The History of Korea (vol. 2 of 2)

by Homer B. Hulbert

In the early centuries of the Christian era there was a celebrated Chinese general named Kwan U. He was of gigantic size and had a fiery red face, rode a powerful red horse, could walk a thousand li a day (!) and carried a sword that weighed 800 pounds (!!). It is said that while the Japanese were occupying Seoul the spirit of this great man appeared repeatedly near the South and East Gates and struck terror to the hearts of the Japanese. Now, as the Chinese generals were about to leave for China, Admiral Chil Lin built a shrine to this same Kwan U outside the South Gate. In the thirty-third year of King Sun-jo, namely 1600 A. D., the Emperor sent four million cash to build a temple to this Kwan U and the present temple outside the South Gate was erected. The Emperor at the same time ordered another to be built by the Koreans outside the East Gate, and it was done. The two temples are exactly alike. When the king asked the Emperor to name the temple he said “Call it the Hyöng-nyung-so dok-kwan-gong” which means “The great and bright appearance of the spirit of Kwan.” The king also built shrines to him in Song-ju and An-dong of Kyŭng-sang Province, and at Nam-wŭn in Chŭl-la Province.

We have already seen that factious fights had been a great cause of weakness all through the years of the invasion, and from this time on party strife was destined to grow more and more fierce and determined until it brought the country to the very verge of anarchy a century later. We must note here briefly the changes which had taken place in the parties. We will remember that at first there were two parties, the Tong-in and the Sŭ-in. During the war the court favorite was Yu Sŭng-nyŭng who gave office to so many men from Kyŭng-sang Province that the name of Nam-in or “South Men” sprang up and a party by that name quickly became organized, but their opponents in order to preserve the political equilibrium instantly seized upon the name Puk-in or “North Men.” At the close of the war the leader of the opposition, namely of the Puk-in, memorialized the king against Yu Sŭng-nyŭng the favorite, charging him with having desired to make peace with the Japanese, contrary to the honor of the country. The king listened to this and banished Yu, but his supporters turned the tables by a counter-memorial in which the charges were more than answered and Yu was restored to all his honors. With the rise of the Nam-in and Puk-in parties the old party lines of the Tong-in and Sŭ-in had not been broken up or lost. During the latter years of the invasion the Nam-in party lost its powerful grip and the Puk-in were often in power, but from the end of the invasion until far into the following reign the Tong-in held the power, and after that for a period of fifty years the Sŭ-in had control of affairs. It may be asked what principles underlay these parties, what settled policies they had that differentiated them either in domestic or foreign matters. We answer that the various parties had but one plank in their platforms, one settled plan of action, and that was to get the ear of the king and seize upon the office-making power and put in every position one’s own partisans. It was the spoils system sublimated, for there was absolutely no admixture of any other element.

Now that the war was over the Japanese on Tsushima desired to open again commercial relations with Korea, which had always been mutually profitable; and so in the following year, 1601, an envoy, Kuroda, came from that island bringing with him three hundred men and women who had been carried away captive during the war. This envoy asked that there might be reciprocity of trade. The king referred the matter to Nanking and the reply seems to have been in the affirmative, for we find that soon after this an envoy was sent over to Tsushima with credentials; but after all the Japanese petition was not at this time granted. At the same time the Emperor gave orders for the return to China of all the remaining troops, but at the earnest request of the king 8000 men were left to help guard the southern provinces. Posthumous honors were heaped upon Admiral Yi Sun-sin who had been the very salvation of Korea, but who had sought death in battle, knowing that if he lived his detractors would drag him down. Yi Hang-bok and eighty-five others received high commendation and additional honors also. The year ended with the unsuccessful attempt of an insurrectionary party in the south which was nipped in the bud, the ring-leader being forwarded to Seoul[Seoul] to be beheaded.

An unscrupulous man named Yu Yong-gyŭng was the court favorite at this time and upon him devolved the task of appointing and dismissing officials; consequently he was the recipient of countless presents, and on one occasion two men to whom he had sold the same office met at his gate and quarrelled over the matter, to the scandal of the court. The state of affairs at the capital was anything but satisfactory, the reason being that the strife of parties rendered honesty and fairness impossible. It was a constant fight to gain the king’s ear and, having gained it, to turn out all enemies and put in personal adherents. About this time a remeasurement of all the arable land of the country was ordered and it was discovered that the total revenue of the country was 1,515,500 kyul of rice, each kyul being about 120 pecks of rice, or over two hundred pounds. It also included 300,000 bags of other grains.

In the[the] year 1605 the Japanese again asked that a treaty be made and that Korea send an envoy to the Japanese court. The king complied and sent the same monk, Yu Chung, ordering him to look carefully into the matter of the military strength of the Island Empire and the distance by boat. He returned the following year bringing with him, it is said, three thousand Koreans who had been taken to Japan from time to time during the invasion. The Korean accounts tell us nothing of the booty that the Japanese carried away to Japan during the war, nor of the transportation of Korean artisans and their employment in Japan in teaching the making of pottery and other works of use and art, but we may well believe the Japanese reports, that assert that immense amounts of treasure were carried away and that the making of the beautiful Satsuma ware was an outcome of the teaching of Korean artisans.

This year was also signalized by a fierce conflict between the savage tribe of Hol-cha-on, north of the Tu-man River, and the government troops under Gen. Song U-gil. The latter crossed the river by night and attacked the main settlement of the tribe and utterly destroyed it, and effectually broke up the tribe. Great quantities of goods which had been stolen from the border settlements were also recovered.

We are now on the threshold of events which led up to a very painful period in Korean history. It will be remembered that the king had no heir by the queen and had therefore nominated to the throne his heir by a concubine, the Prince Kwang-hŭ. This was a man of violent temper, bad instincts, corrupt, selfish, careless of the pubic good. When therefore the king, in the fortieth year of his reign, was presented with a son by his queen, his delight was as great as was the chagrin of the heir apparent. According to law it was impossible to set aside the man already nominated, but now that the king finally got the boy he had been looking for so long, his feelings got the better of his judgment and he was bent upon having the child receive all the honors due to the future wearer of the crown. So he sent out the order that officials should come to the palace, and do obeisance as when an heir to the throne is born. This was the most impolitic thing he could have done, for it aroused all the hatred there was in the Prince Kwang-hŭ, who had for so many years looked upon his eventual occupancy of the throne as fully assured, and who saw in these demonstrations of affection on the part of the king a latent desire to change the decree which had already gone forth. If the king really desired to set aside that decree he should have sent to Nanking and had the Emperor do it, but it was not so to be, and the infant boy entered the world with one deadly enemy ranged against him, whose first act would be to put him out of the way. Nor was it the boy alone who gained the hatred of this prince. The queen herself became the object of his special hatred, and the official who sent forth the order that honor should be done to the infant.

The Japanese kept urging their point, that relations of mutual benefit be resumed, and kept protesting their good intentions toward Korea. The king had just received an envoy bringing gifts and a congratulatory letter from the king of the Liu Kiu Islands, in which grave doubts were cast upon the intentions of the Japanese, and an offer of assistance was made in case of another invasion. But the king seems not to have put faith in these doubts, and replied, to the reiterated request of the Japanese, that an envoy would be sent to Japan, when the men who desecrated the royal graves beyond the Han River should be sent to the Korean Capital for punishment. The Japanese went home, but returned late in the fall bringing two men bound, whom they delivered over as being the ones demanded. But these were mere boys who themselves urged the fact that they were still babes in arms when the deeds of which they were charged had been committed. The Prime Minister urged the king to send them back to Japan, but the favorite, Yu, persuaded the king to have them beheaded, after which Yö U-gil, Kyong Sŭn and Chung Ho-gwan were sent as an embassy to Japan. Meanwhile Iyeyasu in Japan had deposed the son of Hideyoshi and usurped his place. So when the embassy arrived in Japan they were received with the utmost coldness, and the usurper said, “Who asked that envoys might be exchanged between Japan and Korea? But now that you are here we will receive you.” The treatment that they received was bad almost beyond description. As a sample of the way the Japanese baited them it is related that the Japanese brought a dish filled with ordure sprinkled with something the color of gold-dust, and when the Koreans innocently put their hands in the dish, supposing that it was some form of food, the Japanese had a good laugh at their expense. The Koreans did not appreciate this sort of practical joke, and forthwith returned to Korea.

Late in the autumn the aged king was taken sick and all knew that the end was near. The conditions were not propitious. The young prince was only two years old and Prince Kwang-hă was fierce in his resentments and jealous of anyone who should attempt to block his path to the throne. The people were in a very uneasy frame of mind. The king had gone either too far or not far enough in the advocacy of the infant prince, and now he felt that he was leaving the child to the tender mercies of a relentless enemy. He therefore called in the Prime Minister and said, “Everything looks dark ahead and I am dying. I suppose the Prince Kwang-hă must become king?” But the Prime Minister dared not answer the question as the king wanted it answered, and hung back. By so doing he sealed his own fate. There were only two things for him to do, either to boldly advocate the claims of the child or else boldly advocate those of Prince Kwang-hă. By doing neither he made an enemy of the one and spoiled the chances of the other, and thus signed his own death warrant. As it happened, Prince Kwang-hŭ had an elder brother, but why he had not been nominated to the throne we are not told. This prince, named Im-hŭ, was now induced to make the attempt to wrest the reins of power from his brother so as to save the people from what they feared at the hands of Prince Kwang-hă, but the latter got wind of the plot and the elder prince was summarily banished, together with all his coadjutors.

So matters went on until one day in early spring of the following year, 1608, when a servant came from the king’s private rooms saying that he was dying. All the officials assembled at the palace. It is said that Prince Kwang-hă had become impatient at the tenacity of life shown by the aged king and had assisted nature in taking him off, but this, we may surmise, is rather a general deduction from the character of the man than a proved charge, and this prince has so much else to answer for that we may well give him the benefit of the doubt and conclude that the king reached his end by natural causes alone. The assembled noblemen sat in the room adjoining the one in which the king lay dying. Presently a eunuch brought out a note which read thus, “When I am dead let Prince Kwang-hă be kind to the infant boy.” When the ministers had read it they sent it to the prince. Soon another note came from the sick room, “To the seven ministers of state; I am dying. I have but one cause of anxiety; the boy is young and I shall not be here to see him come to manhood. Let him be tenderly cared for.” This was the end. The king turned to the wall and expired.