Korea's Fight for Freedom. Fred A. McKenzie
the Korean Government. Officially they advanced claims so unjust that they aroused the protest of other foreigners. The attitude of the Japanese 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 Japanese," he wrote, "is the most striking phenomenon in contemporary Chosen. Civil and obliging in their own country, the Japanese develop in Korea a faculty for bullying and bluster 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 Japanese. 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 Japanese influences. It did not suit Japan that Korea should develop independently and too rapidly. Disturbances would help to keep her back.
When the moment was ripe, Japan 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 Japanese, out of the country; but this was mere camouflage. The real purpose was to provoke China to send troops to Korea, and so give Japan an excuse for war.
The Japanese 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, Japan 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 Japan.
This was what Japan wanted. She poured troops over the channel until there were 10,000 in the capital Then she showed her hand. The Japanese Minister, Mr. Otori, brusquely demanded of the King that he should renounce Chinese suzerainty. The Koreans tried evasion. The Japanese 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 Japanese troops menaced his capital.
The declaration of war between Japan and China followed. The first incident was the blowing up by the Japanese 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 Japan the supreme power in the Extreme East, was signed at Shimonoseki on April 17, 1895.
Before fighting actually began, the Japanese 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. Japanese 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 Japan, Korea was to facilitate the movements and to help in the food supplies of the Japanese troops in every possible way.
3. That this treaty should only last until the conclusion of peace with China.
Japan at once created an assembly, in the name of the King, for the "discussion of everything, great and small, that happened within the realm." This assembly at first met daily, and afterwards at longer intervals. There were soon no less than fifty Japanese 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 institutions 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 constitution, 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 constitution-mongers. Their doings were the laugh and the amazement of every foreigner in the place.
Acting on the Japanese love of order and of defined rank, exact titles 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," "Noble Lady," "Resplendent Exemplar," "Chaste Exemplar," "Resplendent Demeanour," "Chaste Demeanour," "Resplendent Beauty," and "Chaste Beauty." The Japanese advisers instituted 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.
Japanese 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 Japanese Government just then to destroy the old Korean form of administration. It was doubtful how far the European Powers would permit Japan to extend her territory, and so the Japanese 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 Japan almost a monopoly of industry in Korea. The Japanese 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. Japanese troops still retained possession of the palace gates and adjoining buildings.
Another movement took place at this time as the result of Japanese 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 attitude of the Japanese to the Koreans. While the war was on the Japanese soldiers had shown very