The Government at Washington responded to the suggestion, and in the spring of 1881, Commodore Shufeldt was sent by the State Department to Peking as naval attaché to the Legation, so as to be near the American Minister and be ready with his experience, should a further attempt “to bring together the strange States of the Extreme Sea” be made.
Shortly after the presentation of Kwo-in-ken’s memorial in Seoul, a party of thirty-four prominent men of the civilization party, led by Giō Inchiu and Kio Yeichoku, set out from Seoul to visit Japan and further study the problem of how far Western ideas were adapted to an oriental state.
The proposition to open a port so near the capital to the Japanese, and to treat with the Americans, was not left unchallenged. The ultra-Confucianists, headed by Ni Mansun, stood ready to oppose it with word and weapon. In swelling Corean rhetoric, this bigoted patriot from Chung-chong proved to his own satisfaction that all the nations except China and Corea were uncivilized, and that the presence of foreigners would pollute the holy land. Gathering an array of seven hundred of his followers, he dressed in mourning to show his grief, and with the figure of an axe on his shoulders, in token of risking his life by his act, he presented his memorial to the king, and sat for seven days in front of the royal palace. He demanded that In-chiŭn should not be opened, the two Bin should be deposed, and all innovations should cease.
The popular form of the dread of foreigners was shown in delegations of country people, who came into Seoul to forward petitions and protestations. Placards were posted on or near the palace gates, full of violent language, and prophesying the most woful results of Western blight and poison upon the country which had ever been the object of the special favor of the spirits. [[432]]
Another party of two thousand literary men, fanatical patriots, had assembled at Chō-rio to go up to Seoul to overawe the progressive ministers, but were met by messengers from the court and turned back by the promise that the party about to visit Japan under royal patronage should be recalled. For a moment the king had thrown a sop to these cerberian zealots, whose three heads of demand would keep Chō-sen as inaccessible as Hades.
The order came too late, the progressionists had left the shores, and were in Nagasaki. Thence to Ozaka, where some remained to study the arts and sciences; the majority proceeded to Tōkiō to examine modern civilization in its manifold phases. Unlike Peter the Great, some of these reformers began with themselves, clothing mind and body with the nineteenth century. Dropping the garments of picturesque mediævalism, they put on the work-suit of buttoned coat and trousers and learned the value of minutes from American watches. The cutting off their badge of nationality—the top-knot—was accompanied with emotions very similar to those of bereavement by death.
Giō Inchiu[3] after his return from Japan was despatched on a mission to China, where his conference was chiefly with Li Hung Chang. He returned home by way of Fusan, December 29, 1881. He had now a good opportunity of judging the relative merits of Japan and China. His patriotic eye saw that the first need of Corean reform was in strengthening the army; though the poverty of the country gave slight hope of speedy success.
The results of this mission were soon apparent, for shortly after, eighty young men, of the average age of twenty, were sent to Tientsin, where they are now, 1882, diligently pursuing their studies; some in the arsenal, learning the manufacture of firearms, others learning the English language. A returned Chinese student—one of the number lately recalled from New England—while severely sarcastic at the Corean government’s “poor discrimination in selecting the country from which her students could profit most,” added, “they possess a far better physique for the navy than any of our future imperial midshipmen.” [[433]]
[1] The Japanese refused to have the Mikado designated by any title but that of Whang Ti (Japanese Kōtei) showing that he was peer to the Emperor of China; while the Coreans would not, in the same document, have their sovereign written down as Wang (Japanese Ō) because they wished him shown to be an equal of the Mikado, though ceremonially subordinate to the Whang Ti or Emperor of China. The poor Coreans were puzzled at there being two suns in one heaven, and two equal and favorite Sons of Heaven.