Korea's Fight for Freedom

by Fred A. McKenzie

III

THE MURDER OF THE QUEEN

"We are not ready to fight China yet," said the Japanese Foreign Minister to the impetuous young Korean. It was ten years later before Japan 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 Japanese outposts were in contact. Here Japan when she was ready created her cause of war.

China despised Japan, 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, Japan 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 Japanese 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 Japanese prestige. The Japanese dead lay unburied in the streets for the dogs to eat. China was momentarily supreme. "The whole mass 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-Japanese that it is impossible to obtain other than a volume of execrations and vituperations against them when questioned," A semi-official Japanese 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 attitude of Japanese settlers towards the Korean people, and of Japanese Ministers towards 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 strict discipline, save on certain unusual occasions. Now, however, they walked as conquerors. The Japanese 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 Japanese Minister, Count Inouye, protested publicly and privately against the violent ways and rascalities of the new Japanese immigrants pouring into Korea. He denounced their lack of coöperation, arrogance and extravagance. "If the Japanese 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 participants in the émeute of 1884 were brought back by the Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese Minister and the Regent.

The Japanese Secretary of Legation, Fukashi 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 Japanese 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 Japan. Miura agreed. She was ungrateful. Disorder and confusion would be introduced into the new Japanese 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 assume real power. As a result of their conversation, a conference was held between the Japanese Minister and his two leading officials, Sugimura and Okamoto. "The decision arrived at on that occasion," states the report of the Japanese Court of Preliminary Enquiries, "was that assistance 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 Japanese 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: Japanese official report.]

The whole thing was to be done according to system. The Regent was made to bind himself down to the Japanese. 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 assented" to the conditions and he wrote a letter guaranteeing his good faith. The Japanese 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 Fukashi 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 Japanese battalion in Seoul Miura summoned some of the Japanese 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 Japanese 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: Japanese official report.]

[Footnote 2: Ibid.]

[Footnote 3: Ibid.]

The party of Japanese met at the rendezvous, to escort the Regent's palanquin. At the point of departure Okamoto (one of the Japanese Minister's two right-hand men) "assembled 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 Japanese Court of Preliminary Enquiries, which had Viscount Miura and his assistants 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 Japanese 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 Japanese. 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 document 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 Japanese 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 faggots 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 Japanese soldiers. He at once assumed 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 Japanese 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 prostitutes, and assuming 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 class."

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 Japanese 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 Cockerill, 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 Japanese Government promised to institute an enquiry and place the guilty on trial. Ito was then Prime Minister and declared that every unworthy son of Japan connected with the crime would be placed on trial. "Not to do so would be to condemn Japan 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 associates 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.

Japan, 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 title 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 assembled, 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 constituted, and the old one deposed.

The heads of the Consulates and Legations called and paid their respects to the King, the Japanese 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 Japanese, who were reported to be universally hated as oppressors. With their King in power again, they settled down peaceably.