Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

Though the peninsula was not open to trade or Christianity, it was not for lack of thought or attention on the part of merchant or missionary.

In England, a project was formed to establish a trading-station in Japan, and, if there was a possibility, in Corea also, or, at least, to see what could be done in “the island”—as Corea then, and for a long time afterward, was believed to be. Through the Dutch, the Jesuits, and their countryman, Will Adams, in Japan, they had heard of the Japanese war, and of Corea. Captain Saris arrived off Hirado Island about the middle of June, 1613, with a cargo of pepper, broadcloth, gunpowder, and English goods. In a galley, carrying twenty-five oars and manned by sixty men furnished by the daimiō, Saris and his company of seventeen Englishmen set out to visit the Iyéyasŭ at Yedo, by way of Suruga (now Shidzuoka). After two days’ rowing along the coast, they stopped for dinner in the large and handsome city of Hakata (or Fukuoka), the city being, in reality, double. As the Englishmen walked about to see the sights, the boys, children, and worse sort of idle people would gather about them, crying out, “Coré, Coré, Cocoré Waré” (Oh you Coreans, Coreans, you Kokorai men), taunting them by these words as Coreans with false hearts, whooping, holloaing, and making such a noise that the English could hardly hear each other speak. In some places, the people threw stones at these “Corean” Englishmen. Hakata was one of the towns at which the embassy from Seoul stopped while on its way to Yedo, and the incident shows clearly that the Japanese urchins and common people had not forgotten the reputed perfidy of the Coreans, while they also supposed that any foreigner, not a Portuguese, with whom they were familiar, must be a Corean. In the same manner, at Nankin, for a long while all foreigners, even Americans, were called “Japanese.”

Nothing was done by Saris, so far as is known, to explore or open Corea to Western commerce, although the last one of the eight clauses of the articles of license to trade, given him by Iyéyasŭ, was, “And that further, without passport, they may and shall set out upon the discovery of Yeadzo (Yezo), or any other part in and about our empire.” By the last clause any Japanese would understand [[148]]Corea and Riu Kiu as being land belonging to, but outside of “civilized” Nippon.

After leaving Nagasaki, and calling at Bantam, Saris took in a load of pepper, and sailed for England, reaching Plymouth September 27, 1614.

An attempt was also made by the Dominican order of friars to establish a mission in Corea. Vincent (Caun), the ward of Konishi, who had been educated and sent over by the Jesuits to plant Christianity among his countrymen, reached Peking and there waited four years to accomplish his purposes, but could not, owing to the presence of the hostile Manchius in Liao Tung. But just as he was returning to Japan, in 1618, another attempt was made by the Dominican friars to penetrate the sealed land. Juan de Saint Dominique, a Castilian Spaniard, who had labored as a missionary in the Philippine Islands since 1601, was the chosen man. Having secured rapid mastery of the languages of the Malay archipelago, he was selected as one well fitted to acquire Corean. With two others of the same fraternity he embarked for the shores of Morning Calm. For some reason, not known, they could not land in Corea, and so passed over to Japan, where the next year, March 19th, having met persecution, Dominique died in prison. The ashes of his body, taken from the cremation furnace, were cast in the sea; but his followers, having been able to save from the fire a hand and a foot, kept the ghastly remnants as holy relics.

The exact relations of “the conquering and the vassal state,” as the Japanese would say, that is, of Nihon and Chō-sen, were not definitely fixed, nor the menace of war withdrawn, until the last of the line of Taikō died, and the family became extinct by the death of Hidéyori, the son of Taikō, in 1612.

There is not a particle of evidence that the conquerors ever exacted an annual tribute of “thirty human hides,” as stated by a recent French writer. While Iyéyasŭ had his hands full in Japan, he paid little attention to the country which Taikō had used as a cockpit for the Christians. Iyéyasŭ dealt with the Jesuit, the Christian, and the foreigner, in a manner different from, and for obvious reasons with success greater than, that of Taikō. He unified Japan, re-established the dual system of mikado and shō-gun, with two capitals and two centres of authority, Kiōto and Yedo. He cleared the ground for his grandson Iyémitsŭ, who at once summoned the Coreans to renew tributary relations and pay homage [[149]]to him at Yedo. Magnifying his authority, he sent, in 1623, a letter to the King of Corea, in which he styles himself Tai-kun (“Tycoon”), or Great Prince. This is the equivalent in Chinese pronunciation of the pure Japanese O-gimi, an ancient title applied only to the mikado. No assumption or presumption of pomp and power was, however, scrupled at by the successors of Iyéyasŭ.

The title “Tycoon,” too, was intended to overawe the Coreans, as being even higher than the title Koku O (king of a [tributary] country), which their sovereign and the Ashikaga line of rulers held by patents from the Emperor of China, and which Taikō had scornfully refused.

The court at Seoul responded to the call, and, in 1624, sent an embassy with congratulations and costly presents. The envoys landed in Hizen, and made their journey overland, taking the same route so often traversed by the Hollanders at Déshima, and described by Kaempfer, Thunberg, and others. A sketch by a Yedo artist has depicted the gorgeous scene in the castle of the “Tycoon.” Seated on silken cushions, on a raised dais, behind the bamboo curtains, with sword-bearer in his rear, in presence of his lords, all in imitation of the imperial throne room in Kiōto, the haughty ruler received from the Corean envoy the symbol of vassalage—a gohei or wand on which strips of white paper are hung. Then followed the official banquet.

Since the invasion, Fusan, as before, had been held and garrisoned by the retainers of the daimiō of Tsushima. At this port all the commerce between the two nations took place. The interchange of commodities was established on an amicable basis. Japanese swords, military equipments, works of art, and raw products were exchanged for Corean merchandise. Having felt the power of the eastern sword-blades, and unable to perfect their own clumsy iron hangers, either in temper, edge, or material, they gladly bought of the Japanese, keeping their sword-makers busy. Kaempfer, who was at Nagasaki from September 24, 1690, to November, 1692, tells us that the Japanese imported from Fusan scarce medicinal plants, especially ginseng, walnuts, and fruits; the best pickled fish, and some few manufactures; among which was “a certain sort of earthen pots made in Japij and Ninke, two Tartarian provinces.” These ceramic oddities were “much esteemed by the Japanese, and bought very dear.”