Nor for two years and a half since the first agreement was reported to have been concluded between Admiral Alexieff and Tartar General Tsêng-chi, had the Manchuria question vexed the world. If the question had concerned none but Russia and China, and the former had been slow to promise and loyal to her pledges and the latter strong enough to guard her own interest, the uncertain conditions in Manchuria would not have constituted, as they did, a grave and continual menace to the general peace of the Far East. Unfortunately, the Russian pledges, on the one hand, were attended by serious conditions, some of which it seemed impossible to fulfill and others contrary to the recognized principles of international intercourse to which Russia had professed constant devotion, and, on the other, China had again and again shown herself impotent to resist what she would otherwise reject. Above all, Great Britain and the United States were, both from interest and from principle, firmly committed in the East to a policy which was in constant danger of being undermined by the conduct of Russia. For Japan, however, the Manchurian question possessed an even graver significance, for, with the fall of the Three Eastern Provinces into the Russian hands, the independence of Korea, as well as the security of Japan herself, would be threatened, while a consequent closure of Manchuria against Japan’s economic activity would seriously maim her growth and life as a nation. It was now considered, therefore, that the irritating situation should no longer be allowed to continue, and that the time had at last come when Japan should with determination deal directly with Russia, in order to effect once for all an arrangement satisfactory and beneficial to all the parties concerned and to the world at large.
CHAPTER XVI
DIPLOMATIC STRUGGLE IN KOREA, I
Manchuria, however, constituted only one half—perhaps the less important half—of the great Eastern problem which perplexed the world and imperiled the future life of Japan. In the other half, namely, Korea, Japan was confronted by a situation similar and closely allied to that in Manchuria, and more directly menacing to herself. Let us briefly describe the evolution of the complex Korean question which ensued upon the Chinese-Japanese war of 1894–5.
The war had arisen from the conflicting wishes of the belligerent Powers regarding Korea, China asserting suzerain rights over the Peninsular Kingdom, and the interests of Japan making its effective independence imperative. Unfortunately, Korea’s lack of material strength rendered her real independence impossible, and her strength could be secured, from the Japanese point of view, only by a thoroughgoing reform of her administrative, financial, and economic system, which had sunk into a state of unspeakable corruption and decay. By her victory, the colossal task devolved upon Japan of reforming the national institutions of a people whose political training in the past seemed to have made them particularly impervious to such an effort. Perhaps no work more delicate and more liable to blunder and misunderstanding could befall a nation than that of setting another nation’s house in order who would not feel its necessity. In this difficult enterprise, the Japanese showed themselves as inexperienced as the Koreans were reluctant and resentful. Three million yen were furnished by Japan to Korea in the interest of various reforms, as also were numerous councilors, including such able men as Shūichirō Saitō and the late Tōru Hoshi. Some of the others, however, were either inferior in attainments or impatient of slow processes. The entire movement was intrusted to the direction of the new Japanese Minister, Count K. Inoüé, a generous, brilliant, and bold statesman. He presented to the Korean sovereign a plan of reform, which included the proposal to remove from her share of political control the versatile Queen, whose family of the Min had grown powerful by means of the abuses which the Count wished to eradicate. In this attempt, in which he was largely successful, of drawing a line of demarcation between the Court and the Government, he inevitably incurred the deep ire of the family whose influence had been predominant both at the capital and in the country. Other measures of his reform further antagonized the official nobility of the Kingdom.[[492]] The influence of the Count, however, was so great, and the training of Korean troops by Japanese officers seemed so successful, that even the domineering Queen was obliged to await a more favorable moment to regain her lost prestige.
At that time Russia was represented at Seul by M. Waeber, who had been in Korea for more than ten years, and whose personality and diplomatic arts had won him warm friends in the Court, particularly the Queen and her party. At one time, before the late war, when the ascendency of the Chinese Resident, Yuan Shi-kai, had created disaffection among certain Koreans, M. Waeber was said to have succeeded in quietly allying himself with those people and promoting Russian influence over them.[[493]] It was now again found possible for him and his talented wife to recommend themselves to the large body of men and women whose feeling the Japanese had in one way or another alienated, and slowly but surely to undermine the latter’s influence in Seul.[[494]] The successful coercion of Japan by the three Powers after the treaty of Shimonoseki must also have gone far toward reducing the prestige of Japan in the eye of the Koreans, who are singularly susceptible to the influence of events of this nature.
As soon as Count Inoüé left Seul, the Queen again came to the front. On July 7, 1895, she suddenly accused of treason the most influential member of the Cabinet and chief of the pro-Japanese party, Pak Yong-hio, who again had to flee to Japan, where he had recently spent ten years of a refugee’s life.[[495]] Count Inoüé returned to Seul, and again the Queen held her breath. A Cabinet was organized of partisans of reform. The Count was, however, relieved of his post late in July, and in September was succeeded as the Japanese Minister by Viscount Lieutenant-General Gorō Miura, a man of undoubted sincerity, but utterly without diplomatic training. No sooner had Inoüé left Korea than the Queen reasserted herself, increased the personnel of her household, and restored many of her old extravagances so lately removed by the reformer. She had been further embittered by the sharp rivalry shown against her and the Min by the King’s father, Tai-wen-kun, and his party. The Queen finally planned a coup d’état, early in October, with a view to disbanding the soldiers trained by Japanese officers and replacing the progressive Cabinet members with her friends. A crisis was imminent, and it was at this juncture that some of the Japanese in Seul betrayed themselves into a crime which caused a bitter disappointment and lasting disgrace to the Government and the nation at home. Perceiving that a passive attitude would result in a great calamity, certain Koreans and Japanese rose early on October 8, to bring Tai-wen-kun out of his secluded residence. Accompanied by two battalions of trained soldiers, the veteran statesman rode toward the King’s palace, where he was to present a plan of reform, but was opposed by the guard, who fired at his escort. In the midst of the mêlée which ensued, some of the bravoes rushed into the Inner Palace and murdered the Queen.[[496]] The deed was no less crushing a blow to the Japanese nation than it was to the bereaved King of Korea, for the former’s ardent desire always to adhere to the fairest principles of international conduct was, for once, frustrated by the rash act of a handful of their brethren at Seul. The pernicious influence of the Queen passed away, and the power of the reform Cabinet was for the moment assured, but only at the expense of a revolting crime which the Japanese will never cease to lament. It is probable that the murder of the Queen, as apart from the rise of Tai-wen-kun, was premeditated, and also that Minister Miura had been prevailed upon to connive at the guilt. The Japanese Government at once recalled and tried him and forty-seven other suspected persons, and prohibited Japanese from visiting Korea without special permission.
Mr. (now Baron) Komura, who presently succeeded to the Ministry at Seul, seemed to reverse the policy of his predecessors and abstain from active interference. The Korean Cabinet also appeared powerless to check the Russian party, whose power was growing apace. Prominent politicians out of office frequently conferred at the Russian Legation, where some of them were even said to have taken refuge from the law. There a leader of this party (who till May of the present year represented Korea at St. Petersburg) matured a plan to overthrow the Cabinet, or, in case of failure, to abduct the King and the Crown Prince to Vladivostok. The plan, however, was discovered on November 28,[[497]] only to be followed by another, which proved successful. In January, 1896, there took place a slight uprising in Northern Korea, at the instigation, it was said, of pro-Russian leaders. When the major portion of the army had been sent out of the capital to suppress the alleged rebellion, 127 Russian marines with a cannon suddenly landed at Chemulpo on February 10, and immediately entered Seul. The next day, before dawn, the King, with the seal of the state, as well as the Crown Prince and Princess and some court ladies, fled in disguise to the Russian Legation, where the King remained for a twelvemonth, till February 20 of the following year. At his arrival at the Legation, an edict was issued proclaiming the Cabinet Ministers guilty of treason, and ordering their decapitation. Another edict canceling the order appeared too late, for the Prime Minister and two other Ministers had been murdered on the streets in broad daylight, and their heads exposed by the wayside, while three others had fled to Japan for life.[[498]] The murders of February, 1896, would have come down to history as more atrocious than the crime of October 8, 1895, had it not been for the fact that the latter involved the life of a queen.
The King being virtually in the custody of the Russians, their ascendency resulted as a matter of course. They secured, among other things, an immense timber concession on the northern frontier and on Uinung Island,[[499]] and a mining concession along the Tumên River.[[500]] The Korean forces trained by Japanese officers were abolished in May,[[501]] and the Japanese soldiers stationed at the ports and Seul also were reduced in number.[[502]]
The Government at Tokio even appeared, for a time at least, to forsake its historic policy of safe-guarding Korea’s independence by its sole aid, but to seek Russia’s coöperation toward the same end. With this object in view, Japan seized the occasion of the coronation of the Czar to send Field Marshal Marquis Aritomo Yamagata[[503]] as special envoy to St. Petersburg, with a commission to negotiate with the Russian Government an agreement regarding the relative position of the two Powers in Korea. The result was the following Yamagata-Lobanoff Protocol, signed on June 9, 1896:—
“Article I. The Japanese and Russian Governments should, with the object of remedying the financial embarrassments of Korea, counsel the Korean Government to suppress all unnecessary expenses and to establish an equilibrium between expenditure and revenue. If, as a result of the reforms which should be considered indispensable, it should become necessary to have recourse to foreign debts, the two Governments should, of a common accord, render their support to Korea.