During the long history of China and Japan these countries very rarely came into conflict with each other. Only once has China invaded Japan, when Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, attempted its conquest with a great fleet, the fate of which we have already told. This effort had its influence upon Japan, for during the succeeding three centuries pirates from the island empire boldly raided the coast of China, devastating the maritime provinces and causing immense loss and suffering. They often built forts on the shore, from which they sallied forth to plunder and burn, keeping their ships at hand ready to fly if defeated. Thus they went on, plundering and destroying, their raids reaching a ruinous stage in 1553 and the succeeding years. They defeated the Chinese troops in several battles, ravaged the whole surrounding country, carried off immense quantities of spoil, sold multitudes of prisoners into slavery, and in seven or eight years slaughtered over one hundred thousand soldiers and citizens of China. The raids resembled those made at an earlier date by the Normans on the coast of France and the Danes on that of England, the sea-rovers pouncing down at unexpected times and places and plundering and burning at will.
These forays of the pirates, in which the government took no part, were followed in 1592 by an invasion in force of the kingdom of Corea. In this the invaders rapidly swept all before them, quickly overrunning the southern half of the kingdom and threatening China. The Chinese then came to the aid of their helpless neighbors, and for six years the war went on, the Japanese being usually successful in the field, but gradually forced back from want of supplies, as the country was devastated and their own land distant. In the end Hideyoshi, the shogun, died, and the army was withdrawn, Japan holding the port of Fusan as the sole result of its costly effort. This Corean port it still retains.
And now three hundred years passed away in which Corea remained free and isolated from the world. It wanted no more intercourse with foreigners. Once a year a fair was held in the neutral zone between China and Corea, but any Chinaman found on Corean soil after the fair ended was liable to be put to death. The Japanese were kept out by laws as severe. In fact, the doors of the kingdom were closed against all of foreign birth, the coasts carefully patrolled, and beacon-fires kindled on the hill-tops to warn the capital whenever any strange vessel came within sight. All foreigners wrecked on the coast were to be held as prisoners until death. Such was the threatened fate of some Dutch sailors wrecked there during the seventeenth century, who escaped after fourteen years' confinement. Dread of China and Japan induced the king to send envoys with tribute to Peking and Yedo, but the tribute was small, and the isolation was maintained, Corea winning for itself the names of the Hermit Nation and the Forbidden Land.
It was not until within recent years that this policy of isolation was overthrown and Corea opened to the world. How this was done may be briefly told. In spite of the Corean watchfulness, some French missionaries long ago penetrated into the land and made many converts, who were afterwards severely persecuted. French fleets were sent there in 1866 and later, and a fight took place in which the French were repulsed. In consequence the persecution of the Christians grew more severe. War-ships were sent by different nations to try to open trade, but in vain, and finally an American trading vessel was destroyed and its crew massacred.
This affair brought a fleet from the United States to the coast of Corea in 1871, which, being fired on from the shore, attacked and captured five Corean forts. The opening of Corea was finally due to Japan. In 1876 the Japanese did what Commodore Perry had done to themselves twenty-two years before. A fleet was sent which sailed up within sight of Seoul, the capital, and by a display of men and guns forced the government to sign a treaty opening the country to trade through the port of Fusan. In 1880 Chemulpo was also made an open port. Two years afterwards a United States fleet obtained similar concessions, and within a short time most of the countries of Europe were admitted to trade, and the long isolation of the Hermit Kingdom was at an end.
These events were followed by a rivalry between China and Japan, in which the latter country showed itself much the more active and alert. Imposing Japanese consulates were built in Seoul, flourishing settlements were laid out, and energetic steps taken to make Japan the paramount power in Corea. As a result, the Coreans became divided into two factions, a progressive one which favored the Japanese, and a conservative one which was more in touch with the backwardness of China and whose members hated the stirring islanders.
In 1882 a plot was formed by the Min faction, the active element in the conservative party, to drive the Japanese out of Seoul. The intruders were attacked, a number of them were murdered, and the minister and others had to fight their way to the sea-shore, where they escaped on a junk. Two years afterwards a similar outbreak took place, and the Japanese were once more forced to fight for their lives from Seoul to the sea. On this occasion Chinese soldiers aided the Coreans, an act which threatened to involve Japan and China in war. The dispute was settled in 1885 by a treaty, in which both countries agreed to withdraw their troops from Corea and to send no officers to drill the Corean troops. If at any future time disturbances should call for the sending of troops to Corea, each country must notify the other before doing so. And thus, for nine years, the rivalry of the foreign powers ceased.
Meanwhile internal discontent was rife in the Corean realm. The people were oppressed by heavy taxes and the other evils of tyranny and misgovernment, excited by the political questions described, and stirred to great feeling by the labors of the Christian missionaries and the persecution of their converts. One outcome of this was a new religious sect. At the same time that the Tai-ping rebels were spreading their new doctrines in China, a prophet, Choi-Chei-Ou by name, arose in Corea, who taught a doctrine made up of dogmas of the three religions of China, with some Christian ideas thrown in. This prophet was seized as a Roman Catholic in 1865 and executed, but his followers, known as the Tong-Haks, held firm to their faith. In 1893 some of them appeared with complaints of ill usage at the king's palace, and in March, 1894, they broke out in open revolt, and increased in numbers so rapidly that by May they were said to be twenty thousand strong.
The government troops drove them back into a mountain region, but here the pursuers were cunningly led into an ambuscade and routed with severe loss. This victory of the rebels filled the government with consternation, which became greater when the insurgents, on June 1, took the capital of the province of Chölla. It was now feared that they would soon be at the gates of Seoul.
This insurrection of the Tong-Haks was the inciting cause of the war between China and Japan. The Min faction, then at the head of affairs, was so alarmed that aid from China was implored, and a force of about two thousand Chinese troops was sent to the port of Asan. Some Chinese men-of-war were also despatched. This action of China was quickly followed by similar action on the part of Japan, which was jealous of any Chinese movement in Corea. The Japanese minister, who had been absent, returned to Seoul with four hundred marines. Other troops quickly followed, and in a short time there were several thousand Japanese soldiers stationed around the Corean capital.