[34] These are ancient musical instruments called by the Chinese ch’ing, and were in use at courts in the days of Confucius.
CHAPTER XXII
A TRANSITION STAGE
During January, 1895, Seoul was in a curious condition. The “old order” was changing, but the new had not taken its place. The Japanese, victorious by land and sea, were in a position to enforce the reforms in which before the war they had asked China to coöperate. The King, since the capture of the Palace by the Japanese in July, 1894, had become little more than a “salaried automaton,” and the once powerful members of the Min clan had been expelled from their offices. The Japanese were prepared to accept the responsibility of the supervision of all departments, and to enforce honesty on a corrupt executive. The victory over the Chinese at Phyöng-yang on 17th September, 1894, had set them free to carry out their purposes. Count Inouye, one of the foremost of the statesmen who created the new Japan, arrived as “Resident” on October 20, 1894, and practically administered the Government in the King’s name. There were Japanese controllers in all the departments, the army was drilled by Japanese drill instructors, a police force was organized and clothed in badly fitting Japanese uniforms, a Council of Koreans was appointed to draft a scheme of reform, and form the nucleus of a possible Korean Parliament, and Count Inouye as Japanese adviser had the right of continual access to the King, and with an interpreter and stenographer sat at the meetings of the Cabinet. Every day Japanese ascendency was apparent in new appointments, regulations, abolitions, and reforms. The Japanese claimed that their purpose was to reform the administration of Korea as we had done that of Egypt, and I believe they would have done it had they been allowed a free hand. It was apparent, however, that Count Inouye found the task of reformation a far harder one than he expected, and that the difficulties in his way were nearly insurmountable. He said himself that there were “no tools to work with,” and in the hope of manufacturing them a large number of youths of the upper class were sent for two years to Japan, one year to be spent in education and another in learning accuracy and “the first principles of honor” in certain Government departments.
Sundry Japanese demands, though conceded at the time by the King, had been allowed to drop, and it was not till December, 1894, that Count Inouye obtained a formal covenant that five of them should be at once carried out. (1) A full pardon for all the conspirators of 1884; (2) That the Tai-Won-Kun and the Queen should interfere no more in public affairs; (3) That no relatives of the Royal Family should be employed in any official capacity; (4) That the number of eunuchs and “Palace ladies” should at once be reduced to a minimum; (5) That caste distinctions—patrician and plebeian—should no longer be recognized.
Edicts on some of the foregoing subjects appeared in the Gazette, and large numbers of the eunuchs packed up their clothes and left the Palace quietly in the night, along with the “Palace ladies”; but the King in his vast dwelling was so lonely without them that the next morning he sent an order commanding their immediate return under serious penalties, and it was obeyed at once!
The attitude of the Korean official class, with the exception of a small number who were personally interested in the success of Japan, was altogether unfavorable to the new régime, and every change was regarded with indignation. Though destitute of true patriotism, the common people looked upon the King as a sacred person, and they were furious at the indignities to which he had been subjected. The official class saw that reform meant the end of “squeezing” and ill-gotten gains, and they, with the whole army of parasites and hangers-on of yamens, were all pledged by the strongest personal interest to oppose it by active opposition or passive resistance. Though corruption has its stronghold in Seoul, every provincial government repeats on a smaller scale the iniquities of the capital, and has its own army of dishonest and lazy officials fattening on the earnings of the industrious classes.
The cleansing of the Augean stable of the Korean official system, which the Japanese had undertaken, was indeed an Herculean labor. Traditions of honor and honesty, if they ever existed, had been forgotten for centuries. Standards of official rectitude were unknown. In Korea when the Japanese undertook the work of reform there were but two classes, the robbers and the robbed, and the robbers included the vast army which constituted officialdom. “Squeezing” and peculation were the rule from the highest to the lowest, and every position was bought and sold.
The transition stage, down to 12th February, 1895, when I left Korea, was a remarkable one. The Official Gazette curiously reflected that singular period. One day a decree abolished the 3 feet long tobacco pipes which were the delight of the Koreans of the capital; another, there was an enlightened statute ordering the planting of pines to remedy the denudation of the hills around Seoul, the same Gazette directing that duly appointed geomancers should find “an auspicious day” on which the King might worship at the ancestral tablets! One day barbarous and brutalizing punishments were wisely abolished; another, there appeared a string of vexatious and petty regulations calculated to harass the Chinese out of the kingdom, and appointing as a punishment for the breach of them a fine of 100 dollars or 100 blows!
Failure in tact was one great fault of the Japanese. The seizure of the Palace and the King’s person in July, 1894, even if a dubious political necessity, did not excuse the indignities to which the sovereign was exposed. The forcing of former conspirators into high office was a grave error, and tactless proceedings, such as the abolition of long pipes, alterations in Court and other dress, many interferences with social customs, and petty and harassing restrictions and regulations, embittered the people against the new régime.
The Tong-haks, who had respectfully thrown off allegiance to the King on the ground that he was in the hands of foreigners, and had appointed another sovereign, had been vanquished early in January, and their king’s head had been sent to Seoul by a loyal governor. There I saw it in the busiest part of the Peking Road, a bustling market outside the “little West Gate,” hanging from a rude arrangement of three sticks like a camp-kettle stand, with another head below it. Both faces wore a calm, almost dignified, expression. Not far off two more heads had been exposed in a similar frame, but it had given way, and they lay in the dust of the roadway, much gnawed by dogs at the back. The last agony was stiffened on their features. A turnip lay beside them, and some small children cut pieces from it and presented them mockingly to the blackened mouths. This brutalizing spectacle had existed for a week.