In Korea with Marquis Ito

by George Trumbull Ladd

In spite of this, and of all the other features of these reformed relations which might seem offensive and humiliating to Korean officialdom, it is altogether likely that no considerable disturbance would anywhere have taken place, had it not been for the action of the same disorderly and rebellious factors which occasioned the bloodshed and confusion of Friday, July 19th.[109] These were the Korean troops belonging to the barracks at Seoul. Let it be distinctly understood that these troops were not disciplined soldiers; much less were they sincere though misguided patriots. They were largely untrained rowdies, who cared chiefly for the pay, prestige, and idle life which their employment as so-called palace guards gave to them. At the time of the conclusion of the Convention an understanding probably existed between the Resident-General and the Korean Ministry, who were themselves threatened with assassination and the defeat of all their work by these same armed and unscrupulous fellows, that the Korean army should be disbanded.

Late on Wednesday night, July 31st, an Imperial rescript was issued which ordered the disbandment of the Korean Army. The reason assigned was the necessity of economizing all superfluous expenses and applying the funds thus saved to material improvement. The existing army was called “mercenaries”[110] and said to be “unfit for purposes of national defense.” The intention was announced to remodel the entire military system and, for the present time, to attend chiefly to the training of officers for a national army in the future. A small select force was to be retained as guardians of the Imperial House, and a gratuity in money was to be bestowed upon every one of the disbanded troops, according to rank. All the reasons here given for this action were quite in accordance with the facts; but the most important of all was, of course, concealed—namely, that the existing army was the most serious of all menaces to good order and to peace. It was sure to be the tool, for purposes of assassination, of the reactionary party.

Early the following morning—Thursday, July 31st—the superior officers were summoned to the residence of General Hasegawa, where General Yi, the Korean Minister of War, read to them the rescript of disbandment. After conference it was decided that the non-commissioned officers and men of all the battalions in Seoul should be marched without arms to the parade ground inside the East Gate of the city and there be dismissed after receiving their gratuities from the Emperor. They were to be present for this purpose by ten o’clock of the same morning. Soon after eight o’clock, as the Japanese instructor of the Korean Army was engaged, in its barracks, in drawing up the first battalion of the First Korean Regiment, a great noise of weeping and groaning was heard, and the fact was made known that its commander had committed suicide. This was the signal for the springing up of a great excitement, during which the troops broke their ranks and threatened the Japanese officer with a murderous attack. The mutiny spread at once to another battalion occupying adjoining barracks. The mutineers then proceeded to break open the magazines and, arming themselves, they rushed out of the barracks. They thereupon posted sentinels around the barracks where the majority of the forces still remained, who began to fire aimless shots from within upon the passers-by. Meantime some of the troops ran away.

From this centre the mutiny spread, the mutineers rushing out from the barracks to fire upon the Japanese officers who were conducting to the parade ground the other Korean battalions; but soon after the appointed time of ten o’clock all the Korean forces had reported there, with the exception of the two mutinous battalions. The reduction of the mutinous soldiers was no easy matter, for the main force was entrenched behind stone walls near the centre of the city, and the Japanese forces attacking them were much embarrassed by being fired upon by those of the number who had rushed out from the barracks. But the use of several machine guns—two of which, after being planted on the wall of the Great South Gate, were trained so as to cover the advance of the Japanese infantry—and a hand-to-hand fight with bayonets and hand-grenades at the barracks soon reduced the mutinous Korean soldiers. By 10.50 A. M. the barracks were completely in the hands of the Japanese. The casualties as estimated in the official report of General Hasegawa were, on the side of the Japanese, 3 killed, and 2 officers and 20 men wounded; on the side of the Koreans, 11 officers and 57 men killed, and 100 officers and men wounded. Korean officers and men, to the number of 516, were taken prisoners. The best possible care was given to the wounded, both Koreans and Japanese, in the government and missionary hospitals—Marquis Ito, and his suite, and the prominent Japanese ladies belonging to the Red Cross Society and Patriotic Associations, visiting them in the hospitals and making generous contributions to their assistance and comfort.

In one respect, however, the Japanese military authorities made a mistake which their hostile critics were not slow to seize upon and exaggerate to the discredit of their management generally. It appears that the services of some thirty civilians were volunteered and accepted to assist the police and soldiers in searching for the fugitive mutineers. Much bad blood had been stirred up between the two nationalities by the previous unprovoked attack and murder of the Japanese police at the hands of mutinous Korean soldiers. In the spirit of vengeance, therefore, there was no doubt considerable return of excesses on the part of irresponsible individuals among the Japanese civilian volunteers. Otherwise, the very trying situation in which these revolts of the Korean military forces placed the Japanese Government in Seoul was apparently met with commendable moderation and skill.

One of the most noteworthy features of this entire disturbance was the complete aloofness of the people of Seoul from any hostile demonstration toward the Japanese. Within forty-eight hours of this battle between their own disbanded troops and the foreign military, the city resumed its normal appearance; the people went about their accustomed occupations; the full tide of business began to flow as usual. Such behavior as this, under anything resembling similar conditions, has seldom or never before characterized the populace of Seoul. It must be interpreted as a hopeful sign for the future good order and prosperity of the city.

The disbandment of the Korean provincial garrisons for the most part proceeded quietly. But the disbanded soldiers in considerable numbers allied themselves with other elements of riot and unrest, and local disturbances of a more or less serious character continued to break out and demand suppression by the police and the military, here and there in various parts of the peninsula. This state of things continued for weeks and, in a diminishing degree, for months following the Convention of July, 1907. But the detailed account of these transactions does not concern our narrative. Under the circumstances they may be considered as temporary but unavoidable incidents in the practical solution of this complex and difficult historical problem of the relations to be established between Japan and Korea. Among the mutinous and riotous outbreaks that at Kang-wha Island—the scene in the past of so many acute conflicts between Korea and foreign nations—was typical and also, perhaps, one of the most important. When the Japanese captain in command of a detachment of Japanese troops, and accompanied by the Korean commander of the native battalion at Suwon, arrived to disband the Korean garrison and to distribute the gratuities, they were met by a shower of bullets poured upon them while landing on the island. The Korean mutineers retreated to the city of Kang-wha, where they were joined by some 300 rioters. Under cover of the city walls they offered a somewhat stubborn resistance to the attacking forces, but were finally dislodged and fled in various directions. It was afterward learned that the Korean troops, in defiance of their own officers, had broken open the military magazine, murdered the magistrate of the island and several policemen, and had then forced some hundreds of the citizens, by threats of death, to join with them in fighting the Japanese. When the real fighting began, they ran away.

The procedure at Kang-wha, we repeat, was typical. It is a specimen of the Korean ancestral way of resisting every form of government. The method of these “patriotic” uprisings was everywhere similar. Several score or hundreds of Koreans, stirred and led by the disbanded soldiers, came together, killed the Japanese—old men, women, and children—as well as the police officials, shot some of their own countrymen, chiefly those suspected of not being sufficiently violent in their anti-Japanese sentiments, burned and plundered indiscriminately; and then when the Japanese military or police approached in any formidable numbers they ran away and hid themselves. In view of these disturbed conditions and the alleged connection of some of their converts with these uprisings, the missionaries were anew placed in a difficult and delicate situation. This, however, like the greater number of similar previous trials, was not primarily due to the Japanese Protectorate, but to the Koreans themselves—Emperor, officials, and common people. There were numerous plausible charges made against the missionaries and their converts of harboring Korean rioters and even of lending countenance to the rioting under the pretence of patriotism. There can be little doubt, however, that these charges were, almost if not quite without exception, either misunderstandings or malicious falsehoods. The misunderstandings were, in view of the past, not altogether unreasonable; the falsehoods were such as are encountered by the religious teacher wherever he seems to stand in the way of unlimited greed or unchecked violence. On the whole, as has already been said, there can be no doubt that the missionaries and their Korean converts exerted a notable influence in favor of quietness, peace, and the observance of law and order. That the native Christians were alarmed, and stood in fear both of the Japanese and of their own countrymen, was a thing to be expected. But probably their experience in this time of trial with the behavior of these foreign policemen and soldiers tended to diminish the native dislike and dread of the Japanese Protectorate.

At once the strength of the reform party among the Koreans themselves began to make itself felt under the terms of the new Convention. On the date of August 15th an Imperial rescript forbade boys under seventeen years of age, and girls under fifteen, from contracting marriages. The same day the new Emperor proclaimed the purpose, which he afterward carried out, to cut his hair on the occasion of his formal accession to the throne and to dress himself in military uniform from that time. The ex-Emperor, in spite of the fact that he had formerly been glad to see his people excited to rebellion and murder by a similar proposal for changing the fashion of the Korean gentleman’s head-dress, and in spite also of the fact that weeping eunuchs and ancient Court officials besought him not to proceed to such lengths in breaking with the past, actually did subsequently join in the new custom. And when the deed was done, His ex-Majesty was pleased to command the objectors to do likewise, and to say for himself that the change was really not half so bad as he had thought it would be. Now, although these are not trivial matters in Korea, or mere straws which show the way of the blowing of the wind, a more important result of the new Convention was this: after due deliberation, the Cabinet Ministers decided that the young son of Lady Om who had already been proclaimed Crown Prince, must in future really attend to his lessons and become educated in some manner befitting his future expectations. Although it was doubted whether His Imperial Highness was not still too young to go to Japan for study, he was required to begin the study of the Japanese language in addition to English and Chinese. Left to the influence of the eunuchs and palace women, he was sure to be debauched and ruined. Educated, he may easily make the best sovereign Korea has enjoyed for centuries.

At once also the Resident-General began to mature the larger plans for carrying out his purposes toward Korea which the new Convention made possible. For now upon the Japanese Government in Korea rested the responsibility, not only for the satisfactory and safe management of the country’s foreign relations, but directly and more heavily than ever before, the readjustment, reform, and successful management of all its internal affairs. To report to the Emperor of Japan, and to consult with His Majesty and with the Japanese Government about the form and successful execution of the measures made necessary or desirable by the new Convention, Marquis Ito paid a visit to his native land. Leaving Seoul by special train for Chemulpo on the afternoon of August 11th, His Excellency arrived at Oiso five days later; and on the Tuesday following, August 20th, received at Shimbashi Station in Tokyo a reception, both by the official class and by the crowds, such as has seldom or never been accorded to a civilian before in the history of Japan. The reception given to him by the Emperor, who had sent an Imperial Chamberlain to intimate his desire to consult with the Resident-General, was scarcely less unique.