The Alliance was an even more important step forward for j.a.pan in the ranks of the nations of the world than her victory against China had been, and it was the precursor of still more important developments. This, however, takes us ahead of our story.

The King of Korea, after his escape from the palace, remained for some time in the Russian Legation, conducting his Court from there. Agreements were arrived at between the Russians, j.a.panese and Koreans in 1896 by which the King was to return to his palace and j.a.pan was to keep her people in Korea in stricter control. A small body of j.a.panese troops was to remain for a short time in Korea to guard the j.a.panese telegraph lines, when it was to be succeeded by some j.a.panese gendarmerie who were to stay "until such time as peace and order have been restored by the Government." Both countries agreed to leave to Korea the maintenance of her own national army and police.

These agreements gave the Korean monarch--who now took the t.i.tle of Emperor--a final chance to save himself and his country. The j.a.panese campaign of aggression was checked. Russia, at the time, was behaving with considerable circ.u.mspection. A number of foreign advisers were introduced, and many reforms were initiated. Progressive statesmen were placed at the head of affairs, and the young reformer, So Jai-pil, Dr. Philip Jaisohn, was summoned from America as Adviser to the Privy Council.

It must be admitted that the results were on the whole disappointing.

Certain big reforms were made. In the period between 1894 and 1904 the developments would have seemed startling to those who knew the land in the early eighties. There was a modern and well-managed railroad operating between Seoul and the port of Chemulpo, and other railroads had been planned and surveyed, work being started on some of them. Seoul had electric light, electric tramways and an electric theatre. Fine roads had been laid around the city. Many old habits of mediaeval times had been abolished. Schools and hospitals were spreading all over the land, largely as a result of missionary activity. Numbers of the people, especially in the north, had become Christians. Sanitation was improved, and the work of surveying, charting and building lighthouses for the waters around the coast begun. Many Koreans of the better cla.s.ses went abroad, and young men were returning after graduation in American colleges. The police were put into modern dress and trained on modern lines; and a little modern Korean Army was launched.

Despite this, things were in an unsatisfactory state. The Emperor, whose nerve had been broken by his experiences on the night of the murder of the Queen and in the days following, was weak, uncertain and suspicious. He could not be relied on save for one thing. He was very jealous of his own prerogatives, and the belief that some of his best statesmen and advisers were trying to establish const.i.tutional monarchy, limiting the power of the Throne, finally caused him to throw in his lot with the anti-Progressive group.

Then there was no real reform in justice. The prisons retained most of their mediaeval horrors, and every man held his life and property at the mercy of the monarch and his a.s.sistants.

Some of the foreign advisers were men of high calibre; others were unfitted for their work, and used their offices to serve their own ends and fill their own pockets. Advisers or Ministers and foreign contractors apparently agreed at times to fill their pockets at the cost of the Government. There is no other rational explanation of some of the contracts concluded, or some of the supplies received. The representatives of the European Powers and America were like one great happy family, and the life of the European and American community in Seoul was for a long time ideal. There came one jarring experience when a Government--it would be unkind to mention which--sent a Minister who was a confirmed dipsomaniac. For days after his arrival he was unable to see the Ministers of State who called on him, being in one long debauch. The members of his Legation staff had to keep close watch on him until word could be sent home, when he was promptly recalled.

The young Koreans who were given power as Ministers and Advisers after the Monarch escaped from j.a.panese control were anxious to promote reform and education, and to introduce some plan of popular administration. They were aided by one British official, Mr. (now Sir John) McLeavy Brown. Mr. Brown, trained in the Chinese Customs Service, was given charge of the Korean Treasury and Customs, at the instigation of the British Government. It was hoped that this appointment indicated that the British Government would take a more active interest in Korean affairs. Unfortunately Korea was far away, and the prevailing idea in England at the time was to escape any more over-seas burdens.

Mr. Brown was the terror of all men who regarded the national treasure chest as the plunder box. Even the King found his extravagance checked, and Imperial schemes were delayed and turned from mere wasteful squanderings to some good purpose. When, for example, the Emperor announced his determination to build a great new memorial palace to the late Queen, Mr.

Brown pointed out that the first thing to do was to build a fine road to the spot. The road was built, to the permanent gain of the nation, and the palatial memorial waited. Old debts were paid off. The nation was making money and saving.

A national economist always arouses many foes. The popular man is the man who spends freely. Officials who found their own gains limited and the sinecure posts for their relatives cut down united against the British guardian of the purse. Just about this time Russian control was changed. M.

Waeber left Seoul, to the universal regret of all who knew him, and was succeeded by M. de Speyer, who displayed the most aggressive aspects of the Russian expansionist movement. A Russian official was appointed Mr. Brown's successor and for a beginning doubled the salaries of the Korean office holders. This brought many of the Korean office holders in line against Mr.

Brown. The latter held on to his office despite the appointment of the Russian, and when an active attempt was made to turn him from his office, the British Fleet appeared in Chemulpo Harbour. Mr. Brown was to be backed by all the force of England. The Russians yielded and Mr. Brown remained on at the head of the Customs, but did not retain full control over the Treasury.

Had Britain or America at this time taken a hand in the administration of Korean affairs, much future trouble would have been avoided. They would have done so as part of their Imperial task of "bearing the burden of weaker nations." Many Koreans desired and tried to obtain the intervention of America, but the United States had not then realized to the extent she was to do later that great power brings great responsibilities, not for your nation alone, but for all the world that has need of you.

During the period of active reform following the King's escape, the Progressives formed a league for the maintenance of Korean union. At their head was Dr. Philip Jaisohn, the boy General of 1884. The movement was one of considerable importance. In response to my request, Dr. Jaisohn has written the following description of what took place:

THE INDEPENDENCE CLUB

"Early in 1896 I went back to Korea after an absence of twelve years, at the urgent invitation of some Koreans who at that time held high positions in the government. When I reached Korea, I found that the Koreans who had invited me had left their government positions, either voluntarily or by force, and they were not to be seen. It seemed that some of them had to leave the country to save their lives. In those days the Korean government changed almost every month.

"At first I tried to help the Korean government in the capacity of Adviser to the Privy Council, as they offered me a five year contract to serve them in this manner. I accepted the offer and gave some advice. For the first month or two some of it was accepted by the Emperor and his Cabinet officers, but they soon found that if they carried out this advice, it would interfere with some of their private schemes and privileges. They informed the Emperor that I was not a friend of his, but a friend of the Korean _people_, which at that time was considered treason. My influence was decreasing every day at the Court, and my advice was ignored. I gave up the idea of helping the government officially and planned to give my services to the Korean people as a private individual.

"I started the first English newspaper, as well as the first Korean newspaper, both being known as _The Independent_. At first this was only published semi-weekly, but later on, every other day. The Korean edition of this paper was eagerly read by the people and the circulation increased by leaps and bounds. It was very encouraging to me and I believe it did exert considerable influence for good. It stopped the government officials from committing flagrant acts of corruption, and the people looked upon the paper as a source of appeal to their ruler. This little sheet was not only circulated in the capital and immediate vicinity, but went to the remote corners of the entire kingdom. A pathetic but interesting fact is that it was read by a subscriber, and when he had finished reading it, turned it over to his neighbours, and in this way each copy was read by at least 200 people. The reason for this was that most of the people were too poor to buy the paper, and it was also very hard to get it to the subscribers, owing to the lack of proper transportation facilities at that time.

"After the paper was running in an encouraging manner, I started a debating club, called THE INDEPENDENCE CLUB, and leased a large hall outside of the West Gate which was originally built by the government to entertain foreign envoys who visited Korea in olden times. This hall was very s.p.a.cious and surrounded by considerable ground and was the best place in Korea for holding public meetings. When this club was organized there were only half a dozen members, but in the course of three months the membership increased to nearly 10,000. There were no obstacles or formalities in joining it and no dues or admission were charged.

As a result, many joined, some from curiosity and some for the sake of learning the way of conducting a public meeting in Parliamentary fashion.

"The subjects discussed were mostly political and economical questions, but religion and education were not overlooked. In the beginning the Koreans were shy about standing up before an audience to make a public speech, but after a certain amount of coaching and encouragement I found that hundreds of them could make very effective speeches. I believe the Koreans have a natural talent for public speaking. Of course, all that was said in these meetings was not altogether logical or enlightening; nevertheless, a good many new thoughts were brought out which were beneficial. Besides, the calm and orderly manner in which various subjects were debated on equal footing, produced a wonderful effect among the Korean young men and to those who were in the audience.