In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

The impolitic attempts at hasty and radical reform in Korea, which followed the outbreak of the Chino-Japanese war, were resisted by the Court party at Seoul, headed by the Queen and the Min family to which she belonged. Early in October, 1895, the Queen planned a coup d’état with a view to disbanding the soldiers who had been trained by Japanese officers, and of replacing the pro-Japanese partisans of reform in the Korean Cabinet by her friends. The result was a counter-plot (in which the King’s father, the veteran conspirator Tai Won Kun, was a prime mover) to seize the King and Queen with the aim of obtaining complete control of the Korean Government in interest of the pro-Japanese and reform party. In carrying out this plot (in which the Japanese Minister Miura seems to have been an accomplice) the Queen was murdered by Japanese and Korean ruffians.

“This disgusting crime,” Hershey goes on to say, “although it assured the power of the reform Cabinet for the time being, reacted upon its perpetrators, and was followed, four months later, by another equally revolting, by means of which Russia gained control of the Government of Korea. In January, 1896, there took place a slight uprising in Northern Korea, at the instigation, it was said, of pro-Russian leaders. When the major portion of the army had been sent out of the capital to suppress the rebellion, 127 Russian marines with a cannon suddenly landed at Chemulpo on February 10, and immediately entered Seoul. The next day the King, accompanied by the Crown Prince and some court ladies, fled in disguise to the Russian Legation, where he remained until February 20, 1897.”

Following this escapade the Prime Minister, Kim Hong Chip, a man widely respected and in no way connected with the murder of the Queen, and Chung Pyang Ha, equally innocent of the same crime, were deliberately thrust forth from the palace gates into the hands of the waiting mob, which, in true Korean fashion, tore them limb from limb. Another Minister was killed a few days later in the country. Thus ended Japan’s attempt to enter into friendly relations with Korea while the latter nation was in the anomalous condition of an independent dependency of China. Two valuable results, however, had been reached: Korea had been definitively and finally delivered from Chinese control and dominating influence; and her own inability to stand alone and to inaugurate the needed reforms had been, it would seem, quite sufficiently demonstrated. Japan, on the other hand, had not as yet shown her ability wisely to inaugurate and effectively to secure these reforms; and by the injudicious action of her representative in Korea she had thrown the temporary control of the Korean Court into the selfish and intriguing hands of other foreigners. The events of the next decade, therefore, led logically and irresistibly forward to a yet more desperate struggle, at a yet more frightful cost, to solve the Korean problem.

CHAPTER X
THE PROBLEM: HISTORICAL (CONTINUED)

The conclusion of the centuries of intricate and unsatisfactory relations between these two countries was, to quote the words of another, that “Japan saw herself deposed from the position in Korea to which her victories entitled her, by a nation which appeared to be both an upstart and a usurper on the Sea of Japan.”[22] For three and a quarter centuries Russia had been advancing through Asia at the average rate of 20,000 square miles annually; and now, in the endeavor, in itself laudable, to secure an outlet on the Pacific for her Asiatic possessions, she began extending her customary policy over Manchuria and the Peninsula. It is doubtful whether the Korean King, when he took refuge in the Russian Legation at Seoul, was really alarmed for his personal safety; it is certain that he hated intensely the reform measures which had been forced upon him, and the men among his own subjects who were committed to those measures. His life was, however, never in any real danger at this period. His presence and his position at the Russian Legation, during his entire stay there, was lacking in all semblance of royal dignity. He was himself in the virtual custody of a foreign power. The different Cabinet Ministers had their places assigned in the dining-room of the Legation, behind screens;—“all except one lucky individual who secured quarters for his exclusive use in an abandoned out-house where wood and coal were usually stored.”

There began now a game of manœuvring and intrigue in which, for some years to come, the Japanese were to be at a large disadvantage. The King, who has always shown himself irrevocably committed to the peculiar methods of Korean politics, within two weeks of the day on which he had taken refuge in the Russian Legation, began secretly communicating with the Japanese Minister. The Russian Minister at that time, who has been pronounced “probably the most adroit representative of her interests whom Russia ever had in Korea,” proclaimed himself an unwilling victim of the King’s fear, which he regarded as hysterical, but could not, in common decency, fail to respect. The Japanese were in no position to resent the insult or to foreguard against the menace which all this involved.

Not unnaturally, the Russian representative undertook promptly to avail his country of the especially favorable opportunity for promoting its interests in the Far East which was offered by the intimate relations of protection established over the Korean Government. For it should never be lost out of mind that until years after these events, whoever had dominating influence with the Korean monarch controlled, in largest measure, the Korean Government. M. Waeber, among other material benefits, secured valuable mining and timber concessions for his countrymen; it was also, probably, due to his influence that the Korean troops which had been trained by the Japanese, were disbanded. There then followed a radical change in the policy of Japan, which is described as follows by Hershey:[23]

In the summer of 1896 Japan formally departed from her policy of the past two decades of upholding the independence and integrity of Korea by her own efforts, and sought the co-operation of Russia toward the same end. On May 14th, the Russian and Japanese Ministers at Seoul concluded a memorandum which fixed the number and disposition of Japanese troops in Korea. On June 9, 1896, the Yamagata-Lobanoff protocol was signed at St. Petersburg. It was thereby agreed:

(1) That the Japanese and Russian governments should unite in advising the Korean Government to suppress all unnecessary expenses and to establish an equilibrium between expenditure and revenue. If, as a result of reforms which should be considered indispensable, it should become necessary to have recourse to foreign debts, the two governments should of a common accord render their support to Korea. (2) The Japanese and Russian governments should try to abandon to Korea, in so far as the financial and economic situation of that country should permit, the creation and maintenance of an armed force and of a police organized of native subjects, in proportion sufficient to maintain internal order, without foreign aid. (3) Russia was to be permitted to establish a telegraph line from Seoul to her frontier; the Japanese Government being allowed to administer those lines already in its possession. (4) In case the principles above expounded require a more precise and more detailed definition, or if in the future other points should arise about which it should be necessary to consult, the representatives of the two governments should be instructed to discuss them amicably.