The War in the East: Japan, China, and Corea

by Trumbull White

The regent, now thoroughly alarmed, began to stir up the country to defense. The military forces in every province were called out, and the forges and blacksmith shops were busy day and night in making arms of every known kind. Loaded junks were sunk in the channel of the Han to obstruct it. Word was sent to the tycoon of Japan informing him of the trouble, and begging for assistance, but the Yeddo government had quite all it could do at that time to take care of itself. Instead of help two commissioners were appointed to go to Seoul and recommend that Corea open her ports to foreign commerce as Japan had done, and thus choose peace instead of war with foreigners. Before the envoys could leave Japan the tycoon had died, and the next year Japan was in the throes of civil war, the shogunate was abolished, and Corea was for the time utterly forgotten.

Another fleet of French vessels sailed from China to Corea, consisting of seven ships of various kinds, and with six hundred soldiers. The force landed before the city of Kang-wa on the island of the same name, and captured the city without difficulty on the morning of October 16. Several engagements in the same vicinity followed, all of them successful to the French until they came to attack a fortified monastery on the island some ten days later. Here they were repulsed with heavy loss to themselves and to the foe. The next morning to the surprise of all and the anger of many, orders were given to embark. The troops in Kang-wa set fire to the city which in a few hours burned to ashes. The departure of the invaders was so precipitate that Corean patriots to this day gloat over it as a disgraceful retreat.

In the palace at Seoul the resolve was made to exterminate Christianity, root and branch. Women and even children were ordered to the death. Several Christian nobles were executed. One Christian who was betrayed in the capital by his pagan brother, and another fellow believer, were taken to the river side in front of the city, near the place where the two French vessels had anchored. At this historic spot, by an innovation unknown in the customs of Cho-sen, they were decapitated and their headless trunks held neck downward to spout out the hot life blood, that it might wash away the stain of foreign pollution. Upon the mind of the regent and court the effect was to swell their pride to the folly of extravagant conceit. Feeling themselves able almost to defy the world, they began soon after to hurl their defiance at Japan. The results of this expedition were disastrous all over the east. Happening at a time when relations between foreigners and Chinese were strained, the unexpected return of the fleet filled the minds of Europeans in China with alarm. The smothered embers of hostility to foreign influence, steadily gathered vigor as the report spread through China that the hated Frenchmen had been driven away by the Coreans. The fires at length broke out in the Tien-tsin massacre of 1870.

It was this same year, 1866, that witnessed the marriage of the young king, now but fourteen years old, to Min, the daughter of one of the noble families. Popular report has always credited the young queen with abilities not inferior to those of her royal husband. The Min or Ming family is largely Chinese in blood and origin, and beside being preëminent among all the Corean nobility in social, political, and intellectual power, has been most strenuous in adherence to Chinese ideas and traditions with the purpose of keeping Corea unswerving in her vassalage and loyalty to China.

American associations with Corea have been peculiarly interesting. The commerce carried on by American vessels with Chinese and Japanese ports made the navigation of Corean waters a necessity. Sooner or later shipwrecks must occur, and the question of the humane treatment of American citizens cast on Corean shores came up before our government for settlement, as it had long before in the case of Japan. Within one year the Corean government had three American cases to deal with. June 24, 1866, the American schooner Surprise, was wrecked off the coast of Wang-hai. The approach of any foreign vessel was especially dangerous at this time, as the crews might be mistaken for Frenchmen and killed by the people from patriotic impulses. Nevertheless, the captain and his crew, after being well catechised by the local magistrate and by a commissioner sent from Seoul, were kindly treated and well fed and provided with the comforts of life. By orders of Tai-wen Kun, the regent, they were escorted on horseback to Ai-chiu and after being feasted there were conducted safely to the border gate. Thence after a hard journey via Mukden they got to Niuchwang and to the United States consul.

The General Sherman was an American schooner that had the second experience with the Coreans. The vessel was owned by a Mr. Preston who was making a voyage for health. At Tien-tsin the schooner was loaded with goods likely to be salable in Corea, and she was dispatched there on an experimental voyage in the hope of thus opening the country to commerce. The complement of the vessel was five white foreigners and nineteen Malay and Chinese sailors. The white men were Mr. Hogarth, a young Englishman, Mr. Preston, the owner, and Messrs. Page and Wilson, the master and mate of the vessel, and the Rev. Mr. Thomas, a missionary, who were Americans. From the first the character of the expedition was suspected, because the men were rather too heavily armed for a peaceful trading voyage. It was believed in China that the royal coffins in the tombs of Ping-Yang were of solid gold, and it was broadly hinted that the expedition had something to do with these.

The schooner, whether merchant or invader, sailed from Chefoo and made for the mouth of the Tatong River. There they met the Chinese captain of a Chefoo junk who agreed to pilot them up the river. He stayed with the General Sherman for two days, then leaving her he returned to the river’s mouth, and sailed back to Chefoo. No further direct intelligence was ever received from the unfortunate party. According to one report the hatches of the schooner were fastened down after the crew had been driven beneath, and set on fire. According to another, all were decapitated. The Coreans burned the woodwork for the iron and took the cannon for models.

The United States steamship Wachusett, dispatched by Admiral Rowan to inquire into the matter, reached Chefoo January 14, 1867, and took on board the Chinese pilot of the General Sherman. Leaving Chefoo they cast anchor two days later at the mouth of the large inlet next south of the Tatong River, thinking that they had reached their destination. A letter was dispatched to the capital of the province demanding that the murderers be produced on the deck of the vessel. Five days elapsed before the answer arrived, during which the surveying boats were busy. Many natives were met and spoken with, who all told one story, that the Sherman’s crew were murdered by the people and not by official instigation. In a few days an officer from one of the villages appeared. He would give neither information nor satisfaction, and the gist of his reiteration was “go away as soon as possible.” Commander Shufeldt, bound by his orders, could do nothing more, and being compelled also by stress of weather came away.

COLOSSAL COREAN IDOL—UN-JIN MIRIOK.