The History of Korea (vol. 2 of 2)

by Homer B. Hulbert

The Regent swore that any man who should suggest peace with the enemy should meet with instant death. A letter was sent to the French saying that the priests had come in disguise and had taken Korean names and had desired to lay their hands on the wealth of the land. It declared that the priests had been well killed. In reply the French said they had come in the name of Napoleon, Sovereign of the Grand French Empire, who desired the safety of his subjects, and that since nine of his subjects had been killed, it must be explained. They also demanded the three ministers who had been foremost in the persecution and in the killing of the priests should be handed over to them and that a plenipotentiary be appointed for the ratifying of a treaty. To this letter no answer was received.

Meanwhile Gen. Yang Hön-su had led 5,000 men to the fortress of Chöng-jok on Kang-wha where a celebrated monastery stands. These men were mostly hardy mountaineers and tiger-hunters from Kang-gye in the far north, the descendants of those same men who in the ancient days of Ko-yuryŭ drove back an army of Chinese 300,000 strong and destroyed all but 700 of them. This fortress is admirably situated for defense, lying as it does in a cup formed by a semi-circle of mountains and approachable from only one direction, where it is guarded by a crenellated wall and a heavy stone gate.

The great mistake of the French was in supposing this place could be stormed by a paltry 160 men. The whole French force could not have done it. No sooner had this little band come well within range of the concealed garrison than it was met by a withering fire which instantly put half of them hors de combat. After some attempts to make a stand in the shelter of trees, huts, rocks and other cover, a retreat was called and the French moved slowly back carrying their dead and wounded. They were closely pursued and with difficulty made their way back to the main body. The result would probably have been much more serious had not the retreating party been met by a body of reinforcements from the main body. The next day orders were given to fire the town and re-embark. This caused great surprise and dissatisfaction among the men, but we incline to the belief that it was the only thing to do. The number of men that had been mustered to effect the humiliation of Korea was ridiculously small compared with what was necessary. Six thousand French might have done it, but six hundred—never. We need seek no further than this for the cause of the abandonment of the enterprise. To be sure, it had done infinitely more harm than good, and if it had been possible to succeed even at a heavy cost of life it would have been better to go on; but it was not possible.

The effect of this retreat upon the Regent and the court may be imagined. Peking had fallen before these “barbarians” but the tiger-hunters of the north had driven them away in confusion. If the reader will try to view this event from the ill-informed standpoint of the Korean court, he will see at once that their exultation was quite reasonable and natural. The last argument against a sweeping persecution of Christians was now removed and new and powerful arguments in favor of it were added. The fiat went forth that the plague of the foreign religion should be swept from the land. No quarter was to be given. Neither age nor sex nor quality were to weigh in the balance. From that time till 1870 the persecution was destined to rage with unabated fury and the French estimated the number killed at 8,000. The hardships and sufferings of this time are second to none in the history of religious persecutions. Hundreds fled to the mountains and there starved or froze to death. The tales of that terrible time remind one of the persecutions under the Roman Emperors or the no less terrible scenes of the Spanish Inquisition.

But to return to 1866. There were other events of interest transpiring. The pet scheme of the Regent to build his son a new palace was being worked out. The palace was in process of erection, when suddenly the funds gave out. Here the Regent committed his next great blunder. This time it was in the realm of finance. He entertained the fallacy that he could meet a deficit by coining money. Of course the only way to meet a deficit in this way was to debase the currency. He did it on a grand scale when he once determined upon it, for whereas the people had from time immemorial used a one-cash piece, he began to mint a hundred-cash piece which was actually less than fifty cash in weight. One of these was given as a day’s wage to each of the workmen on the palace. This coin bore on its face the legend “The great Finance Hundred Cash Piece,” but it proved to be very small finance indeed, for of course its issue was immediately followed by an enormous rise in the price of all commodities, and rice went up two hundred per cent. The government was thus plunged deeper in the mire than ever; but the Regent had set his will on this thing and was determined to carry it through at any cost. His next move, taken in the following year, was to bring in old, discarded, Chinese cash literally by the cart-load, across the border. This he had bought in China at auction prices and forced on the people as legal tender. At the same time he forced the people to work in gangs of 300 at a time on the palace without pay. In this way the work was finished, but it is safe to say that to this day the country has not recovered from the effects of that mad financiering. Wealthy citizens were called upon to make donations to the building fund, and this gained the soubriquet[soubriquet] of “The Free-will Offering.”

The year 1868, which meant so much for Japan, was not otherwise signalised in Korea than by a demand on the part of Russia that Korean refugees beyond the border be recalled. It also beheld the publication of the work “The Six Departments and their Duties.” In September alone 2,000 Christians were killed, five hundred of them being residents of Seoul.

The United States had not forgotten the fate of the “General Sherman.” She had no intention of letting the matter drop. In the early spring of 1871 minister Frederick F. Low, at Peking, received instructions from his government to go in company with Rear-admiral Rodgers to the shores of Korea and attempt to conclude a treaty relative to the treatment of American seamen who might be cast upon the shores of that country. He was also instructed to try to make a trade convention with Korea looking toward the opening of Korea to foreign commerce. The fleet consisted of the war vessels Colorado, Alaska, Bernicia, Monocacy, and Palos. These vessels rendezvoused at Nagasaki and on May sixteenth they set sail for Korea. Minister Low’s correspondence with his government shows that he had accurately gauged the probabilities of the situation. A long acquaintance with the Korean could not have rendered his diagnosis of the case more accurate than it was. From the very first he considered it to be a hopeless case, and he was right. But this in no way lessened the care he exercised in doing every thing in his power to render the expedition a success. After fourteen days of struggle against dense fogs, tortuous channels and swift tidal currents the fleet dropped anchor off the islands known as the Ferrierre group, not far from Eugénie Island. This was on May 30th. They had not been there long before they were boarded by some small officials with whom Minister Low was of course unable to treat, but through them he sent a friendly message to Seoul asking that an official of equal rank with the American envoy be sent to confer with him on important matters. The Koreans had already received through the Chinese an intimation of what the Americans desired but they argued that as their policy of carrying ship-wrecked mariners safely across the border was well known abroad and as they did not care to open up relations with other countries, there was no call to send an envoy to treat with the Americans. The Regent shrewdly, though mistakenly, suspected that the “General Sherman” affair was at the bottom of this, as the death of the French priests had been the cause of the French expedition and he decided to garrison Kang-wha and deal with the Americans as he had with the French. Gen. O-Yo-jŭn was sent with 3,000 troops to Kwang Fort on the island of Kang-wha. A part of this force was stationed as garrison at Tok-chin, a little fort at the narrowest part of the estuary between Kang-wha and the mainland, where the tide runs through with tremendous force and a dangerous reef adds to the difficulty of navigation.

Thus it was that when the Monocacy and Palos steamed slowly up the channel on a tour of inspection they were fired upon by the guns of this little fort. No special damage was done, and as soon as the gunboats could be gotten ready to reply to this unexpected[unexpected] assault they opened fire upon the little fort and speedily[speedily] drove its garrison out. The Koreans supposed these gunboats were approaching for the purpose of assault. Indeed, as no intimation had been given the Korean government that such a reconnoitering expedition was planned, and as this narrow passage was considered the main gateway of approach to the capital, the Koreans argued strictly from the book and the American contention that the attack was unprovoked was groundless, for to Korean eyes the very approach to this stronghold was abundant provocation.

When the fort had been silenced, the two gunboats steamed back to the main anchorage and reported. It was instantly decided that an apology must be forthcoming from the government, but as none came, retaliation was the only thing left to vindicate the wounded honor of the United States. A strong force was despatched, which, under cover of the ship’s guns was landed near the fort, and after a hard hand to hand struggle in which every man of the garrison was killed at his post the place was taken. Thus was the tarnished honor of the Great Republic restored to its former brightness. But mark the sequel. The Admiral plainly was entirely unequal to the task of pushing the matter to the gates of Seoul, and so he withdrew and sailed away to China exactly as the French had done. The great mistake in this lay in ignorance of the Korean character. The government cared little for the loss of a few earth-works on Kang-wha. In fact, even if the Americans had overrun and ravaged half the peninsula and yet had not unseated the king in his capital or endangered his person, their departure would have left the Koreans in the firm belief that the foreigners had been whipped. In the last decade of the twelfth century the Japanese overran the country, forced the King to flee to the very banks of the Yalu, killed hundreds of thousands of the people and for seven years waged equal war in the peninsula, and yet when Hideyoshi died and his troops were recalled Korea claimed that the Japanese had been defeated; and it was true. The approach of United States gunboats up to the very walls of the “Gibraltar” of Korea was nothing less than a declaration of war, and the paltry loss of the little garrison was a cheap price to pay for their ultimate triumph in seeing the American ships “hull down” in the Yellow sea.

When this glad news was published in Seoul the already plethoric pride of the Regent swelled to bursting. Another brilliant victory had been scored.