Kai-seng, or Sunto, is one of the most important, if not the chief, commercial city in the kingdom, and from 960 to 1392, it was the national capital. The chief staple of manufacture and sale is the coarse cotton cloth, white and colored, which forms the national dress. Kang-wa, on the island of the same name at the mouth of the Han River, is the favorite fortress, to which the royal family are sent for safety in time of war, or are banished in case of deposition. Kang-wa means “the river-flower.” During the Manchiu invasion, the king fled here, and, for a while, made it his capital. Kwang-chiu was anciently the capital of the old kingdom of Hiaksai, which included this province, and flourished from the beginning of the Christian era until the Tang dynasty of China destroyed it in the seventh century. Kwang-chiu has suffered many sieges. Other important towns near the capital are Tong-chin, opposite Kang-wa, Kum-po, and Pupion, all situated on the high road. In-chiŭn, situated on Imperatrice Gulf, is the port newly opened to foreign trade and residence. The Japanese pronounce the characters with which the name is written, Nin-sen, and the Chinese Jen-chuan. At this place the American and Chinese treaties were signed in June, 1882; Commodore Shufeldt, in the steam corvette Swatara, being the plenipotentiary of the United States. Situated on the main road from the southern provinces, and between the capital and the sea, the location is a good one for trade, while the dangerous channel of the Han River is avoided.
Most of the islands lying off the coast are well wooded; many are inhabited, and on a number of them shrines are erected, and hermits live, who are regarded as sacred. Their defenceless position offers tempting inducements to the Chinese pirates, who have often ravaged them. Kiung-kei has been the scene of battles and contending armies and nations and the roadway for migrations from the pre-historic time to the present decade. The great highways of the kingdom converge upon its chief city. In it also Christianity has witnessed its grandest triumphs and bloodiest [[192]]defeats. Over and over again the seed of the church has been planted in the blood of its martyrs. Ka-pion, east of Seoul, is the cradle of the faith, the home of its first convert.
For political purposes, this “home province” is divided into the left and right divisions, of which the former has twenty-two, and the latter fourteen districts. The kam-sa, or governor, lives at the capital, but outside of the walls, as he has little or no authority in the city proper. His residence is near the west gate. The enumeration of houses and people gives, exclusive of the capital, 136,000 of the former, and 680,000 of the latter, of whom 106,573 are enrolled as soldiers. The inhabitants of the capital province enjoy the reputation, among the other provincials, of being light-headed, fickle, and much given to luxury and pleasure. “It is the officials of this province,” they say, “who give the cue to those throughout the eight provinces, of rapacity, prodigality, and love of display.” Official grandees, nobles, literary men, and professionals generally are most numerous in Kiung-kei, and so, it may be added, are singing and dancing girls and people who live to amuse others. When fighting is to be done, in time of war, the government usually calls on the northern provinces to furnish soldiers. From a bird’s-eye view of the history of this part of Corea, we see that the inhabitants most anciently known to occupy it were the independent clans called the Ma-han, which about the beginning of the Christian era were united into the kingdom of Hiaksai, which existed until its destruction by the Tang dynasty of China, in the seventh century. From that time until 930 A.D. it formed a part of the kingdom of Shinra, which in turn made way for united Korai, which first gave political unity to the peninsula, and lasted until 1392, when the present dynasty with Chō-sen, or Corea, as we now know it, was established. The capital cities in succession from Hiaksai to Chō-sen were, Kwang-chiu, Sunto, and Han-yang.
CHUNG-CHONG, OR SERENE LOYALTY.
The province of Serene Loyalty lies mostly between the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh parallel. Its principal rivers are the Keum, flowing into Basil’s Bay, and another, which empties into Prince Jerome Gulf. Its northeast corner, is made by the Han River bending in a loop around the White Cloud (Paik Un) Mountain. Fertile flats and valleys abound. The peninsula of Nai-po [[193]](within the waters), in the northwestern corner, is often called the “Granary of the Kingdom.” Most of the rice of the Nai-po, and the province generally, is raised for export to the capital and the north. In the other circuits the rice lands are irrigated by leading the water from the streams through each field, which is divided from the other by little walls or barriers of earth, while in this region, and in Chulla, the farmers more frequently make great reservoirs or ponds, in which water is stored for use in dry weather. The mountains are the great reservoirs of moisture, for in all the peninsula there is not a lake of noticeable size. The coast line is well indented with bays and harbors, and the run to Shantung across the Yellow Sea is easily made by junks, and even in open boats. On this account the native Christians and French missionaries have often chosen this province as their gate of entry into the “land of martyrs.”
In the history of Corean Christianity this province will ever be remembered as the nursery of the faith. Its soil has been most richly soaked with the blood of the native believers. With unimportant exceptions, every town along its northern border, and especially in the Nai-po, has been sown with the seeds of the faith. The first converts and confessors, the most devoted adherents of their French teachers, the most gifted and intelligent martyrs, were from Nai-po, and it is nearly certain that the fires of Roman Christianity still smoulder here, and will again burst into flame at the first fanning of favorable events. The three great highways from Fusan to the capital cross this province in the northeastern portion. Over these roads the rival Japanese armies of invasion, led by Konishi and Kato, passed in jealous race in 1592, reaching the capital, after fighting and reducing castles on the way, in eighteen days after disembarkation. Chion-Chiu, the fortress on whose fate the capital depended, lies in the northeast, where two of the roads converge. The western, or sea road, that comes up from the south, hugs the shore through the entire length of the province. Others, along which the Japanese armies marched in 1592, and again in 1597, traverse the central part. Along one of these roads, the captive Hollanders, almost the first Europeans in Corea, rode in 1663, and one of the cities of which Hamel speaks, Kon-sio (Kong-Chiu), is the capital and residence of the provincial governor.
The bays and islands, which have been visited by foreign navigators, retain their names on European or Japanese charts. Some [[194]]of these are not very complimentary, as Deception Bay, Insult Island, and False River. At Basil’s Bay, named after Captain Basil Hall, Gutzlaff also landed in 1832, planted potatoes, and left seeds and books. The archipelago to the northwest was, in 1866, named after the Prince Imperial, who met his death in Zululand in 1878. Prince Jerome’s Gulf is well known as the scene of the visits of the Rover and the Emperor, with the author of “A Forbidden Land” on board. Haimi, a town several times mentioned by him, is at the head of Shoal Gulf, which runs up into the Nai-po. Two other bays, named Caroline and Deception, indent the Nai-po peninsula.
Map of Chung-chong Province.