The History of Korea (vol. 2 of 2)

by Homer B. Hulbert

In spite of the reactionary policy of the government progress continued to be made on certain lines, just as the momentum of a railway train cannot be checked the moment the brakes are applied. A distinguished French legalist was employed as adviser to the Law Department; mining concessions were granted to British, French and Japanese syndicates; the Government Middle School was established; the Seoul-Chemulpo Railway was formally opened; a French teacher was engaged to open a School of Mines; a representative was sent to the great Paris Exposition.

This year 1900 was the heyday of another parvenu in the person of Kim Yŭng-jun. He was a man without any backing except his own colossal effrontery. He had acquired influence by his ability to get together considerable sums of money irrespective of the methods employed. Scores of wealthy men were haled to prison on one pretext or another and were released only upon the payment of a heavy sum. He was a man of considerable force of character but like so many adventurers in Korea he was lured by his successes into a false feeling of security and he forgot that the history of this country is full of just such cases and that they inevitably end in violent death. Even the fate of Kim Hong-nyuk did not deter him, though his case was almost the counterpart of that victim of his own overweening ambitions. Against Kim Yŭng-jun was ranged the whole nobility of the country who waited with what patience they could until his power to extort money began to wane, and then fell upon him like wolves upon a belated traveler at night. But it was not until the opening of the new year 1901 that he was deposed, tried and killed in a most horrible manner. After excruciating tortures he was at last strangled to death.

But even as this act was perpetrated and the fate of all such adventurers was again illustrated, another man of the same ilk was pressing to the fore. This was Yi Yong-ik, who had once been the major domo of one of the high officials and in that capacity had learned how to do all sorts of interesting, if unscrupulous, things. He was prominent in a felonious attempt to cheat the ginseng farmers of Song-do out of thousands, back in the eighties. He was an ignorant boor and even when rolling in opulence[opulence] failed to make himself presentable in dress or manner. He was praised by some for his scorn of luxury and because he made no attempt to hoard the money that he bled from the veins of the people. The reason he did not hoard it was the same that makes the farmer sow his seed, that he may reap a hundred-fold. Yi Yong-ik sowed his golden seed in fertile soil and it yielded him a thousand-fold[thousand-fold].

One of his favorite methods of obtaining money for his patron was to cause the arrest of shoals of former prefects who for one cause or another had failed to turn into the public treasury the complete amount nominally levied upon their respective districts. These arrears went back several years and many of them were for cause. Either famine or flood or some other calamity had made it impossible for the people to pay the entire amount of their taxes. There were many cases, without doubt, in which it was right to demand the money from the ex-prefects, for they had “eaten” it themselves; but there were also many cases in which it was a genuine hardship. Literally hundreds of men were haled before a court and made to pay over large sums of money, in default of which their property was seized as well as that of their relatives. In exact proportion as the huge sums thus extorted paved his way to favor in high places, in that same proportion it drove the people to desperation. The taking off of Kim Yŭng-jin, so far from warning this man, only opened a larger door for the exercise of his peculiar abilities, and it may be said that the official career of Yi Yong-ik began with the opening of 1901.

In March a Japanese resident of Chemulpo claimed to have purchased the whole of Roze Island in the harbor of Chemulpo. The matter made a great stir, for it was plain that someone had assumed the responsibility of selling the island to the Japanese. This was the signal for a sweeping investigation which was so manipulated by powerful parties that the real perpetrators of the outrage were dismissed[dismissed] as guiltless, but a side-issue which arose in regard to certain threatening letters that were sent to the foreign legations was made a peg upon which to hang the seizure, trial and execution of Kim Yŭng-jun as before mentioned. Min Yŭng-ju was the man who sold the island to the Japanese and he finally had to put down Y35,000 and buy it back.

Russia made steady advances toward her ultimate goal during the year 1901. In the Spring some buildings in connection with the palace were to be erected and the Chief Commissioner of Customs, J. McLeavy Brown, C. M. G., was ordered to vacate his house on the customs compound at short notice. Soldiers even forced their way into his house. This affront was a serious one and one that the Koreans would never have dared to give had they not felt that they had behind them a power that would see them through. The British authorities soon convinced the government that such tactics could be easily met and it had to retreat with some loss of dignity.

The Russian Church established itself in Seoul at this time and took active steps to start a propaganda in Korea. Considerable disturbance was caused in the Southern provinces by Koreans who had become Russian subjects pretending to be agents of the Russian church and collecting from the people large sums of money by intimidation. For many months the Russians tried to induce the Koreans to allow the Korean telegraph lines in the North-east to be connected with the Russian line from Vladivostock. Why this should not be done we cannot see but evidently the Koreans considered it a national danger and, try as they might, the Russians never really succeeded in making the connection.

The Russians and French were naturally working together in the peninsula and when Russia adopted the principle of withdrawing her military instructors from Korea she so manipulated the wires that the government threw many positions into the hands of the French. For the next three years the French population of Seoul increased many-fold. Many of the French gentlemen employed by the government were thoroughly competent and rendered good service but their presence tended to add to the tension between Japan and Russia, for it was quite plain that all their influence would be thrown in the scale on Russia’s side. The attempt to loan the Korean Government Y5,000,000 was pushed with desperate vigor for many months by the French, but divided counsels prevented the final consummation of the loan and the French thus failed to secure the strong leverage which a heavy loan always gives to the creditor. Yi Yong-ik who had become more or less of a Russian tool was pointedly accused by the Japanese of being in favor of the French loan but he vigorously denied it. It is generally admitted that Yi Yong-ik was something of a mystery even to his most intimate acquaintances and just how far he really favored the Russian side will never be known, but it is certain[certain] that he assumed a more and more hostile attitude toward the Japanese as the months went by, an attitude which brought him into violent conflict with them, as we shall see.

Yi Yong-ik posed as a master in finance, whatever else he may or may not have been, and in 1901 he began the minting of the Korean nickel piece. No greater monetary disaster ever overtook this country. Even the desperate measures taken by the Regent thirty years before had not shaken the monetary system as this did. The Regent introduced the wretched five-cash piece which did enormous harm but that five-cash piece was of too small face value to be worth counterfeiting. The nickel was the ideal coin to tempt the counterfeiter, for its intrinsic value was not so great as to require the employment of a large amount of capital and yet its face value was sufficient to pay for the labor and time expended. The effects of this departure will be noted in their place.

In the summer of 1901 Yi Yong-ik performed one act that, in the eyes of the people, covered a multitude of other sins. It was a year of great scarcity. The Korean farmers raised barely enough grain for domestic consumption and in order to prevent this grain from being taken out of the country the government proclaimed an embargo on its export. In spite of the fact that Japan was enjoying an unusually good crop and did not really need the Korean product, the Japanese authorities, in the interest of the Japanese exporters in Korea, brought pressure to bear upon the Korean government to raise the embargo, utterly regardless of the interests of the Korean people. As it turned out however, the enhanced price in Korea due to the famine and the cutting of a full crop in Japan prevented the export of rice. But Yi Yong-ik saw that there would inevitably be a shortage in Seoul and with much forethought he sent and imported a large amount of Annam rice and put it on the market at a price so reasonable that the people were highly gratified. From that time on whenever the mistakes of Yi Yong-ik were cited there was always someone to offer the extenuation of that Annam rice. It was a most clever and successful appeal to popular favor.