In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

The earlier trade relations between Japan and Korea were irregular and by no means always satisfactory to either party. The wardens of the island of Tsushima, which is by its very position a sort of natural mediating territory between the two countries—the So family—had virtual control of the legitimate commerce. They issued permits for fifty ships which passed annually from ports in Japan to the three Japanese settlements in the peninsula. These Japanese traders and the Korean officials behaved toward each other in so objectionable fashion that a revolt of the settlers in Fusan arose in 1610, in the effort to suppress which the Koreans were at first defeated; but afterward, being re-enforced strongly from Seoul, they compelled the settlers to retire from all the three settlements; and thus for the time being the trade between Japan and Korea came to an end. When, later, the Shogunate Government complied with the demand of the Korean Government that the ringleaders of this disturbance should be decapitated and their heads sent to Seoul, the trade was re-established. But it did not attain its previous proportions; it was limited to twenty-five vessels annually, and the settlements were abandoned. Similar troubles recurred some thirty years later. The Shogun of that period, too, caused the offenders to be arrested and handed over to the Korean authorities; but the Court at Seoul continued its refusal to allow the commerce with the Japanese to be expanded.

The amount of contribution made by Korea to the civilization of Japan in those earlier days has probably been somewhat exaggerated. Both these countries are chiefly indebted to China for the elements of the arts and of letters, and for most of the other refinements of their culture; these came to Japan, however, to a considerable extent through Korea. According to the records of the Japanese themselves, in the century before the Christian era Chinese scholars came to Satsuma through Korea, Tsushima, and the intervening islands. At about the same time Koreans also brought Chinese civilization to Japan.[7] During the reign of the Emperor Kimmei (555 A.D.), according to Japanese tradition, the king of Kudara in Korea sent to Japan an envoy bearing an image of Buddha and a copy of the Sutras. But while the Minister-President was experimenting with its worship, the occurrence of a pestilence proved that the ancestral deities were angry at the intrusion of a foreign form of worship.[8] After the “subjugation of the three kingdoms of Korea a number of Chinese and Koreans came to settle in Japan. In order to avert confusion in family names and titles which might have arisen from this cause, an investigation of family names was made in the 1430th year after the Emperor Jimmu (about A.D. 770).” It will thus be seen that there are probably in both countries families which have in their veins the mingled blood of both races.

Relations tending to exasperate the feeling of each country against the other continued through the centuries which constituted the Middle Ages in Europe. In Japan the feudal system was approaching its more elaborate and powerful development; in Korea the weakness and corruption of the Court, the ignorance, suffering from oppression, and lawlessness of the people were not improving. Thus the two nations were drawing further and further apart and were following the paths which have led to such a wide divergence in the now existing conditions—mentally, politically, and socially. The various embassies sent by Kublai Khan to Japan during the years of 1268-1274 A.D. came via Korea and were accompanied by Korean officials. The attempted Mongol invasions of Japan were assisted by Korea. On the other hand, the peninsula continued to suffer from the attacks of Japanese pirates. The inhabitants of the Southwest coasts of Japan made raids upon the opposite coasts, engaging in open conflict with the Korean troops, killing their generals, destroying their barracks, and carrying away as plunder, horses, ships, and stores of grain. In these encounters the soldiers of Korea showed their traditional lack of courage in the field, frequently retreating before the Japanese raiders without striking a single blow. Frequent envoys were sent from Korea to remonstrate and demand reparation; and one of these took back with him (1377 A.D.) several hundred Koreans who had been made prisoners by the Japanese pirates, but were returned to their own country by Imagawa Sadayo, Governor of Kiushiu. No really effective measures to stop piracy were, however, taken by the Japanese Government until the time of the ex-Shogun Yoshimitsu, who on several occasions had the pirates arrested and handed over to China, the suzerain of Korea. For later on the Japanese pirates associated themselves with Chinese pirates and pursued their business of plunder quite impartially as against either Koreans or Chinese. When the Koreans took reprisals upon those inhabitants of Tsushima who were residing in the southern part of their land, the people of that island made an attack upon Fusan and destroyed its fortifications (1510 A.D.).

The first notable conflict between Korea and Japan was the invasion of Hideyoshi. Various motives have been assigned for this war-like expedition; the real motives were probably complex. Hideyoshi was undoubtedly angry at Korea for her refusal to open the country to trade with Japan. He was willing to take his revenge for the assistance that had been given to the Yuan dynasty of Mongols in their attacks upon Japan.[9] But he was especially desirous to get at China through Korea, and to use the latter country as a base for his attack. He began (1587 A.D.) by sending a despatch to the warden of Tsushima directing him to invite the King of Korea to an audience with the Emperor of Japan; and he accompanied the invitation with a threat of invasion unless the invitation were accepted. Next, having quite thoroughly “pacified” (in Cæsar’s fashion) his own country, he sent a demand for presents—plainly of a tributary character—with the same threat accompanying. This time an envoy from his own person assured the Koreans that unless they complied they would be compelled to march in the van of the Japanese army for the invasion of China. Hideyoshi, when this insolent demand failed of its purpose, first worshipped at the tomb of the Empress Jingo—the reputed conqueror of Korea in most ancient times. In April, 1592, the Japanese invading force, which consisted according to the Japanese records of 130,000 in eight army corps, sailed in a fleet manned by 9,000 sailors with the Generals Konishi Yukinaga and Katō Kiyomasa leading the van. They were to carry out the threat of the Taiko for the punishment and subjugation of Korea. According to the statement of the authority we are following,[10] Hideyoshi expected to conquer China in two years and contemplated transferring the capital of Japan to that country. “He even went so far as to determine the routine to be followed in the removal of the Japanese Court to China.” How characteristic is this detailed planning, without sufficient regard for the exigencies of time, the enormous intervening obstacles, and the possible adverse will of heaven, of the national temperament even down to the present time!

It is not necessary to our purpose to follow the early brilliant successes and the disastrous ending of the invasion of Korea by Hideyoshi. Both nations displayed their characteristic virtues and faults during this period of intercourse by way of conflict—the knightly courage and arrogant overconfidence of the Japanese, the passive power of resistance and the weakness and political corruption of the Koreans. But as to the invasion itself our sympathies must remain with Korea; it was without sufficient warrant, conducted incautiously, and more disastrous in its result to the invaders themselves than to the country which they had, for the time being, desolated. By the courage and skill of Admiral Yi and by the assistance of China, the forces of Japan were finally, after a period of seven years, so reduced that Hideyoshi, at the point of death, recalled them; and the war came to an end in 1598. The terms of peace agreed to were on the whole humiliating to the Japanese.

The great Iyeyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa Dynasty, took measures, repeatedly and patiently, to renew those relations of a promising friendly character which had been dissolved in hatred by the invasion of Hideyoshi. He sent repeated embassies to Korea, restored prisoners that had been led captive at the time of the Taiko’s invasion, and spared no pains to make the Koreans understand that a decided change of policy had taken place in the Japanese Government toward their country. From his time onward, the official treatment given to Korea by Japan has been conspicuous, as compared with the example furnished by other civilized countries under similar trying conditions, for its fairness and its friendliness. This fact becomes amusingly obvious when we compare the way in which the claims for tribute from Korea have been made by the two countries, China and Japan. Under the Tokugawas the nominal sovereigns paid the bills; but the Korean tribute-bearers (sic) had a largely free junketing expedition of three months’ duration at the expense of the Japanese. Under the Manchu Dynasty, however, the tribute fixed for annual payment took a very substantial shape; it included 100 ounces of gold, 1,000 ounces of silver, 10,000 bags of rice, 2,000 pieces of silk, 10,000 pieces of cotton cloth, 10,000 rolls (50 sheets each) of large-sized paper, and other less important items. Even then, it can be seen, the Chinese greatly excelled the Japanese in their business ability. Moreover, when the Koreans pleaded that the payment of tribute to China had so impoverished them that they could not render what was due to Japan, the Japanese forgave them the obligation (A.D. 1638).[11] Nor was this the last time in which the forgiveness of debts was exercised toward the Korean Government in a manner unaccustomed between nations of conflicting interests.

Finally the Koreans, having obtained the consent of China, sent to Japan a letter from their king, together with some presents; and from this time onward, on the occasion of each change of Shogun, Korean envoys came to the country to offer congratulations. The Tokugawas, on their side, were careful to “treat these delegates with all courtesy and consideration”; they also discontinued the offensive custom which the Ashikaga family had followed, of assuming for the Shogun the title of “King of Korea.”[12] Meantime, the So family improved the opportunity which their position as intermediaries between Japan and Korea afforded to renew and increase the trade relations of the two countries. It is probable that lasting friendly intercourse would have been established from this time onward if it had not been, at this period, as all through Korea’s unfortunate history, for the baleful influence of China. This fact becomes prominent in all the foreign relations of Korea during the half century following the early attempts to open the Hermit Kingdom to intercourse with other nations. The French and American expeditions for this purpose were productive only of the result that the Koreans became more obstinate in their resistance to outside influences, and more secure in their pride and confidence in their ability to resist successfully through their superior craft and courage in war. These expeditions illustrate, however, the policy of China in maintaining its claims of suzerainty over Korea. To take, for example, the experience of the United States in dealing with this policy, it may be summarized in somewhat the following way:

The destruction of the American schooner General Sherman, in 1866, was the occasion of some desultory correspondence between the American and the Chinese Governments. The former presented the matter at Peking because China was supposed to sustain some sort of relationship of suzerainty, not clearly understood, toward Korea. China, however, would not admit the existence of any kind of bond which made her responsible for Korean acts; the Tsungli Yamen said, in effect, that there had existed from ancient times a certain dependency by Korea upon China; but they denied in express words that it was of such a nature as to give China any right to control or to interfere with the administration of Korean foreign or domestic affairs.

It was precisely this attitude which was the fons et origo of the subsequent trouble between China and Japan. From the Chinese standpoint, as shown by official declarations and acts, Korea was and was not a vassal state. She was so when it suited China actively to interfere, and not so when it was either difficult or dangerous, or even troublesome, to assume the responsibilities of suzerainty. China was not even willing to act the part of intermediary if by doing so she could be held to accept the onus of making or compelling the reparation which America demanded.

Finally the United States Government took matters in its own hands and the expedition under Admiral John Rodgers was sent to Korea in 1871. The failure of that expedition to accomplish anything beyond the destruction of the fort on Kang-wha Island, and Commodore Shufeldt’s subsequent attempt to open up communication with the Korean Government, were the total of American efforts regarding Korea up to the time when the Shufeldt treaty was negotiated.