Before Yun T‘ă-jŭn, Yi Cho-yŭn and Han Kyu-jik went to the palace and met their fate they sent word to Yuan warning him of the state of affairs and asking help, but he made no immediate move. As the morning broke thousands of Koreans came to him and said that the Japanese held the king a prisoner in the palace and begged him to interfere. Yuan replied by sending a messenger to the Japanese Minister demanding why he had surrounded the king with soldiers and had killed the ministers, and demanding that he immediately evacuate the place. Three hours passed and still no answer came; and at last Yuan and the two other Chinese leaders took a strong body of Chinese troops and several hundred Korean troops and proceeded to the palace. Entering by way of the Sun-in Gate and passing through the Ch‘ang-kyŭng Palace they approached the Po-t‘ong Gate which gave entrance to the “Old Palace,” but they found it strongly guarded by Japanese. Here a sharp encounter took place which lasted an hour, beginning about three o’clock in the afternoon. About ten each of the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans fell in this assault. As the darkness came on the Japanese began to fall back and taking the king and the newly appointed ministers they made their way to the extreme northeasterly portion of the palace grounds, not far from the Hong-wha Gate. The royal party took refuge in a summer house there and the Japanese stationed themselves behind trees and guarded the place, keeping up a lively fusillade with the Chinese who had followed them. Meanwhile the Crown Prince, the Queen and the king’s foster-mother had escaped in small closed chairs out the Sŭn-in Gate and had found refuge in the house of Yi Pom-jin in the village of No-wŭn, twenty li outside the East Gate.
The chances of success for the Japanese were becoming smaller and smaller and the king was anxiously looking for an opportunity of escaping from them and making his way to the Chinese side. At last, taking advantage of the extreme disorder that prevailed, he made his way to the Puk-chang Gate at the extreme northeastern part of the palace enclosure. Outside there was a crowd of Korean soldiers who wished to gain entrance and rescue the king from his captors. When the latter made his presence known inside the gate these soldiers effected an entrance and lifting His Majesty on their shoulders carried him in triumph to the North Temple just inside the Northeast Gate. Seeing that all hope of immediate success was gone, Pak Yŭng-hyo[Yŭng-hyo], Kim Ok-kyun, Sŭ Kwang-bom,[Kwang-bom,] Sŭ Chă-p‘il and a part of the company of military students accompanied the Japanese troops out the front gate of the palace to the Japanese Legation which was then situated in Kyo-dong. This was accomplished in the midst of great excitement.
Meanwhile Hong Yŭng-sik, Pak Yŭng-kyo[Yŭng-kyo], Sin Keui-sŭn and seven of the military students had followed the fortunes of the king. But no sooner did the party arrive at the North Temple than the people fell upon Hong Yŭng-sik and Pak Yŭng-kyo[Yŭng-kyo] and hacked them to pieces before the king’s eyes. Hong Yŭng-sik attempted to hide in a closet behind His Majesty but the latter indicated by a nod of the head that he was concealed there and the people dragged him out and dispatched him on the spot. The seven students tried to effect their escape but were pursued and killed, one below Chong-no, and another at Yŭn-mot-kol.
No sooner had the morning dawned than the Japanese Minister formed his little company in a hollow square, placed the Korean refugees and the Japanese women and children in the center, fired the legation buildings and marched out through the city on their way to Chemulpo, shooting at any Koreans whom they happened to see in their way. They found the West Gate locked but they soon forced it and hurried away to the port. All the Japanese in Seoul did not escape thus, for there were a few living in Chin-go-gă. That same day the Koreans mobbed them and killed them all, men,[men,] women and children.
A Japanese merchant vessel happened to be lying at Chemulpo and the Minister with all his company boarded her, carrying the Koreans with them. The latter were hidden in the hold.
That same day, later in the afternoon, the king made his way to the Ha-do-gam where the Chinese had camped, and put himself under their protection. Cho Pyŭng-ho was sent to Chemulpo to ask the Japanese Minister not to leave, and to effect the arrest of the fugitives. In neither quest was he successful.
An anxious month passed by and at last the Japanese, Count Inouye, came with a guard of 600 troops and took up his quarters at the governor’s place outside the West Gate. Negotiations were at once begun and as a result the Korean Government agreed to pay an indemnity of 600,000 yen. Sŭ Sang-u and P. G. von Mollendorf were sent as commissioners to Japan to arrange suitable terms for the renewal of friendly relations. To make good their protestations of regret at the killing of defenseless Japanese in Seoul four men who took part in that work were arrested and put to death. At the same time Yi Ch‘ang-gyu, Sŭ Chă-Ch‘ang, Kim Pong-jung and five others who had been charged with complicacy in the plot were seized and executed.
On January ninth 1885 Kim Hong-Jip, Special Korean Commissioner, signed with Count Inouye a convention regarding the trouble of the preceeding[preceeding] month, by the terms of which the government agreed to apologize to the Japanese emperor, to pay an indemnity of 110,000 yen, to execute the murderer of Lieut. Isobayachi, to give a site for a new Legation and 20,000 yen for its construction and to set aside a site for barracks for the Japanese guard. Early in the Spring the Japanese Legation was built, being the first foreign building in Seoul.
The year 1885 beheld many events of importance. The government hospital was founded under royal patronage by Dr. H. N. Allen of the American Presbyterian Mission. It beheld also the arrival of that great vanguard of civilization the Protestant Missionary. Dr. Allen had arrived in the previous year but now the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches of America sent a number of representatives into Seoul to secure property and begin preparations for the founding of regular evangelistic and educational work. In April the Chinese and Japanese signed the celebrated Tientsin Convention by the terms of which they both agreed to evacuate Korea and not to send troops there without previously notifying each other. It was the breaking of this convention by China which was one of the immediate causes of the Japan-China war. At this same time, England, fearing the occupation of Port Hamilton by Russia, sent a fleet of war vessels and occupied the place herself. She was finally induced to leave, but only after China had guaranteed to secure it against occupation by any other power. In October the treaty with Russia was signed and a Legation was established in Seoul. The ex-Regent was still in China, but the Chinese government now deemed it safe to send him back to the peninsula, and Min Chŭng-muk was sent to act as his escort.
Since the day when the Regent threw the finances of the country into confusion by the debasement of the currency and since the officials had learned how much the people would endure of unjust taxation, in the days when every means was adopted to wring from them the funds for the erection of the palace, official indirection had been on the rapid increase. The people were being imposed upon more and more. All the money that dishonest men paid to corrupt officials to purchase office had to be drawn from the people later by dishonest means. The main qualification of a successful prefect was the ability to judge when he had reached the limit of the people’s endurance. The year 1885 beheld a serious revolt in Yö-ju where the prefect had overstepped the dead-line of the peoples’ patience. He was driven out and his ajun or clerk was killed. The prefect of Wŭn-ju also escaped death only by flight, while an ajun was killed.