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Title: Corea
The Hermit Nation
Author: William Elliot Griffis
Release Date: January 10, 2022 [eBook #67141]
Language: English
Produced by: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COREA ***
COREA
THE HERMIT NATION
I.—ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
II.—POLITICAL AND SOCIAL COREA
III.—MODERN AND RECENT HISTORY
BY
WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS
FORMERLY OF THE IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY OF TOKIO, JAPAN
AUTHOR OF “THE MIKADO’S EMPIRE”
NINTH EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1911
TO
ALL COREAN PATRIOTS:
WHO SEEK
BY THE AID OF SCIENCE, TRUTH, AND PURE RELIGION,
TO ENLIGHTEN
THEMSELVES AND THEIR FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,
TO RID
THEIR LAND OF SUPERSTITION, BIGOTRY, DESPOTISM, AND
PRIESTCRAFT—BOTH NATIVE AND FOREIGN—
AND TO PRESERVE
THE INTEGRITY, INDEPENDENCE, AND HONOR, OF THEIR COUNTRY;
THIS UNWORTHY SKETCH
OF
THEIR PAST HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION
IS DEDICATED.
PREFACE TO THE NINTH EDITION.
The year 1910 saw the Land of the Plum Blossom and the Islands of the
Cherry Blooms united. In this ninth edition of a work which for nearly
thirty years has been a useful hand-book of information—having, by
their own unsought confession, inspired not a few men and women to
become devoted friends and teachers of the Corean people—I have made
some corrections and added a final chapter, “Chō-sen: A Province of
Japan.” Besides outlining in brief the striking events from 1907 to
1911, I have analyzed the causes of the extinction of Corean
sovereignty, aiming in this to be a disinterested interpreter rather
than a mere annalist.
Although the sovereignty of Corea, first recognized and made known to
the world by the Japanese in their treaty of 1876, has been, through
the logic of events, destroyed, I doubt not that the hopes of twelve
millions of people will be increasingly fulfilled under the new
arrangement. Not in haste, but only after long compulsion, did the
statesmen of Japan assume a responsibility that may test to the full
their abilities and those of their successors. The severe criticisms,
in Japan itself, of the policy of the Tokio government bear witness to
the sensitiveness of the national conscience in regard to the treatment
of their colonies. In this respect, as in so many other points of
public ethics, the Japanese are ranging themselves abreast with the
leading nations that are making a world-conscience.
In sending forth what may be the final edition of a work, with the
title of which time has had its revenges, while the contents are still
of worth, the author thanks heartily all who, from 1876, when the work
was planned, until the present time, have assisted in making this book
valuable to humanity.
W. E. G. Ithaca, N. Y., June 27, 1911.
PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH EDITION.
When in October, 1882, the publishers of “Corea the Hermit Nation”
presented this work to the public of English-speaking nations, they
wrote:
“Corea stands in much the same relation to the traveller that the
region of the pole does to the explorer, and menaces with the same
penalty the too inquisitive tourist who ventures to penetrate its
inhospitable borders.”
For twenty-four years, this book, besides enjoying popular favor, has
been made good use of by writers and students, in Europe and America,
and has served even in Corea itself as the first book of general
information to be read by missionaries and other new comers. In this
eighth edition, I have added to the original text, ending with Chapter
XLVIII (September, 1882), five fresh chapters: on The Economic
Condition of Corea; International Politics: Chinese and Japanese; The
War of 1894: Corea an Empire; Japan and Russia in Conflict; and Corea a
Japanese Protectorate, bringing the history down to the late autumn of
1906.
Within the brief period of time treated in these new chapters, the
centre of the world’s politics has shifted from the Atlantic and the
Mediterranean to the waters surrounding Corea, the strange anomaly of
dual sovereignty over the peninsular state has been eliminated, and the
military reputation of China ruined, and that of Russia compromised.
The rise of Japan, within half a century of immediate contact with the
West, to the position of a modern state, able first to humiliate China
and then to grapple successfully with Russia, has vitally affected
Corea, on behalf of whose independence Japan a second time went to war
with a Power vastly greater in natural resources than herself. In this
period also, the United States of America has become one of the great
Powers interested in the politics of Asia, and with which the would-be
conquerors of Asiatic peoples must reckon.
The present or eighth edition shows in both text and map, not only the
swift, logical results both of Japan’s military and naval successes in
Manchuria and on the sea of Japan and of her signal diplomatic victory
at Portsmouth, but more. It makes clear the reasons why Corea, as to
her foreign relations, has lost her sovereignty.
The penalty laid upon the leaders of the peninsular kingdom for making
intrigue instead of education their work, and class interests instead
of national welfare their aim, is also shown to be pronounced—less by
the writer than by the events themselves—in the final failure of
intriguing Yang-banism, in May, 1906. The Japanese, in the
administration of Corea, are like the other protecting nations,
British, American, French, German, now on a moral trial before the
world.
In again sending forth a work that has been so heartily welcomed, I
reiterate gladly my great obligations to the scholars, native and
foreign, who have so generously aided me by their conversation,
correspondence, criticism, and publications, and the members of the
Korean Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, who have honored me with
membership in their honorable body. My special obligations are due to
our late American Minister, H. N. Allen, for printed documents and
illustrative matter; to Professor Homer B. Hulbert, Editor of The Korea
Review, from the pages of which I have drawn liberally, and to the
Editor of The Japan Mail, the columns of which are rich in
correspondence from Corea. I would call attention also to the additions
made upon the map at the end of the volume.
I beg again the indulgence of my readers, especially of those who by
long residence upon the soil, while so thoroughly able to criticize,
have been so profuse in their expression of appreciation. From both
sides of the Atlantic and Pacific have come these gratifying tokens,
and to them as well as to my publishers, I make glad acknowledgments in
sending forth this eighth edition.
W. E. G. Ithaca, N. Y., December 12, 1906.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
In the year 1871, while living at Fukui, in the province of Echizen,
Japan, I spent a few days at Tsuruga and Mikuni, by the sea which
separates Japan and Corea. Like “the Saxon shore” of early Britain, the
coast of Echizen had been in primeval times the landing-place of
rovers, immigrants, and adventurers from the continental shore
opposite. Here, at Tsuruga, Corean envoys had landed on their way to
the mikado’s court. In the temple near by were shrines dedicated to the
Corean Prince of Mimana, and to Jingu Kōgō, Ojin, and Takénouchi, whose
names in Japanese traditions are associated with “The Treasure-land of
the West.” Across the bay hung a sweet-toned bell, said to have been
cast in Corea in A.D. 647; in which tradition—untested by
chemistry—declared there was much gold. Among the hills not far away,
nestled the little village of Awotabi (Green Nook), settled centuries
ago by paper-makers, and visited a millenium ago by tribute-bearers,
from the neighboring peninsula; and famous for producing the crinkled
paper on which the diplomatic correspondence between the two nations
was written. Some of the first families in Echizen were proud of their
descent from Chō-sen, while in the villages, where dwelt the Eta, or
social outcasts, I beheld the descendants of Corean prisoners of war.
Everywhere the finger of tradition pointed westward across the waters
to the Asian mainland, and the whole region was eloquent of “kin beyond
sea.” Birds and animals, fruits and falcons, vegetables and trees,
farmers’ implements and the potter’s wheel, names in geography and
things in the arts, and doctrines and systems in religion were in some
way connected with Corea.
The thought often came to me as I walked within the moss-grown feudal
castle walls—old in story, but then newly given up to schools of
Western science and languages—why should Corea be sealed and
mysterious, when Japan, once a hermit, had opened her doors and come
out into the world’s market-place? When would Corea’s awakening come?
As one diamond cuts another, why should not Chō-ka (Japan) open Chō-sen
(Corea)?
Turning with delight and fascination to the study of Japanese history
and antiquities, I found much that reflected light upon the neighbor
country. On my return home, I continued to search for materials for the
story of the last of the hermit nations. No master of research in China
or Japan having attempted the task, from what Locke calls “the
roundabout view,” I have essayed it, with no claim to originality or
profound research, for the benefit of the general reader, to whom Corea
“suggests,” as an American lady said, “no more than a sea-shell.” Many
ask “What’s in Corea?” and “Is Corea of any importance in the history
of the world?”
My purpose in this work is to give an outline of the history of the
Land of Morning Calm—as the natives call their country—from before the
Christian era to the present year. As “an honest tale speeds best,
being plainly told,” I have made no attempt to embellish the narrative,
though I have sought information from sources from within and without
Corea, in maps and charts, coins and pottery, the language and art,
notes and narratives of eye-witnesses, pencil-sketches, paintings and
photographs, the standard histories of Japan and China, the testimony
of sailor and diplomatist, missionary and castaway, and the digested
knowledge of critical scholars. I have attempted nothing more than a
historical outline of the nation and a glimpse at the political and
social life of the people. For lack of space, the original manuscript
of “Recent and Modern History,” part III., has been greatly abridged,
and many topics of interest have been left untouched.
The bulk of the text was written between the years 1877 and 1880; since
which time the literature of the subject has been enriched by Ross’s
“Corea” and “Corean Primer,” besides the Grammar and Dictionary of the
Corean language made by the French missionaries. With these linguistic
helps I have been able to get access to the language, and thus clear up
doubtful points and obtain much needed data. I have borrowed largely
from Dallet’s “Histoire d’Eglise de Corée,” especially in the chapters
devoted to Folk-lore, Social Life, and Christianity. In the
Bibliography following the Preface is a list of works to which I have
been more or less indebted.
Many friends have assisted me with correspondence, advice, or help in
translation, among whom I must first thank my former students,
Haségawa, Hiraii, Haraguchi, Matsui, and Imadatté, and my newer
Japanese friends, Ohgimi and Kimura, while others, alas! will never in
this world see my record of acknowledgment—K. Yaye′ and Egi
Takato—whose interest was manifested not only in discussion of mooted
points, but by search among the book-shops in Kiōto and Tōkiō, which
put much valuable standard matter in my hands. I also thank Mr. Charles
Lanman, Secretary of the Legation of Japan in Washington, for four
ferrotypes taken in Seoul in 1878 by members of the Japanese embassy;
Mr. D. R. Clark, of the United States Transit of Venus Survey, for four
photographs of the Corean villages in Russian Manchuria; Mr. R. Idéura,
of Tōkiō, for a set of photographs of Kang-wa and vicinity, taken in
1876, and Mr. Ozawa Nankoku, for sketches of Corean articles in
Japanese museums. To Lieutenant Wadhams, of the United States Navy, for
the use of charts and maps made by himself while in Corea in 1871, and
for photographs of flags and other trophies, now at Annapolis, captured
in the Han forts; to Fleet-Surgeon H. O. Mayo, and other officers of
the United States Navy, for valuable information, I hereby express my
grateful appreciation of kindness shown. I would that Admiral John
Rodgers, Commodore H. C. Blake, and Minister F. F. Low were living to
receive my thanks for their courtesies personally shown me, even
though, in attempting to write history, I have made criticisms also. To
Lieutenant N. Y. Yanagi, of the Hyrographic Bureau, of the Japanese
Navy, for a set of charts of the coast of Corea; to Mr. Metcalfe, of
Milwaukee, for photographs of Coreans; to Miss Marshall, of New York,
for making colored copies of the battle-flags captured by our naval
battalion in 1871, and for the many favors of correspondents—in St.
Petersburg, Mr. Hoffman Atkinson; in Peking, Jugoi Arinori Mori; in
Tōkiō, Dr. D. B. McCartee, Hon. David Murray, Rev. J. L. Amerman, and
others whose names I need not mention. To Gen. George W. McCullum,
Vice-President, and to Mr. Leopold Lindau, Librarian, of the American
Geographical Society, I return my warmest thanks; as well as to my dear
wife and helpmeet, for her aid in copying, proof-reading, suggestions,
and criticism during the progress of the work.
In one respect, the presentation of such a subject by a compiler, while
shorn of the fascinating element of personal experience, has an
advantage even over the narrator who describes a country through which
he has travelled. With the various reports of many witnesses, in many
times and places, before him, he views the whole subject and reduces
the many impressions of detail to unity, correcting one by the other.
Travellers usually see but a portion of the country at one time. The
compiler, if able even in part to control his authorities, and if
anything more than a tyro in the art of literary appraisement, may be
able to furnish a hand-book of information more valuable to the general
reader.
In the use of my authorities I have given heed to Bacon’s
advice—tasting some, chewing others, and swallowing few. In ancient
history, original authorities have been sought, and for the story of
modern life, only the reports of careful eye-witnesses have been set
down as facts; while opinions and judgments of alien occidentals
concerning Corean social life are rarely borrowed without due flavoring
of critical salt.
Corean and Japanese life, customs, beliefs, and history are often
reflections one of the other. Much of what is reported from Corea,
which the eye-witnesses themselves do not appear to understand, is
perfectly clear to one familiar with Japanese life and history. China,
Corea, and Japan are as links in the same chain of civilization. Corea,
like Cyprus between Egypt and Greece, will yet supply many missing
details to the comparative student of language, art, science, the
development of civilization, and the distribution of life on the globe.
Some future writer, with more ability and space at command than the
undersigned, may discuss the question as to how far the opening of
Corea to the commerce of the world has been the result of internal
forces; the scholar, by his original research, may prepare the
materials for a worthy history of Corea during the two or three
thousand years of her history; the geologist or miner may determine the
question as to how far the metallic wealth of Corea will affect the
monetary equilibrium of the world. The missionary has yet to prove the
full power of Christianity upon the people—and before Corean paganism,
any form of the religion of Jesus, Roman, Greek or Reformed, should be
welcomed; while to the linguist, the man of science, and the political
economist, the new country opened by American diplomacy presents
problems of profound interest.
W. E. G. Schenectady, N. Y., October 2, 1882.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The following is a list of books and papers containing information
about Corea. Those of primary value to which the compiler of this work
is specially indebted are marked with an asterisk (*); those to which
slight obligation, if any, is acknowledged with a double asterisk; and
those which he has not consulted, with a dagger (†). See also under The
Corean Language and Cartography, in the Appendix.
* History of the Eastern Barbarians. “Book cxv. contains a sketch of
the tribes and nations occupying the northeastern seaboard of China,
with the territory now known as Manchuria and Corea.” This extract from
a History of the Later Han Dynasty (25–220 A.D.), by a Chinese scholar
of the fifth century, has been translated into English by Mr. Alexander
Wylie, and printed in the Revue de l’Extrême Orient, No. 1, 1882. Du
Halde and De Mailla, in French, and Ross, in English, have also given
the substance of the Chinese writer’s work, which also furnishes the
basis of Japanese accounts of Corean history previous to the fourth
century.
† The Subjugation of Chaou-seen, by A. Wylie. (Atti del IV. Cong. int.
degli Orient, ii., pp. 309–315, 1881.) This fragment is a translation
of the 95th book of the History of the Former Han Dynasty of China.
* Empire de la Chine et la Tartarie Chinoise, par P. du Halde.
* The Kōjiki and Nihongi, written in Japan during the eighth century,
throws much light on the early history of Corea.
* Wakan-San-sai Dzuyé. Article on Chō-sen in this great Japanese
Encyclopædia.
† Tong-Kuk Tong-Kan (General View of the Eastern Kingdom), a native
Corean history written in Chinese.
* Zenrin Koku Hoki (Precious Jewels from a Neighboring Country), by
Shiuho. Japan, 1586.
* Corea, its History, Manners, and Customs, by John Ross. 1 vol., pp.
404. Illustrations and maps. Paisley, 1880.
* The Chinese Reader’s Manual, by W. Fred. Mayers. 1 vol., pp. 440.
Shanghae, 1874. An invaluable epitome of Chinese history, biography,
chronology, bibliography, and whatever is of interest to the student of
Chinese literature.
* Kō-chō Rekidai Enkaku Zukai. Historical Periods and Changes of the
Japanese Empire, with maps and notes, by Otsuki Tōyō.
** San Koku Tsu-ran To-setsu. Mirror of the Three [Tributary] Kingdoms,
Chō-sen, Riu kiu, and Yezo, by Rin Shihei, 1785. This work, with its
maps, was translated into French by J. Klaproth, and published in
Paris, 1832. 1 vol. 8vo, pp. 288, of which pp. 158 relate to Chō-sen.
Digested also in Siebold’s Archiv.
** Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan, by Franz von Siebold. This
colossal work contains much matter in text and illustrations relating
to Corea, and the digest of several Japanese books, in the part
entitled Nachrichten über Korai, Japan’s Bezüge mit der Koraischen
Halbinsel und mit Schina.
** Corea und dessen Einfluss auf die Bevölkerung Japans. Zeit. für
Ethnologie, Zitzungbericht VIII. p. 78, 1876. P. Kempermann.
** O Dai Ichi Ran. This work, containing the annals of the emperors of
Japan, is a bird’s-eye view of the principal events in Japanese
history, written in the style of an almanac, which Titsingh copied down
from translations made by Japanese who spoke Dutch. Klaproth revised
and corrected Titsingh’s work, and published his own version in 1834.
Paris and London, 8vo, pp. 460. This work contains many references to
Corea and the relations of the two countries, transcribed from the
older history.
** Tableaux Historiques de l’Asie, depuis la monarchie de Cyrus jusque
nos jours, accompagnes de recherches historiques et ethnographiques,
etc. Par J. Klaproth, Paris, 1826. Avec un atlas in folio. This manual
of the political geography of Asia is very useful, but not too
accurate.
† A Heap of Jewels in a Sea of Learning (Gei Kai Shu Jin; Jap. pron.).
A chapter from this Chinese book treats of Corea.
† Chō-sen Hitsu Go-shin. A collection of conversations with the pen,
with a Corean who could not speak Japanese. By Ishikawa Rokuroku
Sanjin, Yedo.
* The Classical Poetry of the Japanese. By Basil Hall Chamberlain.
London, 1880.
** An Outline History of Japanese Education, New York, 1876. This
monograph, prepared for the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia,
reviews the educational influences of Corea upon Japan. The information
given is, with other data, from Klaproth, utilized in Pickering’s
Chronological History of Plants, by Charles Pickering, M.D., Boston,
1879.
* Japanese Chronological Tables. By William Bramsen, Tōkiō, 1880. An
invaluable essay on Japanese chronology, which was, like the Corean,
based on the Chinese system. We have used this work of the lamented
scholar (who died a few months after it was published) in rendering
dates expressed in terms of the Chinese into those of the Gregorian or
modern system.
** History of the Mongols. 3 vols. pp. 1827. London, 1876. By Henry
Howorth. This portly work is full of the fruits of research concerning
the people led by Genghis Khan. It contains excellent maps of Asia, and
of Mongolia, and Manchuria, illustrating the Mongol conquests.
† Chō-sen Ki-che. (Memorandum upon Corean Affairs.) The Chinese
ambassador sent by the Ming emperor in 1450, gives in this little work
an account of his journey, which throws light upon the political and
geographical situation of Chō-sen and China at that time. Quoted by M.
Scherzer, but not translated.
* Nihon Guaishi. Military History of Japan, by Rai Sanyo. This is the
Japanese standard history. It was published in 1827 in twenty-two
volumes. It covers the period from the Taira and Minamoto families to
that of the Tokugawa in the seventeenth century. The first part of this
work was translated into English by Mr. Ernest Satow, and published in
The Japan Mail at Yokohama, 1872–74. In the latter portion the invasion
of Chō-sen, 1592–97, is outlined.
* Chō-sen Seito Shimatsŭki. A work in five volumes, giving an account
of the embassies, treaties, documents relating to the invasion of
1592–97, with an outline of the war, geographical notes, with nine maps
by Yamazaki Masanagi and Miura Katsuyoshi.
* Illustrated History of the Invasion of Chō-sen. Written by Tsuruminé
Hikoichiro. Illustrations by Hashimoto Giokuron. 20 vols. Yedo, 1853.
This popular work, besides an outline of Corean history from the
beginning, condensed from local legends and Chinese writers, details
the operations of war and diplomacy relating to Hidéyoshi’s invasion.
It is copiously illustrated with first-class wood engravings. It has
not been translated.
* Chō-sen Monogatari. A Diary and Narrative of the Japanese Military
Operations in Chō-sen during the Campaign of 1594–97, by Okoji
Hidémoto. Copied out and published in 1672, and again in 1849. This
narrative of an eye-witness was written by the author at the time of
the events described, and afterward copied by his own son and deposited
in the temple at which his ancestors worshipped. This vivid and
spirited story of the second invasion of Chō-sen by Hidéyoshi has been
translated into German by Dr. A. Pfizmaier, under the title Der Feldzug
der Japaner gegen Corea, im Jahre, 1597. 2 vols. Vienna, 1875: 4to, pp.
98; 1876: 4to, pp. 58.
** Chohitsuroku. History of the Embassies, Treaties, and War Operations
during the Japanese Invasion. This work is by a Corean author, who was
one of the ministers of the king throughout the war. It is written in
Chinese, has a map, and gives the Corean side of the history of affairs
from about 1585 to 1598. 3 vols.
* Three Severall Testimonies Concerning the mighty Kingdom of Coray,
tributary to the Kingdom of China, and bordering upon her Northeastern
Frontiers, and called by the Portugales, Coria, etc., etc., collected
out of Portugale yeerely Japonian Epistles, dated 1590, 1592, 1594. In
Hakluyt, London, 1600.
* Hidéyoshi’s Invasion of Korea. Trans. Asiatic Society of Japan. By W.
G. Aston. In these papers Mr. Aston gives the results of a study of the
campaign of 1592–97, as found in Japanese and Corean authors.
** Lettre Annuelle de Mars 1593, ecrite par le P. Pierre Gomez au P.
Claude Acquavira, general de la Compagnie de Jesus. Milan, 1597, p. 112
et suiv. In Hakluyt.
* Histoire de la Religion Chrétienne au Japon. Par Leon Pages. 2 vols.,
text and documents. Paris, 1869.
** Histoire des deux Conquerans Tartares, qui ont subjugé la Chine, par
le R. P. Pierre Joseph D’Orliens.
* Chō-sen Monogatari (Romantic Narrative of Travels in Corea), by two
Men from Mikuni, in Echizen, cast ashore in Tartary in 1645. This work
is digested in Siebold’s Archiv.
* Narrative of an Unlucky Voyage and Imprisonment in Corea, 1653–1667
In Astley’s and Pinkerton’s Voyages. By Hendrik Hamel.
* Imperial Chinese Atlas, containing maps of China and each of the
Provinces, including Shing-king and the neutral strip.
* Histoire de l’Eglise de Corée, par Ch. Dallet. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 982.
Paris, 1874. This excellent work contains 192 pages of introduction,
full of accurate information concerning the political social life,
geography, and language of Corea, and a history of the introduction and
progress of Roman Christianity, and the labors of the French
missionaries, from 1784–1866. It contains also a map and four charts of
Corean writing.
* Une Expedition en Corée. In la Tour du Monde for 1873 there is an
article of 16 pp. (401–417) with illustrations, by M. H. Zuber, a
French naval officer, who was in Corea in 1866 under Admiral Roze. An
excellent descriptive paper by an eye-witness.
* Diary of a Chinese Envoy to Corea (Journal d’une Mission en Corée),
by Koei Ling, Ambassador of his Majesty the Emperor of China, to the
court of Chō-sen in 1866. Translated from the Chinese into French by F.
Scherzer, Interpreter to the French Legation at Peking. 8vo, pp. 77.
Paris, 1882. This journal of the last Chinese ambassador to Seoul is
well rendered, and is copiously supplied with explanatory notes, and a
colored map of the author’s route from Peking through Chili,
Shing-king, via Mukden, and through three provinces of Corea to Seoul.
† Many memoirs and special papers prepared by French officers in the
expedition to Corea in 1866 were prepared and read before local
societies at Cherbourg, Lyons, etc.
† Expedition de Corée. Revue maritime et coloniale, February, 1867, pp.
474–481.
† Paris Moniteur, 1866–67.
** Lettre sur la Corée et son Eglise Chrétienne. Bulletin de la Société
Geographique de Lyon, 1876, pp. 278–282, and June, 1870, pp. 417–422,
and map.
** The Corean Martyrs. By Canon Shortland. 1 vol., pp. 115. London.
Compiled from the letters of the French missionaries.
** Nouvelle Geographie Universelle. This superb treasury of
geographical science, still unfinished, contains a full summary of our
knowledge of Corea, especially showing the prominent part which French
navigators, scholars, and missionaries have taken in its exploration.
Paris.
** Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World.
By William R. Broughton. 2 vols. 4to, with atlas. London, 1804.
** Voyage Round the World. By Jean François de Gallou de La Perouse.
London, 1799.
** Voyages to the Eastern Seas in the year 1818. By Basil Hall. New
York, London, and revised by Captain Hall in 1827. Jamaica, N. Y.
* Narrative of a Voyage in His Majesty’s late Ship Alceste, to the
Yellow Sea, along the Coast of Corea, and through its numerous hitherto
undiscovered Islands, etc., etc. By John McLeod, Surgeon of the
Alceste. 1 vol., pp. 288 (see pp. 38–53). London, 1877. A witty and
lively narrative.
** Voyages along the Coast of China (Corea), etc. By Charles Gutzlaff.
1 vol., pp. 332. New York, 1833. (From July 17, to August 17, 1832; pp.
254–287.)
* Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Samarang, during the years 1843–46.
By Captain Sir E. Belcher. 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 574–378. London, 1848. Vol.
i. pp. 324–358; vol. ii., pp. 444–466, relate to Corea.
* American Commerce with China. By Gideon Nye, Esq. In the Far East.
Shanghae, 1878. A history of the commercial relations of the United
States with China, especially before 1800.
* Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, China, and Japan,
1866–81.
* Report of the Secretary of the Navy to Congress, pp. 275–313. 1872.
* Private Notes, Charts, and Maps of Officers of the United States Navy
who were in Corea in 1871.
** A Summer Dream of ’71. A Story of Corea. By T. G. The Far East.
Shanghae, April, 1878.
* Journey through Eastern Mantchooria and Korea. By Walton Grinnell.
Journal American Geographical Society, 1870–71, pp. 283–300.
* Japan and Corea. A valuable monograph in six chapters, by Mr. E. H.
House, in The Tōkiō Times, 1877.
** On a Collection of Crustacea made in the Corean and Japanese Seas.
J. Muirs, 1879. London Zoological Society’s Proceedings (pp. 18–81,
pls. 1–113). Reviewed by J. S. Kingsley. Norwich, N. Y. American
Naturalist.
** A Private Trip in Corea. By Frank Cowan, M.D. The Japan Mail, 1880.
† The Leading Men of Japan. By Charles Lanman. Boston, 1882. Contains a
chapter on Corea.
* Manuscript volume of pencil notes made by Kawamura Kuanshiu, an
officer on the Japanese gunboat Unyo-kuan, during her cruise and
capture of the Kang-wa Fort, 1875. Partly printed in the Japan Mail.
* Journals of Japanese Military and Diplomatic Officers who have
visited Corea, and Correspondence of the Japanese newspapers, from
Seoul, Fusan, Gensan, etc. These have been partly translated for the
English press at Yokohama.
* Correspondence, Notes, Editorials, etc., in the English and French
newspapers published in China and Japan.
** Maru-maru Shimbun (Japanese Punch).
* Chō-sen: Its Eight Administrative Divisions. 1 vol. Tōkiō, Japan,
1882.
* Chō-sen Jijo. A short Account of Corea, its History, Productions,
etc. 2 vols. Tōkiō, 1875.
* Chō-sen Bunkenroku (Things Seen and Heard concerning Corea). By Sato
Hakushi. 2 vols. Tōkiō, 1875.
* Travels of a Naturalist in Japan [Corea] and Manchuria. By Arthur
Adams. 1 vol., pp. 334. London, 1870. See chaps, x., xi., pp. 125–166.
** Ueber die Reise der Kais. Corvette Hertha, in besondere nach Corea.
Kramer, Marine Prediger. Zeit. für Ethnologie, 1873. Verhandlungen, pp.
49–54.
** A Forbidden Land. By Ernest Oppert. 1 vol., pp. 349. Illustrations,
charts, etc. New York, 1880.
** Journeys in North China. By Rev. A. Williamson. 2 vols. 16mo.
London, 1870. Besides a chapter on Corea, this work contains an
excellent map of the country north and east of Chō-sen
** The Middle Kingdom. By S. Wells Williams.
** Consular Reports in the Blue Books of the British Government,
especially the Reports of Mr. McPherson, Consul at Niu-chwang. January,
1866.
* Handbook for Central and Northern Japan, with maps and plans. Satow
and Hawes. 1 vol. 16mo, pp. 489. This work, which leaves nothing to be
desired as a guide-book, contains several references to Corean art and
history.
** The Wild Coasts of Nipon. By Captain H. C. St. John (who surveyed
some parts of Southern Corea in H.B.M.S. Sylvia). See chap, xii., pp.
235–255, with a map of Corea.
** Darlegung aus der Geschichte und Geographie Coreas. Pfizmaier. 8vo,
pp. 56. Vienna, 1874.
† Petermann’s Mittheilungen, No. 1, Carte No. 19, 1871.
** Das Konigreich Korea. Von Kloden. Aus allen Welth., x., Nos. 5 u. 6.
† Corea. Geographical Magazine. (S. Mossman.) vi. p. 148, 1877.
† Corea. By Captain Allen Young, Royal Geographical Society. Vol. ix.,
No. 6, pp. 296–300.
** China, with an Appendix on Corea. By Charles Eden. 1 vol., pp.
281–322. London. A popular compilation.
** Korea and the Lost Tribes, and Map and Chart of Korea. Text and
illustrations. The title of this work is sufficient. Even the
bibliography of Corea has a comic side.
** Chi-shima (Kurile Islands) and Russian Invasion. A lecture delivered
in Japanese, before the Tōkiō United Geographical Society, February 24,
1882. By Admiral Enomoto. This valuable historical treatise, translated
for the Japan Mail and Japan Herald, contains much information about
Russian operations in the countries bordering the North Pacific and the
Coreans north of the Tumen.
† Bulletin de la Société Geographique, 1875. Corean villages in the
Russian possessions described.
** Ravensteins, The Russians on the Amoor. London, 1861.
† Die Insel Quelpart. Deutsche Geogr. Blätter, 1879. iii., No. 1, S.
45–46.
† A Trip to Quelpaert. Nautical Magazine, 1870, No. 4, p. 321–325.
** The Edinburgh Review of 1872, and Fortnightly Review of 1875,
contain articles on Corea.
* The Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland,
Edinburgh, containing the Correspondence and Notes of the Missionaries
laboring among the Chinese and Coreans, and who have translated the New
Testament into Corean.
† La Corée, par M. Paul Tournafond, editor of L’Exploration, a
geographical journal published in Paris, which contains frequent notes
on Corea.
† La Corée, ses Ressources, son avenir commercial, par Maurice Jametel.
L’Economiste Français, Juillet 23, 1881.
* The Japan Herald, The Japan Mail, The Japan Gazette, L’Echo du Japan,
of Yokohama, and North China Herald, Shanghae, have furnished much
information concerning recent events in Corea.
Corea, the Last of the Hermit Nations. Sunday Magazine, New York, May,
1878.
Corea and the United States. The Independent, New York, Nov. 17, 1881.
Corea, the Hermit Nation. Bulletin of the American Geographical
Society, New York, 1881, No. 3.
Chautauqua Text-Books, No. 34. Asiatic History; China, Corea, Japan.
16mo, pp. 86. New York, 1881.
Library of Universal Knowledge, articles Corea, Fusan, Gensan, Kang-wa,
etc. New York, 1880.
Cyclopædia of Political Science, etc., article Corea. Chicago, 1881.
The Corean Origin of Japanese Art. Century Magazine. December, 1882. By
Wm. Elliot Griffis.
ORTHOGRAPHY AND PRONUNCIATION.
In the transliteration of Corean names into English, an attempt has
been made to render them in as accurate and simple a manner as is,
under the circumstances, possible. The Coreans themselves have no
uniform system of spelling proper names, nor do the French missionaries
agree in their renderings—as a comparison of their maps and writings
shows. Our aim in this work has been to use as few letters as possible.
Japanese words are all pronounced according to the European method—a as
in father, é as in prey, e as in men, i as in machine, o as in bone, u
as in tune, ŭ as in sun; ai as in aisle, ua as in quarantine, ei as in
feign, and iu is sounded as yu; g is always hard; and c before a vowel,
g soft, l, q, s used as z, x, and the combinations ph and th are not
used. The long vowel, rather diphthong o, or oho, is marked ō.
The most familiar Chinese names are retained in their usual English
form.
Corean words are transliterated on the same general principles as the
Japanese, though ears familiar with Corean will find the obscure sound
between o and short u is written with either of these letters, as
Chan-yon, or In-chiŭn, or Kiung-sang. Ch may sometimes be used instead
of j; and e where o or a or u might more correctly be used, as in
Kang-wen, or Wen-chiu. Instead of the French ou, or ho, we have written
W, as in Whang-hai, Kang-wa, rather than Hoang-hai, Kang-hoa,
Kang-ouen, Tai-ouen Kun, etc.; and in place of ts we have used ch, as
Kwang-chiu rather than Kwang-tsiu, and Wen-chiu than Ouen-tsiu.
MAPS AND PLANS.
PAGE
Ancestral Seats of the Fuyu Race, 25
Sam-han, 30
Ancient Japan and Corea, 56
The Neutral Territory, 85
The Japanese Military Operations of 1592, 99
The Campaign in the North, 1592–1593, 107
The Operations of the Second Invasion, 131
Plan of Uru-san Castle, 138
Home of the Manchius and their Migrations, 155
The Jesuit Survey of 1709, 165
Ping-an Province, 181
The Yellow Sea Province, 185
The Capital Province, 188
Military Geography of Seoul, 190
Chung-chong Province, 194
Chulla-dō, 199
The Province Nearest Japan, 204
Kang-wen Province, 208
Corean Frontier Facing Manchuria and Russia, 210
Southern Part of Ham-kiung, 215
The Missionary’s Gateway into Corea, 364
Border Towns of Northern Corea, 365
The French Naval and Military Operations, 1866, 379
Map Illustrating the “General Sherman” Affair, 393
Map Illustrating the “China” Affair, 400
Map of the American Naval Operations in 1871, 415
General Map of Corea at the End of 1906 At end of volume.
CONTENTS.
PART I.
ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL HISTORY.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
The Corean Peninsula, 1
CHAPTER II.
The Old Kingdom of Chō-sen, 11
CHAPTER III.
The Fuyu Race and their Migrations, 19
CHAPTER IV.
Sam-han, or Southern Corea, 30
CHAPTER V.
Epoch of the Three Kingdoms.—Hiaksai, 35
CHAPTER VI.
Epoch of the Three Kingdoms.—Korai, 40
CHAPTER VII.
Epoch of the Three Kingdoms.—Shinra, 45
CHAPTER VIII.
Japan and Corea, 51
CHAPTER IX.
Korai, or United Corea, 63
CHAPTER X.
Cathay, Zipangu, and the Mongols, 70
CHAPTER XI.
New Chō-sen, 76
CHAPTER XII.
Events Leading to the Japanese Invasion, 88
CHAPTER XIII.
The Invasion—On to Seoul, 95
CHAPTER XIV.
The Campaign in the North, 104
CHAPTER XV.
The Retreat from Seoul, 115
CHAPTER XVI.
Cespedes, the Christian Chaplain, 121
CHAPTER XVII.
Diplomacy at Kiōto and Peking, 124
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Second Invasion, 129
CHAPTER XIX.
The Siege of Uru-san Castle, 137
CHAPTER XX.
Changes after the Invasion, 145
CHAPTER XXI.
The Issachar of Eastern Asia, 154
CHAPTER XXII.
The Dutchmen in Exile, 167
PART II.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL COREA.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Eight Provinces, 179
CHAPTER XXIV.
The King and Royal Palace, 218
CHAPTER XXV.
Political Parties, 224
CHAPTER XXVI.
Organization and Methods of Government, 230
CHAPTER XXVII.
Feudalism, Serfdom, and Society, 237
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Social Life—Woman and the Family, 244
CHAPTER XXIX.
Child Life, 256
CHAPTER XXX.
Housekeeping, Diet, and Costume, 262
CHAPTER XXXI.
Mourning and Burial, 277
CHAPTER XXXII.
Out-door Life.—Characters and Employments, 284
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Shamanism and Mythical Zoölogy, 300
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Legends and Folk-lore, 307
CHAPTER XXXV.
Proverbs and Pithy Sayings, 317
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Corean Tiger, 320
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Religion, 326
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Education and Culture, 337
PART III.
MODERN AND RECENT HISTORY.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Beginnings of Christianity—1784–1794, 347
CHAPTER XL.
Persecution and Martyrdom—1801–1834, 353
CHAPTER XLI.
The Entrance of the French Missionaries—1835–1845, 361
CHAPTER XLII.
The Walls of Isolation Sapped, 367
CHAPTER XLIII.
The French Expedition, 377
CHAPTER XLIV.
American Relations with Corea, 388
CHAPTER XLV.
A Body-Snatching Expedition, 396
CHAPTER XLVI.
Our Little War with the Heathen, 403
CHAPTER XLVII.
The Ports Opened to Japanese Commerce, 420
CHAPTER XLVIII.
The Year of the Treaties, 433
CHAPTER XLIX.
The Economic Condition of Corea, 443
CHAPTER L.
Internal Politics: Chinese and Japanese, 458
CHAPTER LI.
The War of 1894: Corea an Empire, 472
CHAPTER LII.
Japan and Russia in Conflict, 484
CHAPTER LIII.
Corea a Japanese Protectorate, 497
CHAPTER LIV.
Chō-sen: A Province of Japan, 507
INDEX, 521
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
A City in Corea, Frontispiece.
Corean Coin, 10
Coin of Modern Chō-sen, 18
The Founder of Fuyu Crossing the Sungari River, 20
Coin of the Sam-han, or the Three Kingdoms, 34
Coin of Korai, 69
Two-masted Corean Vessel, 75
The Walls of Seoul, 79
Magistrate and Servant, 81
Corean Knight of the Sixteenth Century, 101
Styles of Hair-dressing in Corea, 161
A Pleasure-party on the River, 196
Corean Village in Russian Territory, 211
Table Spread for Festal Occasions, 264
Gentlemen’s Garments and Dress Patterns, 275
Thatched House near Seoul, 282
Battle-flag Captured by the Americans in 1871, 305
Battle-flag Captured in the Han Forts, 1871, 320
House and Garden of a Noble, 355
Breech-loading Cannon of Corean Manufacture, 382
The Entering Wedge of Civilization, 407
I.
ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL HISTORY
COREA:
THE HERMIT NATION.
CHAPTER I.
THE COREAN PENINSULA.
Corea, though unknown even by name in Europe until the sixteenth
century, was the subject of description by Arab geographers of the
middle ages. Before the peninsula was known as a political unit, the
envoys of Shinra, one of the three Corean states, and those from Persia
met face to face before the throne of China. The Arab merchants trading
to Chinese ports crossed the Yellow Sea, visited the peninsula, and
even settled there. The youths of Shinra, sent by their sovereign to
study the arts of war and peace at Nanking, the mediæval capitol of
China, may often have seen and talked with the merchants of Bagdad and
Damascus. The Corean term for Mussulmans is hoi-hoi, “round and round”
men. Corean art shows the undoubted influence of Persia.
A very interesting passage in the chronicles of Japan, while
illustrating the sensitive regard of the Japanese for the forms of
etiquette, shows another point of contact between Corean and Saracen
civilization. It occurs in the Nihon O Dai Ichi Ran, or “A View of the
Imperial Family of Japan.” “In the first month of the sixth year of
Tempiō Shōhō [February, 754 A.D.], the Japanese nobles Ohan no Komaro
and Kibi no Mabi returned from China, in which country they had left
Fujiwara no Seiga. The former reported that at the audience which they
had of the Emperor Gen-sho, on New Tear’s Day [January 18th], the
ambassadors of Towan [Thibet] occupied the first place to the west,
those from Shinra the first place to the east, and that the second
place to the west had been destined for them (the Japanese envoys), and
the second place to the east for the ambassadors of the Kingdom of Dai
Shoku [Persia, then part of the empire of the Caliphs]. Komaro,
offended with this arrangement, asked why the Chinese should give
precedence over them to the envoys of Shinra, a state which had long
been tributary to Japan. The Chinese officials, impressed alike with
the firmness and displeasure exhibited by Komaro, assigned to the
Japanese envoys a place above those of Persia and to the envoys of
Shinra a place above those of Thibet.”
Thus the point at issue was settled, by avoiding it, and assigning
equal honor to Shinra and Japan.
This incident alone shows that close communications were kept up
between the far east and the west of Asia, and that Corea was known
beyond Chinese Asia. At that time the boundaries of the two empires,
the Arab and the Chinese, touched each other.
The first notice of Corea in western books or writings occurs in the
works of Khordadbeh, an Arab geographer of the ninth century, in his
Book of Roads and Provinces. He is thus quoted by Richthofen in his
work on China (p. 575, note):
“What lies on the other side of China is unknown land. But high
mountains rise up densely across from Kantu. These lie over in the land
of Sila, which is rich in gold. Mussulmans who visit this country often
allow themselves, through the advantages of the same, to be induced to
settle here. They export from thence ginseng, deerhorn, aloes, camphor,
nails, saddles, porcelain, satin, zimmit (cinnamon?) and galanga
(ginger?).”
Richthofen rightly argues that Sila is Shinra and Kantu is the
promontory province of Shantung. This Arabic term “Sila” is a
corruption of Shinra—the predominant state in Corea at the time of
Khordadbeh.
The name of this kingdom was pronounced by the Japanese, Shinra, and by
the Chinese, Sinlo—the latter easily altered in Arabic mouths to Sila.
The European name Corea is derived from the Japanese term Korai
(Chinese Kaoli), the name of another state in the peninsula, rival to
Shinra. It was also the official title of the nation from the eleventh
to the fourteenth century. The Portuguese, who were the first
navigators of the Yellow Sea, brought the name to Europe, calling the
country Coria, whence the English Corea.
The French Jesuits at Peking Gallicized this into Corée. Following the
genius of their language, they call it La Corée, just as they speak of
England as L’Angleterre, Germany as L’Allemagne, and America as
L’Amérique. Hence has arisen the curious designation, used even by
English writers, of this peninsula as “the Corea.” But what is good
French in this case is very bad English, and we should no more say “the
Corea” than “the Germany,” “the England,” or “the America.” English
usage forbids the employment of the definite article before a proper
name, and those writers who persist in prefixing the definite article
to the proper name Corea are either ignorant of the significance of the
word, or knowingly violate the laws of the English language. The native
name of the country is Chō-sen (Morning Calm or Fresh Morning), which
French writers, always prodigal in the use of vowels, spell Tsio-sen,
Teo-cen, or Tchao-sian. The Chinese call it Tung-kwo (Eastern Kingdom),
and the Manchius, Sol-ho or Solbo.
The peninsula, with its outlying islands, is nearly equal in size to
Minnesota or to Great Britain. Its area is between eighty and ninety
thousand square miles. Its coast line measures 1,740 miles. In general
shape and relative position to the Asian Continent it resembles
Florida. It hangs down between the Middle Kingdom and the Sunrise Land,
separating the sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea, between the 34th and
43d parallels of north latitude. In its general configuration, when
looked at from the westward on a good map, especially the magnificent
one made by the Japanese War Department, Chō-sen resembles the
outspread wings of a headless butterfly, the lobes of the wings being
toward China, and their tops toward Japan.
Legend, tradition, and geological indications lead us to believe that
anciently the Chinese promontory and province of Shantung and the
Corean peninsula were connected, and that dry land once covered the
space filled by the waters joining the Gulf of Pechili and the Yellow
Sea. These waters are so shallow that the elevation of their bottoms
but a few feet would restore their area to the land surface of the
globe. On the other side, also, the sea of Japan is very shallow, and
the straits of Corea, at their greatest depth, have but eighty-three
feet of water. That portion of the Chinese province of Shing King, or
Southern Manchuria, bordering the sea, is a great plain, or series of
flats elevated but a few feet above tide water, which becomes nearly
impassable during heavy rains.
A marked difference is noted between the east and west coasts of the
peninsula. The former is comparatively destitute of harbors, and the
shore is high, monotonous, and but slightly indented or fringed with
islands. It contains but three provinces. On the west coast are five
provinces, and the sea is thickly strewn with islands, harbors and
landing places, while navigable rivers are more numerous. The “Corean
Archipelago” contains an amazing number of fertile and inhabited
islands and islets rising out of deep water. They are thus described by
the naturalist Arthur Adams:
“Leaving the huge, cone-like island of Quelpaert in the distance, the
freshening breeze bears us gallantly toward those unknown islands which
form the Archipelago of Korea. As you approach them you look from the
deck of the vessel and you see them dotting the wide, blue, boundless
plain of the sea—groups and clusters of islands stretching away into
the far distance. Far as the eye can reach, their dark masses can be
faintly discerned, and as we close, one after another, the bold
outlines of their mountain peaks stand out clearly against the
cloudless sky. The water from which they seem to arise is so deep
around them that a ship can almost range up alongside them. The rough,
gray granite and basaltic cliffs, of which they are composed, show them
to be only the rugged peaks of submerged mountain masses which have
been rent, in some great convulsion of nature, from the peninsula which
stretches into the sea from the main land. You gaze upward and see the
weird, fantastic outline which some of their torn and riven peaks
present. In fact, they have assumed such peculiar forms as to have
suggested to navigators characteristic names. Here, for example, stands
out the fretted, crumbling towers of one called Windsor Castle, there
frowns a noble rock-ruin, the Monastery, and here again, mounting to
the skies, the Abbey Peak.
“Some of the islands of this Archipelago are very lofty, and one was
ascertained to boast of a naked granite peak more than two thousand
feet above the level of the sea. Many of the summits are crowned with a
dense forest of conifers, dark trees, very similar in appearance to
Scotch firs.”
The king of Corea may well be called “Sovereign of Ten Thousand Isles.”
Almost the only striking feature of the inland physical geography of
Chō-sen, heretofore generally known, is that chain of mountains which
traverses the peninsula from North to South, not in a straight line,
but in an exceedingly sinuous course, similar to the tacking of a ship
when sailing in the eye of the wind. As the Coreans say, “it winds out
and in ninety-nine times.”
Striking out from Manchuria it trends eastward to the sea at Cape Bruat
on the 41st parallel, thence it strikes southwest about eighty miles to
the region west of Broughton’s Bay (the narrowest part of Corea),
whence it bears westward to the sea at the 37th parallel, or Cape
Pelissier, where its angle culminates in the lofty mountain peaks named
by the Russians Mount Popoff—after the inventor of the high turret
ships. From this point it throws off a fringe of lesser hills to the
southward while the main chain strikes southwest, and after forming the
boundary between two most southern provinces reaches the sea near the
Amherst Isles. Nor does its course end here, for the uncounted islands
of the Archipelago, with their fantastic rock-ruins and perennial
greenery, that suggest deserted castles and abbeys mantled with ivy,
are but the wave-worn and shattered remnants of this lordly range.
This chief feature in the physical geography of the peninsula
determines largely its configuration, climate, river system and
watershed, political divisions, and natural barriers. Speaking roughly,
Eastern Corea is a mountainous ridge of which Western Corea is but the
slope.
No river of any importance is found inside the peninsula east of these
mountains, except the Nak-tong, which drains the valley formed by the
interior and the sea-coast ranges, while on the westward slope ten
broad streams collect the tribute of their melted snows to enrich the
valleys of five provinces.
Through seven parallels of latitude this range fronts the sea of Japan
with a coast barrier which, except at Yung-hing Bay, is nearly
destitute of harbors. Its timbered heights present a wall of living
green to the mariner sailing from Vladivostok to Shanghai.
Great differences of climate in the same latitude are observed on
opposite sides of this mountain range, which has various local
epithets. From their height and the permanence of their winter
covering, the word “white” forms an oft-recurring part of their names.
The division of the country into eight dō, or provinces, which are
grouped in southern, central, and northern, is based mainly on the
river basins. The rainfall in nearly every province finds an outlet on
its own sea-border. Only the western slopes of the two northeastern
provinces are exceptions to this rule, since they discharge part of
their waters into streams emptying beyond their boundaries. The Yalu,
and the Han—“the river”—are the only streams whose sources lie beyond
their own provinces. In rare instances are the rivers known by the same
word along their whole length, various local names being applied by the
people of different neighborhoods. On the maps in this work only the
name most commonly given to each stream near its mouth is printed.
In respect to the sea basins, three provinces on the west coast form
one side of the depression called the Yellow Sea Basin, of which
Northeastern China forms the opposite rim. The three eastern dō, or
circuits, lining the Sea of Japan, make the concave in the sea basin to
which Japan offers the corresponding edge. The entire northern boundary
of the peninsula from sea to gulf, except where the colossal peak
Paik-tu (‘White Head’) forms the water-shed, is one vast valley in
which lie the basins of the Yalu and Tumen.
Corea is, in reality, an island, as the following description of White
Head Mountain, obtained from the Journal of the Chinese Ambassador to
Seoul, shows. This mountain has two summits, one facing north, the
other east. On the top is a lake thirty ri around. In shape the peak is
that of a colossal white vase open to the sky, and fluted or scolloped
round the edge like the vases of Chinese porcelain. Its crater, white
on the outside, is red, with whitish veins, inside. Snow and ice clothe
the sides, sometimes as late as June. On the side of the north, there
issues a runnel, a yard in depth, which falls in a cascade and forms
the source of the (Tumen) river. Three or four ri from the summit of
the mountain the stream divides into two parts; one is the source of
the Yalu River.
In general, it may be said to dwellers in the temperate zone that the
climate of Corea is excellent, bracing in the north, and in the south
tempered by the ocean breezes of summer. The winters in the higher
latitudes are not more rigorous than in the State of New York; while,
in the most southern, they are as delightful as those in the Carolinas.
In so mountainous and sea-girt a country there are, of course, great
climatic varieties even in the same provinces.
As compared with European countries of the same latitude, Corea is much
colder in winter and hotter in summer. In the north, the Tumen River is
usually frozen during five months in the year. The Han River at Seoul
may be crossed on ice during two or three months. Even in the southern
provinces, deep snows cover the mountains, though the plains are
usually free, rarely holding the snow during a whole day. The lowest
point to which the mercury fell, in the observation of the French
missionaries, was at the 35th parallel of latitude 8° and at the 37th
parallel 15° (F.). The most delightful seasons in the year are spring
and autumn. In summer, in addition to the great heat, the rain falls
often in torrents that blockade the roads and render travelling and
transport next to impossible. Toward the end of September occurs the
period of tempests and variable winds.
A glance at the fauna of Corea suggests at once India, Europe,
Massachusetts, and Florida. In the forests, especially of the two
northern circuits, tigers of the largest size and fiercest aspect
abound. When food fails them, they attack human habitations, and the
annual list of victims is very large. The leopard is common. There are
several species of deer, which furnish not only hides and venison, but
horns which, when “in velvet,” are highly prized as medicine. In the
fauna are included bears, wild hogs and the common pigs of stunted
breed, wild cats, badgers, foxes, beavers, otters, several species of
martens. The salamander is found in the streams, as in western Japan.
Of domestic beasts, horses are very numerous, being mostly of a short,
stunted breed. Immense numbers of oxen are found in the south,
furnishing the meat diet craved by the people who eat much more of
fatty stuff than the Japanese.
Goats are rare. Sheep are imported from China only for sacrificial
purposes. The dog serves for food as well as for companionship and
defence. Of birds, the pheasant, falcon, eagle, crane, and stork, are
common.
Corea has for centuries successfully carried out the policy of
isolation. Instead of a peninsula, her rulers have striven to make her
an inaccessible island, and insulate her from the shock of change. She
has built not a Great Wall of masonry, but a barrier of sea and
river-flood, of mountain and devastated land, of palisades and cordons
of armed sentinels. Frost and snow, storm and winter, she hails as her
allies. Not content with the sea-border she desolates her shores lest
they tempt the mariner to land. Between her Chinese neighbor and
herself, she has placed a neutral space of unplanted, unoccupied land.
This strip of forests and desolated plains, twenty leagues wide,
stretches between Corea and Manchuria. To form it, four cities and many
villages were suppressed three centuries ago, and left in ruins. The
soil of these solitudes is very good, the roads easy, and the hills not
high.
For centuries, only the wild beasts, fugitives from justice, and
outlaws from both countries, have inhabited this fertile but forbidden
territory. Occasionally, borderers would cultivate portions of it, but
gather the produce by night or stealthily by day, venturing on it as
prisoners would step over the “dead line.” Of late years, the Chinese
Government has respected the neutrality of this barrier less and less.
One of those recurring historical phenomena peculiar to Manchuria—the
increase and pressure of population—has within a generation caused the
occupation of large portions of this neutral strip. Parts of it have
been surveyed and staked out by Chinese surveyors, and the Corean
Government has been too feeble to prevent the occupation. Though no
towns or villages are marked on the map of this “No-man’s land,” yet
already, a considerable number of small settlements exist upon it.
As this once neutral territory is being gradually obliterated, so the
former lines of palisades and stone walls on the northern border which,
two centuries and more ago, were strong, high, guarded and kept in
repair, have year by year, during a long era of peace, been suffered to
fall into decay. They exist no longer, and should be erased from the
maps.
The pressure of population in Manchuria upon the Corean border is a
portentous phenomenon. For Manchuria, which for ages past has, like a
prolific hive, swarmed off masses of humanity into other lands, seems
again preparing to send off a fresh cloud. Already her millions press
upon her neighbors for room.
The clock of history seems once more about to strike, perhaps to order
again another dynasty on the oft-changed throne of China.
From mysterious Mongolia, have gone out in the past the various hordes
called Tartars, or Tâtars, Huns, Turks, Kitans, Mongols, Manchius.
Perhaps her loins also are already swelling with a new progeny. This
marvellous region gave forth the man-children who destroyed the Roman
Empire; who extinguished Christianity in Asia and Africa, and nearly in
Europe; who, after conquering India and China threatened Christendom,
and holding Russia for two centuries, created the largest empire ever
known on earth; and finally reared “the most improvable race in Asia”
that now holds the throne and empire of China.
Chō-sen since acting the hermit policy of ancient Egypt and mediæval
China, has preserved two loopholes at Fusan and Ai-chiu, the former on
the sea toward Japan, and the latter in the northwest, on the Chinese
border. What in time of peace is a needle’s eye, is in time of war a
flood-gate for enemies. From the west, the invading armies of China
have again and again marched around over the Gulf of Liao Tung and
entered the peninsula to plunder and to conquer, while Chinese fleets
from Shan-tung have over and over again arched their sails in the
Yellow Sea to furl them again in Corean Rivers. From the east, the
Japanese have pushed across the sea to invade Corea as enemies, to help
as allies against China, to levy tribute and go away enriched, or anon
to send their grain-laden ships to their starving neighbors.
From a political point of view the geographical position of this
country is most unfortunate. Placed between two rival nations, aliens
in blood, temper, and policy, Chō-sen has been the rich grist between
the upper and nether millstones of China and Japan. Out of the north,
rising from the vast plains at Manchuria, the conquering hordes, on
their way to the prize lying south of the Great Wall, have over and
over again descended on Corean soil to make it their granary. From the
pre-historic forays of the tribes beyond the Sungari, to the last new
actors on the scene, the Russians, who stand with their feet on the
Tumen, looking over the border on her helpless neighbor, Corea has been
threatened or devastated by her eager enemies.
Nevertheless Corea has always remained Corea, a separate country; and
the people are Coreans, more allied to the Japanese than the Chinese,
yet in language, politics, and social customs, different from either.
As Ireland is not England or Scotland, neither is Chō-sen China nor
Japan.
In her boasted history of “four thousand years,” the little kingdom has
too often been the Ireland of China, so far as misgovernment on the one
side, and fretful and spasmodic resistance on the other, are
considered. Yet ancient Corea has also been an Ireland to Japan, in the
better sense of giving to her the art, letters, science, and ethics of
continental civilization. As of old, went forth from Tara’s halls to
the British Isles and the continent, the bard and the monk to elevate
and civilize Europe with the culture of Rome and the religion of
Christianity, so for centuries there crossed the sea from the peninsula
a stream of scholars, artists, and missionaries who brought to Japan
the social culture of Chō-sen, the literature of China, and the
religion of India. A grateful bonze of Japan has well told the story of
Corea’s part in the civilization of his native country in a book
entitled “Precious Jewels from a Neighbor Country.”
Corea fulfils one of the first conditions of national safety in having
“scientific frontiers,” or adequate natural boundaries of river,
mountain, and sea. But now what was once barrier is highway. What was
once the safety of isolation, is now the weakness of the recluse. Steam
has made the water a surer path than land, and Japan, once the pupil
and anon the conqueror of the little kingdom, has in these last days
become the helpful friend of Corea’s people, and the opener of the
long-sealed peninsula.
Already the friendly whistle of Japanese steamers is heard in the
harbors of two ports in which are trading settlements. At Fusan and
Gensan, the mikado’s subjects hold commercial rivalry with the Coreans,
and through these two loopholes the hermits of the peninsula catch
glimpses of the outer world that must waken thought and create a desire
to enter the family of nations. The ill fame of the native character
for inhospitality and hatred of foreigners belongs not to the people,
nor is truly characteristic of them. It inheres in the government which
curses country and people, and in the ruling classes who, like those in
Old Japan, do not wish the peasantry to see the inferiority of those
who govern them.
Corea cannot long remain a hermit nation. The near future will see her
open to the world. Commerce and pure Christianity will enter to elevate
her people, and the student of science, ethnology, and language will
find a tempting field on which shall be solved many a yet obscure
problem. The forbidden land of to-day is, in many striking points of
comparison, the analogue of Old Japan. While the last of the hermit
nations awaits some gallant Perry of the future, we may hope that the
same brilliant path of progress on which the Sunrise Kingdom has
entered, awaits the Land of Morning Calm.
We add a postscript. As our manuscript turns to print, we hear of the
treaty successfully negotiated by Commodore Shufeldt.
CHAPTER II.
THE OLD KINGDOM OF CHŌ-SEN.
Like almost every country on earth, whose history is known, Corea is
inhabited by a race that is not aboriginal. The present occupiers of
the land drove out or conquered the people whom they found upon it.
They are the descendants of a stock whose ancestral seats were beyond
those ever white mountains which buttress the northern frontier.
Nevertheless, for the origins of their national history, we must look
to one whom the Coreans of this nineteenth century still call the
founder of their social order. The scene of his labors is laid partly
within the peninsula, and chiefly in Manchuria, on the well watered
plains of Shing-king, formerly called Liao Tung.
The third dynasty of the thirty-three or thirty-four lines of rulers
who have filled the oft-changed throne of China, is known in history as
the Shang (or Yin). It began B.C. 1766, and after a line of
twenty-eight sovereigns, ended in Chow Sin, who died B.C. 1122. He was
an unscrupulous tyrant, and has been called “the Nero of China.”
One of his nobles was Ki Tsze, viscount of Ki (or Latinized, Kicius).
He was a profound scholar and author of important portions of the
classic book, entitled the Shu King. He was a counsellor of the tyrant
king, and being a man of upright character, was greatly scandalized at
the conduct of his licentious and cruel master.
The sage remonstrated with his sovereign hoping to turn him from his
evil ways. In this noble purpose he was assisted by two other men of
rank named Pi Kan and Wei Tsze. All their efforts were of no avail, and
finding the reformation of the tyrant hopeless, Wei Tsze, though a
kinsman of the king, voluntarily exiled himself from the realm, while
Pi Kan, also a relative of Chow Sin, was cruelly murdered in the
following manner:
The king, mocking the wise counsellor, cried out, “They say that a sage
has seven orifices to his heart; let us see if this is the case with Pi
Kan.” This Chinese monarch, himself so much like Herod in other
respects, had a wife who in her character resembled Herodias. It was
she who expressed the bloody wish to see the heart of Pi Kan. By the
imperial order the sage was put to death and his body ripped open. His
heart, torn out, was brought before the cruel pair. Ki Tsze, the third
counsellor, was cast into prison.
Meanwhile the people and nobles of the empire were rising in arms
against the tyrant whose misrule had become intolerable. They were led
on by one Wu Wang, who crossed the Yellow River, and met the tyrant on
the plains of Muh. In the great battle that ensued, the army of Chow
Sin was defeated. Escaping to his palace, and ordering it to be set on
fire, he perished in the flames.
Among the conqueror’s first acts was the erection of a memorial mound
over the grave of Pi Kan, and an order that Ki Tsze should be released
from prison, and appointed Prime Minister of the realm.
But the sage’s loyalty exceeded his gratitude. In spite of the
magnanimity of the offer, Ki Tsze frankly told the conqueror that duty
to his deposed sovereign forbade him serving one whom he could not but
regard as a usurper. He then departed into the regions lying to the
northeast. With him went several thousand Chinese emigrants, mostly the
remnant of the defeated army, now exiles, who made him their king. It
is not probable that in his distant realm he received investment from
or paid tribute to King Wu. Such an act would be a virtual
acknowledgment of the righteousness of rebellion and revolution. It
would prove that the sage forgave the usurper. Some Chinese historians
state that Ki Tsze accepted a title from Wu Wang. Others maintain that
the investiture “was a euphemism to shield the character of the
ancestor of Confucius.” The migration of Ki Tsze and his followers took
place 1122 B.C.
Ki Tsze began vigorously to reduce the aboriginal people of his realm
to order. He policed the borders, gave laws to his subjects, and
gradually introduced the principles and practice of Chinese etiquette
and polity throughout his domain. Previous to his time the people lived
in caves and holes in the ground, dressed in leaves, and were destitute
of manners, morals, agriculture and cooking, being ignorant savages.
The divine being, Dan Kun, had partially civilized them, but Kishi, who
brought 5,000 Chinese colonists with him, taught the aborigines
letters, reading and writing, medicine, many of the arts, and the
political principles of feudal China. The Japanese pronounce the
founder’s name Kishi, and the Coreans Kei-tsa or Kysse.
The name conferred by Kishi, the civilizer, upon his new domain is that
now in use by the modern Coreans—Chō-sen or Morning Calm.
This ancient kingdom of Chō-sen, according to the Coreans, comprised
the modern Chinese province of Shing-king, which is now about the size
of Ohio, having an area of 43,000 square miles, and a population of
8,000,000 souls. It is entirely outside and west of the limits of
modern Corea.
In addition to the space already named, the fluctuating boundaries of
this ancient kingdom embraced at later periods much territory beyond
the Liao River toward Peking, and inside the line now marked by the
Great Wall. To the east the modern province of Ping-an was included in
Chō-sen, the Ta-tong River being its most stable boundary. “Scientific
frontiers,” though sought for in those ancient times, were rather ideal
than hard and fast. With all due allowance for elastic boundaries, we
may say that ancient Chō-sen lay chiefly within the Liao Tung peninsula
and the Corean province of Ping-an, that the Liao and the Ta-tong
Rivers enclosed it, and that its northern border lay along the 42d
parallel of latitude.
The descendants of Ki Tsze are said to have ruled the country until the
fourth century before the Christian era. Their names and deeds are
alike unknown, but it is stated that there were forty-one generations,
making a blood-line of eleven hundred and thirty-one years. The line
came to an end in 9 A.D., though they had lost power long before this
time.
By common consent of Chinese and native tradition, Ki Tsze is the
founder of Corean social order. If this tradition be true, the
civilization of the hermit nation nearly equals, in point of time, that
of China, and is one of the very oldest in the world, being
contemporaneous with that of Egypt and Chaldea. It is certain that the
natives plume themselves upon their antiquity, and that the particular
vein of Corean arrogance and contempt for western civilization is
kindred to that of the Hindoos and Chinese. From the lofty height of
thirty centuries of tradition, which to them is unchallenged history,
they look with pitying contempt upon the upstart nations of yesterday,
who live beyond the sea under some other heaven. When the American
Admiral, John Rodgers, in 1871, entered the Han River with his fleet,
hoping to make a treaty, he was warned off with the repeated answer
that “Corea was satisfied with her civilization of four thousand years,
and wanted no other.” The perpetual text of all letters from Seoul to
Peking, of all proclamations against Christianity, of all
death-warrants of converts, and of the oft-repeated refusals to open
trade with foreigners is the praise of Ki Tsze as the founder of the
virtue and order of “the little kingdom,” and the loyalty of Corea to
his doctrines.
In the letter of the king to the Chinese emperor, dated November 25,
1801, the language following the opening sentence is as given below:
“His Imperial Majesty knows that since the time when the remnants of
the army of the Yin dynasty migrated to the East [1122 B.C.], the
little kingdom has always been distinguished by its exactness in
fulfilling all that the rites prescribe, justice and loyalty, and in
general by fidelity to her duties,” etc., etc.
In a royal proclamation against the Christian religion, dated January
25, 1802, occurs the following sentence:
“The kingdom granted to Ki Tsze has enjoyed great peace during four
hundred years [since the establishment of the ruling dynasty], in all
the extent of its territory of two thousand ri and more,” etc.
These are but specimens from official documents which illustrate their
pride in antiquity, and the reverence in which their first law giver is
held by the Coreans.
Nevertheless, though Kishi may possibly be called the founder of
ancient Chō-sen, and her greatest legislator, yet he can scarcely be
deemed the ancestor of the people now inhabiting the Corean peninsula.
For the modern Coreans are descended from a stock of later origin, and
quite different from the ancient Chō-senese. From Ki Tsze, however,
sprang a line of kings, and it is possible that his blood courses in
some of the noble families of the kingdom.
As the most ancient traditions of Japan and Corea are based on Chinese
writings, there is no discrepancy in their accounts of the beginning of
Chō-sen history.
Ki Tsze and his colonists were simply the first immigrants to the
country northeast of China, of whom history speaks. He found other
people on the soil before him, concerning whose origin nothing is known
in writing. The land was not densely populated, but of their numbers,
or time of coming of the aborigines, or whether of the same race as the
tribes in the outlying islands of Japan, no means yet in our power can
give answer.
Even the story of Ki Tsze, when critically examined, does not satisfy
the rigid demands of modern research. Mayers, in his “Chinese Reader’s
Manual” (p. 369), does not concede the first part of the Chow dynasty
(1122 B.C.–255 A.D.) to be more than semi-historical, and places the
beginning of authentic Chinese history between 781 and 719 B.C., over
four centuries after Ki Tsze’s time. Ross (p. 11) says that “the story
of Kitsu is not impossible, but it is to be received with suspicion.”
It is not at all improbable that the Chō-sen of Ki Tsze’s founding lay
in the Sungari valley, and was extended southward at a later period.
It is not for us to dissect too critically the tradition concerning the
founder of Corea, nor to locate exactly the scene of his labors.
Suffice it to say that the general history, prior to the Christian era,
of the country whose story we are to tell, divides itself into that of
the north, or Chō-sen, and that of the south, below the Ta-tong River,
in which region three kingdoms arose and flourished, with varying
fortunes, during a millennium.
We return now to the well-established history of Chō-sen. The Great
Wall of China was built by Cheng, the founder of the Tsin dynasty (B.C.
255–209), who began the work in 239 A.D. Before his time, China had
been a feudal conglomerate of petty, warring kingdoms. He, by the power
of the sword, consolidated them into one homogeneous empire and took
the title of the “First Universal Emperor” (Shi Whang Ti). Not content
with sweeping away feudal institutions, and building the Great Wall, he
ordered all the literary records and the ancient scriptures of
Confucius to be destroyed by fire. Yet the empire, whose perpetuity he
thought to secure by building a rampart against the barbarians without,
and by destroying the material for rebellious thought within, fell to
pieces soon after, at his death, when left to the care of a foolish
son, and China was plunged into bloody anarchy again.
One of these petty kingdoms that arose on the ruins of the empire was
that of Yen, which began to encroach upon its eastern neighbor Chō-sen.
In the later days of the Ki Tsze family, great anarchy prevailed, and
the last kings of the line were unable to keep their domain in order,
or guard its boundaries.
Taking advantage of its weakness, the king of Yen began boldly and
openly to seize upon Chō-sen territory, annexing thousands of square
miles to his own domain. By a spasmodic effort, the successors of Ki
Tsze again became ascendant, reannexing a large part of the territory
of Yen, and receiving great numbers of her people, who had fled from
civil war in China, within the borders of Chō-sen for safety and peace.
Thus the spoiler was spoiled, but, later on, the kingdom of Yen was
again set up, and the rival states fixed their boundaries and made
peace. The Han dynasty in B.C. 206 claimed the imperial power, and sent
a summons to the king of Yen to become vassal. On his refusing, the
Chinese emperor despatched an army against him, defeated his forces in
battle, extinguished his dynasty, and annexed his kingdom.
One of the survivors of this revolt, named Wei-man, with one thousand
of his followers, fled to the east. Dressing themselves like wild
savages they entered Chō-sen, pretending, with Gibeonitish craft, that
they had come from the far west, and begged to be received as subjects.
Kijun, the king, like another Joshua, believing their professions,
welcomed them and made their leader a vassal of high rank, with the
title of ‘Guardian of the Western Frontier.’ He also set apart a large
tract of land for his salary and support.
In his post at the west, Wei-man played the traitor, and collecting a
number of his former countrymen from the Yen province, suddenly sent to
Kijun a messenger, informing him that a large Chinese army of the
conquering Han was about to invade Chō-sen. At the same time, he
suggested that he should be called to the royal side and be made
Protector of the Capital. His desire being granted, he hastened with
his forces and suddenly appearing before the royal castle, attacked it.
Kijun was beaten, and fled by sea, escaping in a boat to the southern
end of the peninsula.
Wei-man then proclaimed himself King of Chō-sen, 194 B.C. He set out on
a career of conquest and seized several of the neighboring provinces,
and Chō-sen again expanded her boundaries to cover an immense area.
Wei-man built a city somewhere east of the Ta-tong River. It was named
Wang-hien.
Two provinces of modern Corea were thus included within Chō-sen at this
date. The new kingdom grew in wealth, power, and intelligence. Many
thousands of the Chinese gentry, fleeing before the conquering arms of
the Han “usurpers,” settled within the limits of Chō-sen, adding
greatly to its prosperity.
During the reign of Yukio (Chinese, Yow Jin), the grandson of Wei-man,
he received a summons to become vassal to the Chinese emperor, who
sublimely declared that henceforward the eastern frontier of China
should be the Ta-tong River—thus virtually wiping out Chō-sen with a
proclamation. In B.C. 109, a Chinese ambassador sailed over from China,
entered the Ta-tong River, and visited Yukio in his castle. He plead in
vain with Yukio to render homage to his master.
Nevertheless, to show his respect for the emperor and his envoy, Yukio
sent an escort to accompany the latter on his way. The sullen Chinaman,
angry at his defeat, accepted the safe conduct of the Chō-sen troops
until beyond the Ta-tong River, and then treacherously put their chief
to death. Hurrying back to his master, he glossed over his defeat, and
boasted of his perfidious murder. He was rewarded with the appointment
of the governorship of Liao Tung.
Smarting at the insult and menace of this act, Yukio, raising an army,
marched to the west and slew the traitor. Having thus unfurled the
standard of defiance against the mighty Han dynasty, he returned to his
castle, and awaited with anxious preparation the coming of the invading
hosts which he knew would be hurled upon him from China.
The avenging expedition, that was to carry the banners of China farther
toward the sunrise than ever before, was despatched both by land and
sea, B.C. 108. The horse and foot soldiers took the land route around
the head of Liao Tung Gulf, crossed on the ice of the Yalu River, and
marched south to the Ta-tong, where the Chō-sen men attacked their van
and scattered it.
The fleet sailed over from Shantung, and landed a force of several
thousand men on the Corean shore, in February or March, B.C. 107.
Without waiting for the entire army to penetrate the country, Yukio
attacked the advance guards and drove them to the mountains in
disorder.
Diplomacy was now tried, and a representative of the emperor was sent
to treat with Yukio. The latter agreed to yield and become vassal, but
had no confidence in the general whom he had just defeated. His memory
of Chinese perfidy was still so fresh, that he felt unable to trust
himself to his recently humbled enemies, and the negotiations ended in
failure. As usual, with the unsuccessful, the Chinaman lost his head.
Recourse was again had to the sword. The Chinese crossed the Ta-tong
River on the north, and defeating the Chō-sen army, marched to the
king’s capital, and laid siege to it in conjunction with the naval
forces. In spite of their superior numbers, the invaders were many
months vainly beleaguering the fortress. Yet, though the garrison
wasted daily, the king would not yield. Knowing that defeat, with
perhaps a cruel massacre, awaited them, four Chō-sen men, awaiting
their opportunity, during the fighting, discharged their weapons at
Yukio, and leaving him dead, opened the gates of the citadel, and the
Chinese entered.
With the planting of the Han banners on the city walls, B.C. 107, the
existence of the kingdom of Chō-sen came to an end. Henceforth, for
several centuries, Liao Tung and the land now comprised within the two
northwestern provinces of Corea, were parts of China.
The conquered territory was at once divided into four provinces, two of
which comprised that part of Corea north of the Ta-tong River. The
other two were in Liao Tung, occupying its eastern and its western
half. Within the latter was the district of Kokorai, or Kaokuli, at
whose history we shall now glance.
CHAPTER III.
THE FUYU RACE AND THEIR MIGRATIONS.
Somewhere north of that vast region watered by the Sungari River,
itself only a tributary to the Amur, there existed, according to
Chinese tradition, in very ancient times, a petty kingdom called Korai,
or To-li. Out of this kingdom sprang the founder of the Corean race.
Slightly altering names, we may say in the phrase of Genesis: “Out of
Korai went forth Ko and builded Corea,” though what may be sober fact
is wrapped up in the following fantastic legend.
Long, long ago, in the kingdom called To-li, or Korai (so pronounced,
though the characters are not those for the Korai of later days), there
lived a king, in whose harem was a waiting-maid. One day, while her
master was absent on a hunt, she saw, floating in the atmosphere, a
glistening vapor which entered her bosom. This ray or tiny cloud seemed
to be about as big as an egg. Under its influence, she conceived.
The king, on his return, discovered her condition, and made up his mind
to put her to death. Upon her explanation, however, he agreed to spare
her life, but at once lodged her in prison.
The child that was born proved to be a boy, which the king promptly
cast among the pigs. But the swine breathed into his nostrils and the
baby lived. He was next put among the horses, but they also nourished
him with their breath, and he lived. Struck by this evident will of
Heaven, that the child should live, the king listened to its mother’s
prayers, and permitted her to nourish and train him in the palace. He
grew up to be a fair youth, full of energy, and skilful in archery. He
was named “Light of the East,” and the king appointed him Master of his
stables.
One day, while out hunting, the king permitted him to give an
exhibition of his skill This he did, drawing bow with such unerring aim
that the royal jealousy was kindled, and he thought of nothing but how
to compass the destruction of the youth. Knowing that he would be
killed if he remained in the royal service, the young archer fled the
kingdom. He directed his course to the southeast, and came to the
borders of a vast and impassable river, most probably the Sungari.
Knowing his pursuers were not far behind him he cried out, in a great
strait,
“Alas! shall I, who am the child of the Sun, and the grandson of the
Yellow River, be stopped here powerless by this stream.”
So saving he shot his arrows at the water.
Immediately all the fishes of the river assembled together in a thick
shoal, making so dense a mass that their bodies became a floating
bridge. On this, the young prince (and according to the Japanese
version of the legend, three others with him), crossed the stream and
safely reached the further side. No sooner did he set foot on land than
his pursuers appeared on the opposite shore, when the bridge of fishes
at once dissolved. His three companions stood ready to act as his
guides. One of the three was dressed in a costume made of sea-weeds, a
second in hempen garments, and a third in embroidered robes. Arriving
at their city, he became the king of the tribe and kingdom of Fuyu,
which lay in the fertile and well-watered region between the Sungari
River and the Shan Alyn, or Ever-White Mountains. It extended several
hundred miles east and west of a line drawn southward through Kirin,
the larger half lying on the west.
Fuyu, as described by a Chinese writer of the Eastern Han dynasty (25
B.C.–190 A.D.), was a land of fertile soil, in which “the five cereals”
(wheat, rice, millet, beans, and sorghum) could be raised. The men were
tall, muscular, and brave, and withal generous and courteous to each
other. Their arms were bows and arrows, swords, and lances. They were
skilful horsemen. Their ornaments were large pearls, and cut jewels of
red jade. They made spirits from grain, and were fond of drinking
bouts, feasting, dancing, and singing. With many drinkers there were
few cups. The latter were rinsed in a bowl of water, and with great
ceremony passed from one to another. They ate with chopsticks, out of
bowls, helping themselves out of large dishes.
It is a striking fact that the Fuyu people, though living so far from
China, were dwellers in cities which they surrounded with palisades or
walls of stakes. They lived in wooden houses, and stored their crops in
granaries.
In the administration of justice, they were severe and prompt. They had
regular prisons, and fines were part of their legal system. The thief
must repay twelve-fold. Adultery was punished by the death of both
parties. Further revenge might be taken upon the woman by exposing her
dead body on a mound. Certain relatives of a criminal were denied
burial in a coffin. The other members of the family of a criminal
suffering capital punishment were sold as slaves. Murderers were buried
alive with their victims.
The Fuyu religion was a worship of Heaven, their greatest festival
being in the eleventh month, when they met joyfully together, laying
aside all grudges and quarrels, and freeing their prisoners. Before
setting out on a military expedition they worshipped Heaven, and
sacrificed an ox, examining the hoof, to obtain an omen. If the cloven
part remained separated, the portent was evil, if the hoof closed
together, the omen was auspicious.
The Fuyu chief men or rulers were named after the domestic beasts,
beginning with their noblest animal, the horse, then the ox, the dog,
etc. Rulers of cities were of this order. Their king was buried at his
death in a coffin made of jade.
Evidently the Fuyu people were a vigorous northern race, well clothed
and fed, rich in grain, horses and cattle, possessing the arts of life,
with considerable literary culture, and well advanced in social order
and political knowledge. Though the Chinese writers classed them among
barbarians, they were, in contrast with their immediate neighbors, a
civilized nation. Indeed, to account for such a high stage of
civilization thus early and so far from China, Mr. Ross suggests that
the scene of the Ki Tsze’s labors was in Fuyu, rather than in Chō-sen.
Certain it is that the Fuyu people were the first nation of Manchuria
to emerge from barbarism, and become politically well organized. It is
significant, as serving to support the conjecture that Ki Tsze founded
Fuyu, that we discern, even in the early history of this vigorous
nation, the institution of feudalism. We find a king and nobles, with
fortified cities, and wealthy men, with farms, herds of horses, cattle,
and granaries. We find also a class of serfs, created by the
degradation of criminals or their relatives. The other Manchurian
people, or barbarians, surrounding China, were still in the nomadic or
patriarchal state. Why so early beyond China do we find a
well-developed feudal system and high political organization?
It was from feudal China, the China of the Yin dynasty, from which Ki
Tsze emigrated to the northeast. Knowing no other form of government,
he, if their founder, doubtless introduced feudal forms of government.
Whatever may be thought of the theory there suggested, it is certainly
surprising to find a distinctly marked feudal system, already past the
rudimentary stage, in the wilderness of Manchuria, a thousand miles
away from the seats of Chinese culture, as early as the Christian era.
As nearly the whole of Europe was at some time feudalized, so China,
Corea, and Japan have each passed through this stage of political life.
The feudal system in China was abolished by Shi Whang Ti, the first
universal Emperor, B.C. 221, but that of Japan only after an interval
of 2,000 years, surviving until 1871. It lingers still in Corea, whose
history it has greatly influenced, as our subsequent narrative will
prove. In addition to the usual features of feudalism, the existence of
serfdom, in fact as well as in form, is proved by the testimony of
Dutch and French observers, and of the language itself. The richness of
Corean speech, in regard to every phase and degree of servitude, would
suffice for a Norman landholder in mediæval England, or for a Carolina
cotton-planter before the American civil war.
Out of this kingdom of Fuyu came the people who are the ancestors of
the modern Coreans. In the same Chinese history which describes Fuyu,
we have a picture of the kingdom of Kokorai (or Kao-ku-li), which had
Fuyu for its northern and Chō-sen for its southern neighbor. “The land
was two thousand li square, and contained many great mountains, and
deep valleys.” There was a tradition among the Eastern barbarians that
they were an offshoot from Fuyu. Hence their language and laws were
very much alike. The nation was divided into five families, named after
the four points of the compass, with a yellow or central tribe.
Evidently this means that a few families, perhaps five in number,
leaving Fuyu, set out toward the south, and in the valleys west of the
Yalu River and along the 42d parallel, founded a new nation. Their
first king was Ko, who, perhaps, to gain the prestige of ancient
descent, joined his name to that of Korai (written however with the
characters which make the sound of modern Korai) and thus the realm of
Kokorai received its name.
A Japanese writer derives the term Kokorai from words selected out of a
passage in the Chinese classics referring to the high mountains. The
first character Ko, in Kokorai, means high, and it was under the
shadows of the lofty Ever White Mountains that this vigorous nation had
its cradle and its home in youth. Here, too, its warriors nourished
their strength until their clouds of horsemen burst upon the frontiers
of the Chinese empire, and into the old kingdom of Chō-sen. The people
of this young state were rich in horses and cattle, but less given to
agriculture. They lived much in the open air, and were fierce,
impetuous, strong, and hardy. They were fond of music and pleasure at
night. Especially characteristic was their love of decoration and
display. At their public gatherings they decked themselves in dresses
embroidered with gold and silver. Their houses were also adorned in
various ways. Their chief display was at funerals, when a prodigal
outlay of precious metals, jewels, and embroideries was exhibited.
In their religion they sacrificed to Heaven, to the spirits of the
land, and of the harvests, to the morning star, and to the celestial
and invisible powers. There were no prisons, but when crimes were
committed the chiefs, after deliberation, put the criminal to death and
reduced the wives and children to slavery. In this way serfs were
provided for labor. In their burial customs, they made a cairn, and
planted fir-trees around it, as many Japanese tombs are made.
In the general forms of their social, religious, and political life,
the people of Fuyu and Kokorai were identical, or nearly so; while both
closely resemble the ancient Japanese of Yamato.
The Chinese authors also state that these people were already in
possession of the Confucian classics, and had attained to an unusual
degree of literary culture. Their officials were divided into twelve
ranks, which was also the ancient Japanese number. In the method of
divination, in the wearing of flowery costumes, and in certain forms of
etiquette, they and the Japanese were alike. As is now well known, the
ancient form of government of the Yamato Japanese (that is, of the
conquering race from Corea and the north) was a rude feudalism and not
a monarchy. Further, the central part of Japan, first held by the
ancestors of the mikado, consists of five provinces, like the Kokorai
division, into five clans or tribes.
At the opening of the Christian era we find the people of Kokorai
already strong and restless enough to excite attention from the Chinese
court. In 9 A.D. they were recognized as a nation with their own
“kings,” and classified with Huentu, one of the districts of old
Chō-sen. One of these kings, in the year 30, sent tribute to the
Chinese emperor. In 50 A.D. Kokorai, by invitation, sent their warriors
to assist the Chinese army against a rebel horde in the northwest. In
A.D. 70 the men of Kokorai descended upon Liao Tung, and having now a
taste for border war and conquest, they marched into the petty kingdom
of Wei, which lay in what is now the extreme northeast of Corea.
Absorbing this little country, they kept up constant warfare against
the Chinese. Though their old kinsmen, the Fuyu men, were at times
allies of the Han, yet they gradually spread themselves eastward and
southward, so that by 169 A.D. the Kokorai kingdom embraced the whole
of the territory of old Chō-sen, or of Liao Tung, with all the Corean
peninsula north of the Ta-tong, and even to the Tumen River.
This career of conquest suffered a check for a time, when a Chinese
expedition, sailing up the Yalu River, invested the capital city of the
king and defeated his army. The king fled beyond the Tumen River. Eight
thousand people are said to have been made prisoners or slaughtered by
the Chinese. For a time it seemed as though Kokorai were too badly
crippled to move again.
Anarchy broke out in China, on the fall of the house of Han, A.D. 220,
and lasted for half a century. That period of Chinese history, from 221
to 277, is called the “Epoch of the Three Kingdoms.” During this
period, and until well into the fifth century, while China was rent
into “Northern” and “Southern” divisions, the military activities of
Kokorai were employed with varying results against the petty kingdoms
that rose and fell, one after the other, on the soil between the Great
Wall and the Yalu River. During this time the nation, free from the
power and oppression of China, held her own and compacted her power. In
the fifth century her warriors had penetrated nearly as far west as the
modern Peking in their cavalry raids. Wily in diplomacy, as brave in
war, they sent tribute to both of the rival claimants for the throne of
China which were likely to give them trouble in the future. Dropping
the family name of their first king, they retained that of their
ancestral home-land, and called their nation Korai.
Meanwhile, as they multiplied in numbers, the migration of Kokorai
people, henceforth known as Korai men, set steadily southward. Weakness
in China meant strength in Korai. The Chinese had bought peace with
their Eastern neighbors by titles and gifts, which left the Koraians
free to act against their southern neighbors. In steadily displacing
these, they came into collision with the little kingdom of Hiaksai,
whose history will be narrated farther on. It will be seen that the
Korai men, people of the Fuyu race, finally occupied the territory of
Hiaksai. Already the Koraians, sure of further conquest southward,
fixed their capital at Ping-an.
In 589 A.D. the house of Sui was established on the dragon throne, and
a portentous message was sent to the King of Korai, which caused the
latter to make vigorous war preparations. Evidently the Chinese emperor
meant to throttle the young giant of the north, while the young giant
was equally determined to live. The movement of a marauding force of
Koraians, even to the inside of the Great Wall, gave the bearded dragon
not only the pretext of war but of annexation.
For this purpose an army of three hundred thousand men and a fleet of
several hundred war-junks were prepared. The latter were to sail over
from Shantung, and enter the Ta-tong River, the goal of the expedition
being Ping-an city, the Koraian capital
The horde started without provisions, and arrived in mid-summer at the
Liao River in want of food. While waiting, during the hot weather, in
this malarious and muddy region, the soldiers died by tens of thousands
of fever and plague. The incessant rains soon rendered the roads
impassable and transport of provisions an impossibility. Disease melted
the mighty host away, and the army, reduced to one-fifth its numbers,
was forced to retreat The war-junks fared no better, for storms in the
Yellow Sea drove them back or foundered them by the score.
Such a frightful loss of life and material did not deter the next
emperor, the infamous Yang (who began the Grand Canal), from following
out the scheme of his father, whom he conveniently poisoned while
already dying. In spite of the raging famines and losses by flood, the
emperor ordered magazines for the armies of invasion to be established
near the coast, and contingents of troops for the twenty-four corps to
be raised in every province. All these preparations caused local
famines and drove many of the people into rebellion.
This army, one of the greatest ever assembled in China, numbered over
one million men. Its equipment consisted largely of banners, gongs, and
trumpets. The undisciplined horde began their march, aiming to reach
the Liao River before the hot season set in. They found the Koraian
army ready to dispute their passage. Three bridges, hastily
constructed, were thrown across the stream, on which horse and foot
pressed eagerly toward the enemy. The width of the river had, however,
been miscalculated and the bridges were too short, so that many
thousands of the Chinese were drowned or killed by the Koraians, at
unequal odds, while fighting on the shore. In two days, however, the
bridges were lengthened and the whole force crossed over. The Chinese
van pursued their enemy, slaughtering ten thousand before they could
gain the fortified city of Liao Tung. Once inside their walls, however,
the Korai soldiers were true to their reputation of being splendid
garrison fighters. Instead of easy victory the Chinese army lay around
the city unable, even after several months’ besieging, to breach the
walls or weaken the spirit of the defenders.
Meanwhile the other division had marched northward and eastward,
according to the plan of the campaign. Eight of these army corps,
numbering 300,000 men, arrived and went into camp on the west bank of
the Yalu River. In spite of express orders to the contrary, the
soldiers had thrown away most of the hundred days’ rations of grain
with which they started, and the commissariat was very low. The Koraian
commander, carrying out the Fabian policy, tempted them away from their
camp, and led them by skirmishing parties to within a hundred miles of
Ping-an. The Chinese fleet lay within a few leagues of the invading
army, but land and sea forces were mutually ignorant of each other’s
vicinity. Daring not to risk the siege of a city so well fortified by
nature and art as Ping-an, in his present lack of supplies, the Chinese
general reluctantly ordered a retreat, which began in late summer, the
nearest base of supplies being Liao Tung, four hundred miles away and
through an enemy’s country.
This was the signal for the Koraians to assume the offensive, and like
the Cossacks, upon the army of Napoleon, in Russia, they hung upon the
flanks of the hungry fugitives, slaughtering thousands upon thousands.
When the Chinese host were crossing the Chin-chion River, the Koraian
army fell in full force upon them, and the fall of the commander of
their rear-guard turned defeat into a rout. The disorderly band of
fugitives rested not till well over and beyond the Yalu River. Of that
splendid army of 300,000 men only a few thousand reached Liao Tung
city. The weapons, spoil, and prisoners taken by the Koraians were
“myriads of myriads of myriads.” The naval forces in the river, on
hearing the amazing news of their comrades’ defeat, left Corea and
crept back to China. The Chinese emperor was so enraged at the utter
failure of his prodigious enterprise, that he had the fugitive officers
publicly put to death as an example.
In spite of the disasters of the previous year, the emperor Yang, in
613, again sent an army to besiege Liao Tung city. On this occasion
scaling ladders, 150 feet long, and towers, mounted on wheels, were
used with great effect. Just on the eve of the completion of their
greatest work and tower the Chinese camp was suddenly abandoned, the
emperor being called home to put down a formidable rebellion. So
cautious were the besieged and so sudden was the flight of the
besiegers, that it was noon before a Koraian ventured into camp, and
two days elapsed before they discovered that the retreat was not
feigned. Then the Koraian garrison attacked the Chinese rear-guard with
severe loss.
The rebellion at home having been put down the emperor again cherished
the plan of crushing Korai, but other and greater insurrections broke
out that required his attention; for the three expeditions against
Corea had wasted the empire even as they had sealed the doom of the Sui
dynasty. Though no land forces could be spared, a new fleet was sent to
Corea to lay siege to Ping-an city. Even with large portions of his
dominions in the hands of rebels, Tang never gave up his plan of
humbling Korai. This project was the cause of the most frightful
distress in China, and seeing no hope of saving the country except by
the murder of the infamous emperor, coward, drunkard, tyrant, and
voluptuary, a band of conspirators, headed by Yü Min, put him to death
and Korai had rest.
To summarize this chapter. It is possible that Ki Tsze was the founder
of Fuyu. The Kokorai tribes were people who had migrated from Fuyu, and
settled north and west of the upper waters of the Yalu River. They
entered into relations with the Chinese as early as 9 A.D., and coming
into collision with them by the year 70, they kept up a fitful warfare
with them, sustaining mighty invasions, until the seventh century,
while in the meantime Korai, instead of being crushed by China, grew in
area and numbers until the nation had spread into the peninsula, and
overrun it as far as the Han River.
Thus far the history of Corea has been that of the northern and western
part of the peninsula, and has been derived chiefly from Chinese
sources. We turn now to the southern and eastern portions, and in
narrating their history we shall point out their relations with Japan
as well as with China, relying largely for our information upon the
Japanese annals.
CHAPTER IV.
SAM-HAN, OR SOUTHERN COREA.
At the time of the suppression of Chō-sen and the incorporation of its
territory with the Chinese Empire, B.C. 107, all Corea south of the
Ta-tong River was divided into three han, or geographical divisions.
Their exact boundaries are uncertain, but their general topography may
be learned from the map.
MA-HAN AND BEN-HAN.
This little country included fifty-four tribes or clans, each one
independent of the other, and living under a sort of patriarchal
government. The larger tribes are said to have been composed of ten
thousand, and the smaller of a thousand, families each. Round numbers,
however, in ancient records are worth little for critical purposes.
South of the Ma-han was the Ben-han, in which were twelve tribes,
having the same manners and customs as the Ma-han, and speaking a
different yet kindred dialect. One of these clans formed the little
kingdom of Amana, from which came the first visit of Coreans recorded
in the Japanese annals.
After the overthrow of his family and kingdom by the traitor Wei-man,
Kijun, the king of old Chō-sen escaped to the sea and fled south toward
the archipelago. He had with him a number of his faithful adherents,
their wives and children. He landed among one of the clans of Ma-han,
composed of Chinese refugees, who, not wishing to live under the Han
emperors, had crossed the Yellow Sea. On account of their numbering,
originally, one hundred families, they called themselves Hiaksai.
Either by conquest or invitation Kijun soon became their king. Glimpses
of the manner of life of these early people are given by a Chinese
writer.
The Ma-han people were agricultural, dwelling in villages, but neither
driving nor riding oxen or horses, most probably because they did not
possess them. Their huts were made of earth banked upon timber, with
the door in the roof. They went bareheaded, and coiled or tied their
hair in a knot. They set no value on gold, jewels, or embroidery, but
wore pearls sewed on their clothes and hung on their necks and ears.
Perhaps the word here translated “pearl” may be also applied to drilled
stones of a cylindrical or curved shape, like the magatama, or “bent
jewels,” of the ancient Japanese. They shod their feet with sandals,
and wore garments of woven stuff. In etiquette they were but slightly
advanced, paying little honor to women or to the aged. Like our Indian
bucks, the young men tested their endurance by torture. Slitting the
skin of the back, they ran a cord through the flesh, upon which was
hung a piece of wood. This was kept suspended till the man, unable
longer to endure it, cried out to have it taken off.
After the field work was over, in early summer, they held drinking
bouts, in honor of the spirits, with songs and dances. Scores of men,
quickly following each other, stamped on the ground to beat time as
they danced. In the late autumn, after harvests, they repeated these
ceremonies. In each clan there was a man, chosen as ruler, to sacrifice
to the spirits of heaven. On a great pole they hung drums and bells for
the service of the heavenly spirits. Perhaps these are the originals of
the tall and slender pagodas with their pendant wind-bells at the many
eaves and corners.
Among the edible products of Ma-han were fowls with tails five feet in
length. These “hens with tails a yard long” were evidently
pheasants—still a delicacy on Corean tables. The large apple-shaped
pears, which have a wooden taste, half way between a pear and an apple,
were then, as now, produced in great numbers. The flavor improves by
cooking.
As Kijun’s government was one of vigor, his subjects advanced in
civilization, the Hiaksai people gradually extended their authority and
influence. The clan names in time faded away or became symbols of
family bonds instead of governmental authority, so that by the fourth
century Hiaksai had become paramount over all the fifty-four tribes of
Ma-han, as well as over some of those of the other two han.
Thus arose the kingdom of Hiaksai (called also Kudara by the Japanese,
Petsi by the Chinese, and Baiji by the modern Coreans), which has a
history extending to the tenth century, when it was extinguished in
name and fact in united Corea.
Its relations with Japan were, in the main, friendly, the islanders of
the Sunrise Kingdom being comrades in arms with them against their
invaders, the Chinese, and their hostile neighbors, the men of
Shinra—whose origin we shall now proceed to detail.
SHIN-HAN.
After the fall of the Tsin dynasty in China, a small body of refugees,
leaving their native seats, fled across the Yellow Sea toward the Sea
of Japan, resting only when over the great mountain chain. They made
settlements in the valleys and along the sea-coast. At first they
preserved their blood and language pure, forming one of the twelve
clans or tribes into which the han or country was divided.
This name Shin (China or Chinese), which points to the origin of the
clan, belonged to but one of the twelve tribes in eastern Corea. As in
the case of Hiaksai, the Shin tribe, being possessed of superior power
and intelligence, extended their authority and boundaries, gradually
becoming very powerful. Under their twenty-second hereditary chief, or
“king,” considering themselves paramount over all the clans, they
changed the name of their country to Shinra, which is pronounced in
Chinese Sinlo.
Between the years 29 and 70 A.D., according to the Japanese histories,
an envoy from Shinra arrived in Japan, and after an audience had of the
mikado, presented him with mirrors, swords, jade, and other works of
skill and art. In this we have a hint as to the origin of Japanese
decorative art. It is evident from these gifts, as well as from the
reports of Chinese historians concerning the refined manners, the
hereditary aristocracy, and the fortified strongholds of the Shinra
people, that their grade of civilization was much higher than that of
their northern neighbors. It was certainly superior to that of the
Japanese, who, as we shall see, were soon tempted to make descents upon
the fertile lands, rich cities, and defenceless coasts of their
visitors from the west.
How long the Chinese colonists who settled in Shin-han preserved their
language and customs is not known. Though these were lost after a few
generations, yet it is evident that their influence on the aborigines
of the country was very great. From first to last Shinra excelled in
civilization all the petty states in the peninsula, of which at first
there were seventy-eight. Unlike the Ma-han, the Shin-han people lived
in palisaded cities, and in houses the doors of which were on the
ground and not on the roof. They cultivated mulberry-trees, reared the
silk-worm, and wove silk into fine fabrics. They used wagons with yoked
oxen, and horses for draught, and practised “the law of the road.”
Marriage was conducted with appropriate ceremony. Dancing, drinking,
and singing were favorite amusements, and the lute was played in
addition to drums. They understood the art of smelting and working
iron, and used this metal as money. They carried on trade with the
other han, and with Japan. How far these arts owed their encouragement
or origin to traders, or travelling merchants from China, is not known.
Evidently Shinra enjoyed leadership in the peninsula, largely from her
culture, wealth, and knowledge of iron. The curious custom, so well
known among American savages, of flattening the heads of newly born
infants, is noted among the Shin-han people.
Neither Chinese history nor Japanese tradition, though they give us
some account of a few hundred families of emigrants from China who
settled in the already inhabited Corean peninsula, throws any light on
the aborigines as to whence or when they came. The curtain is lifted
only to show us that a few people are already there, with language and
customs different from those of China. The descendants of the
comparatively few Chinese settlers were no doubt soon lost, with their
language and ancestral customs, among the mass of natives. These
aboriginal tribes were destined to give way to a new people from the
far north, as we shall learn in our further narrative. The Japanese
historians seem to distinguish between the San Han, the three countries
or confederacies of loosely organized tribes, and the San Goku, or
Three Kingdoms. The Coreans, however, speak only of the Sam-han,
meaning thereby the three political divisions of the peninsula, and
using the word as referring rather to the epoch. The common “cash,” or
fractional coin current in the country, bears the characters meaning
“circulating medium of the Three Kingdoms,” or Sam-han. These were
Korai in the north, Shinra in the southeast, and Hiaksai in the
southwest. Other Japanese names for these were respectively Komé,
Shiriaki, and Kudara, the Chinese terms being Kaoli, Sinlo, and Pe-tsi.
Like the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Wales, called also
Britannia, Caledonia, and Cambria, these Corean states were distinct in
origin, were conquered by a race from without, received a rich infusion
of alien blood, struggled in rivalry for centuries, and were finally
united into one nation, with one flag and one sovereign.
CHAPTER V.
EPOCH OF THE THREE KINGDOMS.—HIAKSAI.
The history of the peninsular states from the time in which it is first
known until the tenth century, is that of almost continuous civil war
or border fighting. The boundaries of the rival kingdoms changed from
time to time as raid and reprisal, victory or defeat, turned the scale
of war. A series of maps of the peninsula expressing the political
situation during each century or half-century would show many
variations of boundaries, and resemble those of Great Britain when the
various native and continental tribes were struggling for its mastery.
Something like an attempt to depict these changes in the political
geography of the peninsula has been made by the Japanese historian,
Otsuki Tōyō, in his work entitled “Historical Periods and Changes of
the Japanese Empire.”
Yet though our narrative, through excessive brevity, seems to be only a
picture of war, we must not forget that Hiaksai, once lowest in
civilization, rapidly became, and for a while continued, the leading
state in the peninsula. It held the lead in literary culture until
crushed by China. The classics of Confucius and Mencius, with letters,
writing, and their whole train of literary blessings, were introduced
first to the peninsula in Hiaksai. In 374 A.D. Ko-ken was appointed a
teacher or master of Chinese literature, and enthusiastic scholars
gathered at the court. Buddhism followed with its educational
influences, becoming a focus of light and culture. As early as 372 A.D.
an apostle of northern Buddhism had penetrated into Liao Tung, and
perhaps across the Yalu. In 384 A.D. the missionary Marananda, a
Thibetan, formally established temples and monasteries in Hiaksai, in
which women as well as men became scholastics. Long before this new
element of civilization was rooted in Shinra or Korai, the faith of
India was established and flourishing in the little kingdom of Hiaksai,
so that its influences were felt as far as Japan. The first teacher of
Chinese letters and ethics in Nippon was a Corean named Wani, as was
also the first missionary who carried the images and sutras of northern
Buddhism across the Sea of Japan. To Hiaksai more than to any other
Corean state Japan owes her first impulse toward the civilization of
the west.
Hiaksai came into collision with Kokorai as early as 345 A.D., at which
time also Shinra suffered the loss of several cities. In the fifth
century a Chinese army, sent by one of the emperors of the Wei dynasty
to enforce the payment of tribute, was defeated by Hiaksai. Such
unexpected military results raised the reputation of “the eastern
savages” so high in the imperial mind, that the emperor offered the
King of Hiaksai the title of “Great Protector of the Eastern Frontier.”
By this act the independence of the little kingdom was virtually
recognized. In the sixth century, having given and received Chinese aid
and comfort in alliance with Shinra against Korai, Hiaksai was ravaged
in her borders by the troops of her irate neighbor on the north. Later
on we find these two states in peace with each other and allied against
Shinra, which had become a vassal of the Tang emperors of China.
From this line of China’s rulers the kingdoms of Korai and Hiaksai were
to receive crushing blows. In answer to Shinra’s prayer for aid, the
Chinese emperor, in 660, despatched from Shantung a fleet of several
hundred sail with 100,000 men on board. Against this host from the west
the Hiaksai army could make little resistance, though they bravely
attacked the invaders, but only to be beaten. After a victory near the
mouth of the Rin-yin River, the Chinese marched at once to the capital
of Hiaksai and again defeated, with terrible slaughter, the provincial
army. The king fled to the north, and the city being nearly empty of
defenders, the feeble garrison opened the gates. The Tang banners
fluttered on all the walls, and another state was absorbed in the
Chinese empire. For a time Hiaksai, like a fly snapped up by an angry
dog, is lost in China.
Not long, however, did the little kingdom disappear from sight. In 670
a Buddhist priest, fired with patriotism, raised an army of monks and
priests, and joining Fuku-shin (Fu-sin), a brave general, they laid
siege to a city held by a large Chinese garrison. At the same time they
sent word to the emperor of Japan praying for succor against the
“robber kingdom.” They also begged that Hōsho (Fung), the youthful son
of the late king, then a hostage and pupil at the mikado’s court, might
be invested with the royal title and sent home. The mikado despatched a
fleet of 400 junks and a large body of soldiers to escort the royal
heir homeward. On his arrival Hōsho was proclaimed king.
Meanwhile the priest-army and the forces under Fuku-shin had
reconquered nearly all their territory, when they suffered a severe
defeat near the sea-coast from the large Chinese force hastily
despatched to put down the rebellion. The invaders marched eastward and
effected a junction with the forces of Shinra. The prospects of Hiaksai
were now deplorable.
For even among the men of Hiaksai there was no unity of purpose.
Fuku-shin had put the priest-leader to death, which arbitrary act so
excited the suspicions of the king that he in turn ordered his general
to be beheaded. He then sent to Japan, appealing for reinforcements.
The mikado, willing to help an old ally, and fearing that the Chinese,
if victorious, might invade his own dominions, quickly responded. The
Japanese contingent arrived and encamped near the mouth of the Han
River, preparatory to a descent by sea upon Shinra. Unsuspecting the
near presence of an enemy, the allies neglected their usual vigilance.
A fleet of war-junks, flying the Tang streamers, suddenly appeared off
the camp, and while the Japanese were engaging these, the Chinese land
forces struck them in flank. Taken by surprise, the mikado’s warriors
were driven like flocks of sheep into the water and drowned or shot by
the Chinese archers. The Japanese vessels were burned as they lay at
anchor in the bloody stream, and the remnants of the beaten army got
back to their islands in pitiable fragments. Hōsho, after witnessing
the destruction of his host, fled to Korai, and the country was given
over to the waste and pillage of the infuriated Chinese. The royal
line, after thirty generations and nearly seven centuries of rule,
became extinct. The sites of cities became the habitations of tigers,
and once fertile fields were soon overgrown. Large portions of Hiaksai
became a wilderness.
Though the Chinese Government ordered the bodies of those killed in war
and the white bones of the victims of famine to be buried, yet many
thousands of Hiaksai families fled elsewhere to find an asylum and to
found new industries. The people who remained on their fertile lands,
as well as all Southern Corea, fell under the sway of Shinra.
The fragments of the beaten Japanese army gradually returned to their
native country or settled in Southern Corea. Thousands of the people of
Hiaksai, detesting the idea of living as slaves of China, accompanied
or followed their allies to Japan. On their arrival, by order of the
mikado, 400 emigrants of both sexes were located in the province of
Omi, and over 2,000 were distributed in the Kuantō, or Eastern Japan.
These colonies of Coreans founded potteries, and their descendants,
mingled by blood with the Japanese, follow the trade of their
ancestors.
In 710 another body of Hiaksai people, dissatisfied with the poverty of
the country and tempted by the offers of the Japanese, formed a colony
numbering 1,800 persons and emigrated to Japan. They were settled in
Musashi, the province in which Tōkiō, the modern capital, is situated.
Various other emigrations of Coreans to Japan of later date are
referred to in the annals of the latter country, and it is fair to
presume that tens of thousands of emigrants from the peninsula fled
from the Tang invasion and mingled with the islanders, producing the
composite race that inhabit the islands ruled by the mikado. Among the
refugees were many priests and nuns, who brought their books and
learning to the court at Nara, and thus diffused about them a literary
atmosphere. The establishment of schools, the awakening of the Japanese
intellect, and the first beginnings of the literature of Japan, the
composition of their oldest historical books, the Kojiki and the
Nihongi—all the fruits of the latter half of the seventh and early part
of the eighth century—are directly traceable to this influx of the
scholars of Hiaksai, which being destroyed by China, lived again in
Japan. Even the pronunciation of the Chinese characters as taught by
the Hiaksai teachers remains to this day. One of them, the nun Hōmiō, a
learned lady, made her system so popular among the scholars that even
an imperial proclamation against it could not banish it. She
established her school in Tsushima, A.D. 655, and there taught that
system of [Chinese] pronunciation [Go-on] which still holds sway in
Japan, among the ecclesiastical literati, in opposition to the Kan-on
of the secular scholars. The Go-on, the older of the two
pronunciations, is that of ancient North China, the Kan-on is that of
mediæval Southern China (Nanking). Corea and Japan having phonetic
alphabets have preserved and stereotyped the ancient Chinese
pronunciation better than the Chinese language itself, since the
Chinese have no phonetic writing, but only ideographic characters, the
pronunciation of which varies during the progress of centuries.
Hiaksai had given Buddhism to Japan as early as 552 A.D., but
opposition had prevented its spread, the temple was set on fire, and
the images of Buddha thrown in the river. In 684 one Sayéki brought
another image of Buddha from Corea, and Umako, son of Inamé, a minister
at the mikado’s court, enshrined it in a chapel on his own grounds. He
made Yeben and Simata, two Coreans, his priests, and his daughter a
nun. They celebrated a festival, and henceforth Buddhism [1] grew
apace.
The country toward the sunrise was then a new land to the peninsulars,
just as “the West” is to us, or Australia is to England; and Japan made
these fugitives welcome. In their train came industry, learning, and
skill, enriching the island kingdom with the best infusion of blood and
culture.
Hiaksai was the first of the three kingdoms that was weakened by civil
war and then fell a victim to Chinese lust of conquest.
The progress and fall of the other two kingdoms will now be narrated.
Beginning with Korai, we shall follow its story from the year 613 A.D.,
when the invading hordes of the Tang dynasty had been driven out of the
peninsula with such awful slaughter by the Koraians.
CHAPTER VI.
EPOCH OF THE THREE KINGDOMS.—KORAI.
After the struggle in which the Corean tiger had worsted the Western
Dragon, early in the seventh century, China and Korai were for a
generation at peace. The bones of the slain were buried, and
sacrificial fires for the dead soothed the spirits of the victims. The
same imperial messenger, who in 622 was sent to supervise these offices
of religion, also visited each of the courts of the three kingdoms. So
successful was he in his mission of peaceful diplomacy, that each of
the Corean states sent envoys with tribute and congratulation to the
imperial throne. In proof of his good wishes, the emperor returned to
his vassals all his prisoners, and declared that their young men would
be received as students in the Imperial University at his capital.
Henceforth, as in many instances during later centuries, the sons of
nobles and promising youth from Korai, Shinra, and Hiaksai went to
study at Nanking, where their envoys met the Arab traders.
Korai having been divided into five provinces, or circuits, named
respectively the Home, North, South, East, and West divisions, extended
from the Sea of Japan to the Liao River, and enjoyed a brief spell of
peace, except always on the southern border; for the chronic state of
Korai and Shinra was that of mutual hostility. On the north, beyond the
Tumen River, was the kingdom of Pu-hai, with which Korai was at peace,
and Japan was in intimate relations, and China at jealous hostility.
The Chinese court soon began to look with longing eyes on the territory
of that part of Korai lying west of the Yalu River, believing it to be
a geographical necessity that it should become their scientific
frontier, while the emperor cherished the hope of soon rectifying it.
Though unable to forget the fact that one of his predecessors had
wasted millions of lives and tons of treasure in vainly attempting to
humble Kokorai, his ambition and pride spurred him on to wade through
slaughter to conquest and revenge. He waited only for a pretext.
This time the destinies of the Eastern Kingdom were profoundly
influenced by the character of the feudalism brought into it from
ancient times, and which was one of the characteristic institutions of
the Fuyu race.
The Government of Korai was simply that of a royal house, holding, by
more or less binding ties of loyalty, powerful nobles, who in turn held
their lands on feudal tenure. In certain contingencies these noble
land-holders were scarcely less powerful than the king himself.
In 641 one of these liegemen, whose ambition the king had in vain
attempted to curb and even to put to death, revenged himself by killing
the king with his own hands. He then proclaimed as sovereign the nephew
of the dead king, and made himself prime minister. Having thus the
control of all power in the state, and being a man of tremendous
physical strength and mental ability, all the people submitted quietly
to the new order of things, and were at the same time diverted, being
sent to ravage Shinra, annexing all the country down to the 37th
parallel. The Chinese emperor gave investiture to the new king, but
ordered this Corean Warwick to recall his troops from invading Shinra,
the ally of China. The minister paid his tribute loyally, but refused
to acknowledge the right of China to interfere in Corean politics. The
tribute was then sent back with insult, and war being certain to
follow, Korai prepared for the worst. War with China has been so
constant a phenomenon in Corean history that a special term, Ho-ran,
exists and is common in the national annals, since the “Chinese wars”
have been numbered by the score.
Again the sails of an invading fleet whitened the waters of the Yellow
Sea, carrying the Chinese army of chastisement that was to land at the
head of the peninsula, while two bodies of troops were despatched by
different routes landward. The Tang emperor was a stanch believer in
Whang Ti, the Asiatic equivalent of the European doctrine of the divine
right of kings to reign—a tenet as easily found by one looking for it
in the Confucian classics, as in the Hebrew scriptures. He professed to
be marching simply to vindicate the honor of majesty and to punish the
regicide rebel, but not to harm nobles or people. The invaders soon
overran Liao Tung, and city after city fell. The emperor himself
accompanied the army and burned his bridges after the crossing of every
river. In spite of the mud and the summer rains he steadily pushed his
way on, helping with his own hands in the works at the sieges of the
walled cities—the ruins of which still litter the plains of Liao Tung.
In one of these, captured only after a protracted investment, 10,000
Koraians are said to have been slain. In case of submission on summons,
or after a slight defence, the besieged were leniently and even kindly
treated. By July all the country west of the Yalu was in possession of
the Chinese, who had crossed the river and arrived at Anchiu, only
forty miles north of Ping-an city.
By tremendous personal energy and a general levy in mass, an army of
150,000 Korai men was sent against the Chinese, which took up a
position on a hill about three miles from the city. The plan of the
battle that ensued, made by the Chinese emperor himself, was skilfully
carried out by his lieutenants, and a total defeat of the entrapped
Koraian army followed, the slain numbering 20,000. The next day, with
the remnant of his army, amounting to 40,000 men, the Koraian general
surrendered. Fifty thousand horses and 10,000 coats of mail were among
the spoils. The foot soldiers were dismissed and ordered home, but the
Koraian leaders were made prisoners and marched into China.
After so crushing a loss in men and material, one might expect instant
surrender of the besieged city. So far from this, the garrison
redoubled the energy of their defence. In this we see a striking trait
of the Corean military character which has been noticed from the era of
the Tangs, and before it, down to Admiral Rodgers. Chinese, Japanese,
French, and Americans have experienced the fact and marvelled thereat.
It is that the Coreans are poor soldiers in the open field and exhibit
slight proof of personal valor. They cannot face a dashing foe nor
endure stubborn fighting. But put the same men behind walls, bring them
to bay, and the timid stag amazes the hounds. Their whole nature seems
reinforced. They are more than brave. Their courage is sublime. They
fight to the last man, and fling themselves on the bare steel when the
foe clears the parapet. The Japanese of 1592 looked on the Corean in
the field as a kitten, but in the castle as a tiger. The French, in
1866, never found a force that could face rifles, though behind walls
the same men were invincible. The American handful of tars kept at
harmless distance thousands of black heads in the open, but inside the
fort they met giants in bravery. No nobler foe ever met American steel.
Even when disarmed they fought their enemies with dust and stones until
slain to the last man. The sailors found that the sheep in the field
were lions in the fort.
The Coreans themselves knew both their forte and their foible, and so
understood how to foil the invader from either sea. Shut out from the
rival nations on the right hand and on the left by the treacherous sea,
buttressed on the north by lofty mountains, and separated from China by
a stretch of barren or broken land, the peninsula is easily secure
against an invader far from his base of supplies. The ancient policy of
the Coreans, by which they over and over again foiled their mighty foe
and finally secured their independence, was to shut themselves up in
their well-provisioned cities and castles, and not only beat off but
starve away their foes. In their state of feudalism, when every city
and strategic town of importance was well fortified, this was easily
accomplished. The ramparts gave them shelter, and their personal valor
secured the rest. Reversing the usual process of starving out a
beleaguered garrison, the besiegers, unable to fight on empty stomachs,
were at last obliged to raise the siege and go home. Long persistence
in this resolute policy finally saved Corea from the Chinese colossus,
and preserved her individuality among nations.
Faithful to their character, as above set forth, the Koraians held
their own in the city of Anchiu, and the Chinese could make no
impression upon it. In spite of catapults, scaling ladders, movable
towers, and artificial mounds raised higher than the walls, the
Koraians held out, and by sorties bravely captured or destroyed the
enemy’s works. Not daring to leave such a fortified city in their rear,
the Chinese could not advance further, while their failing provisions
and the advent of frost showed them that they must retreat.
Hungrily they turned their faces toward China.
In spite of the intense chagrin of the foiled Chinese leader, so great
was his admiration for the valor of the besieged that he sent the
Koraian commander a valuable present of rolls of silk. The Koraians
were unable to pursue the flying invaders, and few fell by their
weapons. But hunger, the fatigue of crossing impassable oceans of worse
than Virginia mud, cold winds, and snow storms destroyed thousands of
the Chinese on their weary homeward march over the mountain passes and
quagmires of Liao Tung. The net results of the campaign were great
glory to Korai; and besides the loss of ten cities, 70,000 of her sons
were captives in China, and 40,000 lay in battle graves.
According to a custom which Californians have learned in our day, the
bones of the Chinese soldiers who died or were killed in the campaign
were collected, brought into China, and, with due sacrificial rites and
lamentations by the emperor, solemnly buried in their native soil.
Irregular warfare still continued between the two countries, the
offered tribute of Korai being refused, and the emperor waiting until
his resources would justify him in sending another vast fleet and army
against defiant Korai. While thus waiting he died.
After a few years of peace, his successor found occasion for war, and,
in 660 A.D., despatched the expedition which crushed Hiaksai, the ally
of Korai, and worried, without humbling, the latter state. In 664 Korai
lost its able leader, the regicide prime minister—that rock against
which the waves of Chinese invasion had dashed again and again in vain.
His son, who would have succeeded to the office of his father, was
opposed by his brother. The latter, fleeing to China, became guide to
the hosts again sent against Korai “to save the people and to chastise
their rebellious chiefs.” This time Korai, without a leader, was
doomed. The Chinese armies having their rear well secured by a good
base of supplies, and being led by skilful commanders, marched on from
victory to victory, until, at the Yalu River, the various detachments
united, and breaking the front of the Korai army, scattered them and
marched on to Ping-an. The city surrendered without the discharge of an
arrow. The line of kings of Korai came to an end after twenty-eight
generations, ruling over 700 years.
All Korai, with its five provinces, its 176 cities, and its four or
five millions of people, was annexed to the Chinese empire. Tens of
thousands of Koraian refugees fled into Shinra, thousands into Pu-hai,
north of the Tumen, then a rising state; and many to the new country of
Japan. Desolated by slaughter and ravaged by fire and blood, war and
famine, large portions of the land lay waste for generations. Thus fell
the second of the Corean kingdoms, and the sole dominant state now
supreme in the peninsula was Shinra, an outline of whose history we
shall proceed to give.
CHAPTER VII.
EPOCH OF THE THREE KINGDOMS.—SHINRA.
When Shinra becomes first known to us from Japanese tradition, her
place in the peninsula is in the southeast, comprising portions of the
modern provinces of Kang-wen and Kiung-sang. The people in this warm
and fertile part of the peninsula had very probably sent many colonies
of settlers over to the Japanese Islands, which lay only a hundred
miles off, with Tsushima for a stepping-stone. It is probable that the
“rebels” in Kiushiu, so often spoken of in old Japanese histories, were
simply Coreans or their descendants, as, indeed, the majority of the
inhabitants of Kiushiu originally had been. The Yamato tribe, which
gradually became paramount in Japan, were probably immigrants of old
Kokorai stock, that is, men of the Fuyu race, who had crossed from the
north of Corea over the Sea of Japan, to the land of Sunrise, just as
the Saxons and Engles pushed across the North Sea to England. They
found the Kumaso, or Kiushiu “rebels,” troublesome, mainly because
these settlers from the west, or southern mainland of Corea, considered
themselves to be the righteous owners of the island rather than the
Yamato people. At all events, the pretext that led the mikado Chiu-ai,
who is said to have reigned from 192 to 200 A.D., to march against them
was, that these people in Kiushiu would not acknowledge his authority.
His wife, the Amazonian queen Jingu, was of the opinion that the root
of the trouble was to be found in the peninsula, and that the army
should be sent across the sea. Her husband, having been killed in
battle, the queen was left to carry out her purposes, which she did at
the date said to be 202 A.D. She set sail from Hizen, and reached the
Asian mainland probably at the harbor of Fusan. Unable to resist so
well-appointed a force, the king of Shinra submitted and became the
declared vassal of Japan. Envoys from Hiaksai and another of the petty
kingdoms also came to the Japanese camp and made friends with the
invaders. After a two months’ stay, the victorious fleet, richly laden
with precious gifts and spoil, returned.
How much of truth there is in this narrative of Jingu it is difficult
to tell. The date given cannot be trustworthy. The truth seems at least
this, that Shinra was far superior to the Japan of the early Christian
centuries. Buddhism was formally established in Shinra in the year 528;
and as early as the sixth century a steady stream of
immigrants—traders, artists, scholars, and teachers, and later Buddhist
missionaries—passed from Shinra into Japan, interrupted only by the
wars which from time to time broke out. The relations between Nippon
and Southern Corea will be more fully related in another chapter, but
it will be well to remember that the Japanese always laid claim to the
Corean peninsula, and to Shinra especially, as a tributary nation. They
supported that claim not only whenever embassies from the two nations
met at the court of China, but they made it a more or less active part
of their national policy down to the year 1876. Many a bloody war grew
out of this claim, but on the other hand many a benefit accrued to
Japan, if not to Shinra.
Meanwhile, in the peninsula the leading state expanded her borders by
gradual encroachments upon the little “kingdom” of Mimana to the
southwest and upon Hiaksai on the north. The latter, having always
considered Shinra to be inferior, and even a dependent, war broke out
between the two states as soon as Shinra assumed perfect independence.
Korai and Hiaksai leagued themselves against Shinra, and the game of
war continued, with various shifting of the pieces on the board, until
the tenth century. The three rival states mutually hostile, the
Japanese usually friends to Hiaksai, the Chinese generally helpers of
Shinra, the northern nations beyond the Tumen and Sungari assisting
Korai, varying their operations in the field with frequent alliances
and counter-plots, make but a series of dissolving-views of battle and
strife, into the details of which it is not profitable to enter. Though
Korai and Hiaksai felt the heaviest blows from China, Shinra was
harried oftenest by the armies of her neighbors and by the Japanese.
Indeed, from a tributary point of view, it seems questionable whether
her alliances with China were of any benefit to her. In times of peace,
however, the blessings of education and civilization flowed freely from
her great patron. Though farthest east from China, it seems certain
that Shinra was, in many respects, the most highly civilized of the
three states. Especially was this the case during the Tang era (618–905
A.D.), when the mutual relations between China and Shinra were closest,
and arts, letters, and customs were borrowed most liberally by the
pupil state. Even at the present time, in the Corean idiom, “Tang-yang”
(times of the Tang and Yang dynasties) is a synonym of prosperity. The
term for “Chinese,” applied to works of art, poetry, coins, fans, and
even to a certain disease, is “Tang,” instead of the ordinary word for
China, since this famous dynastic title represents to the Corean mind,
as to the student of Kathayan history, one of the most brilliant epochs
known to this longest-lived of empires. What the names of Plantagenet
and Tudor represent to an Anglo-Saxon mind, the terms Tang and Sung are
to a Corean.
During this period, Buddhism was being steadily propagated, until it
became the prevailing cult of the nation. Reserving the story of its
progress for a special chapter, we notice in this place but one of its
attendant blessings. In the civilization of a nation, the possession of
a vernacular alphabet must be acknowledged to be one of the most potent
factors for the spread of intelligence and culture. It is believed by
many linguists that the Choctaws and Coreans have the only two perfect
alphabets in the world. It is agreed by natives of Chō-sen that their
most profound scholar and ablest man of intellect was Chul-chong, a
statesman at the court of Kion-chiu, the capital of Shinra. This famous
penman, a scholar in the classics and ancient languages of India as
well as China, is credited with the invention of the Nido, or Corean
syllabary, one of the simplest and most perfect “alphabets” in the
world. It expresses the sounds of the Corean language far better than
the kata-kana of Japan expresses Japanese. Chul-chong seems to have
invented the Nido syllabary by giving a phonetic value to a certain
number of selected Chinese characters, which are ideographs expressing
ideas but not sounds. Perhaps the Sanskrit alphabet suggested the model
both for manner of use and for forms of letters. The Nido is composed
almost entirely of straight lines and circles, and the letters
belonging to the same class of labials, dentals, etc., have a
similarity of form easily recognized. The Coreans state that the Nido
was invented in the early part of the eighth century, and that it was
based on the Sanskrit alphabet. It is worthy of note that, if the date
given be true, the Japanese kata-kana, invented a century later, was
perhaps suggested by the Corean.
One remarkable effect of the use of phonetic writing in Corea and Japan
has been to stereotype, and thus to preserve, the ancient sounds and
pronunciation of words of the Chinese, which the latter have lost.
These systems of writing outside of China have served, like Edison’s
phonographs, in registering and reproducing the manner in which the
Chinese spoke, a whole millennium ago. This fact has already opened a
fertile field of research, and may yet yield rich treasures of
discovery to the sciences of history and linguistics.
Certainly, however, we may gather that the Tang era was one of learning
and literary progress in Corea, as in Japan—all countries in pupilage
to China feeling the glow of literary splendor in which the Middle
Kingdom was then basking. The young nobles were sent to obtain their
education at the court and schools of Nanking, and the fair damsels of
Shinra bloomed in the harem of the emperor. Imperial ambassadors
frequently visited the court of this kingdom in the far east. Chinese
costume and etiquette were, for a time, at least, made the rigorous
rule at court. On one occasion, in 653 A.D., the envoy from Shinra to
the mikado came arrayed in Chinese dress, and, neglecting the
ceremonial forms of the Japanese court, attempted to observe those of
China. The mikado was highly irritated at the supposed insult. The
premier even advised that the Corean be put to death; but better
counsels prevailed. During the eighth and ninth centuries this
flourishing kingdom was well known to the Arab geographers, and it is
evident that Mussulman travellers visited Shinra or resided in the
cities of the peninsula for purposes of trade and commerce, as has been
shown before.
Kion-chiu, the capital of Shinra, was a brilliant centre of art and
science, of architecture and of literary and religious light. Imposing
temples, grand monasteries, lofty pagodas, halls of scholars,
magnificent gateways and towers adorned the city. In campaniles,
equipped with water-clocks and with ponderous bells and gongs, which,
when struck, flooded the valleys and hill-tops with a rich resonance,
the sciences of astronomy and horoscopy were cultivated. As from a
fountain, rich streams of knowledge flowed from the capital of Shinra,
both over the peninsula and to the court of Japan. Even after the decay
of Shinra’s power in the political unity of the whole peninsula, the
nation looked upon Kion-chiu as a sacred city. Her noble temples,
halls, and towers stood in honor and repair, enshrining the treasures
of India, Persia, and China, until the ruthless Japanese torch laid
them in ashes in 1596.
The generation of Corean people during the seventh century, when the
Chinese hordes desolated large portions of the peninsula and crushed
out Hiaksai and Korai, saw the borders of Shinra extending from the
Everlasting White Mountains to the Island of Tsushima, and occupying
the entire eastern half of the peninsula. From the beginning of the
eighth until the tenth century, Shinra is the supreme state, and the
political power of the Eastern Kingdom is represented by her alone. Her
ambition tempted, or her Chinese master commanded, her into an invasion
of the kingdom of Pu-hai beyond her northern border, 733 A.D. Her
armies crossed the Tumen, but met with such spirited resistance that
only half of them returned. Shinra’s desire of conquest in that
direction was appeased, and for two centuries the land had rest from
blood.
Until Shinra fell, in 934 A.D., and united Corea rose on the ruins of
the three kingdoms, the history of this state, as found in the Chinese
annals, is simply a list of her kings, who, of course, received
investiture from China. On the east, the Japanese, having ceased to be
her pupils in civilization during times of peace, as in time of war
they were her conquerors, turned their attention to Nanking, receiving
directly therefrom the arts and sciences, instead of at second-hand
through the Corean peninsula. They found enough to do at home in
conquering all the tribes in the north and east and centralizing their
system of government after the model of the Tangs in China. For these
reasons the sources of information concerning the eighth and ninth
centuries fail, or rather it is more exact to say that the history of
Shinra is that of peace instead of war. In 869 we read of pirates from
her shores descending upon the Japanese coast to plunder the tribute
ships from Buzen province, and again, in 893, that a fleet of fifty
junks, manned by these Corean rovers, was driven off from Tsushima by
the Japanese troops, with the loss of three hundred slain. Another
descent of “foreign pirates,” most probably Coreans, upon Iki Island,
in 1019, is recorded, the strangers being beaten off by reinforcements
from the mainland. The very existence of these marauders is, perhaps, a
good indication that the power of the Shinra government was falling
into decay, and that lawlessness within the kingdom was preparing the
way for some mighty hand to not only seize the existing state, but to
unite all Corea into political, as well as geographical, unity. In the
far north another of those great intermittent movements of population
was in process, which, though destroying the kingdom of Puhai beyond
the Tumen, was to repeople the desolate land of Korai, and again call a
dead state to aggressive life. From the origin to the fall of Shinra
there were three royal families of fifty-five kings, ruling nine
hundred and ninety-three years, or seven years less than a millennium.
Despite the modern official name of the kingdom, Chō-sen, the
people of Corea still call their country Gaoli, or Korai, clinging
to the ancient name. In this popular usage, unless we are mistaken,
there is a flavor of genuine patriotism. Chō-sen does indeed mean
Morning Calm, but the impression made on Western ears, and more
vividly upon the eye by means of the Chinese characters, is apt to
mislead. The term is less a reflection of geographical position
than of the inward emotions of those who first of all were more
Chinese than Corean in spirit, and of a desire for China’s favor.
The term Chō-sen savors less of dew and dawn than of policy and
prosy fact. It is probable, despite the Corean’s undoubted love of
nature and beautiful scenery, that Americans and Europeans have
been led astray as to the real significance of the phrase “morning
calm.” At the bottom, it means rather peace with China than the
serenity of dewy morning. Audience of the Chinese emperor to his
vassals is always given at daybreak, and to be graciously received
after the long and tedious prostrations is an auspicious beginning
as of a day of heaven upon earth. To the founder of Corea, Ki Tsze,
the gracious favor of the Chow emperor was as “morning calm;” and
so to Ni Taijo, in 1392 A.D., was the sunshine of the Ming
emperor’s favor. In both instances the name Chō-sen given to their
realm had, in reality, immediate reference to the dayspring of
China’s favor, and “the calm of dawn” to the smile of the emperor.
CHAPTER VIII.
JAPAN AND COREA.
It is as nearly impossible to write the history of Corea and exclude
Japan, as to tell the story of mediæval England and leave out France.
Not alone does the finger of sober history point directly westward as
the immediate source of much of what has been hitherto deemed of pure
Japanese origin, but the fountain-head of Japanese mythology is found
in the Sungari valley, or under the shadows of the Ever-White
Mountains. The first settler of Japan, like him of Fuyu, crosses the
water upright upon the back of a fish, and brings the rudiments of
literature and civilization with him. The remarkable crocodiles and
sea-monsters, from which the gods and goddesses are born and into which
they change, the dragons and tide-jewels and the various mystic symbols
which they employ to work their spells, the methods of divination and
system of prognostics, the human sacrifices and the manner of their
rescue, seem to be common to the nations on both sides of the Sea of
Japan, and point to a common heritage from the same ancestors. Language
comes at last with her revelations to furnish proofs of identity.
The mischievous Susanoō, so famous in the pre-historic legends, told in
the Kojiki, half scamp, half benefactor, who planted all Japan with
trees, brought the seeds from which they grew from Corea. His rescue of
the maiden doomed to be devoured by the eight-headed dragon (emblem of
water, and symbolical of the sea and rivers) reads like a gallant
fellow saving one of the human beings who for centuries, until the now
ruling dynasty abolished the custom, were sacrificed to the sea on the
Corean coast fronting Japan. In Kiōto, on Gi-on Street, there is a
temple which tradition declares was “founded in 656 A.D. by a Corean
envoy in honor of Susanoō, to whom the name of Go-dzu Tenno (Heavenly
King of Go-dzu) was given, because he was originally worshipped in
Go-dzu Mountain in Corea.”
Dogs are not held in any honor in Japan, as they were anciently in
Kokorai. Except the silk-haired, pug-nosed, and large-eyed chin, which
the average native does not conceive as canine, the dogs run at large,
ownerless, as in the Levant; and share the work of street scavenging
with the venerated crows. Yet there are two places of honor in which
the golden and stone effigies of this animal—highly idealized indeed,
but still inu—are enthroned.
The ama-inu, or heavenly dogs, in fanciful sculpture of stone or gilt
wood, represent guardian dogs. They are found in pairs guarding the
entrances to miya or temples. As all miya (the name also of the
mikado’s residence) were originally intended to serve as a model or
copy of the palace of the mikado and a reminder of the divinity of his
person and throne, it is possible that the ama-inu imitated the golden
Corean dogs which support and guard the throne of Japan. Access to the
shrine was had only by passing these two heavenly dogs. These creatures
are quite distinct from the “dogs of Fo,” or the “lions” that flank the
gateways of the magistrate’s office in China. Those who have had
audience of the mikado in the imperial throne-room, as the writer had
in January, 1873, have noticed at the foot of the throne, serving as
legs or supports to the golden chair, on which His Majesty sits, two
dogs sitting on their haunches, and upright on their forelegs. These
fearful-looking creatures, with wide-open mouths, hair curled in tufts,
especially around the front neck, and with tails bifurcated at their
upright ends, are called “Corean dogs.” For what reason placed there we
know not. It may be in witness of the conquest of Shinra by the empress
Jingu, who called the king of Shinra “the dog of Japan,” or it may
point to some forgotten symbolism in the past, or typify the vassalage
of Corea—so long a fundamental dogma in Japanese politics. It is
certainly strange to see this creature, so highly honored in Fuyu and
dishonored among the vulgar in Japan, placed beneath the mikado’s
throne.
The Japanese laid claim to Corea from the second century until the 27th
of February, 1876. On that day the mikado’s minister plenipotentiary
signed the treaty, recognizing Chō-sen as an independent nation.
Through all the seventeen centuries which, according to their annals,
elapsed since their armies first compelled the vassalage of their
neighbor, the Japanese regarded the states of Corea as tributary. Time
and again they enforced their claim with bloody invasion, and when
through a more enlightened policy the rulers voluntarily acknowledged
their former enemy as an equal, the decision cost Japan almost
immediately afterward seven months of civil war, 20,000 lives, and
fifty millions of dollars in treasure. The mainspring of the “Satsuma
rebellion” of 1877 was the official act of friendship by treaty, and
the refusal of the Tōkiō Government to make war on Corea.
From about the beginning of the Christian era until the fifteenth
century the relations between the two nations were very close and
active. Alternate peace and war, mutual assistance given, and embassies
sent to and fro are recorded with lively frequency in the early
Japanese annals, especially the Nihongi and Kojiki. A more or less
continual stream of commerce and emigration seems to have set in from
the peninsula. Some writers of high authority, who are also comparative
students of the languages of the two countries, see in these events the
origin of the modern Japanese. They interpret them to mean nothing less
than the peopling of the archipelago by continental tribes passing
through the peninsula, and landing in Japan at various points along the
coast from Kiushiu to Kaga. Some of them think that Japan was settled
wholly and only by Tungusic races of Northeastern Asia coming from or
through Corea. They base their belief not only on the general stream
and tendency of Japanese tradition, but also and more on the proofs of
language.
The first mention of Corea in the Japanese annals occurs in the fifth
volume of the Nihongi, and is the perhaps half-fabulous narrative of
ancient tradition. In the 65th year of the reign of the tenth mikado,
Sujin (97–30 B.C.), a boat filled with people from the west appeared
off the southern point of Chō-shiu, near the modern town of
Shimonoséki. They would not land there, but steered their course from
cape to cape along the coast until they reached the Bay of Keji no Wara
in Echizen, near the modern city of Tsuruga. Here they disembarked and
announced themselves from Amana Sankan (Amana of the Three Han or
Kingdoms) in Southern Corea. They unpacked their treasures of finely
wrought goods, and their leader made offerings to the mikado Sujin.
These immigrants remained five years in Echizen, not far from the city
of Fukui, till 28 B.C. Before leaving Japan, they presented themselves
in the capital for a farewell audience. The mikado Mimaki, having died
three years before, the visitors were requested on their return to call
their country Mimana, after their patron, as a memorial of their stay
in Japan. To this they assented, and on their return named their
district Mimana.
Some traditions state that the first Corean envoy had a horn growing
out of his forehead, and that since his time, and on account of it, the
bay near which he dwelt was named Tsunaga (Horn Bay) now corrupted into
Tsuruga.
It may be added that nearly all mythical characters or heroes in
Japanese and Chinese history are represented as having one or more very
short horns growing out of their heads, and are so delineated in native
art.
Six years later an envoy from Shinra arrived, also bringing presents to
the mikado. These consisted of mirrors, jade stone, swords, and other
precious articles, then common in Corea but doubtless new in Japan.
According to the tradition of the Kojiki (Book of Ancient Legends) the
fourteenth mikado, Chiu-ai (A.D. 192–200) was holding his court at
Tsuruga in Echizen, in A.D. 194, when a rebellion broke out in Kiushiu.
He marched at once into Kiushiu, against the rebels, and there fell by
disease or arrow. His consort, Jingu Kōgō, had a presentiment that he
ought not to go into Kiushiu, as he would surely fail if he did, but
that he should strike at the root of the trouble and sail at once to
the west.
After his death she headed the Japanese army and, leading the troops in
person, quelled the revolt. She then ordered all the available forces
of her realm to assemble for an invasion of Shinra. Japanese modern
writers have laid great stress upon the fact that Shinra began the
aggressions which brought on war, and in this fact justify Jingu’s
action and Japan’s right to hold Corea as an honestly acquired
possession.
All being ready, the doughty queen regent set sail from the coast of
Hizen, in Japan, in the tenth month A.D. 202, and beached the fleet
safely on the coast of Shinra. The King of Shinra, accustomed to meet
only with men from the rude tribes of Kiushiu, was surprised to see so
well-appointed an army and so large a fleet from a land to the
eastward. Struck with terror he resolved at once to submit. Tying his
hands in token of submission and in presence of the queen Jingu, he
declared himself the slave of Japan. Jingu caused her bow to be
suspended over the gate of the palace of the king in sign of his
submission. It is even said that she wrote on the gate “The King of
Shinra is the dog of Japan.” Perhaps these are historic words, which
find their meaning to-day in the two golden dogs forming part of the
mikado’s throne, like the Scotch “stone of Scone,” under the coronation
chair in Westminster Abbey.
The followers of Jingu evidently expected a rich booty, but after so
peaceful a conquest the empress ordered that no looting should be
allowed, and no spoil taken except the treasures constituting tribute.
She restored the king to the throne as her vassal, and the tribute was
then collected and laden on eighty boats with hostages for future
annual tribute. The offerings comprised pictures, works of elegance and
art, mirrors, jade, gold, silver, and silk fabrics.
Preparations were now made to conquer Hiaksai also, when Jingu was
surprised to receive the voluntary submission and offers of tribute of
this country.
The Japanese army remained in Corea only two months, but this brief
expedition led to great and lasting results. It gave the Japanese a
keener thirst for martial glory, it opened their eyes to a higher state
of arts and civilization. From this time forth there flowed into the
islands a constant stream of Corean emigrants, who gave a great impulse
to the spirit of improvement in Japan. The Japanese accept the story of
Jingu and her conquest as sound history, and adorn their greenback
paper money with pictures of her foreign exploits. Critics reject many
elements in the tradition, such as her controlling the waves and
drowning the Shinra army by the jewels of the ebbing and the flowing
tide, [2] and the delay of her accouchement by a magic stone carried in
her girdle. The Japanese ascribe the glory of victory to her then
unborn babe, afterward deified as Ojin, god of war, and worshipped by
Buddhists as Hachiman or the Eight-bannered Buddha. Yet many temples
are dedicated to Jingu, one especially famous is near Hiōgo, and
Koraiji (Corean village) near Oiso, a few miles from Yokohama, has
another which was at first built in her honor. Evidently the core of
the narrative of conquest is fact.
At the time when the faint, dim light of trustworthy tradition dawns,
we find the people inhabiting the Japanese archipelago to be roughly
divided, as to their political status, into four classes.
In the central province around Kiōto ruled a kingly house—the mikado
and his family—with tributary nobles or feudal chiefs holding their
lands on military tenure. This is the ancient classic land and realm of
Yamato. Four other provinces adjoining it have always formed the core
of the empire, and are called the Go-Kinai, or five home provinces,
suggesting the five clans of Kokorai.
To the north and east stretched the little known and less civilized
region, peopled by tribes of kindred blood and speech, who spoke nearly
the same language as the Yamato tribes, and who had probably come at
some past time from the same ancestral seats in Manchuria, and called
the Kuan-tō, or region east (tō) of the barrier (kuan) at Ozaka; or
poetically Adzuma.
Still further north, on the main island and in Yezo, lived the Ainos or
Ebisŭ, probably the aborigines of the soil—the straight-eyed men whose
descendants still live in Yezo and the Kuriles. The northern and
eastern tribes were first conquered and thoroughly subdued by the
Yamato tribes, after which all the far north was overrun and the Ainos
subjugated.
In the extreme south of the main island of Japan and in Kiushiu, then
called Kumaso by the Yamato people, lived a number of tribes of perhaps
the same ethnic stock as the Yamato Japanese, but further removed.
Their progenitors had probably descended from Manchuria through Corea
to Japan. Their blood and speech, however, were more mixed by infusions
from Malay and southern elements. Into Kiushiu—it being nearest to the
continent—the peninsulars were constantly coming and mingling with the
islanders.
The allegiance of the Kiushiu tribes to the royal house of Yamato was
of a very loose kind. The history of these early centuries, as shown in
the annals of Nihon, is but a series of revolts against the distant
warrior mikado, whose life was chiefly one of war. He had often to
leave his seat in the central island to march at the head of his
followers to put down rebellions or to conquer new tribes. Over these,
when subdued, a prince chosen by the conqueror was set to rule, who
became a feudatory of the mikado.
The attempts of the Yamato sovereign to wholly reduce the Kiushiu
tribes to submission, were greatly frustrated by their stout
resistance, fomented by emissaries from Shinra, who instigated them to
“revolt,” while adventurers from the Corean mainland came over in large
numbers and joined the “rebels,” who were, in one sense, their own
compatriots.
From the time of Jingu, if the early dates in Japanese history are to
be trusted, may be said to date that belief, so firmly fixed in the
Japanese mind, that Corea is, and always was since Jingu’s time, a
tributary and dependency of Japan. This idea, akin to that of the claim
of the English kings on France, led to frequent expeditions from the
third to the sixteenth century, and which, even as late as 1874, 1875,
and 1877, lay at the root of three civil wars.
All these expeditions, sometimes national, sometimes filibustering,
served to drain the resources of Japan, though many impulses to
development and higher civilization were thus gained, especially in the
earlier centuries. It seemed, until 1877, almost impossible to
eradicate from the military mind of Japan the conviction that to
surrender Corea was cowardice and a stain on the national honor. But
time will show, as it showed centuries ago in England, that the glory
and prosperity of the conqueror were increased, not diminished, when
Japan relinquished all claim on her continental neighbor and treated
her as an equal.
The Coreans taught the Japanese the arts of peace, while the Coreans
profited from their neighbors to improve in the business of war. We
read that, in 316 A.D., a Corean ambassador, bringing the usual
tribute, presented to the mikado a shield of iron which he believed to
be invulnerable to Japanese arrows. The mikado called on one of his
favorite marksmen to practice in the presence of the envoy. The shield
was suspended, and the archer, drawing bow, sent a shaft through the
iron skin of the buckler to the astonishment of the visitor. In all
their battles the Coreans were rarely able to stand in open field
before the archers from over the sea, who sent true cloth-yard shafts
from their oak and bamboo bows.
The paying of tribute to a foreign country is never a pleasant duty to
perform, though in times of prosperity and good harvests it is not
difficult. In periods of scarcity from bad crops it is well nigh
impossible. To insist upon its payment is to provoke rebellion.
Instances are indeed given in Japanese history where the conquerors not
only remitted the tribute but even sent ship loads of rice and barley
to the starving Coreans. When, however, for reasons not deemed
sufficient, or out of sheer defiance, their vassals refused to
discharge their dues, they again felt the iron hand of Japan in war.
During the reign of Yuriaki, the twenty-second mikado (A.D. 457–477),
the three states failed to pay tribute. A Japanese army landed in
Corea, and conquering Hiaksai, compelled her to return to her duty. The
campaign was less successful in Shinra and Korai, for after the
Japanese had left the Corean shores the “tribute” was sent only at
intervals, and the temper of the half-conquered people was such that
other expeditions had to be despatched to inflict chastisement and
compel payment.
The gallant but vain succor given by the Japanese to Hiaksai during the
war with the Chinese, in the sixth century, which resulted in the
destruction of the little kingdom, has already been detailed. Among the
names, forever famous in Japanese art and tradition, of those who took
part in this expedition are Saté-hiko and Kasi-wadé. The former sailed
away from Hizen in the year 536, as one of the mikado’s body-guard to
assist their allies the men of Hiaksai. A poetical legend recounts that
his wife, Sayohimé, climbed the hills of Matsura to catch the last
glimpse of his receding sails. Thus intently gazing, with straining
eyes, she turned to stone. The peasants of the neighborhood still
discern in the weather-worn rocks, high up on the cliffs, the figure of
a lady in long trailing court dress with face and figure eagerly bent
over the western waves. Not only is the name Matsura Sayohimé the
symbol of devoted love, but from this incident the famous author Bakin
constructed his romance of “The Great Stone Spirit of Matsura.”
Kasiwadé, who crossed over to do “frontier service” in the peninsula a
few years later, was driven ashore by a snow squall at an unknown part
of the coast. While in this defenceless condition his camp was invaded
by a tiger, which carried off and devoured his son, a lad of tender
age. Kasiwadé at once gave chase and followed the beast to the
mountains and into a cave. The tiger leaping out upon him, the wary
warrior bearded him with his left hand, and buried his dirk in his
throat. Then finishing him with his sabre, he skinned the brute and
sent home the trophy. From olden times Chō-sen is known to Japanese
children only as a land of tigers, while to the soldier the “marshal’s
baton carried in his knapsack” is a tiger-skin scabbard, the emblem and
possession of rank.
As the imperial court of Japan looked upon Shinra and Hiaksai as
outlying vassal states, the frequent military movements across the sea
were reckoned under “frontier service,” like that beyond the latitude
of Sado in the north of the main island, or in Kiushiu in the south.
“The three countries” of Corea were far nearer and more familiar to the
Japanese soldiers than were Yezo or the Riu Kiu Islands, which were not
part of the empire till several centuries afterward. Kara Kuni, the
country of Kara (a corruption of Korai?), as they now call China, was
then applied to Corea. Not a little of classic poetry and legend in the
Yamato language refers to this western frontier beyond the sea. The
elegy on Ihémaro, the soldier-prince, who died at Iki Island on the
voyage over, and that on the death of the Corean nun Riguwan, have been
put into English verse by Mr. Chamberlain (named after the English
explorer and writer on Corea, Basil Hall), in his “Classical Poetry of
the Japanese.” This Corean lady left her home in 714, and for
twenty-one years found a home with the mikado’s Prime Minister, Otomo,
and his wife, at Nara. She died in 735, while her hosts were away at
the mineral springs of Arima, near Kobé; and the elegy was written by
their daughter. One stanza describes her life in the new country.
“And here with aliens thou didst choose to dwell,
Year in, year out, in deepest sympathy;
And here thou builtest thee a holy cell,
And so the peaceful years went gliding by.”
An interesting field of research is still open to the scholar who will
point out all the monuments of Corean origin or influence in the
mikado’s empire, in the arts and sciences, household customs, diet and
dress, or architecture; in short, what by nature or the hand of man has
been brought to the land of Sunrise from that of Morning Calm. One of
the Corean princes, who settled in Japan early in the seventh century,
founded a family which afterward ruled the famous province of Nagatō or
Chōshiu. One of his descendants welcomed Francis Xavier, and aided his
work by gifts of ground and the privilege of preaching. Many of the
temples in Kiōto still contain images, paintings, and altar furniture
brought from Corea. The “Pheasant Bridge” still keeps its name from
bygone centuries; in a garden near by pheasants were kept for the
supply of the tables of the Corean embassies. The Arab and Persian
treasures of art and fine workmanship, in the imperial archives and
museums of Nara, which have excited the wonder of foreign visitors, are
most probably among the gifts or purchases from Shinra, where these
imports were less rare. A Buddhist monk named Shiuho has gathered up
the traditions and learning of the subject, so far as it illustrated
his faith, and in “Precious Jewels from a Neighboring Country,”
published in 1586, has written a narrative of the introduction of
Buddhism from Corea and its literary and missionary influences upon
Japan.
Under the chapters on Art and Religion we shall resume this topic. As
earnestly as the Japanese are now availing themselves of the science
and progress of Christendom in this nineteenth century, so earnestly
did they borrow the culture of the west, that is of Corea and China, a
thousand years ago.
The many thousands of Coreans, who, during the first ten centuries of
the Christian era, but especially in the seventh, eighth, and ninth,
settled in Japan, lived peaceably with the people of their adopted
country, and loyally obeyed the mikado’s rule. An exception to this
course occurred in 820, when seven hundred men who some time before had
come from Shinra to Tōtōmi and Suruga revolted, killed many of the
Japanese, seized the rice in the store-houses, and put to sea to
escape. The people of Musashi and Sagami pursued and attacked them,
putting many of them to death.
The general history of the Coreans in Japan divides itself into two
parts. Those who came as voluntary immigrants in time of peace were in
most cases skilled workmen or farmers, who settled in lands or in
villages granted them, and were put on political and social equality
with the mikado’s subjects. They founded industries, intermarried with
the natives, and their identity has been lost in the general body of
the Japanese people.
With the prisoners taken in war, and with the laborers impressed into
their service and carried off by force, the case was far different.
These latter were set apart in villages by themselves—an outcast race
on no social equality with the people. At first they were employed to
feed the imperial falcons, or do such menial work, but under the ban of
Buddhism, which forbids the destruction of life and the handling of
flesh, they became an accursed race, the “Etas” or pariahs of the
nation. They were the butchers, skinners, leather-makers, and those
whose business it was to handle corpses of criminals and all other
defiling things. They exist to-day, not greatly changed in blood,
though in costume, language, and general appearance, it is not possible
to distinguish them from Japanese of purest blood. By the humane edict
of the mikado, in 1868, granting them all the rights of citizenship,
their social condition has greatly improved.
From the ninth century onward to the sixteenth, the relations of the
two countries seem to be unimportant. Japan was engaged in conquering
northward the barbarians of her main island and Yezo. Her intercourse,
both political and religious, grew to be so direct with the court of
China, that Corea, in the Japanese annals, sinks out of sight except at
rare intervals. Nihon increased in wealth and civilization while
Chō-sen remained stationary or retrograded. In the nineteenth century
the awakened Sunrise Kingdom has seen her former self in the hermit
nation, and has stretched forth willing hands to do for her neighbor
now, what Corea did for Japan in centuries long gone by.
Still, it must never be forgotten that Corea was not only the bridge on
which civilization crossed from China to the archipelago, but was most
probably the pathway of migration by which the rulers of the race now
inhabiting Nihon reached it from their ancestral seats around the
Sungari and the Ever-White Mountains. True, it is not absolutely
certain whether the homeland of the mikado’s ancestors lay southward in
the sea, or westward among the mountains, but that the mass of the
Corean and Japanese people are more closely allied in blood than either
are with the Chinese, Manchius, or Malays, seems to be proved, not only
by language and physical traits, but by the whole course of the history
of both nations, and by the testimony of the Chinese records. Both
Coreans and Japanese have inherited the peculiar institutions of their
Fuyu ancestors—that race which alone of all the peoples sprung from
Manchuria migrated toward the rising, instead of toward the setting,
sun.
CHAPTER IX.
KORAI, OR UNITED COREA.
The fertile and well-watered region drained by the Amur River and its
tributaries, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to Lake Baikal, covers
the ancestral seats of many nations, and is perhaps the home of nations
yet to arise. It may be likened to a great intermittent geyser-spring
which, at intervals, overflows with terrific force and volume. The
movements of population southward seem, on a review of Chinese and
Corean history, almost as regular as a law of nature. As the conquerors
from the central Asian plateaus have over and over again descended into
India, as the barbarians overran the Roman empire, so out of the region
drained by the Amur and its tributaries have burst forth, time and
again, floods of conquest to overwhelm the rich plains of China. Or, if
we regard the flowery and grassy lands of Manchuria and beyond as a
great hive, full of busy life which, from the pressure of increasing
numbers, must swarm off to relieve the old home, we shall have a true
illustration. Time and again have clouds of human bees, with the sting
of their swords and the honey of their new energy, issued from this
ancient hive. The swarms receive different names in history: Hun, Turk,
Tartar, Mongol, Manchiu, but they all emerge from the same source,
giving or receiving dynastic names, but being in reality Tungusic
people of the same basic stock.
A tribe inhabiting one of the ravines or rich river flats of the
Sungari region increases in wealth and numbers. A powerful chief leads
them to war and victory. Tribes and lands are annexed. Martial valor,
wealth, and strength increase. Ambition and the pressure of numbers
tempt to farther conquest. Over and beyond the Great Wall is the
ever-glittering prize—teeming China. The march begins southward. After
many a battle, and only, it may be, after a generation of war against
the imperial legions beyond the frontiers, the goal is reached. The
Middle Kingdom is conquered and a new dynasty sits on the Dragon
Throne, until long peace enervates and luxury weakens. Then out of the
old northern seats of population rolls a new flood of conquest, and a
new swarm of conquerors is hived off.
Thus we see the original land embracing the Amur and Sungari valleys
has had its periods of power and decay, of historical and unhistorical
life. Unity and movement make history, disintegration and apathy cause
the page of history to be blank. But the land is still there with the
people and the possibilities of the future.
In spite of the associations of hoary antiquity that cluster around
Asiatic countries, the reader of history does not expect to hear of
single empires enduring through many centuries. With the exception of
Japan, no nation of Asia can show a dynastic line extending through a
millennium. The empires founded by Asiatic conquerors are short-lived.
The countries and the people remain, but the rulers constantly change,
and the building up, flourishing, decay, and dissolution suggest the
seasons rather than the centuries. No enduring political fabrics, like
those of Rome or Britain, are known in Asia. Though China and India
abide like the oak, their rulers change like the leaves. Socially,
these countries are the symbols of petrifaction, politically they are
as the kaleidoscope. From this law of continuous political mutation,
Corea has not been free.
In one of these epochs of historical movement, at the opening of the
eighth century, there arose the kingdom of Puhai, the capital of which
was the present city of Kirin. Its northern boundaries first touched
the Sungari, and later the Amur, shifting to the Sungari again. Its
southern border was at first the Tumen River, and later the modern
province of Ham-kiung was included in it. Lines drawn southwardly
through Lake Hanka on the east, and Mukden on the west, would enclose
its longitude. Its life lasted from about 700 to 925 A.D. This kingdom
was continually on bad terms with China, and the Tang emperors for
nearly a century attempted to crush it into vassalage. Puhai made brave
resistance, being aided not only by the large numbers of Koraians, who
had fled when beaten by the Chinese across the Tumen River, but also by
the Japanese, whose supremacy they acknowledged by payment of tribute.
With the latter their relations were always of a peaceful and pleasant
nature, and the correspondence and other documents of the visiting
embassies to the mikado’s court are still preserved in Japan.
Yet though Puhai was able to resist China and hold part of the old
territory of Korai, it fell before the persistent attacks of the Kitan
tribes, whose empire, lasting from 907 to 1125 A.D., stretched from
west of Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean. In the early part of the
tenth century this Puhai kingdom, whose age was scarcely two centuries,
melted away again into tribes and villages, each with its chief. The
country being without political unity returned to unhistorical
obscurity, as part of the Kitan empire. Without crossing the Tumen, to
enter China by way of Corea, the Kitans marched at once around the
Ever-White Mountains and down the Liao Tung valley into China.
The breaking up of Puhai was not without its influence on the Corean
peninsula. As early as the ninth century thousands of refugees, driven
before the Kitans or dissatisfied with nomad life on the plains,
recrossed the Tumen and a great movement of emigration set into
Northern Corea, which again became populous, cultivated, and rich. With
increasing prosperity better government was desired. The worthlessness
of the rulers and the prospect of a successful revolution tempted the
ambition of a Buddhist monk named Kung-wo who, in 912 A.D., left his
monastery and raised the flag of rebellion. He set forth to establish
another political fabric of mushroom duration, which was destined to
make way for a more permanent kingdom, and, in the end, united Corea.
With his followers, Kung-wo attacked the city of Kaichow (in the modern
Kang-wen province), and was so far successful as to enter it and
proclaim himself king. His personal success was of short duration. His
lieutenant, Wang-ken, that is Wang the founder, was a descendant of the
old kingly house of Korai. During all the time of Chinese occupancy, or
Shinra supremacy, his family had kept alive their spirit, traditions,
and claims. Thinking he could rule better than a priest, Wang put the
ex-monk to death and proclaimed himself the true sovereign of Korai.
All this went on without the interference of China, which at this time
was torn by internal disorder and the ravages of the same Kitan tribes
that had destroyed Puhai. Wang made Ping-an and Kaichow the capitals of
his kingdom, and resolved to take full advantage of his opportunity to
conquer the entire peninsula and unite all its parts under his sceptre.
Circumstances made this an easy task. With China passive, Shinra weak,
through long absorption in luxury and the arts of peace, and with most
part of the population of the peninsula of Koraian blood and descent,
the work was easy. The whole country, from the Ever-White Mountains to
Quelpart Island, was overrun and welded into unity. The name of Shinra
was blotted out after a line of fifty-six kings and a life of nine
hundred and ninety-three years. For the first time the peninsula became
a political unit, and the name Korai, springing to life again like the
Arabian phœnix out of its ashes, became the symbol alike of united
Corea and of the race which peopled it. Even yet the name Korai (Gauli
or Gori in the vernacular) is generally used by the people.
The probabilities are that the people of the old Fuyu race, descendants
of the tribes of Kokorai, as the more vigorous stock, had already so
far supplanted the old aboriginal people inhabiting Southern Corea as
to make conquest by Wang, who was one of their own blood, easy. This is
shown in a series of maps representing the three kingdoms of Corea from
201 to 655 A.D., by the Japanese scholar Otsuki Tōyō. At the former
date the Kokorai people beyond that part of their domain conquered by
China have occupied the land as far south as the Han River, or to the
37th parallel. Later, Shinra, in 593, and again in 655, backed by
Chinese armies, had regained her territory a degree or two northward,
and in the eighth and ninth centuries, acting as the ally of China,
ruled all the country to the Tumen River. Yet, though Shinra held the
land, the inhabitants were the same, namely, the stock of Korai, ready
to rise against their rulers and to annihilate Shinra in a name and
monarchy that had in it nationality and the prestige of their ancient
freedom and greatness.
Thoroughly intent on unifying his realm, Wang chose a central location
for the national capital. Kion-chiu, the metropolis of Shinra, was too
far south, Ping-an, the royal seat of old Korai, was too far north; but
one hundred miles nearer “the river” Han, was Sunto. This city, now
called Kai-seng, is twenty-five miles from Seoul and equally near the
sea. Wang made Sunto what it has been for over nine centuries, a
fortified city of the first rank, the chief commercial centre of the
country, and a seat of learning. It remained the capital until 1392
A.D. Wang-ken or Wang, the founder of the new dynasty under which the
people were to be governed for over four hundred years, was an ardent
Buddhist. Spite of his having put the monk to death to further personal
ends, he became the defender of the India faith and made it the
official religion. Monasteries were founded and temples built in great
numbers. To furnish revenues for the support of these, tracts of land
were set apart as permanent endowment. The four centuries of the house
of Korai are the palmy days of Corean Buddhism.
From China, which at this time was enjoying that era of literary
splendor, for which the Sung dynasty was noted, there came an impulse
both to scholastic activity and to something approaching popular
education.
The Nido, or native syllabary, which had been invented by Chul-chong,
the statesman of Shinra, now came into general use. While Chinese
literature and the sacred books of Buddhism were studied in the
original Sanscrit, popular works were composed in Corean and written
out in the Nido, or vernacular syllables. The printing press, invented
by the Sung scholars, was introduced and books were printed from cut
blocks. The Japanese are known to have adopted printing from Corea as
early as the twelfth century, when a work of the Buddhist canon was
printed from wooden blocks. “A Corean book is known which dates
authentically from the period 1317–1324, over a century before the
earliest printed book known in Europe.” The use of metal type, made by
moulding and casting, is not distinctly mentioned in Corea until the
year 1420, and the invention and use of the Unmun, a true native
alphabet, seems to belong to the same period. The eleven vowels and
fourteen consonants serve both as an alphabet and a syllabary, the
latter being the most ancient system, and the former an improvement on
it.
The unifier of Corea died in 945 and was succeeded by his son Wu.
Fifteen years later the last of the five weak dynasties that had
rapidly succeeded each other in China, fell. The Chinese emperor
proposing, and the Corean king being willing, the latter hastened to
send tribute, and formed an alliance of friendship with the imperial
Sung, who swayed the destinies of China for the next 166 years
(960–1101).
Korai soon came into collision with the Kitans in the following manner.
The royal line of united Corea traced their descent directly from the
ancient kings of Kokorai, and therefore claimed relationship with the
princes of Puhai. On the strength of this claim, the Koraian king
asserted his right to the whole of Liao Tung, which had been formerly
held by Puhai. The Kitans, having matters of greater importance to
attend to at the time, allowed its temporary occupation by Korai
troops. Nevertheless the king thought it best to send homage to the
Kitan emperor, in order to get a clear title to the territory. In 1012
he despatched an embassy acknowledging the Kitan supremacy. This verbal
message did not satisfy the strong conqueror, who demanded that the
Koraian king should come in person and make obeisance. The latter
refused. A feud at once broke out between them, which led to a war, in
which Korai was worsted and stripped of all her territory west of the
Yalu River.
Palladius has pointed out the interesting fact that a little village
about twenty miles north of Tie-ling, and seventy miles north of
Mukden, called Gauli-chan (Korai village) still witnesses by its name
to its former history, and to the possession by Corea of territory west
of the Yalu.
The Kitans, not satisfied with recovering Liao Tung, crossed the river
and invaded Korai, in 1015. By this time a new nation, under the name
of Nüjun or Ninchi, had formed around Lake Hanka, in part of the
territory of extinct Puhai. With their new frontagers the Koraians made
an alliance “as solid as iron and stone,” and with their aid drove back
the Kitan invaders.
Henceforth the boundaries of Corea remained stationary, and have never
extended beyond the limits with which the western world is familiar.
An era of peace and prosperity set in, and a thriving trade sprang up
between the Nüjun and Korai. The two nations, cemented in friendship
through a common fear of the Kitans, grew apace in numbers and
prosperity.
The Kitans were known to Chinese authors as early as the fifth century,
seven nomad tribes being at that time confederate under their banners.
At the beginning of the tenth century, these wanderers had been
transformed into hordes of disciplined cavalry. Their wealth and
intelligence having increased by conquest, they formed a great empire
in 925, which extended from the Altai Mountains to the Pacific Ocean,
and from within the Great Wall to the Yablonoi Mountains, having Peking
for one of its capitals. It flourished until the twelfth century (A.D.
1125), when it gave way to the Kin empire, which held Mongolia and
still more territory than the Kitans possessed within what is now China
proper.
This Kin empire was founded by the expansion of the Nüjun, who, from
their seats north of the Tumen and east of the Sungari, had gradually
widened, and by conquest absorbed the Kitans. Aguta, the founder of the
new empire, gave it the name of the Golden Dominion. During its
existence Corea was not troubled by her great neighbor, and for two
hundred years enjoyed peace within her borders. Her commerce now
flourished at all points of the compass, both on land, with her
northern and western neighbors, with the Japanese on the east, and the
Chinese south and west. Much direct intercourse in ships, guided by the
magnetic needle, “the chariot of the south,” took place between Ningpo
and Sunto. Mr. Edkins states that the oldest recorded instance of the
use of the mariner’s compass is that in the Chinese historian’s account
of the voyage of the imperial ambassador to Corea, from Nanking by way
of Ningpo, in a fleet of eight vessels, in the year 1122.
The Arabs, who about this time were also trading with the Coreans, and
had lived in their country, soon afterward introduced this silent
friend of the mariner into their own country in the west, whence it
found its way into Europe and to the hands of Columbus. To the eye of
the Corean its mysterious finger pointed to the south. To the western
man it pointed to the lode-star.
The huge wide-open eyes which the sailors of Chinese Asia paint at the
prow of their ship, to discover a path in the sea, became more than
ever an empty fancy before this unerring pathfinder. As useless as the
ever-open orbs on a mummy lid, these lidless eyes were relegated to the
domain of poetry, while the swinging needle opened new paths of science
and discovery.
CHAPTER X.
CATHAY, ZIPANGU, AND THE MONGOLS.
After a long breathing-spell—as one, in reading history, might call
it—the old hive in the north was again ready to swarm. It was to be
seen once more how useless was the Great Wall of China in keeping back
the many-named invaders, known in history by the collective term
Tâtars. A new people began descending from their homeland, which lay
near the northern and eastern shores of Lake Baikal. This inland
sea—scarcely known in the school geographies, or printed in the average
atlas in such proportionate dimensions as to suggest a pond—is one of
the largest lakes in the world, being 370 miles long and covering
13,300 square miles of surface. Its shores are now inhabited by Russian
colonists and its waters are navigated by whole fleets of ships and
steamers. It lies 1,280 feet above the sea.
Beginning their migrations from this point, in numbers and bulk that
suggest only the snowball, the Mongol horsemen moved with resistless
increase and momentum, consolidating into their mass tribe after tribe,
until their horde seemed an avalanche of humanity that threatened to
crush all civilization and engulph the whole earth. These mounted
highlanders from the north were creatures who seemed to be horse and
man in one being, and to actualize the old fable of the Centaurs. With
a tiger-skin for a saddle, a thong loop with only the rider’s great toe
thrust in it for a stirrup, a string in the horse’s lower jaw for a
bridle, armed with spear and cimeter, these conquerors who despised
walls went forth to level cities and slaughter all who resisted. In
their raids they found food ever ready in the beasts they rode, for a
reeking haunch of horse-meat, cut from the steed whose saddle had been
emptied by arrow or accident, was usually found slung to their pommels.
A slice of this, raw or warmed, served to sustain life for these hard
riders, who lived all day in the saddle and at night slept with it
wrapped around them.
For a century the power of these nomads was steadily growing, before
they emerged clearly into history and loomed up before the frontiers of
the empire. The master mind and hand that moulded them into unity was
Genghis Khan (1160–1227 A.D.).
Who was Genghis Khan? A Japanese writer, who is also a traveller in
Corea and China, has written in English a thesis which shows, with
strong probability, at least, that this unifier of Asia was Gen-Ghiké,
or Yoshitsuné. This Japanese hero, born in 1159, was the field-marshal
of the army of the Minamoto who annihilated the Taira family. [3] In
1189, having fled from his jealous brother, Yoritomo, he reached Yezo
and thence crossed, it is believed, to Manchuria. His was probably the
greatest military mind which Japan ever produced.
That Yoshitsuné and Genghis Khan were one person is argued by Mr.
Suyematz, [4] who brings a surprising array of coincidences to prove
his thesis. These are in names, titles, ages, dates, personal
characteristics, flags and banners, myths and traditions, nomenclature
of families, localities and individuals, and Japanese relics, coins,
arms, and fortresses in Manchuria. Without reaching the point of
demonstration, it seems highly probable that this wonderful
personality, this marvellous intellect, was of Japanese origin.
Whoever this restless spirit was, it is certain that he gathered tribes
once living in freedom like the wild waves into the unity of the
restless sea. Out from the grassy plains of Manchuria rolled a
tidal-wave of conquest that swept over Asia, and flung its last drops
of spray alike over Japan, India, and Russia. Among the nations
completely overrun and overwhelmed by the Mongol hordes was Corea.
In 1206, Yezokai—the word in Japanese means Yezo Sea—the leader of the
Mongols, at the request of his chieftains, took the name of Genghis
Khan and proclaimed himself the ruler of an empire. He now set before
himself the task of subduing the Kitans and absorbing their land and
people, preparatory to the conquest of China. This was accomplished in
less than six years. Liao Tung was invaded and, in 1213, his armies
were inside the Great Wall. Three mighty hosts were now organized, one
to overrun all China to Nepal and Anam, one to conquer Corea and Japan,
and one to bear the white banners of the Mongols across Asia into
Europe. This work, though not done in a day, was nearly completed
before a generation passed. [5] Genghis Khan led the host that moved to
the west. In 1218 the Corean king declared himself a vassal of Genghis.
In 1231 the murder of a Mongol envoy in Corea was the cause of the
first act of war. The Mongols invaded the country, captured forty of
the principal towns, received the humiliation of the king, who had fled
to Kang-wa Island, and began the abolition of Corean independence by
appointing seventy-two Mongol prefects to administer the details of
local government. The people, exasperated by the new and strange
methods of their foreign conquerors, rose against them and murdered
them all. This was the signal for a second and more terrible invasion.
A great Mongol army overran the country in 1241, fought a number of
pitched battles, defeated the king, and again imposed heavy tribute on
their humbled vassal. In 1256 the Corean king went in person to do
homage at the court of the conqueror of continents.
In the details of the Mongol rule kindness and cruelty were blended.
The most relentless military measures were taken to secure obedience
after the conciliatory policy failed. By using both methods the great
Khan kept his hold on the little peninsula, although the Coreans
manifested a constant disposition to revolt.
About this time began a brilliant half century of intercourse between
Europe and Cathay, which has been studied and illustrated in the
writings of Colonel H. Yule. The two Franciscan monks Carpinini and
Rubruquis visited China, and the camps of the great Khan, between the
years 1245 and 1253. By their graphic narratives, in which the wars of
Genghis were described, they made the name of Cathay (from Kitai, or
Kitan) familiar in Europe. Matteo, Nicolo, and Marco Polo, who came
later, as representatives of the commerce which afterward flourished
between Venice and Genoa, and Ningpo and Amoy, were but a few among
many merchants and travellers. Embassies from the Popes and the Khan
exchanged courtesies at Avignon and Cambaluc (Peking). Christian
churches were established in Peking and other cities by the Franciscan
monks. The various Europeans who have saved their own names and a few
others from oblivion, and have left us a romantic, but in the main a
truthful, picture of mediæval China and the Mongols, were probably only
the scribes among a host who traded or travelled, but never told their
story. Among the marvels of the empire of the Mongols, in which one
might walk safely from Corea to Russia, was religious toleration. When,
however, the Mongols of central Asia embraced the creed of Islam,
bigotry closed the highway into Europe, and communications ceased.
Cathay, Zipangu, and Corea again sunk from the eyes of Europe into the
night of historic darkness.
Khublai Khan having succeeded his grandfather, Genghis, and being now
ruler of all the Asiatic mainland, resolved, in 1266, to conquer Japan.
He wrote a letter to the mikado, but the envoys were so frightened by
the Corean’s exaggerated account of the difficulties of reaching the
empire in the sea, that they never sailed. Other embassies were
despatched in 1271 and 1273, and Khublai began to prepare a mighty
flotilla and army of invasion. One hundred of the ships were built on
Quelpart Island. His armada, consisting of 300 vessels and 15,000 men,
Chinese, Mongols, and Coreans, sailed to Japan and was met by the
Japanese off the island of Iki. Owing to their valor, but more to the
tempest that arose, the expedition was a total loss, only a few of the
original number reaching Corea alive.
Evidently desirous of conquering Japan by diplomacy, the great Khan
despatched an embassy which reached, not the mikado’s, but only the
shō-gun’s court in 1275. His ambassadors were accompanied by a large
retinue from his Corean vassals. The Japanese allowed only three of the
imposing number to go to Kamakura, twelve miles from the modern Tōkiō,
and paid no attention to the Khan’s threatening letters. So irritated
were the brave islanders that when another ambassador from the Khan
arrived, in the following year, he disembarked as a prisoner and was
escorted, bound, to Kamakura, where he was thrown into prison, kept
during four years, and taken out only to be beheaded.
Upon hearing this, Khublai began the preparation of the mightiest of
his invading hosts. To be braved by a little island nation, when his
sceptre ruled from the Dnieper to the Yellow Sea, was not to be thought
of. Various fleets and contingents sailed from different ports in China
and made rendezvous on the Corean coast. The fleet was composed of
3,500 war junks, of large size, having on board 180,000 Chinese,
Mongols, and Coreans. Among their engines of war were the catapults
which the Polos had taught them to make. They set sail in the autumn of
1281.
From the very first the enterprise miscarried. The general-in-chief
fell sick and the command devolved on a subordinate, who had no plan of
operation. The various divisions of the force became separated. It is
probable that the majority of them never reached the mainland of Japan.
The Mongol and Corean contingent reached the province of Chikuzen, but
were not allowed to make a successful landing, for the Japanese drove
them back with sword and fire. The Chinese division, arriving later,
was met by a terrible tempest that nearly annihilated them and
destroyed the ships already engaged. The broken remnant of the fleet
and armies, taking refuge on the island of Iki, were attacked by the
Japanese and nearly all slain, imprisoned, or beheaded in cold blood.
Only a few reached Corea to tell the tale.
The “Mongol civilization,” so-called, seems to have had little
influence on Corea. The mighty empire of Genghis soon broke into many
fragments. The vast fabric of his government melted like a sand house
before an incoming wave, and that wave receding left scarcely a
sediment recognizable on the polity or social life of Corea. Marco Polo
in his book hardly mentions the country, though describing Zipangu or
Japan quite fully. One evil effect of their forced assistance given to
the Mongols, was that the hatred of the Japanese and Coreans for each
other was mutually intensified. After the Mongolian invasion begins
that series of piratical raids on their coast and robbery of their
vessels at sea, by Japanese adventurers, that made navigation beyond
sight of land and ship-building among the Coreans almost a lost art.
The centuries following the Mongol invasion were periods of anarchy and
civil war in Japan, and the central government authority being weak the
pirates could not be controlled. Building or stealing ships, bands of
Japanese sailors or ex-soldiers put to sea, capturing Corean boats,
junks, and surf-rafts. Landing, they harried the shores and robbed and
murdered the defenceless people. Growing bolder, the marauders sailed
into the Yellow Sea and landed even in China and in Liao Tung. They
kept whole towns and cities in terror, and a chain of coast forts had
to be built in Shan-tung to defend that province.
The fire-signals which, in the old days of “the Three Kingdoms,” had
flashed upon the headlands to warn of danger seaward, were now made a
national service. The system was perfected so as to converge at the
capital, Sunto, and give notice of danger from any point on the coast.
By this means better protection against the sea-rovers was secured.
All this evil experience with the piratical Japanese of the middle ages
has left its impress on the language of the Coreans. From this period,
perhaps even long before it, date those words of sinister omen of which
we give but one or two examples which have the prefix wai (Japan) in
them. A wai-kol, a huge, fierce man, of gigantic aspect, with a bad
head, though perhaps with good heart, a kind of ogre, is a Japanese kol
or creature. A destructive wind or typhoon is a Japanese wind. As
western Christendom for centuries uttered their fears of the Norse
pirates, “From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord, deliver us,” so the
Korai people, along the coast, for many generations offered up constant
petition to their gods for protection against these Northmen of the
Pacific.
This chronic danger from Japanese pirates, which Korai and Chō-sen
endured for a period nearly as extended as that of England from the
Northmen, is one of the causes that have contributed to make the
natives dread the sea as a path for enemies, and in Corea we see the
strange anomaly of a people more than semi-civilized whose wretched
boats scarcely go beyond tide-water.
CHAPTER XI.
NEW CHŌ-SEN.
It will be remembered that the first Chinese settler and civilizer of
Corea, Ki Tsze, gave it the name of Chō-sen. Coming from violence and
war, to a land of peace which lay eastward of his old home, Ki Tsze
selected for his new dwelling-place a name at once expressive of its
outward position and his own inward emotions—Chō-sen, or Morning Calm.
For eleven centuries a part of Manchuria, including, as the Coreans
believe, the northern half of the peninsula, bore this name. From the
Christian era until the tenth century, the names of the three kingdoms,
Shinra, Hiaksai, and Kokorai, or Korai, express the divided political
condition of the country. On the fall of these petty states, the united
peninsula was called Korai. Korai existed from A.D. 934 until A.D.
1392, when the ancient name of Chō-sen was restored. Though the Coreans
often speak of their country as Korai (Gauli, or Gori), it is as the
English speak of Britain—with a patriotic feeling rather than for
accuracy. Chō-sen is still the official and popular designation of the
country. This name is at once the oldest and the newest.
The first bestowal of this name on the peninsula was in poetic mood,
and was the symbol of a peaceful triumph. The second gift of the name
was the index of a political revolution not unaccompanied with
bloodshed. The latter days of the dynasty founded by Wang were marked
by licentiousness and effeminacy in the palace, and misrule in the
country. The people hated the cruelties of their monarch, the
thirty-second of his line, and longed for a deliverer. Such a one was
Ni Taijo (Japanese, Ri Seiki), who was born in the region of
Broughton’s Bay, in the Ham-kiung province. It is said of him that from
his youth he surpassed all others in virtue, intelligence, and skill in
manly exercises. He was especially fond of hunting with the falcon.
One day, while in the woods, his favorite bird, in pursuing its quarry,
flew so far ahead that it was lost to the sight of its master.
Hastening after it the young man espied a shrine at the roadside into
which he saw his hawk fly. Entering, he found within a hermit priest.
Awed and abashed at the weird presence of the white-bearded sage, the
lad for a moment was speechless; but the old man, addressing him, said:
“What benefit is it for a youth of your abilities to be seeking a stray
falcon? A throne is a richer prize. Betake yourself at once to the
capital.”
Acting upon the hint thus given him, and leaving the falcon behind,
Taijo wended his way westward to Sunto, and entered the military
service of the king. He soon made his mark and rapidly rose to high
command, until he became lieutenant-general of the whole army. He
married and reared children, and through the espousal of his daughter
by the king, became father-in-law to his sovereign.
The influence of Taijo was now immense. While with his soldierly
abilities he won the enthusiastic regard of the army, his popularity
with the people rested solely on his virtues. Possessed of such
influence with the court, the soldiers, and the country at large, he
endeavored to reform the abuse of power and to curb the cruelties of
the king. Even to give advice to a despot is an act of bravery, but
Taijo dared to do it again and again. The king, however, refused to
follow the counsel of his father-in-law or to reform abuses. He thus
daily increased the odium in which he was held by his subjects.
Such was the state of affairs toward the end of the fourteenth century,
when everything was ripe for revolution.
In China, great events, destined to influence “the little kingdom,”
were taking place. The Mongol dynasty, even after the breaking up of
the empire founded by Genghis Khan, still held the dragon throne; but
during the later years of their reign, when harassed by enemies at
home, Corea was neglected and her tribute remained unpaid. A spasmodic
attempt to resubdue the lapsed vassal, and make Corea a Mongol castle
of refuge from impending doom, was ruined by the energy and valor of Ni
Taijo. The would-be invaders were driven back. The last Mongol emperor
fell in 1341, and the native Ming, or “Bright,” dynasty came into
power, and in 1368 was firmly established.
Their envoys being sent to Corea demanded pledges of vassalage. The
king neglected, finally refused, and ordered fresh levies to be made to
resist the impending invasion of the Chinese. In this time of gloom and
bitterness against their own monarch, the army contained but a
pitifully small number of men who could be depended on to fight the
overwhelming host of the Ming veterans. Taijo, in an address to his
followers, thus spoke to them:
“Although the order from the king must be obeyed, yet the attack upon
the Ming soldiers, with so small an army as ours, is like casting an
egg against a rock, and no one of the army will return alive. I do not
tell you this from any fear of death, but our king is too haughty. He
does not heed our advice. He has ordered out the army suddenly without
cause, paying no attention to the suffering which wives and children of
the soldiers must undergo. This is a thing I cannot bear. Let us go
back to the capital and the responsibility shall fall on my shoulders
alone.”
Thereupon the captains and soldiers being impressed with the purity of
their leader’s motives, and admiring his courage, resolved to obey his
orders and not the king’s. Arriving at Sunto, he promptly took measures
to depose the king, who was sent to Kang-wa, the island so famous in
modern as in ancient and mediæval history.
The king’s wrath was very great, and he intrigued to avenge himself.
His plot was made known, by one of his retainers, to Taijo, who, by a
counter-movement, put forth the last radical measure which, in Chinese
Asia means, for a private person, disinheritance; for a king,
deposition; and for a royal line, extinction. This act was the removal
of the tablets of the king’s ancestors from their shrine, and the issue
of an order forbidding further continuance of sacrifice to them. This
Corean and Chinese method of clapping the extinguisher upon a whole
dynasty was no sooner ordered than duly executed.
Ni Taijo was now made king, to the great delight of the people. He sent
an embassy to Nanking to notify the Ming emperor of affairs in the
“outpost state,” to tender his loyal vassalage, to seek the imperial
approval of his acts, and to beg his investiture as sovereign. This was
graciously granted. The ancient name of Chō-sen was revived, and at the
petitioner’s request conferred upon the country by the emperor, who
profited by this occasion to enforce upon the Coreans his calendar and
chronology—the reception of these being in itself alone tantamount to a
sufficient declaration of fealty. Friendship being now fully
established with the Mings, the king of Chō-sen sent a number of
youths, sons of his nobles, to Nanking to study in the imperial Chinese
college.
The dynasty thus established is still the reigning family in Corea,
though the direct line came to an end in 1864. The Coreans in their
treaty with Japan, in 1876, dated the document according to the 484th
year of Chō-sen, reckoning from the accession of Ni Taijo to the
throne. One of the first acts of the new dynasty was to make a change
in the location of the national capital. The new dynasty made choice of
the city of Han Yang, situated on the Han River, about fifty miles from
its mouth. The king enlarged the fortifications, enclosed the city with
a wall of masonry of great extent, extending over the adjacent hills
and valleys. On this wall was a rampart pierced with port-holes for
archers and over the streams were built arches of stone. He organized
the administrative system which, with slight modification, is still in
force at the present time. The city being well situated, soon grew in
extent, and hence became the seoul or capital (pronounced by the
Chinese king, as in Nanking and Peking, and the Japanese kio, as in
Kiōto and Tōkiō). He also re-divided the kingdom into eight dō or
provinces. This division still maintains. The names, formed each of two
Chinese characters joined to that of dō (circuit or province), and
approximate meanings are given below. [6] With such names of bright
omen, “the eight provinces” entered upon an era of peace and
flourishing prosperity. The people found out that something more than a
change of masters was meant by the removal of the capital to a more
central situation. Vigorous reforms were carried out, and changes were
made, not only in political administration, but in social life, and
even in religion. In all these the influence of the China of the Ming
emperors is most manifest.
Buddhism, which had penetrated into every part of the country, and had
become, in a measure, at least, the religion of the state, was now set
aside and disestablished. The Confucian ethics and the doctrines of the
Chinese sages were not only more diligently studied and propagated
under royal patronage, but were incorporated into the religion of the
state. From the early part of the fifteenth century, Confucianism
flourished until it reached the point of bigotry and intolerance; so
that when Christianity was discovered by the magistrates to be existing
among the people, it was put under the band of extirpation, and its
followers thought worthy of death.
Whatever may have been the motive for supplanting Buddhism, whether
from sincere conviction of the paramount truth of the ancient ethics,
or a desire to closely imitate the Middle Kingdom in everything, even
in religion, or to obtain easy and great wealth by confiscating the
monastery and temple lands, it is certain that the change was sweeping,
radical, and thorough. All observers testify that the cult of Shaka in
Corea is almost a shadow. On the other hand, in many cities throughout
the land, are buildings and halls erected and maintained by the
government, in which sit in honor the statues of Confucius and his
greatest disciples.
One great measure that tended to strengthen and make popular the new
religious establishment, to weaken the old faith, to give strength and
unity to the new government, to foster education and make the Corean
literary classes what they are to-day—critical scholars in Chinese—was
what Americans would call “civil service reform.” Appointment to office
on the basis of merit, as shown in the literary examinations, was made
the rule. Modelled closely upon the Chinese system, three grades of
examinations were appointed, and three degrees settled. All candidates
for military or civil rank and office must possess diplomas, granted by
the royal or provincial examiners, before appointment could be made or
salary begun. The system, which is still in vogue, is more fully
described in the chapter on education.
Among the changes in the fashion of social life, introduced under the
Ni dynasty, was the adoption of the Ming costume. To the Chinese of
to-day the Corean dress and coiffure, as seen in Peking, are subjects
for curiosity and merriment. The lack of a long queue, and the very
different cut, form, and general appearance of these eastern strangers,
strike the eye of mandarin and street laborer alike, very much as a
gentleman in knee-breeches, cocked hat, and peruke, or the peasant
costumes at Castle Garden, appear to a New Yorker, stepping from the
elevated railway, on Broadway.
Yet from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century, the Chinese
gentleman dressed like the Corean of to-day, and the mandarin of Canton
or Nanking was as innocent of the Tartar hair-tail as is the citizen of
Seoul. The Coreans simply adhere to the fashions prevalent during the
Ming era. The Chinese, in the matter of garb, however loath foreigners
may be to credit it, are more progressive than their Corean neighbors.
To the house of Ni belongs also the greater honor of abolishing at
least two cruel customs which had their roots in superstition.
Heretofore the same rites which were so long in vogue in Japan, traces
of which were noticed even down to the seventeenth century, held
unchallenged sway in Corea. Ko-rai-chang, though not fully known in its
details, was the habit of burying old men alive. In-chei was the
offering up of human sacrifices, presumably to the gods of the
mountains and the sea. Both of these classes of rites, at once
superstitious and horrible, were anciently very frequent; nor was
Buddhism able to utterly abolish them. In the latter case, they choked
the victims to death, and then threw them into the sea. The island of
Chansan was especially noted as the place of propitiation to the gods
of the sea.
The first successors of the founder of the house of Ni held great
power, which they used for the good of the people, and hence enjoyed
great popularity. The first after Taijo reigned two years, from 1398 to
1400. Hetai-jong, who came after him, ruled eighteen years, and among
other benefits conferred, established the Sin-mun-ko, or box for the
reception of petitions addressed directly to the king. Into this
coffer, complaints and prayers from the people could lawfully and
easily be dropped. Though still kept before the gate of the royal
palace in Seoul, it is stated that access to it is now difficult. It
seems to exist more in name than in fact. Among the first diplomatic
acts of King Hetai-jong was to unite with the Chinese emperor, in a
complaint to the mikado of Japan, against the buccaneers, whom the
authorities of the latter country were unable to control. Hence the
remonstrance was only partially successful, and the evil, which was
aggravated by Corean renegades acting as pilots, grew beyond all
bounds. These rascals made a lucrative living by betraying their own
countrymen.
Siei-jong, who succeeded to the throne on the death of his father,
Hetai-jong, enjoyed a long reign of thirty-two years, during which the
fortifications of the capital were added to and strengthened. The
Manchius beyond the Ever-white Mountains were then beginning to rise in
power, and Liao Tung was disturbed by the raids of tribes from
Mongolia, which the Ming generals were unable to suppress. When the
fighting took place within fifty miles of her own boundary river,
Chō-sen became alarmed, and looked to the defence of her own frontier
and capital. In 1450, on the death of the king, who “in time of peace
prepared for war,” Mun-jong, his son, succeeded to royal power. As
usual on the accession of a new sovereign, a Chinese ambassador was
despatched from Peking, which had been the Ming capital since 1614, to
Seoul, to confer the imperial patent of investiture. This dignitary, on
his return, wrote a book recounting his travels, under the title of
“Memorandum concerning the Affairs of Chō-sen.” According to this
writer, the military frontier of Corea at that time was at the Eastern
Mountain Barrier, a few miles northwest of the present Border Gate.
Palladius, the Russian writer, also states that, during the Ming
dynasty, three grades of fortresses were erected on the territory
between the Great Wall and the Yalu River, “to guard against the
attacks of the Coreans.”
It is more in accordance with the facts to suppose that the Chinese
erected these fortifications to guard against invasion from the
Manchius and other northern tribes that were ravaging Liao Tung, rather
than against the Coreans. These defences did not avail to keep back the
invasion which came a generation or two later, and “the Corean
frontier,” which the Chinese traveller, in 1450, found much further
west than even the present “wall of stakes,” shows that the neutral
territory was then already established, and larger than it now is. Of
this strip of rich forest and ginseng land, with many well-watered and
arable valleys, once cultivated and populous, but since the fifteenth
century desolate, we shall hear again. In Chinese atlases the space is
blank, with not one village marked where, until the removal by the
Chinese government of the inhabitants westward, there was a population
of 300,000 souls. The depopulation of this large area of fertile soil
was simply a Chinese measure of military necessity, which compelled her
friendly ally Chō-sen, for her own safety, to post sentinels as far
west of her boundary river as the Eastern Mountain Barrier, described
by the imperial envoy in 1450.
The century which saw America discovered in the west, was that of
Japan’s greatest activity on the sea. On every coast within their
reach, from Tartary to Tonquin, and from Luzon to Siam, these bold
marauders were known and feared. The Chinese learned to bitterly regret
the day when the magnetic needle, invented by themselves, got into the
hands of these daring islanders. The wounded eagle that felt the shaft,
which had been feathered from his own plumes, was not more to be pitied
than the Chinese people that saw the Japanese craft steering across the
Yellow Sea to ravage and ruin their cities, guided by the compass
bought in China. They not only harried the coasts, but went far up the
rivers. In 1523, they landed even at Ningpo, and in the fight the chief
mandarin of the city was killed.
Yet, with the exception of incursions of these pirates, Chō-sen enjoyed
the sweets of peace, and two centuries slipped away in Morning Calm.
The foreign vessels from Europe which first, in 1530, touched at the
province of Bungo, in Southern Japan, may possibly have visited some
part of the Corean shores. Between 1540 and 1546 four arrivals of
“black ships” from Portugal, are known to have called at points in
Japan. It was from these the Japanese learned how to make the gunpowder
and firearms which, before the close of the century, were to be used
with such deadly effect in Corea.
Now came back to Europe accounts of China and Japan—which were found to
be the old Kathay, and Zipangu of Polo and the Franciscans—and of
“Coria,” which Polo had barely mentioned. It was from the Portuguese,
that Europe first learned of this middle land between the mighty domain
of the Mings, and the empire in the sea. Stirred by the spirit of
adventure and enterprise, and unwilling that the Iberian peninsulars
should gain all the glory, an English “Society for the Discovery of
Unknown Lands” was formed in 1555. A voyage was made as far as Novaia
Zemlia and Weigatz, but neither Corea nor Cathay was reached. Other
attempts to find a northeast passage to India failed, and Asia remained
uncircumnavigated until our own and Nordenskjöld’s day. The other
attempts to discover a northwest passage to China around the imaginary
cape, in which North America was supposed to terminate, and through the
equally fictitious straits of Anian, resulted in the discoveries of the
Cabots, and of Hudson and Frobisher—of the American continent from the
Hudson River to Greenland, but the way to China lay still around
Africa.
From Japan, the only possibility of danger during these two centuries
was likely to come. In the north, west, and south, on the main land,
hung the banners of the Ming emperors of China, and, as the tribute
enforced was very light, the protection of her great neighbor was worth
to Chō-sen far more than the presents she gave. From China there was
nothing to fear.
At first the new dynasty sent ships, embassies, and presents regularly
to Japan, which were duly received, yet not at the mikado’s palace in
Kiōto, but at the shō-gun’s court at Kamakura, twelve miles from the
site of the modern Japanese capital, Tōkiō. But as the Ashikaga family
became effeminate in life, their power waned, and rival chiefs started
up all over the country. Clan fights and chronic intestine war became
the rule in Japan. Only small areas of territory were governed from
Kamakura, while the mikado became the tool and prey of rival daimiōs.
One of these petty rulers held Tsushima, and traded at a settlement on
the Corean coast called Fusan, by means of which some intercourse was
kept up between the two countries. The Japanese government had always
made use of Tsushima in its communications with the Coreans, and the
agency at Fusan was composed almost exclusively of retainers of the
feudal lord of this island. The journey by land and sea from Seoul to
Kamakura, often consumed two or three months, and with civil wars
inland and piracy on the water, intercourse between the two countries
became less and less. The last embassy from Seoul was sent in 1460, but
after that, owing to continued intestine war, the absence of the
Coreans was not noticed by the Ashikagas, and as the Tsushima men
purposely kept their customers ignorant of the weakness of their rulers
at Kamakura and Kiōto, lest the ancient vassals should cease to fear
their old master, the Coreans remained in profound ignorance of the
real state of affairs in Japan. As they were never summoned, so they
never came. Giving themselves no further anxiety concerning the matter,
they rejoiced that such disagreeable duties were no longer incumbent
upon them. It is even said in Corean histories that their government
took the offensive, and under the reign of the king Chung-jong
(1506–1544) captured Tsushima and several other Japanese islands,
formerly tributary to Corea. Whatever fraction of truth there may be in
this assertion, it is certain that Japan afterward took ample revenge
on the score both of neglect and of reprisal.
So, under the idea that peace was to last forever, and the morning calm
never to know an evening storm, the nation relaxed all vigilance.
Expecting no danger from the east, the military resources were
neglected, the army was disorganized, and the castles were allowed to
dilapidate into ruin. The moats filled and became shallow ditches,
choked with vegetation, the walls and ramparts crumbled piecemeal, and
the barracks stood roofless. As peace wore sweeter charms, and as war
seemed less and less probable, so did all soldierly duties become more
and more irksome. The militia system was changed for the worse. The
enrolled men, instead of being called out for muster at assigned camps,
and trained to field duty and the actual evolutions of war, were
allowed to assemble at local meetings to perform only holiday
movements. The muster rolls were full of thousands of names, but off
paper the army of Corea was a phantom. The people, dismissing all
thought of possibility of war, gave themselves no concern, leaving the
matter to the army officials, who drew pay as though in actual war.
They, in turn, devoted themselves to dissipation, carousing, and
sensual indulgence. It was while the country was in such a condition
that the summons of Japan’s greatest conqueror came to them and the
Coreans learned, for the first time, of the fall of Ashikaga, and the
temper of their new master.
CHAPTER XII.
EVENTS LEADING TO THE JAPANESE INVASION.
China and Japan are to each other as England and the United States. The
staid Chinaman looks at the lively Japanese with feelings similar to
those of John Bull to his American “cousin.” Though as radically
different in blood, language, and temperament as are the Germans and
French, they are enough alike to find food for mutual jealousy. They
discover ground for irritation in causes, which, between nations more
distant from each other, would stir up no feeling whatever. China
considers Japan a young, vain, and boasting stripling, whose attitude
ought ever to be that of the pupil to the teacher, or the child to the
father. Japan, on the contrary, considering China as an old fogy, far
behind the age, decayed in constitution and fortune alike, and more
than ready for the grave, resents all dictation or assumption of
superiority. Even before their adoption of the forces of occidental
civilization in this nineteenth century, something of this haughty
contempt for China influenced the Japanese mind. Japan ever refused to
become vassal or tributary to China, and the memory of one of her
military usurpers, who accepted the honorary title of Nihon-O, or King
of Japan, from the Chinese Emperor, is to this day loaded with
increasing execration. It has ever been the practice of the Japanese
court and people cheerfully to heap upon their mikado all the honors,
titles, poetical and divine appellations which belong also to the
Chinese emperor.
To conquer or humble their mighty neighbor, to cross their slender
swords of divine temper with the clumsy blades of the continental
braves, has been the ambition of more than one Japanese captain. But
Hidéyoshi alone is the one hero in Japanese annals who actually made
the attempt.
As the Mongol conquerors issuing from China had used Corea as their
point of departure to invade Japan, so Hidéyoshi resolved to make the
peninsula the road for his armies into China. After two centuries of
anarchy in Japan, he followed up the work which Nobunaga had begun
until the proudest daimiō had felt the weight of his arm, and the
empire was at peace.
Yet, although receiving homage and congratulations from his feudal
vassals, once proud princes, Hidéyoshi was irritated that Chō-sen,
which he, with all Japanese, held to be a tributary province, failed to
send like greetings. Since, to the Ashikagas, she had despatched
tribute and embassies, he was incensed that similar honors were not
awarded to him, though, for over a century, all official relations
between the two countries had ceased.
On the 31st day of July, 1585, Hidéyoshi was made Kuambaku, or Regent,
and to celebrate his elevation to this, the highest office to which a
subject of the mikado’s could aspire, he shortly afterward gave a great
feast in Kiōto, and proclaimed holiday throughout the empire. This
feast was graced by the presence of his highest feudatories, lords, and
captains, court nobles and palace ladies in their richest robes. Among
others was one Yasuhiro, a retainer of the lord of Tsushima.
Hidéyoshi’s memory had been refreshed by his having had read to him,
from the ancient chronicles, the account of Jingu Kōgō’s conquests in
the second century. He announced to his captains that, though Chō-sen
was from ancient times tributary to Japan, yet of late years her envoys
had failed to make visits or to send tribute. He then appointed
Yasuhiro to proceed to Seoul, and remind the king and court of their
duty.
The Japanese envoy was a bluff old campaigner, very tall, and of
commanding mien. His hair and beard had long since turned white under
years and the hardships of war. His conduct was that of a man
accustomed to command and to instant obedience, and to expect victory
more by brute courage than by address. On his journey to Seoul he
demanded the best rooms in the hotels, and annoyed even the people of
rank and importance with haughty and strange questions. He even laughed
at and made sarcastic remarks about the soldiers and their weapons.
This conduct, so different from that of previous envoys, greatly
surprised the Corean officials. Heretofore, when a Japanese officer
came to Fusan, native troops escorted him from Fusan to Seoul,
overawing him by their fierceness and insolence. Yasuhiro, accustomed
to constant war under Hidéyoshi’s gourd-banner, rode calmly on his
horse, and, amid the lines of lances drawn up as a guard of honor,
spoke to his followers in a loud voice, telling them to watch the
escort and note any incivility. In a certain village he joked with a
Corean soldier about his spear, saying, with a pun, that it was too
short and unfit for use. At this, all the Japanese laughed out loud.
The Coreans could not understand the language, but hearing the laugh
were angry and surprised at such boldness. At another town he insulted
an aged official who was entertaining him, by remarking to his own men
that his hair and that of the Japanese grew gray by years, or by war
and manly hardships; “but what,” cried he, “has turned this man’s hair
gray who has lived all his life amid music and dancing?” This sarcastic
fling, at premature and sensual old age, stung the official so that he
became speechless with rage. At the capital, credentials were presented
and a feast given, at which female musicians sang and wine flowed.
During the banquet, when all were well drunk, the old hero pulled out a
gourd full of pepper seeds and began to hand them around. The
singing-girls and servants grabbed them, and a disgraceful scuffle
began. This was what Yasuhiro wanted. Highly disgusted at their greedy
behavior, he returned to his quarters and poured out a tirade of abuse
about the manners of the people, which his Corean interpreter duly
retailed to his superiors. Yasuhiro made up his mind that the country
was in no way prepared for invasion; the martial spirit of the people
was very low, and the habits of dissipation and profligacy among them
had sapped the vigor of the men.
To the offensive conduct of the envoy was added the irritation produced
by the language of Hidéyoshi’s summons; for in his letter he had used
the imperial form of address, “we,” the plural of majesty. Yasuhiro
asked for a reply to these letters, that he might return speedily to
Japan. There was none given him, and the Coreans, pleading the flimsy
excuse of the difficulty of the voyage, refused to send an embassy to
Japan.
Hidéyoshi was very angry at the utter failure of Yasuhiro’s mission. He
argued that for an envoy to be content with such an answer was sure
proof that he favored the Coreans. Some of Yasuhiro’s ancestors, being
daimiōs of Tsushima, had served as envoys to Chō-sen, and had enjoyed a
monopoly of the lucrative commerce, and even held office under the
Corean government. Reflecting on these things, Hidéyoshi commanded
Yasuhiro and all his family to be put to death.
He then despatched a second envoy, named Yoshitoshi, himself the daimiō
of Tsu Island, who took with him a favorite retainer, and a priest,
named Genshō, as his secretary. They reached Seoul in safety, and,
after the formal banquet, demanded the despatch of an envoy to Japan.
The Corean dignitaries did not reply at once, but unofficially sent
word, through the landlord of the hotel, that they would be glad to
agree to the demand if the Japanese would send back the renegades who
piloted the Japanese pirates in their raids upon the Corean coasts.
Thereupon, Yoshitoshi despatched one of his suite to Japan. With
amazing promptness he collected the outlaws, fourteen in number, and
produced them in Seoul. These traitors, after confessing their crime,
were led out by the executioners and their heads knocked off.
Meanwhile, having tranquillized “all under Heaven” (Japan), even to
Yezo and the Ainos, and finding nothing “within the four seas” worth
capturing, Hidéyoshi cast his eyes southward to the little kingdom well
named Riu Kiu, or the Sleepy Dragon without horns. The people of these
islands, called Loo Choo, on old maps, are true Japanese in origin,
language, and dynasty. They speak a dialect kindred to that of Satsuma,
and their first historical ruler was Sunten, a descendant of Tamétomo,
who fled from Japan in the twelfth century. Of the population of
120,000 people, one-tenth were of the official class, who lived from
the public granaries. Saving all expense in war equipment, and warding
off danger from the two great powers between which they lay, they had
kept the good will of either by making their country act the part of
the ass which crouches down between two burdens. They made presents to
both, acknowledging Japan as their father, and China as their mother.
From early times they had sent tribute-laden junks to Ningpo, and had
introduced the Chinese classics, and social and political customs. When
the Ming dynasty came into power, the Chinese monarch bestowed on the
Prince of Riu Kiu a silver seal, and a name for his country, which
meant “hanging balls,” a reference to the fact that their island chain
hung like a string of tassels on the skirt of China. Another of their
ancient native names was Okinawa, or “long rope,” which stretches as a
cable between Japan and Formosa. Sugar and rice are the chief products.
Hidéyoshi, wishing to possess this group of isles as an ally against
China, and acting on the principle of baiting with a sprat in order to
catch a mackerel, sent word to Riu Kiu to pay tribute hereafter only to
him.
The young king, fearing the wrath of the mighty lord of Nippon, sent a
priest as his envoy, and a vessel laden with tribute offerings.
Arriving in the presence of the august parvenu, the priest found
himself most graciously received. Hidéyoshi entered into a personal
conversation with the bonze, and set forth the benefits of Riu Kiu’s
adherence to Japan alone, and her ceasing to send tribute to China. At
the same time he gave the priest clearly to understand that, willing or
unwilling, the little kingdom was to be annexed to the mikado’s empire.
When the priest returned to Riu Kiu and gave the information to the
king, the latter immediately despatched a vessel to China to inform the
government of the designs of Japan.
Meanwhile, the court at Seoul, highly gratified with the action of the
Japanese government in the matter of the renegade pilots, gave a
banquet to the embassy. Yoshitoshi had audience of the king, who
presented him with a horse from his own stables. An embassy was chosen
which left Seoul, in company with Yoshitoshi and his party, and their
musicians and servants, in April, 1590, and, after a journey and voyage
of three months, arrived at Kiōto during the summer of 1590. At this
time Hidéyoshi was absent in Eastern Japan, not far from the modern
city of Tōkiō, besieging Odawara Castle and reducing “the second Hōjō”
family to submission. Arriving at Kiōto in the autumn, he postponed
audience with the Coreans in order to gain time for war preparations,
for his heart was set on conquests beyond sea.
Finally, after five months had passed, they were accorded an interview.
They were allowed to ride in palanquins under the gateway of the palace
without dismounting—a mark of deference to their high rank—all except
nobles of highest grade being compelled to get out and walk. As usual,
their band of musicians accompanied them.
They report Hidéyoshi as a man of low appearance, but with eyes that
shot fire through their souls. All bowed before him, but his conduct in
general was of a very undignified character. This did not raise him in
the estimation of his guests, who had already discovered his true
position, which was that of a subject of the mikado, whose use of the
imperial “we” in his letters was, in their eyes, a preposterous
assumption of authority. They delivered the king’s letter, which was
addressed to Hidéyoshi on terms of an equal as a Koku O (king of a
nation, in distinction from the title of Whang Ti, by which title the
Heavenly Ruler, or Emperor—the Mikado of Japan, or the Emperor of
China—is addressed). The letter contained the usual commonplaces of
friendly greeting, the names of the envoys, and a reference to the list
of accompanying presents.
The presents—spoken of in the usual terms of Oriental mock
modesty—consisted of two ponies and fifteen falcons, with harness for
bird and beast, rolls of silk, precious drugs, ink, paper, pens, and
twenty magnificent tiger-skins. The interview over, Hidéyoshi wished
the envoys to go home at once. This they declined to do, but, leaving
Kiōto, waited at the port of Sakai. A letter to the king finally
reached them, but couched in so insolent a tone that the ambassadors
sent it back several times to be purged. Even in its improved form it
was the blustering threat of a Japanese bully. All this consumed time,
which was just what Hidéyoshi wished.
Some years before this, some Portuguese trading ships had landed at the
island of Tané, off the south of Japan. The Japanese, for the first
time, saw Europeans and heard their unintelligible language. At first
all attempts to understand them were in vain. A Chinese ship happened
to arrive about the same time, on which were some sailors who knew a
little Portuguese, and thus communications were held. The foreigners,
being handsomely treated, gave their hosts some firearms, probably
pistols, taught their use, and how to make powder. These “queer things,
able to vomit thunder and lightning, and emitting an awful smell,” were
presented to Shimadzŭ, the daimiō of Satsuma, who gave them to
Hidéyoshi. Among the presents, made in return to Chō-sen, were several
of these new weapons made by Japanese. They were most probably sent as
a hint, like that of the Pequot’s offering of the arrows wrapped in
snake-skin. With them were pheasants, stands of swords and spears,
books, rolls of paper, and four hundred gold koban (a coin worth about
$5.00).
With the returning embassy, Hidéyoshi sent the priest and a former
colleague of Yoshitoshi to Seoul. They were instructed to ask the king
to assist Hidéyoshi to renew peaceful relations between Japan and
China. These, owing to the long continued piratical invasions from
Japan, during the anarchy of the Ashikaga, had been suspended for some
years past.
The peaceful influences of Christianity’s teachings now came between
these two pagan nations, in the mind and person of Yoshitoshi, who had
professed the faith of Jesus as taught by the Roman Catholic
missionaries from Portugal, then in Japan. Be this as it may,
Yoshitoshi, who had been in Seoul, and lived in Tsushima, being well
acquainted with the military resources of the three countries, knew
that war would result in ruin to Chō-sen, while, in measuring their
swords with China, the Japanese were at fearful odds. Animated by a
desire to prevent bloodshed, he resolved to mediate with the olive
branch. He started on an independent mission, at his own cost, to
persuade the Coreans to use their good offices at mediation between
Japan and China, and thus prevent war. Arriving at Fusan, in 1591, he
forwarded his petition to Seoul, and waited in port ten days in hopes
of the answer he desired. But all was in vain. He received only a
letter containing a defiant reply to his master’s bullying letter. In
sadness he returned to Kiōto, and reported his ill-success. Surprised
and enraged at the indifference of the Coreans, Hidéyoshi pushed on his
war preparations with new vigor. He resolved to test to its utmost the
military strength of Japan, in order to humble China as well as her
vassal. Accustomed to victory under the gourd-banner in almost every
battle during the long series of intestine wars now ended, an army of
seasoned veterans heard joyfully the order to prepare for a campaign
beyond sea.
Hidéyoshi, during this year, nominally resigned the office of Kuambaku,
in favor of his son, and, according to usage, took the title of Taikō,
by which name (Taikō Sama) he is popularly known, and by which we shall
refer to him. Among the Coreans, even of to-day, he is remembered by
the title which still inspires their admiration and terror—Kuambaku.
Chinese writers give a grotesque account of Hidéyoshi, one of whose
many names they read as Ping-syew-kye. They call him “the man under a
tree,” in reference to his early nickname of Kinomoto. He is also
dubbed “King of Taikō.” The Jesuit missionaries speak of him in their
letters as Quabacundono (His Lordship the Kuambaku), or by one of his
personal names, Faxiba (Hashiba).
The Coreans were now in a strait. Though under the protectorate of
China, they had been negotiating with a foreign power. How would China
like this? Should they keep the entire matter secret, or should they
inform their suzerain of the intended invasion of China? They finally
resolved upon the latter course, and despatched a courier to Peking.
About the same time the messenger from Riu Kiu had landed, and was on
his way with the same tidings. The Riukiuan reached Peking first, and
the Corean arrived only to confirm the news. Yet, in spite of such
overwhelming evidence of the designs of Japan, the colossal “tortoise”
could, at first, scarce believe “the bee” would attempt to sting.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE INVASION—ON TO SEOUL.
For the pictures of camps, fleets, the details of armory and
commissariat, and all the pomp and circumstance that make up the bright
side of Japanese war preparations in 1591 and 1592, we are indebted,
not only to the Japanese writers, but to those eye witnesses and
excellent “war correspondents,” the Portuguese missionaries then in
Kiushiu, and especially to Friar Louis Frois. He tells us of the
amplitude, vigor, and brilliancy of Taikō’s measures for invasion, and
adds that the expenses therefor greatly burdened the “ethniques” or
daimiōs who had to pay the cost. Those feudatories, whose domain
bordered the sea, had to furnish a mighty fleet of junks, while to man
them, the quota of every hundred houses of the fishing population was
ten sailors.
The land and naval forces assembled at Nagoya, in Hizen, now called
Karatsu, and famous for being the chief place for the manufacture of
Hizen porcelain. Here a superb castle was built, while huge inns or
resting-places were erected all along the road from Kiōto. The armies
gathered here during the war numbered 500,000 men; of whom 150,000
formed the army of invasion, 60,000 the first reserve, while 100,000
were set apart as Taikō’s body-guard; the remainder were sailors,
servants, camp followers, etc.
Beside the old veterans were new levies of young soldiers, and a corps
of matchlock men, who afterward did good execution among the Coreans.
The possession of this new and terrible weapon gave the invaders a
mighty advantage over their enemies. Though firearms had been known and
manufactured in Japan for a half century, this was the first time they
were used against foreign enemies, or on a large scale. Taikō also
endeavored to hire or buy from the Portuguese two ships of war, so as
to use their artillery; but in this he failed, and the troops were
despatched in native-built vessels. These made a gallant display as
they crowded together by hundreds. At the signal, given by the firing
of cannon, the immense fleet hoisted sail and, under a fresh breeze,
bore away to the west.
Their swelling sails, made of long sections of canvass laced together,
vertically, at their edges, from stem to boom (thus differing from the
Chinese, which are laced horizontally), were inscribed with immense
crests and the heraldic devices of feudalism, many feet in diameter.
Near the top were cross-wise bands or stripes of black. The junks of
Satsuma could be distinguished by the white cross in a circle; those of
Higo by the broad-banded ring. On one were two crossed arrow-feathers,
on others the chess-board, the “cash” coin and palm-leaves, the
butterfly, the cloisonné symbol, the sun, the fan, etc. Innumerable
banners, gay with armorial designs or inscribed with Buddhist texts,
hung on their staves or fluttered gaily as flags and streamers from the
mastheads. Stuck into the back of many of the distinguished veterans,
or officers, were the sashi-mono, or bannerets. Kato Kiyomasa, being a
strict Buddhist, had for the distinctive blazon of his back-pennant,
and on the banners of his division, the prayer and legend of his sect,
the Nichirenites, “Namu miyo ho rengé kiō” (Glory to the Holy Lotus, or
Glory to the salvation-bringing book of the Holy Law of Buddha). On the
forward deck were ranged heavy shields of timber for the protection of
the archers. These, at close quarters, were to be let down and used as
boarding planks, when the sword, pike, and grappling-hook came into
play. Huge tassels, dangling from the prows like the manes of horses,
tossed up and down as the ships rode over the waves. Each junk had a
huge eye painted at the prow, to look out and find the path in the sea.
With the squadron followed hundreds of junks, laden with salt meat,
rice-wine, dried fish, and rice and beans, which formed the staple of
the invaders’ commissariat for man and horse. Transport junks, with
cargoes of flints, arrows, ball, powder, wax candles, ship and camp
stores, “not forgetting a single thing,” sailed soon after, as well as
the craft containing horses for the cavalry.
Taikō did not go to Corea himself, being dissuaded by his aged mother.
The court also wished no weaker hand than his to hold the reins of
government while the army was on foreign shores. The men to whom he
entrusted the leadership of the expedition, were Konishi Yukinaga and
Kato Kiyomasa. To the former, he presented a fine war horse, telling
him to “gallop over the bearded savages” with it, while to the latter
he gave a battle-flag. Konishi was an impetuous young man, only
twenty-three years of age. He was a favorite of Taikō, and sprung like
the latter from the common people, being the son of a medicine dealer.
His crest or banner was a huge, stuffed, white paper bag, such as
druggists in Japan use as a shop sign. In this he followed the example
of his august chief, who, despising the brocade banners of the imperial
generals, stuck a gourd on a pole for his colors. For every victory he
added another gourd, until his immense cluster contained as many proofs
of victory as there are bamboo sticks in an umbrella. The
“gourd-banner” became the emblem of infallible victory. Konishi also
imitated his master in his tactics—impetuous attack and close following
up of victory.
Konishi was a Christian, an ardent convert to the faith of the Jesuit
fathers, by whom he had been baptized in 1584. In their writings, they
call him “Don Austin”—a contraction of Augustine. Other Christian lords
or daimiōs, who personally led their troops in the field with Konishi,
were Arima, Omura, Amakusa, Bungo, and Tsushima. The personal name of
the latter, a former envoy to Corea, of whom we have read before, was
Yoshitoshi. He was the son-in-law of Konishi. Kuroda, as Mr. Ernest
Satow has shown, is the “Kondera” of the Jesuit writers.
Kato Kiyomasa was a noble, whose castle seat was at Kumamoto in Higo.
From his youth he had been trained to war, and had a reputation for
fierce bravery. It is said that Kato suggested to Taikō the plan of
invading Corea. His crest was a broad-banded circle, and his favorite
weapon was a long lance with but one cross-blade instead of two. Kato
is the “Toronosqui” of the Jesuit fathers, who never weary of loading
his memory with obloquy. This “vir ter execrandus” was a fierce
Buddhist and a bitter foe to Christianity. A large number of fresh
autographic writings had been made by the bonzes in the monasteries
expressly for Kato’s division. The silk pennon, said to have been
inscribed by Nichiren himself and worn by Kato during the invasion, is
now in Tōkiō, owned by Katsu Awa, and is six centuries old.
With such elements at work between the two commanders, bitterness of
religious rivalry, personal emulation, the desire to earn glory each
for himself alone, the contempt of an old veteran for a young aspirant,
harmony and unity of plan were not to be looked for. Nevertheless, the
personal qualities of each general were such as to inspire his own
troops with the highest enthusiasm, and the army sailed away fully
confident of victory.
What were the objects of Taikō in making this war? Evidently his
original thought was to invade and humble China. Then followed the
determination to conquer Chō-sen. Ambition may have led him to rival
Ojin Tennō, who, in his mother’s womb, made the conquest of Shinra,
and, as the deified Hachiman, became the Japanese god of war. Lastly,
the Jesuit fathers saw in this expedition a plot to kill off the
Christian leaders in a foreign land, and thus extirpate Christianity in
Japan. To ship the Christians off to a foreign soil to die of wounds or
disease, was easier than to massacre them. They make Taikō a David, and
his best generals Uriahs—though Coligny, slain twenty years before,
might have served for a more modern illustration.
Certain it is that it was during the absence of the Christian leaders
that the severest persecutions at home took place. It is probable,
also, that his jealousy of the success and consequent popularity of the
Christian generals created irresolution in Taikō’s mind, leading him to
neglect the proper support of the expedition and thus to bring about a
gigantic failure.
Finally, we must mention the theory of a Japanese friend, Mr. Egi
Takato, who held that Taikō, having whole armies of unemployed
warriors, all jealous of each other, was compelled, in order to ensure
peace in Japan, to find employment for their swords. His idea was to
send them on this distant “frontier service,” and give them such a
taste of home-sickness that peaceful life in Japan would be a
desideratum ever afterward.
The Coreans, by their own acknowledgment, were poorly prepared for a
war with the finest soldiers in Asia, as the Japanese of the sixteenth
century certainly were. Nor had they any leader of ability to direct
their efforts. Their king, Sien-jo, the fifteenth of the house of Ni,
who had already reigned twenty-six years, was a man of no personal
importance, addicted entirely to his own pleasures, a drunkard, and a
debauchee. Though the royal proclamation was speedily issued, calling
on the people to fortify their cities, to rebuild the dilapidated
castles, and to dig out the moats, long since choked by mud and
vegetation, the people responded so slowly, that few of the fortresses
were found in order when their enemies laid siege to them. Weapons were
plentiful, but there were no firearms, save those presented as
curiosities by the Taikō to the king. There was little or no military
organization, except on paper, while the naval defences were in a sad
plight. However, they began to enroll and drill, to lay up stores of
fish and grain for the army, to build ships, to repair their walls, and
even to manufacture rude firearms.
Yet even the most despondent of the Coreans never dreamed that the
Japanese, on their first arrival, would sweep everything before them
like a whirlwind, and enter the capital within eighteen days after
their landing at Fusan. One of the first castles garrisoned and
provisioned was that of Tong-nai, near Fusan. On the morning of May 25,
1592, the sentinels on the coast descried the Japanese fleet of eight
hundred ships, containing the division of Konishi. Before night the
invaders had disembarked, captured Fusan, and laid siege to Tong-nai
Castle, which at once surrendered. So sudden was the attack that the
governor of the district, then in the city, was unable to escape.
Konishi, writing a letter to the king, gave it into the hands of the
governor, and made him swear to deliver it safely, promising him
unconditional liberty if he did so. The governor agreed, and at once
set out for Seoul; but on reaching it he simply said he had escaped,
and made no mention of the letter. His perjury was not to remain
undetected, as later events proved. Without an hour’s delay Konishi’s
division, leaving Tong-nai, marched up the Nak-tong valley to
Shang-chiu.
Kato’s division, delayed by a storm, arrived next day. Landing
immediately, he saw with chagrin the pennons of his rival flying from
the ramparts of Tong-nai. Angry at being left behind by “the boy,” he
took the more northerly of the two routes to the capital. The two rival
armies were now straining every nerve on a race to Seoul, each eager to
destroy all enemies on the march, and reach the royal palace first.
Kuroda and other generals led expeditions into the southern provinces
of Chulla and Chung-chong. These provinces being subdued, and the
castles garrisoned, they were to make their way to the capital.
The Coreans proved themselves especially good bowmen, but inexpert at
other weapons, their swords being of iron only, short, clumsy, and
easily bent. Their spears, or rather pikes, were shorter than the
Japanese, with heavy blades, from the base of which hung tassels. The
iron heads were hollow at the base, forming a socket, in which the
staff fitted. The Japanese spearheads, on the contrary, were riveted
down and into the wood, which was iron-banded for further security,
making a weapon less likely to get out of order, while the blades were
steel-edged. The Corean cavalry had heavy, three-pronged spears, which
were extremely formidable to look at, but being so heavy as to be
unwieldly at close quarters, they did little execution. Many of their
suits of armor were handsomely inlaid, made of iron and leather, but
less flexible and more vulnerable than those of the Japanese, which
were of interlaced silk and steel on a background of tough buckskin,
with sleeves of chain mail. The foot soldiers on either side were
incased in a combination of iron chain and plate armor, but the Coreans
had no glaves, or cross-blades on their pikes, and thus were nearly
helpless against their enemy’s cavalry. The Japanese were
smooth-shaven, and wore stout helmets, with ear-guards and visors, but
the Coreans, with open helmets, without visors, and whiskered faces,
were dubbed “hairy barbarians.” They were beginning to learn the use of
powder, which, however, was so badly mixed as to be exasperatingly slow
in burning. Their very few firearms were of the rudest and most
cumbrous sort. They used on their ramparts a kind of wooden cannon,
made of bamboo-hooped timber, from which they shot heavy wooden darts,
three feet long, pointed with sharp-bladed, Y-shaped iron heads. The
range of these clumsy missiles was very short. The Japanese, on the
contrary, had at several sieges pieces of light brass ordnance, with
which they quickly cleared the walls of the castles, and then scaled
them with long and light ladders, made of bamboo, and easily borne by
men on a run. The Japanese were not only better equipped, but their
tactics were superior. Their firearms frightened the Corean horses, and
the long spears and halberds of their cavalry were used with fearful
effect while pursuing the fugitives, who were pierced or pulled off
their steeds, or sabred in droves. Few bodies of native troops faced
the invaders in the field, while fire-arrows, gunpowder, and ladders
quickly reduced the castles. Not a few of the Corean officers were
killed inside their fortresses by the long range fire of the
sharp-shooters in the matchlock corps.
The greater share of glory fell to Konishi, the younger man. Taking the
southern route, he reached the castle of Shang-chiu, in the
northwestern part of Kiung-sang, and captured it. Leaving a garrison,
he pushed on to Chiun-chiu. This fortress of Chiun-chiu is situated in
the northeastern part of Chung-chong province, and on the most
northerly of the two roads, over which Kato was then marching. It was
at that time considered to be the strongest castle in the peninsula. On
it rested the fate of the capital. It lay near one of the branches of
the Han River, which flows past Seoul. At this point the two high roads
to the capital, on which the two rivals were moving, converged so as to
nearly touch. Chiun-chiu castle lay properly on Kato’s route, but
Konishi, being in the advance, invested it with his forces and, after a
few days’ siege, captured the great stronghold. The loss of the Coreans
thus far in the three fortresses seized by Konishi, as reported by
Friar Frois, was 5,000 men, 3,000 of whom fell at Chiun-chiu; while the
Japanese had lost but 100 killed and 400 wounded. After such a victory,
“Konishi determined to conquer all Corea by himself.”
Kato and his army, arriving a few days after the victory, again saw
themselves outstripped. Konishi’s pennons floated from every tower, and
the booty was already disposed of. The goal of both armies was now “the
Miaco of the kingly city of Coray.” Straining every nerve, Kato pressed
forward so rapidly that the two divisions of the Japanese army entered
Seoul by different gates on the same day. No resistance was offered, as
the king, court, and army had evacuated the city three days before. The
brilliant pageant of the Japanese army, in magnificent array of gay
silk and glittering armor, was lost on the empty streets of deserted
Seoul.
When Taikō heard of the success of his lieutenants in Corea, especially
of Konishi’s exploits, he was filled with joy, and cried out, “Now my
own son seems risen from the dead.”
CHAPTER XIV.
THE CAMPAIGN IN THE NORTH.
The court at Seoul had been too much paralyzed by the sudden invasion
to think of or carry out any effective means of resistance. Konishi had
sent letters from Fusan and Shang-chiu, but these, through official
faithlessness and the accidents of war, had failed in their purpose.
Konishi was too fast for them. When the news reached Seoul, of the fall
of Chiun-chiu castle, the whole populace, from palace to hut, was
seized with a panic which, in a few hours, emptied the city. The
soldiers deserted their post, and the courtiers their king, while the
people fled to the mountains. His Majesty resolved to go with his court
into Liao Tung, but to send the royal princes into the northern
provinces, that the people might realize the true state of affairs. So
hurried were the preparations for flight, which began June 9th, that no
food was provided for the journey. The only horses to be obtained were
farm and pack animals, as the royal stables had been emptied by the
runaway soldiers. The rain fell heavily, in perpendicular streams, soon
turning the roads to mire, and drenching the women and children. The
Corean dress, in wet weather, is cold and uncomfortable, and when
soaked through, becomes extremely heavy, making a foot journey a severe
tax on the strength. To add to the distress of the king, as the cortege
passed, the people along the road clamored, with bitter tears, that
they were being abandoned to the enemy. Tortured with hunger and
fatigue, the wretched party floundered on.
Their first day’s journey was to Sunto, or Kai Seng, thirty miles
distant. Darkness fell upon them long before they reached the Rin-yin
River, a tributary of the Han, which joins it a few miles above Kang-wa
Island. The city lay beyond it, and the crossing of the stream was done
in the light of the conflagration kindled behind them. The king had
ordered the torch to be applied to the barracks and fortifications
which guarded the southern bank of the river. Another motive for this
incendiary act was to deprive their pursuers of ready materials to
ferry themselves across the river. It was not until near midnight that
the miserable fugitives, tortured with hunger and almost dead with
fatigue, entered the city. Though feeling safe for the moment, since
the Japanese pursuers could not cross the river without boats or rafts,
most of the king’s household were doomed still to suffer the pangs of
hunger. The soldiers had stolen the food provided for the party, and
the king had a scant supper, while his household remained hungry until
the next day, when some of the military gave them a little rice. The
march was resumed on the following morning and kept up until Ping-an
was reached. Here they halted to await the progress of events.
The king ordered his scattered forces to rally at the Rin-yin River,
and, on its northern bank, to make a determined stand.
Kato and Konishi, remaining but a short time in the capital, united
their divisions and pressed forward to the north. Reaching the Rin-yin
River, they found the Corean junks drawn up on the opposite side in
battle array. The Japanese, being without boats, could not cross, and
waited vainly during several days for something to turn up. Finally
they began a feigned retreat. This induced a portion of the Corean army
to cross the river, when the Japanese turned upon them and cut them
down with terrible slaughter. With the few rafts and boats used by the
enemy, the Japanese matchlock men rapidly crossed the stream, shot down
the sailors and the remaining soldiers in the junks, and thus secured
the fleet by which the whole army crossed and began the march on
Ping-an.
The rival Japanese commanders, Kato and Konishi, who had hitherto
refrained from open quarrel, now found it impossible to remain longer
together, and drew lots to decide their future fields of action in the
two northern provinces. Ham-kiung fell to Kato, who immediately marched
eastward with his division, taking the high road leading to Gensan.
Konishi, to whom the province of Ping-an fell, pushed on to Ping-an
City, arriving on the south bank of the river toward the end of July,
or about three weeks after leaving Seoul. Here he went into camp, to
await the reinforcements under Kuroda and Yoshitoshi. These soon
afterward arrived, having traversed the four provinces bordering on the
Yellow Sea.
The great need of the Japanese was floating material; next to this,
their object was to discover the fords of the river. On July 20th they
made a demonstration against the fleet of junks along the front of the
city, by sending out a few detachments of matchlock men on rafts.
Though unsuccessful, the Corean king was so frightened that he fled
with his suite to Ai-chiu. The garrison still remained alert and
defiant.
Delay made the Japanese less vigilant. The Corean commanders, noticing
this, planned to surprise their enemy by a night attack. Owing to bad
management and delay, the various detachments did not assemble on the
opposite side of the river until near daylight. Then forming, they
charged furiously upon Konishi’s camp, and, taking his men by surprise,
carried off hundreds of prisoners and horses, the cavalry suffering
worse than the infantry. Kuroda’s division came gallantly to their
support, and drove the Coreans back to the river. By this time it was
broad daylight, and the cowardly boat-keepers, frightened at the rout
of their countrymen, had pushed off into mid-stream. Hundreds of the
Coreans were drowned, and the main body, left in the lurch, were
obliged to cross by the fords. This move gave the Japanese the
possession of the coveted secret. Flushed with victory, the entire army
crossed over later on the same day and entered the city. Dispirited by
their defeat, the garrison fled, after flinging their weapons into the
castle moats and ditches of the city; but all the magazines of grain,
dried fish, etc., were now in the hands of the invaders. Frois reports,
from hearsay, that 80,000 Coreans made the attack on Konishi’s camp,
8,000 of whom were slain.
The news of the fall of Ping-an City utterly demoralized the Coreans,
so that, horses being still numerous, the courtiers deserted the king,
and the villagers everywhere looted the stores of food provided for the
army. Many of the fugitives did not cease their flight until they had
crossed the Yalu River, and found themselves on Chinese territory.
These bore to the Governor of Liao Tung province, who had been an
anxious observer of events, the news of the fall of Ping-an, and the
irresistible character of the invasion. The main body of the Corean
army went into camp at Sun-an, between An-ton and Sun-chon. In Japan,
there was great rejoicing at the news received from the frontier,
because, as Frois wrote, Konishi, “in twenty days, hath subdued so
mighty a kingdom to the crown of Japan.” Taikō sent the brilliant young
commander a two-edged sword and a horse—“pledges of the most peerless
honor that can possibly be done to a man.”
The Japanese soldiers felt so elated over their victory that they
expected immediate orders to march into China. With this purpose in
view, Konishi sent word to the fleet at Fusan to sail round the western
coast, into Ta-tong River, in order to co-operate with the victorious
forces at Ping-an. Had this junction taken place, it is probable China
would have been invaded by Japanese armies, and a general war between
these rival nations might have turned the current of Asiatic history.
This, however, was not to be. Corean valor, with the aid of gunpowder
and improved naval construction, prevented this, and kept three hundred
miles of distance, in a mountainous country, between the Japanese and
their base of supplies.
Oriental rhetoric might describe the situation in this wise: the
eastern dragon of invasion flew across the sea in winged ships, and
speedily won the crystal of victory. But on land the dragon must go
upon its belly. The Corean navy snatched the jewel from the very claws
of the dragon, and left it writhing and hungry.
In cool western phrase, sinister, but significant, Konishi was soon
afterward obliged to “make a change of base.” The brilliant success of
the army seems to have impressed the Japanese naval men with the idea
that there was nothing for them to do. On the contrary, the Chō-sen
people set to work to improve the architecture of their vessels by
having them double-decked. They also provided for the safety of their
fighting men, by making heavy bulwarks, and rearing, along the upper
deck, a line of strong planks, set edgewise, and bolted together.
Behind these, archers discharged their missiles without danger, while
from port-holes below they fired their rude, but effective, cannon.
Appearing off the inlet, in which the Japanese fleet lay at anchor,
they at first feigned retreat, and thus enticed their enemies into
pursuit. When well out on the open sea, they turned upon their
pursuers, and then their superior preparation and equipment were
evident at once.
Lively fighting began, but this time the Coreans seemed invulnerable.
They not only gained the advantage by the greater length of their
lances and grappling-hooks, with which, using them like long forks,
they pulled their enemies into the sea, but they sunk a number of the
Japanese junks, either by their artillery or by ramming them with their
prows. The remnant of the beaten fleet crept back to Fusan, and all
hope of helping the army was given up. The moral effect of the victory
upon the Corean people was to inspire them to sacrifice and resistance,
and in many skirmishes they gained the advantage. They now awaited
hopefully the approach of Chinese reinforcements.
To the Chinese it seemed incredible that the capture of the strongest
castles, the capital, and the chief northern city, could be
accomplished without the treasonable connivance of the Coreans. In
order to satisfy his own mind, the Chinese mandarin sent a special
agent into Corea to examine and report. The government at Peking were
even more suspicious, but after some hesitation, they despatched, not
without misgiving, a small body of Chinese soldiers to act as a
body-guard to the Corean king. These braves crossed the frontier; but
while on their way to Ping-an, heard of the fall of the city, and,
facing about, marched back into Liao Tung. The king and the fragments
of his court now sent courier after courier with piteous appeals to
Peking for aid, even offering to become the subjects of China in return
for succor rendered. A force of 5,000 men was hastily recruited in Liao
Tung, who marched rapidly into Corea. Early in August the Japanese
pickets first descried the yellow silk banners of the Chinese host.
These were inscribed with the two characters Tai-Ming (Great
Brightness), the distinctive blazon of the Ming dynasty. For the first
time, in eight centuries, the armies of the rival nations were to meet
in pitched battle.
The Chinese seemed confident of success, and moved to the attack on
Ping-an with neither wariness nor fear. Having invested the city, they
began the assault on August 27th. The Japanese allowed them to enter
the city and become entangled in its narrow lanes. They then attacked
them from advantageous positions, which they had occupied previously,
assailing them with showers of arrows, and charging them with their
long lances. One body of the Ming soldiers attempted to scale the wall
of a part of the fortifications, which seemed to have been neglected by
the Japanese, when near the top, the whole face of the castle being
covered with climbing men, the garrison, rushing from their
hiding-places, tumbled over or speared their enemies, who fell down and
into the mass of their comrades below. Those not killed by thrusts or
the fall, were shot by the gunners on the ramparts, and the Chinese now
received into their bosoms a shower of lead, against which their armor
of hide and iron was of slight avail. In this fight the Ming commander
was slain. The rout of the Chinese army was so complete, that the
fugitives never ceased their retreat until safely over the border, and
into China.
The government at Peking now began to understand the power of the enemy
with whom they had to deal. An army of 40,000 men was raised to meet
the invaders, and, in order to gain time, a man, named Chin Ikei, was
sent, independently of the Coreans, to treat with Konishi and propose
peace. Some years before the Japanese pirates had carried off a
Chinaman to Japan, where he was kept captive for many years. Returning
to China, he made the acquaintance of Chin Ikei, and gave him much
information concerning the country and people of his captivity. Chin
Ikei was evidently a mercenary adventurer, who could talk Japanese, and
hoped for honors and promotion by acting as a go-between. He had no
commission or any real authority. The Chinese seem to have used him
only as a cat’s-paw.
Arriving at the Corean camp, at Sun-an, early in October, and fully
trusting the honor of the Japanese commander, Chin Ikei ventured, in
spite of the warnings of the frightened Coreans, and to their intense
admiration, within the Japanese lines, and had a conference with
Konishi, Yoshitoshi, and Genshō. The Chinese agent agreed to proceed to
Peking, and, returning to Ping-an after fifty days, to report the
approval or disapproval of his government. To this Konishi agreed, and
there was a truce. The conditions of peace, insisted on by Konishi,
were that the Japanese ancient territory in the peninsula, namely,
those portions covered by the old states of Shinra and Hiaksai, should
be delivered over to Japan, to be held as vassal provinces. This demand
virtually claimed all Corea south of the Ta-tong River, in right of
ancient possession and recent conquest and occupation.
Arriving in Peking, Chin Ikei found the Chinese army nearly ready to
march, and, as their government disowned his right to treat with the
Japanese, nothing, except the time gained for the Chinese, resulted
from the negotiations. Meanwhile Kato Kiyomasa, with his troops, had
overran the whole extent of Ham-kiung, the longest and largest province
of Corea, occupying also parts of Kang-wen. No great pitched battle in
force was fought, but much hard fighting took place, and many castles
were taken after bloody sieges. In one of these, the two royal princes,
sent north by their father on his flight from Seoul, and many men of
rank were captured. Among his prisoners, was “a young girl reputed to
be the most beautiful in the whole kingdom.” In the pursuit of the
fugitives the Japanese were often led into wild and lonely regions and
into the depths of trackless mountains and forests, in which they met,
not only human foes, but faced the tiger disturbed from his lair. They
were often obliged to camp in places where these courageous beasts
attacked the sentries or the sleeping soldiers. Kato himself slew a
tiger with his lance, after a desperate struggle. After a hard
campaign, the main body of the troops fixed their camp at Am-pen, near
Gensan, but closer to the southern border of the province. Nabéshima’s
camp was in Kang-wen, three days’ journey distant. From a point on the
sea-coast near by, in fair weather, the island cone of Dagelet is
visible. To the question of Kato, some Corean prisoners falsely
answered that this was Fujiyama—the worshipped mountain of the
home-land, and “the thing of beauty and a joy forever” to the Japanese
people. Immediately the Japanese reverently uncovered their heads and,
kneeling on the strand, gazed long and lovingly with homesick hearts—a
scene often portrayed in Japanese decorative art.
Thus the year 1592 drew near its close; the Japanese, necessarily
inactive, and the spirit of patriotism among the Coreans rising.
Collecting local volunteer troops and forming guerilla bands, they kept
the Japanese camps, along the road from Fusan to Ping-an, constantly
vigilant They ferreted out the spies who had kept the Japanese informed
of what was going on, and promptly cut off their heads. Isolated from
all communication, Konishi remained in ignorance of the immense Chinese
army that was marching against him. The discovery, by the Japanese, of
the existence of the regular Chinese troops in Corea, was wholly a
matter of accident. According to Chinese report, the commander of the
Ming army, Li-yu-son (Japanese, Ri Jo Shō), was a valiant hero fresh
from mighty victories over the rising Manchiu tribes in the north. The
march of his host of 60,000 men through Liao Tung in winter, especially
over the mountain passes, was a severe one, and the horses are said to
have sweated blood. Evidently the expectation of the leader was to
drive out the invaders and annex the country to China. When the Corean
mountains appeared, as they reached the Yalu River, the leader cried
out, “There is the place which it depends on our valor to recover as
our hereditary possessions.” On the sixth day, after crossing the
frontier, he arrived at Sun-an. It was then near the last of January,
1592, and the New Year was close at hand. Word was sent to Konishi that
Chin Ikei had arrived and was ready to reopen negotiations, with a
favorable reply. Konishi promptly despatched a captain, with a guard of
twenty men, to meet Chin Ikei and escort him within the lines. It being
New Year’s Day, February 2, 1593, the guard sallied out amid the
rejoicings of their comrades who, tired of desolate Chō-sen, longed for
peace and home. The treacherous Chinamen received the Japanese with
apparent cordiality, and feasted them until they were well drunk. Then
the unsuspicious Japanese were set upon while their swords were undrawn
in their scabbards. All were killed except two or three. According to
another account, they fell into an ambuscade, and fought so bravely
that only three were taken alive. From the survivors Konishi first
learned of the presence of the Ming army. The pretext, afterward given
by the lying Chinaman, was that the interpreters misunderstood each
other, and began a quarrel. The gravity of the situation was now
apparent. A Chinese army, of whose numbers the Japanese were ignorant,
menaced them in front, while all around them the natives were gathering
in numbers and in courage to renew the struggle for their homes and
country. The new army from China was evidently well equipped,
disciplined, and supplied, while the Japanese forces were far in an
enemy’s country, distant from their base of supplies, and with a
desolate territory in the rear. Under this gloomy aspect of affairs,
the faces of the soldiers wore a dispirited air.
Konishi’s alternative lay between the risk of a battle and retreat to
Kai-seng. He was not long in resolving on the former course, for, in
six days afterward, the Ming host, gay with gleaming arms, bright
trappings, and dragon-bordered silk banners, appeared within sight of
the city’s towers. Konishi anxiously watched their approach, having
posted his little force to the best advantage. The city was defended on
the west by a steep mountainous ridge, on the north by a hill, and on
the south by a river. The Japanese occupying the rising ground to the
north, which they had fortified by earthworks and palisades.
At break of day, on February 10th, the allies began a furious assault
along the whole line. The Japanese at first drove back their besiegers
with their musketry fire, but the Chinese, with their scaling ladders,
reached the inside of the works, where their numbers told. When night
fell on the second day of the siege, all the outworks were in their
possession, and nearly two thousand of the Japanese lay dead. The
citadel seemed now an easy prize to the Corean generals; but the
Chinese commander, seeing that the Japanese were preparing to defend it
to the last, and that his own men were exhausted, gave the order to
return to camp, expecting to renew the attack next morning.
Konishi had despatched a courier to Otomo, the Japanese officer in
command at Hozan, a small fortress in Whang-hai, to come to his aid. So
far from obeying, the latter, frightened at the exaggerated reports of
the numbers of the Chinese, evacuated his post and marched back to
Seoul. Unable to obtain succor from the other garrisons, and having
lost many men by battle and disease, while many more were disabled by
wounds and sickness, Konishi gave orders to retreat. One of his bravest
captains was put in command of the rear-guard, and the castle was
silently deserted at midnight. In this masterly retreat, little was
left behind but corpses. Crossing, upon the ice, the river, which was
then frozen many feet in thickness, their foes were soon left behind.
Next day the allied army, surprised at seeing no enemy to meet them,
entered the castle, finding neither man nor spoil of any kind. The
Coreans wished to pursue their enemy, but the Chinese commander, not
only forbade it, but glad of a pretext by which he could shift the
blame on some other person, cashiered the Corean general for allowing
the Japanese to escape so easily. Konishi, without stopping at
Kai-seng, was thus enabled to reach Seoul, now the headquarters of all
the invading forces. Fully expecting the early advance of the Chinese,
the men were now set to work in fortifying the city.
In the flush of success, Li-yu-sung, the Ming commander, sent an envoy
with a haughty summons of surrender to Kato and Nabéshima. To this Kato
answered in a tone of defiance, guarded his noble prisoners more
vigilantly, and with his own hand, in sight of the envoy, put the
beautiful Corean girl to death, by transfixing her, with a spear, from
waist to shoulder, while bound to a tree. He immediately sent
reinforcements to the castle of Kié-chiu, then threatened by the enemy.
The Corean patriots, who organized small detachments of troops, began
to attack or repel the invaders in several places, and even to lay
siege to castles occupied by Japanese wherever they suspected the
garrison was weak. The possession of a few firearms and even rude
artillery made them very daring. They compelled the evacuation of one
fortress held by Kato’s men by the following means. A Corean, named
Richosun, says a Japanese author, invented bombs, or shin-ten-rai
(literally, heaven-shaking thunder), containing poison. Going secretly
to the foot of the castle, he discharged the bombs out of a cannon into
the castle. As soon as they fell or touched anything they burst and
emitted poisonous gas, and every one within reach fell dead. The first
of these balls fell into the garden of the castle, and the Japanese
soldiers did not know what it was. They gathered around to examine it,
and while doing so, the powder in the ball exploded. The report shook
heaven and earth. The ball was rent into a thousand pieces, which
scattered like stars. Every man that was hit instantly fell, and thus
more than thirty men were killed. Even those who were not struck fell
down stunned, and the soldiers lost their courage. Many balls were
afterward thrown in, which finally compelled the evacuation of the
castle.
From the above account it seems that the Coreans actually invented
bombs similar to the modern iron shells. They may have been fired from
a heavy wooden cannon, a sort of howitzer, made by boring out a section
of tree trunk and hooping it along its whole length with stout bamboo.
Such cannon are often used in Japan. They will shoot a ten or twenty
pound rocket or case of fireworks many hundred feet in the air. The
Corean most probably selected a spot so distant from the castle that a
sortie for its capture could not be successfully made. Corean gunpowder
is proverbially slow in burning, which accounts for the fact that the
Japanese had time to gather round it. The bomb was most probably a thin
shell of iron, loaded only with gunpowder, which, like the Chinese
mixture, contains an excess of sulphur. The military customs of the
Japanese required every man disabled by a wound to commit hara-kiri, so
that the number of actual deaths must have been swelled by the suicides
that followed wounds inflicted by the iron fragments. The Japanese were
so completely demoralized that they evacuated the castle.
Two other castles at Kinzan and Kishiu, being beleagured by the
patriots, Kato started to succor the slender garrisons. The Coreans,
hearing this, redoubled their efforts to capture them before Kato
should arrive. They had so far succeeded that the Japanese officer in
the citadel, having lost nearly all his men, went into the keep, or
fireproof storehouse, in the centre of the castle, and opened his
bowels, preferring to die by his own hands rather than allow a Corean
the satisfaction of killing him. Just at that moment the black rings of
Kato’s banners appeared in sight. The Coreans, setting the castle on
fire, and giving loud yells of defiance and victory, disappeared.
Kato and Nabéshima had received an urgent message from Seoul to come
with their troops, and thus unite all the Japanese forces in a stand
against the Chinese. Kato disliked exceedingly to obey this order
because he knew it came from Konishi, but he finally set out to march
across the country. Thorough discipline was maintained on the march,
and the rivers were safely crossed. Cutting down trees, the soldiers,
in companies of five or ten, holding on abreast of logs, forded or
floated over the most impetuous torrents, while the cavalry kept the
Coreans at bay. Though annoyed by attacks of guerilla parties on their
flanks, the Japanese succeeded in reaching Seoul without serious loss.
By the retreat of the Japanese armies, and their concentration in
Seoul, the four northern provinces, comprising half the kingdom, were
virtually lost to them. At the fall of Ping-an the war found its pivot,
for the Japanese never again retrieved their fortunes in Chō-sen.
CHAPTER XV.
THE RETREAT FROM SEOUL.
The allies, after looking well to their commissariat, began their march
on Seoul, about the middle of February, with forces which the Japanese
believed to number two hundred thousand men. The light cavalry formed
the advance guard. The main body, after floundering through the muddy
roads, arrived, on February 26th, about forty miles northwest of Seoul.
In the first skirmish, which took place near the town shortly
afterward, the allies drove back the Japanese advance detachment with
heavy loss. Li-yo-sun, the commander-in-chief, now ordered the army to
move against the capital.
In the council of war, held by the Japanese generals, Ishida, who, like
Konishi, was a Christian in faith, advised the evacuation of Seoul.
This, of course, provoked Kato, who rose and angrily said: “It is a
shame for us to give up the capital before we have seen even a single
banner of the Ming army. The Coreans and our people at home will call
us cowards, and say we were afraid of the Chinamen.” Hot words then
passed between the rival generals, but Otani and others made peace
between them. All concluded that, in order to guard against treason,
the Coreans in the capital must be removed. Thereupon, large portions
of the city were set on fire, and houses, gates, bridges, public and
private buildings, were soon a level waste of ashes. The people, old
and young, of both sexes, sick and well, were driven out at the point
of the lance. To the stern necessities of war were added the needless
carnage of massacre, and hundreds of harmless natives were cruelly
murdered. Only a few lusty men, to be used as laborers and
burden-bearers, were spared.
Years after, the memory of this frightful and inhuman slaughter,
burdening the conscience of many a Japanese soldier, drove him a
penitent suppliant into the monasteries. There, exiled from the world,
with shaven head and priestly robe, he spent his days in fasting,
vigils, and prayers for pardon, seeking to obtain Nirvana with the
Eternal Buddha.
Meanwhile the work of fortification went on. The advance guard of the
Chinese host were now within a few miles of the city, and daily
skirmishes took place. The younger Japanese officers clamored to lead
the van against the Chinese, but Kobayékawa, an elderly general, was
allowed to arrange the order of battle, and the Japanese army marched
out from the capital to the attack in three divisions, Kobayékawa
leading the third, or main body of ten thousand men, the others having
only three thousand each. In the battle that ensued the Japanese were
at first unable to hold their ground against the overwhelming forces of
their enemies. The Chinese and Coreans drove back their first and
second divisions with heavy loss. Then, thinking victory certain, they
began a pursuit with both foot soldiers and cavalry, which led them
into disorder and exhausted their strength. When well wearied,
Kobayékawa, having waited till they were too far distant from their
camp to receive reinforcements, led his division in a charge against
the allies. The battle then became a hand-to-hand fight on a gigantic
scale. The Chinese were armed mainly with swords, which were short,
heavy, and double-edged. The allies had a large number of cavalry
engaged, but the ground being miry from the heavy rains, they were
unable to form or to charge with effect. Their advantage in other
respects was more than counterbalanced by the length of the Japanese
swords, the strength of their armor, and their veteran valor and
coolness. Even the foot soldiers wielded swords having blades usually
two, but sometimes three and four, feet long.
The Japanese have ever prided themselves upon the length, slenderness,
temper, and keen edge of their blades, and look with unmeasured
contempt upon the short and clumsy weapons of the continental Asiatics.
They proudly call their native land “The country ruled by a slender
sword.” Marvellous in wonder and voluminousness are their legends,
literature, and exact history concerning ken (two-edged, short
falchion), and katana (two-handed and single-edged sabre). In this
battle it was the sword alone that decided the issue, though firearms
lent their deadly aid. The long, cross-bladed spears of their foot
soldiers were also highly effective, first, in warding off the sabre
strokes of the Chinese cavalry, and then unhorsing them, either by
thrust or grapple. One general of high rank was pulled off his steed
and killed.
The Japanese leaders were in their best spirits, as well as in their
finest equipments. One was especially noticeable by his gilded helmet
that flashed and towered conspicuously. It was probably that of Kato,
whose head-gear was usually of incredible height and dazzling splendor.
After a long struggle and frightful slaughter, the allies were beaten
back in confusion. Ten thousand Chinese and Coreans, according to
Japanese accounts, were slaughtered on this bloodiest day and severest
pitched battle of the first invasion.
The Chinese suffered heavily in officers, and their first taste of war
in the field with such veterans as the soldiers of Taikō was
discouraging in the extreme. Li-yo-sun drew off his forces and soon
after retired to Sunto. Not knowing that Kato had got into Seoul, and
fearing an attack from the rear, on Ping-an, he drew off his main body
to that city, leaving a garrison at Sunto. Tired, disgusted, and
scared, the redoubtable Chinaman, like “the beaten soldier that fears
the top of the tall grass,” sent a lying report to Peking, exaggerating
the numbers of the Japanese, and asking for release from command, on
the usual Oriental plea of poor health. As for the Japanese, they had
lost so heavily in killed, that they were unable to follow up the
victory, if victory it may be called. A small force, however, pressed
forward and occupied Kai-jo, while the main body prepared to pass a
miserable winter in the desolate capital.
The Corean stronghold of An-am was also assaulted. This castle was
built on a precipitous steep, having but one gate and flank capable of
access, and that being a narrow, almost perpendicular, cutting through
the rocks. The attacking force entered the gloomy valley shut in from
light by the luxuriant forest, which darkened the path even in the
daytime. At the tops, and on the ledges of the rocks beetling over the
entrance-way, the Corean archers took up advantageous positions, while
others of the garrison, with huge masses of rock and timber piled near
the ledge, stood ready to hurl these upon the invaders.
Awaiting in silence the approach of their enemies, they soon saw the
Japanese fan-standards and paper-strip banners approach, when these
were directly beneath them, every bow twanged, and a shower of arrows
rained upon the invaders, while volleys of stones fell into their
ranks, crushing heads and helmets together. The besiegers were
compelled to draw off and arrange a new attack; but in the night the
garrison withdrew. Next day the Japanese entered, garrisoned the
castle, and decorated it with their streamers.
The long-continued abandonment of the soil, owing to the war and the
presence of three large armies, bore their natural fruits, and turned
fertile Corea into a land of starvation. Famine began its ravages of
death on friend and foe alike. The peasants petitioned their government
for food, but none was to be had. Thousands of the poor people died of
starvation. The fathers suffered in camp, while the dead mothers lay
unburied in the houses, and the children, tortured with hunger, cried
for food. One day a captain in the Chinese army found, by the roadside,
an emaciated infant vainly seeking for nourishment from the cold and
rigid breast of its dead mother. Touched with compassion, the warrior
took the child and reared him to manhood under his own care.
Some rice was distributed to the wretched people from the government
store-houses in certain places, but still the groans and cries of the
starving filled the air. Pestilence entered the Japanese camp, and
thousands of the home-sick soldiers died ingloriously. The long winter
rains made the living despondent and gloomy enough to commit hara-kiri,
while the state of the roads and the dashing courage of the guerillas,
who pushed their raids to the very gates of the camps, made foraging an
unpopular duty among the men. In such discomfort, winter wore away, and
tardy spring approached. In this state of affairs the Japanese were
willing to listen, and the allies ready to offer, terms of peace. A
Corean soldier, named Rijunchin, by permission of his superior officer,
had penetrated into Seoul to visit the two captive princes. On his
return to the camp, he stated that the Japanese generals were very
homesick and heartily tired of the war. At the same time, a letter was
received from Konishi, stating his readiness to receive terms of peace.
Chin Ikei was again chosen to negotiate. Reaching the Japanese lines at
Kai-jo, he held an interview with Konishi, and the following points of
agreement were made:
1. Peace between the three countries.
2. Japan to remain in possession of the three southern provinces of
Chō-sen.
3. Corea to send tribute to Japan as heretofore.
4. Hidéyoshi to be recognized as King of Corea. The three other
articles drawn up were not made public, but the acknowledgment of Taikō
as the equal of the Emperor of China was evidently one of them. The
Japanese, on their part, were to return the two captive princes,
withdraw all their armies to Fusan, and evacuate the country when the
stipulations were carried out.
Both parties were weary of the war. The Ming commander had requested to
be relieved of his command and to return to China, while the three old
gentlemen, who were military advisers in the Japanese camp, yearning
for the pleasures of Kiōto, wrote to Taikō, asking leave to come home,
telling him the object of his ambition was on the eve of attainment,
and that he was to receive investiture from the Chinese emperor, and
recognition as an equal.
Scholarship and literature were not at a very high premium at that time
among the Japanese military men. The martial virtues and
accomplishments occupied the time and thoughts of the warriors to the
exclusion of book learning and skill at words. The sword for the
soldier, and the pen for the priest, was the rule. The bluff warrior in
armor looked with contempt, not unmingled with awe, upon the
shaven-pated man of ink and brush. One of the bonzes from the monastery
was usually of necessity attached to the service of each commander. It
was by reason of the ignorance, as well as the vanity, of the
illiterate Japanese generals that such a mistake, in supposing that
Taikō was to be recognized as equal to the Emperor of China, was
rendered possible. The wily Chin Ikei, who drove a lucrative trade as
negotiator, hoodwinked Konishi, who would not have been thus outwitted
if he had had a bonze present to inspect the writing. Being a
Christian, however, he was on bad terms with the bonzes.
In both camps there were those who bitterly opposed any peace short of
that which the sword decided. The Corean generals chafed at the time
wasted in parley, and wished to march on the Japanese at once, whose
ranks they knew were decimated with sickness, and their spirit and
discipline relaxed under the idea of speedy return home. An epidemic
had also broken out among their horses, probably owing to scant
provender. Thus crippled and demoralized, victory would certainly
follow a well-planned attack in force. Within the camp of the invaders
Achilles and Agamemnon were as far as ever from harmony. Kato sullenly
refused to entertain the idea of peace, partly because Konishi proposed
it, but mainly because, if the two princes were given up, his
achievements would be brought to naught, and all the glory of the war
would redound to his rival. Only after the earnest representation by
his friends of the empty granaries, and the danger of impending
starvation, the great sickness among the troops, and the fearful loss
of horses, was he induced to agree with the other commanders that Seoul
should be evacuated.
Meanwhile, the allies were advancing toward the capital.
On May 22, 1593, the Japanese, with due precautions, evacuated the
city, and the vanguard of the Chinese army entered on the same day. The
retreat of the Japanese was effected in good order, and, to guard
against treachery, they bivouacked in the open air, avoiding sleeping
in the houses or villages, and rigidly kept up the vigilance of their
sentinels and the discipline of the divisions. In this way the various
detachments of the army safely reached Fusan, Tong-nai, Kinka, and
other places near the coast. Here, after fortifying their camps, they
rested for a space from the alarms of war, almost within sight of their
native land. The allies later on marched southward and went into camp a
few leagues to the northward. Since crossing the Yalu River, the
Chinese had lost by the sword and disease twenty thousand men.
CHAPTER XVI.
CESPEDES, THE CHRISTIAN CHAPLAIN.
The aspect of affairs had now changed from that of a triumphal march
through Corea into China and to Peking, to long and tedious camp life,
with uncertain fortunes in the field, which promised a long stay in the
peninsula. Konishi had now breathing time and space for reflection.
Being an ardent Christian—after the faith and practice of the
Portuguese Jesuits—he wished for himself and his fellow-believers the
presence and ministrations of one of the European friars to act as
chaplain. He therefore sent, probably when at or near Fusan, a message
to the superior of the Mission in Japan, asking for a priest.
Toward the end of 1593, the Vice-Provençal of the Company of the
Jesuits despatched Father Gregorio de Cespedes and a Japanese convert
named “Foucan Eion” to the army in Chō-sen. They left Japan and spent
the winter in Tsushima, the domain of Yoshitoshi, one of the Christian
lords then in the field. Early in the spring of 1594 they reached
Corea, arriving at Camp Comangai (most probably a name given by the
Japanese after the famous hero Kumagayé), at which Konishi made his
headquarters. The two holy men immediately began their labors among the
Japanese armies. They went from castle to castle, and from camp to
camp, preaching to the pagan soldiers, and administering the rite of
baptism to all who professed the faith, or signed themselves with the
cross. They administered the sacraments to the Christian Japanese,
comforted and prayed with the sick, reformed abuses, assisted the
wounded, and shrived the dying. New converts were made and old ones
strengthened. Dying in a foreign land, of fever or of wounds, the soul
of the Japanese man-at-arms was comforted with words of hope from the
lips of the foreign priest. Held before his glazing eyes gleamed the
crucifix, on which appeared the image of the world’s Redeemer. The
home-sick warrior, pining for wife and babe, was told of the “House not
made with hands.”
The two brethren seem to have been very popular among the Japanese
soldiers. Perhaps they already dreamed of planting the faith in Corea,
when, suddenly, their work was arrested at its height by Kato, whose
jealousy of Konishi was only equalled by his fanatical zeal for the
Buddhist faith. Being in Japan he denounced the foreign priest to
Taikō, declaring that these zealous endeavors to propagate the
Christian faith only concealed a vast conspiracy against himself and
the power of the mikado. At this time Taikō was dealing with the
Jesuits in Japan, and endeavoring to rid the country of their presence
by shipping them off to China. He fully believed that they were
political as well as religious emissaries, and that their aim was at
temporal power. These suspicions, as every student of Japan knows, were
more than well founded.
Besides accusing Cespedes, Kato insinuated that Konishi himself was
leading the conspiracy. The cry of chō-téki (rebel, or enemy of the
mikado) in Japan is enough to blacken the character of the bravest man
and greatest favorite. Treason against the mikado being the supreme
crime, Konishi found it necessary to return to Kiōto, present himself
before Taikō, and cleanse his reputation even from suspicion. This the
lull in the active operations, occasioned by the negotiations of Chin
Ikei, enabled him to do.
Immediately sending back the priest, he shortly afterward crossed the
straits, and, meeting Taikō, succeeded in fully ingratiating himself
and allaying all suspicion.
The wife of Konishi had also embraced the Christian faith, her baptized
name being Marie. To her, while in camp, he had sent two Corean lads,
both of whom were of rank and gentle blood, the elder being called in
the letters of the Jesuits “secretary to the Corean king.” He was the
son of a brave captain in the army, and was thirteen years old. The
lady, Marie, touched by their misfortune, kept the younger to be
educated in the faith under her own direction, and sent the elder to
the Jesuit seminary in Kiōto. Of this young man’s career we catch some
glimpses from the letters of the missionaries. At the college he was a
favorite, by reason of his good character, gentle manners, and fine
mind. Professing the faith, he was baptized in 1603, taking the name of
Vincent. He began his religious work by instructing and catechising
Japanese and his numerous fellow Coreans at Nagasaki. When about
thirty-three years old, the Jesuits, wishing to establish a mission in
Corea, proposed to send him to his native land as missionary; but not
being able, on account of the persecution then raging in Japan, he was
chosen by the Father Provençal to go to Peking, communicate with the
Jesuits there, and enter Corea from China. At Peking he remained four
years, being unable to enter his own country by reason of the Manchius,
who then held control of the northern provinces of Manchuria and were
advancing on Peking, to set on the throne that family which is still
the ruling dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. Vincent was recalled to Japan
in 1620, where, in the persecutions under Iyémitsŭ, the third Tokugawa
shō-gun, he fell a victim to his fidelity, and was martyrized in 1625,
at the age of about forty-four.
Warned of the dangers of patronizing the now proscribed religion, there
was no farther return of zeal on Konishi’s part, or that of the other
Christian princes, and no farther opportunity was given to plant the
seeds of the faith in the desolated land.
Of the large numbers of Corean prisoners sent over to Japan, from time
to time, many of those living in the places occupied by the
missionaries became Christians. Many more were sold as slaves to the
Portuguese. In Nagasaki, of the three hundred or more living there,
most of them were converted and baptized. They easily learned the
Japanese language so as to need no interpreter at the confessional—a
fact which goes to prove the close affinity of the two languages.
Others, of gentle blood and scholarly attainments, rose to positions of
honor and eminence under the government, or in the households of the
daimiōs. Many Corean lads were adopted by the returned soldiers or kept
as servants. When the bloody persecutions broke out, by which many
thousand Japanese found death in the hundred forms of torture which
hate and malice invented, the Corean converts remained steadfast to
their new-found faith, and suffered martyrdom with fortitude equal to
that of their Japanese brethren. But, by the army in Corea, or by
Cespedes, no seed of Christianity was planted or trace of it left, and
its introduction was postponed by Providence until two centuries later.
CHAPTER XVII
DIPLOMACY AT KIŌTO AND PEKING.
The Chinese ambassadors, with whom was Chin Ikei, set sail from Fusan,
and reached Nagoya, in Hizen, on June 22d. Taikō received them in
person, and entertained them in magnificent style. His lords imitated
the august example set them, and both presents and attentions were
showered upon the guests. Among other entertainments in their honor was
a naval review, in which hundreds of ships, decorated with the heraldry
of feudalism, were ranged in line. The boats moved in procession; the
men, standing up as they worked the sculls, sang in measured chorus.
The sheaves of glittering weapons, spears, and halberds arranged at
their bows, were inlaid with gold and pearl The cabins were arranged
with looped brocades and striped canvas, with huge crests and imperial
chrysanthemums of colossal size. The ambassadors were delighted, both
with the lovely scenery and the attentions paid them, and so remained
until August.
Little, however, came of this mission. Taikō sent orders to Kato to
release the Corean princes and nobles; and Chin Ikei, who usually went
off like a clumsy blunderbuss, at half-cock, hied back to Chō-sen to
tell the news and get the credit of having secured this concession. The
Coreans were made to bear the blame of the war, and the envoys of
China, in good humor, returned to Peking in company with a Japanese
ambassador.
Yet Taikō, though willing to be at peace with China, did not intend to
spare unhappy Chō-sen. To soothe the spirit of Kato, the order was
given to capture the castle of Chin-chiu, forty miles west of Fusan,
which had not yet been taken by the Japanese, though once before
invested.
Alarmed at the movements of the invaders, the Coreans tried to
revictual and garrison the devoted fortress, and even to attack the
enemy on the way. Unable, however, to make a stand against their foes,
they were routed with frightful carnage. Kato led the besieging force,
eager to make speedy capture so as to irritate the Coreans and prevent
the peace he feared.
He invested the castle which the Coreans had not been able to
reinforce, but the vigorous resistance of the garrison, who threw
stones and timber upon the heads of his assaulting parties, drove him
to the invention of Kamé-no-kosha, or tortoise-shell wagons, which
imitated the defensive armor of that animal. Collecting together
several hundred green hides, and dry-hardening them in the fire, he
covered four heavily built and slant-roofed wagons with them. These
vehicles, proof against fire, missiles, or a crushing weight, and
filled with soldiers, were pushed forward to the foot of the walls.
While the matchlock men in the lines engaged those fighting on the
ramparts, the soldiers, under the projecting sheds of the tortoise
wagons, that jutted against the walls, began to dig under the
foundations. These being undermined, the stones were pried out, and
soon fell in sufficient number to cause a breach. Into this fresh
soldiers rushed and quickly stormed the castle. The slaughter inside
was fearful.
The news of the fall of this most important fortress fell like a clap
of thunder in Peking, and upon the Corean king, who was preparing to go
back to Seoul. The Chinese government appointed fresh commissioners of
war, and ordered the formation of a new and larger army.
The immediate advance of the invaders on the capital was expected, but
Kato, having obeyed Taikō’s orders, left a garrison in the castle and
fell back on Fusan.
The Chinese general, upbraiding Chin Ikei for his insincerity, sent him
to Konishi again. Their interview was taken up mainly with mutual
charges of bad faith. Chin Ikei, returning, tried to persuade the
Chinese commander to evacuate Corea, or, at least, retire to the
frontier. Though he refused, being still under orders to fight, the
Chinese army moved back from Seoul toward Manchuria, while Konishi, on
his own responsibility, despatched a letter to the Chinese emperor.
Large detachments of the Japanese army actually embarked at Fusan, and
returned to Japan. In the lull of hostilities, negotiations were
carried on at Peking and Kiōto, as well as between the hostile camps.
The pen took the place of the matchlock, and the ink-stone furnished
the ammunition.
A son was born to Taikō, and named Hidéyori. A great pageant, in honor
of the infant, was given at the newly built and splendid castle of
Fushimi, near Kiōto, which was graced by a large number of the
commanders and veterans of Corea, who had returned home on furlough,
while negotiations were pending. The result of the Japanese mission to
Peking was the despatch of an ambassador extraordinary, named Rishosei,
with one of lesser rank, to Japan, by way of Fusan.
On his arrival, he requested to see Konishi, who, however, evaded him,
excusing himself on the plea of expecting to hear from Taikō, after
which he promised to hold an interview. Konishi then departed for
Japan, taking Chin Ikei with him. On his return he still avoided the
Chinese envoy, for he had no definite orders, and the other generals
refused to act without direct word from their master in Kiōto.
Meanwhile Chin Ikei, consumed with jealousy, and angry at the Peking
mandarins for ignoring him and withholding official recognition and
honors, planned revenge against Rishosei; for Chin Ikei believed
himself to have done great things for Chō-sen and China, and yet he had
received neither thanks, pay, nor promotion for his toils, while
Rishosei, though a young man, with no experience, was honored with high
office solely on account of being of rank and in official favor at
Peking. Evidently with the intent of injuring Rishosei, Chin Ikei gave
out that Taikō did not wish to be made King of Chō-sen, but had sent an
envoy to China merely to have a high ambassador of China come to Japan,
that he might insult or rather return the insult of the sovereign of
China, in the person of his envoy, by making him a prisoner or putting
him to death. Konishi and Chin Ikei again crossed to Japan to arrange
for the reception of the Chinese envoys.
The reports started by Chin Ikei, coming to the ears of Rishosei, so
frightened him that he fled in disguise from Fusan, and absconded to
China. His colleague denounced him as a coward, and declaring that the
Chinese government desired only “peace with honor,” sailed with his
retinue and two Corean officers to Japan. “And Satan [Chin Ikei], came
also among them.” All landed safely at Sakai, near Ozaka, October 8,
1596.
Audience was duly given with pomp and grandeur in the gorgeous castle
at Fushimi, on October 24th. The ambassador brought the imperial
letter, the patent of rank, a golden seal, a crown, and
silk-embroidered robes of state. At a banquet, given next day, these
robes were worn by Taikō and his officers.
Formalities over, the Ming emperor’s letter was delivered to Taikō, who
at once placed it in the hands of three of the most learned priests,
experts in the Chinese language, and ordered them to translate its
contents literally.
To Konishi, then at Kiōto, came misgivings of his abilities as a
diplomatist Visiting the bonzes, he earnestly begged them to soften
into polite phrase anything in the letter that might irritate Taikō.
But the priests were inflexibly honest, and rendered the text of the
letter into the exact Japanese equivalent. In it the patent of nobility
first granted to the Ashikaga shō-gun (1403–1425) was referred to; and
the gist of this last imperial letter was: “We, the Emperor of China,
appoint you, Taikō, to be the King of Japan” (Nippon O). In other
words, the mighty Kuambaku of Japan was insulted by being treated no
better than one of the Ashikaga generals!
This was the mouse that was born from so great a mountain of diplomacy.
The rage of Taikō was so great that, with his own hands, he would have
slain Konishi, had not the bonzes plead for his life, claiming that the
responsibility of the negotiations rested upon three other prominent
persons. As usual, the “false-hearted Coreans” were made to bear the
odium of the misunderstanding.
The Chinese embassy, dismissed in disgrace, returned in January, 1596,
and made known their humiliation at Peking; while the King of Corea,
who had been living in Seoul during the negotiations, appealed at once
for speedy aid against the impending invasion. Hidéyoshi again applied
himself with renewed vigor to raising and drilling a new army, and
obtaining ships and supplies. A grand review of the forces of invasion,
consisting of one hundred and sixty-three thousand horse and foot
soldiers, was held under his inspection. Kuroda, Nagamasa, and other
generals, with their divisions, sailed away for Fusan, January 7, 1597,
and joined the army under Konishi and Kato.
The new levies from China, which had been waiting under arms, crossed
the Yalu and entered from the west at about the same time. Marching
down through Ping-an and Seoul, a division of ten thousand garrisoned
the castle of Nan-on, in Chulla. The Coreans, meanwhile, fitted out a
fleet, under the command of Genkai, expecting a second victory on the
water.
An extinguisher was put on Chin Ikei, who was suspected of being in the
pay of Konishi. Genkai, a Chinese captain, had long believed him to be
a dangerous busybody, without any real powers from the Peking
government, but only used by them as a decoy duck, while, in reality,
he was in the pay of the Japanese, and the chief hinderance to the
success of the allied arms. On the other hand, this volunteer
politician, weary and disappointed at not receiving from China the high
post and honors which his ambition coveted, was in a strait. Taikō
urged him to secure from China the claim of Japan to the southern half
of Corea. China, on the contrary, ordered him to induce the Japanese
generals to leave the country. Thus situated, Chin Ikei knew not what
to do. He sent a message, through a priest, to Kato, urging him to make
peace or else meet an army of one hundred thousand Chinamen. The
laconic reply of the Japanese was: “I am ready to fight. Let them
come.”
Bluffed in his last move, and aware of the plots of Genkai, his enemy,
Chin Ikei, at his wits’ end, resolved to escape to Konishi’s camp. The
spies of Genkai immediately reported the fact to their master, who lay
in wait for him. Suddenly confronting his victim, they demanded his
errand. “I am going to treat with Kato, the Japanese general; I shall
be back in one month,” answered Chin Ikei. He was seized and, on being
led back, was thrown into prison. A searching party was then despatched
at once to his house. There they found gold, treasure, and jewels
“mountain high,” and his wife living in luxury. Believing all these to
have been purchased by Japanese gold, and the fruits of bribery, the
Chinese confiscated the spoil and imprisoned the traitor’s family.
This ended all further negotiations until the end of the war.
Henceforth, on land and water, by the veterans of both armies, with
fresh levies, both of allies and invaders, the issue was tried by sword
and siege.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SECOND INVASION.
The plan of the second invasion was to land all the Japanese forces at
Fusan, and then to divide them into three columns, which were to
advance by the south to Nan-on castle in Chulla, and by two roads,
northward and westward, to the capital. As before, Konishi and Kato
Kiyomasa were the two field commanders, while Hidéaki, a noble lad,
sixteen years old, was the nominal commander-in-chief.
The Coreans had made preparations to fight the Japanese at sea as well
as on land. Their fleet consisted of about two hundred vessels of heavy
build, for butting and ramming, as well as for accommodating a maximum
of fighting men. They were two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet
in length, with huge sterns, having enormous rudders, the tillers of
which were worked by eight men. Their high, flat prows were hideously
carved and painted to represent the face and open jaws of a dragon, or
demon, ready to devour. Stout spars or knotted logs, set upright along
the gunwale, protected the men who worked the catapults, and heavily
built roofed cabins sheltered the soldiers and gave the archers a
vantage ground. The rowers sat amidships, between the cabins and the
gunwales, or rather over on these latter, in casements made of stout
timber. The catapults were on deck, between the bows. They were
twenty-four feet long, made of tree-trunks a yard in circumference.
Immense bows, drawn to their notches by windlasses, shot iron-headed
darts and bolts six feet long and four inches thick. On some of the
ships towers were erected, in which cannon, missile-engines, and
musketeers were stationed, to shoot out fire-arrows, stones, and balls.
At close quarters the space at the bows—about one-third of the deck—was
free for the movements of the men wielding spear and sword, and for
those who plied the grappling hooks or boarding planks. The decks
crowded with men in armor, the glitter of steel and flash of oars, the
blare of the long Corean trumpets, and the gay fluttering of thousands
of silken flags and streamers made brilliant defiance.
The Japanese accepted the challenge, and, sailing out, closed with the
enemy. Wherever they could, they ran alongside and gave battle at the
bows. Though their ships were smaller, they were more manageable. In
some cases, they ran under the high sterns and climbed on board the
enemy’s ships. Once at hand to hand fight, their superior swordsmanship
quickly decided the day. Their most formidable means of offence which,
next to their cannon, won them the victory, were their rockets and
fire-arrows, which they were able to shoot into the sterns, where the
dry wood soon caught fire, driving the crews into the sea, where they
drowned. Two hours fighting sufficed, by which time one hundred and
seventy-four Corean ships had been burned or taken. News of this
brilliant victory was at once sent by a swift vessel to Japan.
Endeavors were made to strengthen the garrison at Nan-on, but the
Japanese general, Kato Yoshiakira, meeting the reinforcements on their
way, prevented their design. Kato Kiyomasa, changing his plans, also
marched to Nan-on, resolving to again, if possible, snatch an honor
from his rival As usual, the younger man was too swift for him. Konishi
now moved his entire command in the fleet up the Sem River, in Chulla
province, and landing, camped at a place called Uren, eighteen ri from
Nan-on castle. He rested here five days in the open meadow land to
allow the horses to relax their limbs after the long and close
confinement in the ships. From a priest, whom they found at this place,
they learned that the garrison of Nan-on numbered over 20,000 Chinese
and Coreans, the reinforcements in the province, and on their way,
numbered 20,000 more, while in the north was another Chinese corps of
20,000.
At the council of war held, it was resolved to advance at once to take
the castle before succor came. In spite of many lame horses, and the
imperfect state of the commissariat, the order to march was given. Men
and beasts were in high spirits, but many of the horses were ridden to
death, or rendered useless by the forced march of the cavalry. Early on
the morning of September 21st, the advance guard camped in the morning
fog at a distance of a mile from the citadel. The main body, coming up,
surrounded it on all sides, pitched their camp, threw out their
pickets, set up their standards, and proceeded promptly to fortify
their lines.
Nan-on castle was of rectangular form, enclosing a space nearly two
miles square, as each side was nine thousand feet long. Its walls,
which were twelve feet high, were built of great stones, laid together
without cement. Though no mortar had been used on wall or tower,
shell-lime had been laid over the outside, in which glistened
innumerable fragments of nacre and the enamel of shells, giving the
structure the appearance of glittering porcelain. At the angles, and at
intervals along the flanks, were towers, two or three stories high. The
four ponderous gates were of stone, fourteen feet high.
The preparations for defence were all that Chinese science could
suggest. In the dry ditch, three hundred feet wide, was an abatis of
tree-trunks, with their branches outward, behind which were iron-plated
wagons, to be filled with archers and spearmen. From the towers,
fire-missiles and shot from firearms were in readiness.
The weak points, at which no enemy was expected, and for which
preparations for defence were few, were on the east and west
No effect being produced during the first two days, either by bullets
or fire-arrows, Konishi, on the third, sent large detachments of men
into the rice-fields, then covered with a promising harvest of growing
rice, which the farmers, in the hope of peace, had sown. Reaping the
green, juicy stalks, the hundreds of soldiers gathered an enormous
quantity of sheaves and waited, with these and their stacks of bamboo
poles and ladders, until night. In the thick darkness, and in perfect
silence, they moved to a part of the wall which, being over twenty feet
high, was but slightly guarded, and began to build a platform of the
sheaves. Four Japanese, reaching the top by climbing, raised the
war-cry, and one of the towers being set on fire by their arrows, the
work was discovered. Yet the matchlock men kept the walls swept by
their bullets, while the work of piling fresh sheaves and bundles of
bamboo went on. The greenness of the rice-stalks made the mass both
firm and fire-proof. At last the mound was so high that it overtopped
the wall. The men now climbed over the ramparts by the hundreds, and
the swordsmen, leaping into the castle, began the fight at hand to
hand. Most of the Chinese fought with the courage of despair, while
others, in their panic, opened the gates to escape, by which more of
the besiegers entered. The garrison, smitten in front and rear, were
driven to the final wall by Konishi’s troops. On the other side a body
of picked men, from Kato’s army, joined in the slaughter. They had
entered the castle at the rear, by scaling a rugged mountain path known
only to the Corean prisoners, whose treachery they had purchased by the
promise of their lives. Between the two attacking forces the Coreans
and Chinese, who could not escape, were slain by thousands.
Among many curious incidents narrated by Ogawuchi, who tells the story
of this siege and attack, was this. As he entered the castle, amid the
smoke and confusion, in which he saw some of the panic-stricken
garrison destroying themselves, he cut off the heads of two enemies,
and then, suddenly recollecting that this fifteenth day of the eighth
month was the day sacred to Hachiman, the god of war and Buddha of the
Eight Banners, he flung down his bloody sword, put his red palms
together, and bowing his head, prayed devoutly toward his adored Japan.
His devotions ended, he sliced off the noses from the heads of the two
enemies he had slain, wrapped them in paper, twisted the package to his
girdle, and sprang forward to meet, with but three men, the charge of
fifty horsemen. The first sweep of the Japanese sabre severed the leg
of the nearest rider, who fell to the earth on the other side of his
horse, and Ogawuchi’s companions killing each his man, the enemy fled.
The fires of the burning towers now lighted up the whole area of the
castle, while the autumn moon rose red and clear. Ogawuchi slew, with
his own hand, Kéku-shiu, one of the Chinese commanders. His body, in
rich armor, lined with gold brocade, was stripped, and the trappings
secured as trophies to be sent home, while his head was presented for
Konishi’s inspection next morning.
According to the barbarous custom of the victors, they severed the
heads of the bodies not already decapitated in fight, until the castle
space resembled a great slaughter-yard. Collecting them into a great
heap, they began the official count. The number of these ghastly
trophies, or “glory-signs,” was three thousand seven hundred and
twenty-six. The ears and noses of the slain were then sheared off, and
with the commander’s head, were packed with salt and quick lime in
casks, and sent to Japan to form the great ear-tomb now in Kiōto, the
horrible monument of a most unrighteous war.
A map of the castle and town, with the list of the most meritorious
among the victors, was duly sent back to Taikō. Then the walls and
towers, granaries, and barracks were destroyed. This work occupied two
days.
Promptly on September 30th the army moved on to Teru-shiu, the cavalry
riding day and night, and reaching the castle only to find it deserted,
the garrison having fled toward Seoul. The Japanese remained here ten
days, levelling the fortress with fire and hammer.
As the cold weather was approaching, the Japanese commanders, after
council, resolved at once to march to the capital. Katsuyoshi and
Kiyomasa had joined them, and the advance northward was at once began.
By October 19th they were within seventeen miles of Seoul. [7]
The successes on land, brilliant though they were, were balanced by the
defeat of the Japanese navy off the southern coast. The Chinese admiral
Rishinshin, in conjunction with the Coreans, won an important victory
over Kuroda’s naval forces a few days after the fall of Nan-on. In this
instance, the Chinese ships were not only heavy enough to be formidable
as rams, but were made more manageable by numerous rowers sitting in
well-defended timber casements, apparently covered with metal. The
warriors, too, seem to have been armed with larger lances. The Chinese
commanders, having improved their tactics, so managed their vessels
that the Japanese fleet was destroyed or driven away.
This event may be said to have decided the fate of the campaign. Bereft
of their fleet, which would, by going round the west coast, have
afforded them a base of supplies, they were now obliged to advance into
a country nearly empty of forage, and with no store of provisions. As
in the opening of the war, so again, the loss of the fleet at a
critical period made retreat necessary even at the moment of victory.
Meanwhile, the Chinese general Keikai, thoroughly disliking the rigors
of a camp in a Corean winter, and feeling deeply for his soldiers
suffering from exposure in a desolate land, determined on closing the
war as soon as possible. Erecting an altar, in presence of the army, he
offered sacrifices to propitiate the spirits of Heaven and Earth, and
prayed for victory against the invaders. Then, after seeing well to
commissariat and equipment, he gave orders for a general movement of
all the allied forces, with the design of ending the war by a brief and
decisive campaign. The Japanese generals at Koran, by means of their
spies and advance parties, kept themselves well informed of the
movements of the enemy. At a skirmish at Chin-zen the Chinese advance
guard was defeated with heavy loss, but the Japanese at once began
their retreat. Shishida and Ota, who were further east, learning of the
overwhelming odds against them, fell back into Uru-san, which was
already manned by a detachment of Kato’s corps.
While Kato and Katsuyoshi were at Chin-zen, a grand tiger hunt was
proposed and carried out, in which a soldier was bitten in two places
and died. The army agreed that tiger-hunting required much nerve and
valor. Besides the tiger steaks, which they ate, much fresh meat was
furnished by the numerous crane, pheasants, and “the ten thousand
things different from those in Japan,” which they made use of to eke
out their scanty rations.
To remain in camp until the Han River was frozen over, and could be
crossed easily, or to press on at once, was the question now considered
by the Japanese. While thus debating, word came that the Chinese armies
had made junction at Seoul, and numbered one hundred thousand men. The
Japanese “felt cold in their breasts” when they heard this. Far from
their base of supplies, their fleet destroyed, and they at the
threshold of winter in a famine-stricken land, they were forced,
reluctantly, again to retreat into Kiung-sang.
This turning their backs on Seoul was, in reality, the beginning of
their march homeward. The invaders, therefore, enriched themselves with
the spoil of houses and temples as they moved toward the coast—gold and
silver brocades, rolls of silk, paintings, works of art, precious
manuscripts, books written with gold letters on azure paper, inlaid
weapons and armor, rich mantles, and whatever, in this long-settled and
wealthy province, pleased their fancy. On the boundaries of roads and
provinces they noticed large dressed stone columns of an octagonal
form, with inscriptions upon them. Their route lay from Chin-zen, which
they left in ashes, on October 25th, to Chin-nan; to Ho-won; to Ho-kin;
to Karon; reaching Kion-chiu, the old capital of Shinra, after some
fighting along the way.
The Japanese were impressed with the size and grandeur of the buildings
in this old seat of the civilization and learning of Shinra and Korai.
Here, in ancient days, was the focus of the arts, letters, religion,
and science which, from the west, the far off mysterious land of India,
and the nearer, yet august, empire of China, had been brought to Corea.
Here, too, their own ancient mikados had sent embassies, and from this
historic city had radiated the influences of civilization into Japan.
As Buddhism had been the dominant faith of Shinra and Korai, this was
the old sacred city of the peninsula, and among the historic edifices
still standing and most admired were the halls and pagodas of the
Eternal Buddha. Kion-chiu was to the Japanese very much what London is
to an American, Geneva to a Protestant, or Dordrecht to a Hollander.
Yet, in spite of all classic associations, the city was wantonly
destroyed. On the morning of November 2d, beginning at the magnificent
temples, the whole city was given to the torch. Three hundred thousand
dwellings were burned, and the flames lighted up the long night with
the glare of day.
The next morning, turning their backs on the gray waste of ashes, they
resumed their march. Kokiō, Kunoi, Sin-né were passed through.
Skirmishing and the destruction of castles, and the burning of
granaries, were the pastimes enjoyed between camps. On November 18th
the army reached a river, where the Coreans made an unsuccessful night
attack, repeating the same in the morning, while the Japanese were
crossing the stream, with the same negative results.
Thence through Yei-tan, they came to Kéku-shiu, another famous old seat
of Shinra’s ancient grandeur. The beautiful situation and rich
appearance of the city charmed the invaders, who lingered long in the
deserted streets before applying the torch. The “three hundred thousand
houses of the people” were clustered around the great Buddhist temple
in the centre. The clock-tower, eighteen stories high, was especially
admired. The massive swinging beam by which the tongueless bells, or
gongs, of the Far East are made to boom out the hours, struck against a
huge bronze lotus eight or nine feet in diameter. This sacred flower of
the Buddhist emblem of peace and calm in Nirvana had in Corean art
taken the place of the suspended bell, being most probably a cup-shaped
mass of metal set with mouth upright, or like a bell turned upside
down—such being the form often seen in the temples of Chinese Asia.
Again did antiquity, religion, or the promptings of mercy fail to
restrain the invaders. Securing what spoils they cared for, everything
else was burned up.
After camping at Kiran, they reached the sea-coast, at Uru-san,
November 18th.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE SIEGE OF URU-SAN CASTLE.
The Japanese now took up the spade as their immediate weapon of defence
against the infuriated Coreans and the avenging Chinese. A force of
twenty-three thousand men was at once set to work, “without regard to
wind or rain,” along the lines marked out by the Japanese engineers. To
furnish the wood for towers, gates, huts, and engines, a party of two
thousand axemen and laborers, guarded by twenty-eight mounted pickets
and three hundred matchlock men, with seven flags, went daily into the
forest.
The winter huts were hastily erected, walls thrown up, ditches dug,
towers built, and sentinels and watch stations set. The work went on
from earliest daybreak till latest twilight, the carpenters so
suffering from the cold that “their finger nails dropped off.” By the
first part of January the castle was almost completed. From the
eleventh day the garrison took rest.
The fortress was three-sided, the south face lying on the sea. The
total line of works was about three and a half miles, pierced by three
gates. The inner defences were in three parts, or maru. The third maru,
or enclosure, had stone walls, one tower and one gate; the second had
two towers, two gates; and the first or chief citadel had stone walls,
forty-eight feet high, with two towers and two gates.
The war operations, which had hitherto covered large spaces of the
country, now found the pivot at this place situated in Kiung-sang, on
the sea-coast, thirty-five miles north of Fusan. Another commander,
Asano, marched to assist the garrison and entered the castle before the
Ming army arrived. His advance guard, while reconnoitring, was defeated
by the Coreans, yet he succeeded, by an impetuous charge, in entering
the castle.
The Chinese, smarting under their losses at Chin-sen, and stung by the
gibes of the Coreans, now hastened to Uru-san, to swallow up the
Japanese. The Corean army, which had been collecting around the
Japanese camps, were soon joined by the advance guard of the Ming army.
The arrival of the Chinese forces was made known in the following
manner.
A Japanese captain commanded one of the advance pickets, which had
their quarters in the cloisters of Ankokuji (Temple of the Peaceful
Country). One night a board, inscribed with Chinese characters, was set
up before the gate of the camp. The soldiers, seeing it in the morning,
but unable to read Chinese, carried it to their captain, who handed it
to his priest-secretary. The board contained a warning that the Chinese
were near and would soon attack Uru-san. Betraying no emotion and
saying nothing, the captain soon after declared himself on the
sick-list, and secretly absconded to Fusan. The truth was, that an
overwhelming Ming army was now in front of them and their purpose to
invest the castle was thus published. The entire Japanese forces were
now gathered close under the walls, or inside the castle, and the
sentinels were doubled.
On the morning of January 30th the Ming army suddenly assaulted the
castle. A small detachment, evidently a decoy and forlorn hope,
attempting to scale the walls, was driven back by the matchlock men and
began to retreat. Seeing this, the Japanese recklessly opened the
barbican gate and began pursuit of their enemies, thinking they were
only Coreans. Lured on to a distance, they suddenly found themselves
encircled by a mighty host. By their black and yellow standards, and
their excellent tactics, the Japanese officers saw that they were Ming
soldiers. The dust raised by the horses of the oncoming enemy seemed to
the garrison as high as Atago Mountain in Japan. They now knew that
eighty thousand Chinese were before their gates. Only after hard
fighting, was the remnant of the Japanese sortie enabled to get back
within the castle, while the allies, surrounding the walls, fought as
fiercely as if they intended to take it by immediate assault. Some of
the bravest leaders of the garrison fell outside, but no sooner were
the gates locked than Katsuyoshi, without extracting the two arrows
from his wounds, or stanching the blood, posted the defenders on the
walls in position. Ogawuchi had performed the hazardous feat of
sallying out and firing most of the outside camps. He re-entered the
castle with arrows in his clothes, but received no wounds. The battle
raged until night, when the Chinese drew off.
The Japanese had suffered fearfully by the first combat beyond and on
the walls. “There was none but had been shot at by five or ten or
fifteen arrows.” One of their captains reckoned their loss at eighteen
thousand three hundred and sixty men, which left them but a garrison of
five thousand fighting men. A large number of non-combatants, including
many of the friendly people of the neighborhood, had crowded into the
fortifications, and had to be fed.
Food growing scarcer, and danger increasing, Asano sent word to Kato
for help. On a fleet horse the messenger arrived, after a ride of two
days. Kato had, in Japan, taken oath to Asano’s father to help him in
every strait. Immediately, with seventy picked companions, he put out
to sea in seven boats, and, after hard rowing, succeeded in entering
the castle.
On January 31, 1598, the war-conch sounded in the Ming camp, as the
signal of attack, and the ears of the besieged were soon deafened by
the yells of the “eighty thousand” besiegers. The Japanese were at
first terrified at the clouds of dust, through which the awful sight of
ranks of men, twenty deep, were on all sides visible. The enemy, armed
with shields shaped like a fowl’s wings, upon which they received the
missiles of the garrison, charged on the outer works, but when into and
on the slope of the ditch, flung their shields away, and plied axe,
knife, sword, and lance. Though seven attacks were repulsed, the wall
was breached, the outer works were gained by overwhelming numbers, and
the garrison was driven into the inner enclosure.
Night fell upon the work of blood, but at early morn, the enemy waked
the garrison with showers of arrows, and with ladders and hurdles of
bamboo, tried to scale the walls. In four hours, seven attacks in force
had been repulsed, yet the fighting went on. In spite of the intense
cold, the soldiers perspired so that the sweat froze on their armor.
Over their own heaps of corpses the Chinese attempted to force one of
the gates, while, from the walls of the inner citadel, and from the
higher gate above them, the Japanese smote them. The next day the
carnage ceased from the third to the ninth hour. On February 3d, the
Chinese, with their ladders, were again repulsed. At night their
sentinels “gathered hoar-frost on their helmets,” while guarding the
night long against the sortie, which they feared. Another attack from
the clouds of enemies kept up the work of killing. Some of the Japanese
warriors now noticed that their stockings and greave-bands kept
slipping down, though adjusted repeatedly. The fact was their flesh had
shrunk until their bones were nearly visible, and “their legs were as
lean as bamboo sticks.” Another warrior, taking off his helmet and
vizor, was seen to have a face so thin and wizen that he reminded his
comrades of one of those hungry demons of the nether world, which they
had seen so often depicted in temple pictures at home.
On February 5th, the Ming generals, who had looked upon the reduction
of Uru-san as a small affair to be settled by the way, and vexed at not
having been able to take it by one assault, tried negotiation. In fact,
they were suffering from lack of provisions. The Japanese sent back a
defiant answer, and some of them profited by the lull in the fighting
to make fires of broken arrows and lances, to strip the armor from the
dead and frozen carcasses of their steeds, and enjoy a dinner of hot
horse-meat. The vast number of shafts that had fallen within the walls,
were gathered into stacks, and those damaged were reserved for fuel.
Outside the citadel, they lay under the wall in heaps many feet high.
The next day, February 6th, was one of quiet, but it was intensely
cold, and many of the worn out soldiers of the garrison died. Sitting
under the sunny side of the towers for warmth, they were found in this
position frozen to death. Yet amid all the suffering, the Japanese
jested with each other, poured out mutual compliments, and kept light
hearts and defiant spirits.
A council of war had been held February 2d, at Fusan, and a messenger
sent to encourage the garrison. By some means he was able to
communicate with his beleaguered brethren. With helmets off, the
leaders listened to the words of cheer and praise, and promised to hold
out yet longer.
While the lull or truce was in force, the Chinese were, according to
Ogawuchi, plotting to entrap the Japanese leaders. This they learned
from one Okomoto, a native of Japan, who had lived long in China, and
was a division commander of eight thousand men in the Chinese army. He
it was who first brought the offers of accommodation from the Ming
side. The Chinese proposed to get the Japanese leaders to come out of
their citadel, leave their horses and weapons at a certain place, and
go to the altar to swear before Heaven to keep the peace. Then the
Chinese were to surround and make prisoners of the Japanese. Okomoto’s
soul recoiled at the perfidy. Going by night to the side of the castle
near the hills, he was admitted in the citadel, and exposing the plot,
gave warning of the danger. A profound impression was produced on the
grateful leaders, who immediately made a plan to show their gratitude
to Okomoto. They swore by all the gods to reward also his sons and
daughters who were still living in Japan. When this fact was made known
to him, he burst into tears and said he had never forgotten his wife or
children; though he saw them often in his dreams, yet “the winds
brought him no news.”
On the following morning a Chinese officer, coming to the foot of the
wall, made signs with his standard, and offered the same terms in
detail which Okomoto had exposed. The Japanese leaders excused
themselves on the plea of sickness, and the parley came to nothing.
Yet the sufferings of the Japanese were growing hourly severer. To half
rations and hunger had succeeded famine, and with famine came actual
death from starvation. Unfortunately there was no well in the castle,
so the Japanese had at first sallied out, under cover of the night, and
carried water from the mountain brooks. The Chinese, discovering this,
posted archers in front of every accessible stream, and thus cut off
all approach by night or day. To hunger was added the torture of
thirst. The soldiers who fought by day stole out at night and licked
the wounds of their slain enemies and even secretly chewed the raw
flesh sliced from the corpses of the Chinese. Within the castle,
ingenuity was taxed to the utmost to provide sustenance from the most
unpromising substances. The famished soldiers chewed paper, trapped
mice and ate them, killed horses and devoured every part of them.
Braving the arrows of the Chinese pickets, they wandered at night
wherever their dead enemies lay, and searched their clothes for stray
grains of parched rice. On one occasion the Chinese, lying in wait,
succeeded in capturing one hundred of the garrison, that were prowling
like ghouls around the corpses of the slain. After this the commanders
forbade any soldier, on pain of death, to leave the castle. Yet famine
held revel within, and scores of starved and frozen multiplied into
hundreds, until room for the corpses was needed.
Tidings of the straits of the dwindling garrison at Uru-san having
reached the other Japanese commanders, Nabéshima and Kuroda, they
marched to the relief of their compatriots. One of the Chinese
generals, Rijobai, leaving camp, set out to attack them.
The foiled Chinese commander-in-chief, angry at the refusal of the
Japanese to come to his camp, ordered a fresh attack on the castle.
This time fresh detachments took the places of others when wearied. The
day seemed shut out by the dust of horses, the smoke of guns, the
clouds of arrows, and the masses of flags. Again the scaling ladders
were brought, but made useless by the vigilant defenders in armor iced
with frozen sweat, and chafing to the bone. Their constant labor made
“three hours seem like three years.” The attack was kept up unceasingly
until February 12th, when the exhausted garrison noticed the Chinese
retreating. The van of the reinforcements from Fusan had attacked the
allies in the rear, and a bloody combat was raging. At about the same
time the fleet, laden with provisions, was on its way and near the
starving garrison.
Next morning the keen eyes of their commander noticed flocks of wild
birds descending on the Chinese camp. The careful scrutiny of the
actions of wild fowl formed a part of the military education of all
Japanese, and they inferred at once that the camp was empty and the
birds, attracted by the refuse food, were feeding without fear. Orders
were immediately given to a detachment to leave the castle and march in
pursuit. Passing through the deserted Ming camp, they came up with the
forces of Kuroda and Nabéshima, who had gained a great victory over the
allies. In this battle of the river plain of Gisen, February 9, 1598,
the Japanese had eighteen thousand men engaged. Their victory was
complete, thirteen thousand two hundred and thirty-eight heads of
Coreans and Chinese being collected after the retreat of the allies.
The noses and ears were, as usual, cut off and packed for shipment to
Kiōto.
The sufferings of the valiant defenders were now over. Help had come at
the eleventh hour. For fourteen days they had tasted neither rice nor
water, except that melted from snow or ice. The abundant food from the
relief ships was cautiously dealt out to the famished, lest sudden
plenty should cause sudden death. The fleet men not only congratulated
the garrison on their brave defence, but decorated the battered walls
with innumerable flags and streamers, while they revictualed the
magazines. On the ninth, the garrison went on the ships to go to
Sezukai, another part of the coast, to recruit their shattered
energies. With a feeling as if raised from the dead, the warriors took
off their armor. The reaction of the fearful strain coming at once upon
them, they found themselves lame and unable to stand or sit. Even in
their dreams, they grappled with the Ming, and, laying their hand on
their sword, fought again their battles in the land of dreams. For
three years afterward they did not cease these night visions of war.
According to orders given, the number of the dead lying on the frozen
ground, within two or three furlongs of the castle, was counted, and
found to be fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty-four. Of the
Japanese, who had starved or frozen to death, eight hundred and
ninety-seven were reported.
In the camp of the allies, crimination and recrimination were going on,
the Coreans angry at being foiled before Uru-san, and the Chinese
mortified that one fortress, with its garrison, could not have been
taken. They made their plans to go back and try the siege anew, when
the explosion of their powder magazine, which killed many of their men,
changed their plans. For his failure the Chinese commander-in-chief was
cashiered in disgrace.
On May 10th the soldiers of the garrison, now relieved, left for their
homes in Japan.
Thus ended the siege of Uru-san, after lasting an entire year.
After this nothing of much importance happened during the war. The
invaders had suffered severely from the cold and the climate, and from
hunger in the desolated land. Numerous skirmishes were fought, and a
continual guerilla war kept up, but, with the exception of another
naval battle between the Japanese and Chinese, in which artillery was
freely used, there was nothing to influence the fortunes of either
side. In this state of inaction, Hidéyoshi fell sick and died,
September 9, 1598, at the age of sixty-three. Almost his last words
were, “Recall all my troops from Chō-sen.” The governors appointed by
him to carry out his policy at once issued orders for the return of the
army. The orders to embark for home were everywhere gladly heard in the
Japanese camps by the soldiers whose sufferings were now to end. Before
leaving, however, many of the Japanese improved every opportunity to
have a farewell brush with their enemies.
It is said, by a trustworthy writer, that 214,752 human bodies were
decapitated to furnish the ghastly material for the “ear-tomb” mound in
Kiōto. Ogawuchi reckons the number of Corean heads gathered for
mutilation at 185,738, and of Chinese at 29,014; all of which were
despoiled of ears or noses. It is probable that 50,000 Japanese,
victims of wounds or disease, left their bones in Corea.
Thus ended one of the most needless, unprovoked, cruel, and desolating
wars that ever cursed Corea, and from which it has taken her over two
centuries to recover.
CHAPTER XX.
CHANGES AFTER THE INVASION.
The war over, and peace again in the land, the fugitives returned to
their homes and the farmers to their fields. The whole country was
desolate, the scars of war were everywhere visible, and the curse of
poverty was universal. From the king and court, in the royal city, of
which fire had left little but ashes, and of which war and famine had
spared few inhabitants, to the peasant, who lived on berries and roots
until his scanty seed rose above the ground and slowly ripened, all now
suffered the woful want which the war had bred. Kind nature, however,
ceased not her bountiful stores, and from the ever-ready and ever-full
treasuries of the ocean, fed the stricken land.
The war was a fruitful cause of national changes in Corean customs and
institutions. The first was the more thorough organization of the
military, the rebuilding and strengthening of old castles, and the
erection of new ones; though, like most measures of the government, the
proposed reforms were never properly carried out. The coasts were
guarded with fresh vigilance. Upon one of the Corean commanders, who
had been many times successful against the Japanese, a new title and
office was created, and the coast defence of the three southern
provinces was committed to him. This title was subsequently conferred
upon three officials whose headquarters were at points in Kiung-sang.
Among the literary fruits of the leisure now afforded was the
narrative, in Chinese, of the events leading to the war with the
Japanese, written by a high dignitary of the court, and covering the
period from about 1586 to 1598. This is, perhaps, the only book
reprinted in Japan, which gives the Corean side of the war. In his
preface the excessively modest author states that he writes the book
“because men ought to look at the present in the mirror of the past.”
The Chinese style of this writer is difficult for an ordinary Japanese
to read. The book (Chōhitsuroku) contains a curious map of the eight
provinces.
In Japan the energies of the returned warriors were fully employed at
home after their withdrawal from Corea. The adherents of Taikō and
those of Iyéyasŭ, the rising man, came to blows, and at the great
battle of Sékigahara, in October, 1600, Iyéyasŭ crushed his foes. Many
of the heroes of the peninsular campaign fell on the field; or, as
beaten men, disembowelled themselves, according to the Japanese code of
honor.
Konishi, being a Christian, and unable, from conscientious scruples, to
commit suicide by hara kiri, was decapitated. The humbled spirit and
turbulent wrath of Satsuma were appeased, and given a valve of escape
in the permission accorded them to make definite conquest of Riu Kiu.
This was done by a well-planned and vigorously executed expedition in
1609, by which the little archipelago was made an integral part of the
Japanese empire. When retiring from Chō-sen, in 1597, the daimiō and
general Nabéshima requited himself for the possible loss of further
military glory, by bringing over and settling in Satsuma a colony of
Corean potters. He builded better than he knew, for in founding these
industries in his own domain, he became the prime author of that
delight of the æsthetic world, “old Satsuma faïence.” Other daimiōs, in
whose domains were potteries, likewise transported skilled workers in
clay, who afterward brought fame and money to their masters. On the
other hand, Iyéyasŭ sent back the Corean prisoners in Japan to their
own homes.
The spoil brought back from the peninsular campaign—weapons, flags,
brocades, porcelains, carvings, pictures, and manuscripts was duly
deposited, with certifying documents, in temples and storehouses, or
garnished the home of the veterans for the benefit of posterity. Some,
with a literary turn, employed their leisure in writing out their notes
and journals, several of which have survived the wreck of time. Some,
under an artistic impulse, had made valuable sketches of cities,
scenery, battle-fields, and castles, which they now finished. A few of
the victors shore off their queues and hair, and became monks. Others,
with perhaps equal piety, hung up the arrow-pierced helmet, or corslet
slashed by Chinese sabre, as ex-voto at the local shrines. The writer
can bear personal witness to the interest which many of these authentic
relics inspired in him while engaged in their study. In 1878 a large
collection of various relics of the Corean war of 1592–1597 came into
the possession of the mikado’s government in Tōkiō, from the heirs or
descendants of the veterans of Taikō. In Kiōto, besides the
Ear-monument, the Hall of the Founder, in one of the great Buddhist
temples, rebuilt by the widow of Taikō, was ceiled with the choice wood
of the war junk built for the hero.
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 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 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.”
From an American or British point of view, there was little trade done
between the two countries, but on the strength, of even this small
amount, Earl Russell, in 1862, tried to get Great Britain included as a
co-trader between Japan and Corea. He was not successful. Provision was
also made for those who might be cast, by the perils of the sea, upon
the shore of either country. At the expense of the Yedo government a
Chō-sen Yashiki (Corean House), was built at Nagasaki. From whatever
part of the Japanese shores the waifs were picked up, they were sent to
Nagasaki, fed and sheltered until a junk could be despatched to Fusan.
These unfortunates were mostly fishermen, who, in some cases, had their
wives and children with them. It was from such that Siebold obtained
the materials for his notes, vocabulary, and sketches in the Corean
department of his great Archiv.
The possession of Fusan by the Japanese was, until 1876, a perpetual
witness of the humiliating defeat of the Coreans in the war of
1592–1597, and a constant irritation to their national pride. Their
popular historians, passing over the facts of the case, substitute
pleasing fiction to gratify the popular taste. The subjoined note of
explanation, given by Dallet, attached to a map of Corea of home
manufacture, thus accounts for the presence of the foreigners. The
substance of the note is as follows: During the sixteenth century many
of the barbarous inhabitants of Tsushima left that island, and, coming
over to Corea, established themselves on the coast of Corea, in three
little ports, called Fusan, Yum, and Chisi, and rapidly increased in
numbers. About five years after Chung-chong ascended the throne, the
barbarians of Fusan and Yum made trouble. They destroyed the walls of
the city of Fusan, and killed also the city governor, named Ni Utsa.
Being subdued by the royal troops, they could no longer live in these
ports, but were driven into the interior. A short time afterward,
having asked pardon for their crimes, they obtained it and came and
established themselves again at the ports. This was only for a short
time, for a few years afterward, a little before the year 1592, they
all returned to their country, Tsushima. In the year 1599 the king,
Syen-cho, held communication with the Tsushima barbarians. It happened
that he invited them to the places which they had quitted on the coast
of Corea, built houses for them, treated them with great kindness,
established for their benefit a market during five days in each month,
beginning on the third day of the month, and when they had a great
quantity of merchandise on hand to dispose of he even permitted them to
hold it still oftener.
This is a good specimen of Corean varnish-work carried into history.
The rough facts are smoothed over by that well-applied native lacquer,
which is said to resemble gold to the eye. The official gloss has been
smeared over more modern events with equal success, and even defeat is
turned into golden victory.
Yet, with all the miseries inflicted upon her, the humble nation
learned rich lessons and gained many an advantage even from her enemy.
The embassies, which were yearly despatched to yield homage to their
late invaders, were at the expense of the latter. The Japanese pride
purchased, at a dear rate, the empty bubble of homage, by paying all
the bills. We may even suspect that a grim joke was practised upon the
victors by the vanquished. Year by year they swelled the pomp and
numbers of their train until, finally, it reached the absurd number of
four hundred persons. With imperturbable effrontery they devastated the
treasury of their “Tycoon.” To receive an appointment on the embassy to
Yedo was reckoned a rich sinecure. It enabled the possessor to enjoy an
expensive picnic of three months, two of which were at the cost of the
entertainers. Landing in Chikuzen, or Hizen, they slowly journeyed
overland to Yedo, and, after their merrymaking in the capital,
leisurely made their jaunt back again. For nearly a century the Yedo
government appeared to relish the sensation of having a crowd of people
from across the sea come to pay homage and bear witness to the
greatness of the Tokugawa family. In 1710 a special gateway was erected
in the castle at Yedo to impress the embassy from Seoul, who were to
arrive next year, with the serene glory of the shō-gun Iyénobu. From a
pavilion near by the embassy’s quarters, the Tycoon himself was a
spectator of the feats of archery, on horseback, in which the Coreans
excelled. The intolerable expense at last compelled the Yedo rulers to
dispense with such costly vassalage, and to spoil what was, to their
guests, a pleasant game. Ordering them to come only as far as Tsushima,
they were entertained by the So family of daimiōs, who were allowed by
the “Tycoon” a stipend in gold kobans for this purpose.
A great social custom, that has become a national habit, was introduced
by the Japanese when they brought over the tobacco plant and taught its
properties, culture, and use. The copious testimony of all visitors,
and the rich vocabulary of terms relating to the culture, curing, and
preparation of tobacco show that the crop that is yearly raised from
the soil merely for purposes of waste in smoke is very large. In the
personal equipment of every male Corean, and often in that of women and
children, a tobacco pouch and materials for firing forms an
indispensable part. The smoker does not feel “dressed” without his
well-filled bag. Into the forms of hospitality, the requisites of
threshold gossip and social enjoyment, and for all other purposes, real
or imaginary, which nicotine can aid or abet, tobacco has entered not
merely as a luxury or ornament, but as a necessity.
Another great change for the better, in the improvement of the national
garb, dates from the sixteenth century, and very probably from the
Japanese invasion. This was the introduction of the cotton plant.
Hitherto, silk for the very rich, and hemp and sea grass for the middle
and poorer classes, had been the rule. In the north, furs were worn to
a large extent, while plaited straw for various parts of the limbs
served for clothing, as well as protection against storm and rain. The
vegetable fibres were bleached to give whiteness. Cotton now began to
be generally cultivated and woven.
It is true that authorities do not agree as to the date of the first
use of this plant. Dallet reports that cotton was formerly unknown in
Corea, but was grown in China, and that the Chinese, in order to
preserve a market for their textile fabrics within the peninsula,
rigorously guarded, with all possible precautions, against the
exportation of a single one of the precious seeds.
One of the members of the annual embassy to Peking, with great tact,
succeeded in procuring a few grains of cotton seed, which he concealed
in the quill of his hat feather. Thus, in a manner similar to the
traditional account of the bringing of silk-worms’ eggs inside a staff
to Constantinople from China, the precious shrub reached Corea about
five hundred years ago. It is now cultivated successfully in the
peninsula in latitude far above that of the cotton belt in America, and
even in Manchuria, the most northern limit of its growth.
It is evident that a country which contains cotton, crocodiles, and
tigers, cannot have a very bleak climate. It seems more probable that
though the first seeds may have been brought from China, the
cultivation of this vegetable wool was not pursued upon a large scale
until after the Japanese invasion. Our reasons for questioning the
accuracy of the date given in the common tradition is, that it is
certain that cotton was not known in Northern China five hundred years
ago. It was introduced into Central China from Turkestan in the
fourteenth century, though known in the extreme south before that time.
The Chinese pay divine honors to one Hwang Tao Po, the reputed
instructress in the art of spinning and weaving the “tree-wool.” She is
said to have come from Hainan Island.
Though cotton was first brought to Japan by a Hindoo, in the year 799,
yet the art of its culture seems to have been lost during the long
civil wars of the middle ages. The fact that it had become extinct is
shown in a verse of poetry composed by a court noble in 1248. “The
cotton-seed, that was planted by the foreigner and not by the natives,
has died away.” In another Japanese book, written about 1570, it is
stated that cotton had again been introduced and planted in the
southern provinces.
The Portuguese, trading at Nagasaki, made cotton wool a familiar object
to the Japanese soldiers. While the army was in Corea a European ship,
driven far out of her course and much damaged by the storm, anchored
off Yokohama. Being kindly treated while refitting, the captain, among
other gifts to the daimiō of the province, gave him a bag of cotton
seeds, which were distributed. The yarn selling at a high price, the
culture of the shrub spread rapidly through the provinces of Eastern
and Northern Japan, being already common in the south provinces. Even
if the culture of cotton was not introduced into Corea by the Japanese
army, it is certain that it has been largely exported from Japan during
the last two centuries. The increase of general comfort by this one
article of wear and use can hardly be estimated. Not only as wool and
fibre, but in the oil from its seeds, the nation added largely to the
sum of its blessings.
Paper, from silk and hemp, rice stalk fibres, mulberry bark, and other
such raw material, had long been made by the Chinese, but it is
probable that the Coreans, first of the nations of Chinese Asia, made
paper from cotton wool. For this manufacture they to-day are famed.
Their paper is highly prized in Peking and Japan for its extreme
thickness and toughness. It forms part of the annual tribute which the
embassies carry to Peking. It is often thick enough to be split into
several layers, and is much used by the tailors of the Chinese
metropolis as a lining for the coats of mandarins and gentlemen. It
also serves for the covering of window-frames, and a sewed wad of from
ten to fifteen thicknesses of it make a kind of armor which the troops
wear. It will resist a musket-ball, but not a rifle-bullet.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE ISSACHAR OF EASTERN ASIA.
The Shan-yan Alin, or Ever-White Mountains, stand like a wall along the
northern boundary of the Corean peninsula. Irregular mountain masses
and outjutting ranges of hills form its buttresses, while, at
intervals, lofty peaks rise as towers. These are all overtopped by the
central spire Paik-tu, or Whitehead, which may be over ten thousand
feet high. From its bases flow out the Yalu, Tumen, and Hurka Rivers.
From primeval times the dwellers at the foot of this mountain, who saw
its ever hoary head lost in the clouds, or glistening with fresh-fallen
snow, conceived of a spirit dwelling on its heights in the form of a
virgin in white. Her servants were animals in white fur and birds in
white plumage.
When Buddhism entered the peninsula, as in China and Japan, so, in
Corea, it absorbed the local deities, and hailed them under new names,
as previous incarnations of Buddha before his avatar in India, or the
true advent of the precious faith through his missionaries. They were
thenceforth adopted into the Buddhist pantheon, and numbered among the
worshipped Buddhas. The spirit of the Ever-White Mountains, the virgin
in ever-white robes, named Manchusri, whose home lay among the
unmelting snows, was one of these. Perhaps it was from this deity that
the Manchius, the ancestors of the ruling dynasty of China, the wearers
of the world-famous hair tails, took their name.
According to Manchiu legend, as given by Professor Douglas, it is said
that “in remote ages, three heaven-born virgins dwelt beneath the
shadow of the Great White Mountains, and that, while they were bathing
in a lake which reflected in its bosom the snowy clad peaks which
towered above it, a magpie dropped a blood red fruit on the clothes of
the youngest. This the maiden instinctively devoured, and forthwith
conceived and bore a son, whose name they called Ai-sin Ghioro, which
being interpreted is the ‘Golden Family Stem,’ and which is the family
name of the emperors of China. When his mother had entered the icy cave
of the dead, her son embarked on a little boat, and floated down the
river Hurka, until he reached a district occupied by three families who
were at war with each other. The personal appearance of the
supernatural youth so impressed these warlike chiefs that they forgot
their enmities, and hailed him as their ruler. The town of O-to-le
[Odoli] was chosen as his capital, and from that day his people waxed
fat and kicked against their oppressors, the Chinese.”
The home of the Manchius was, as this legend shows, on the north side
of the Ever-White Mountains, in the valley of the Hurka. From beyond
these mountains was to roll upon China and Corea another avalanche of
invasion. Beginning to be restless in the fourteenth century, they had,
in the sixteenth, consolidated so many tribes, and were so strong in
men and horses, that they openly defied the Chinese. The formidable
expeditions of Li-yu-sun, previous to the Japanese invasion of Corea,
kept them at bay for a time, but the immense expenditure of life and
treasure required to fight the Japanese, drained the resources of the
Ming emperors, while their attention being drawn away from the north,
the Manchiu hordes massed their forces and grew daily in wealth,
numbers, discipline, and courage. The invasion of Chō-sen by the
Japanese veterans was one of the causes of the weakness and fall of the
Ming dynasty.
To repress the rising power in the north, and to smother the life of
the young nation, the Peking government resorted to barbarous cruelties
and stern coercion, in which bloodshed was continual. Unable to protect
the eastern border of Liao Tung, the entire population of three hundred
thousand souls, dwelling in four cities and many villages, were removed
westward and resettled on new lands. Fortresses were planned, but not
finished, in the deserted land, to keep back the restless cavalry
raiders from the north. Thus the foundation of the neutral strip of
fifty miles was unconsciously laid, and ten thousand square miles of
fair and fertile land, west of the Yalu, was abandoned to the wolf and
tiger. What it soon became, it has remained until yesterday—a howling
wilderness. (See map on page 155.)
Unable to meet these cotton-armored raiders in the field, the Ming
emperor ordered, and in 1615 consummated, the assassination of their
king. This exasperated all the Manchiu tribes to vengeance, and
hostilities on a large scale at once began by a southwest movement into
Liao Tung.
China had now again to face an invasion greater than the Japanese, for
this time a whole nation was behind it. Calling on her vassal, the
Eastern Kingdom, to send an army of twenty thousand men, she ordered
them to join the imperial army at Hing-king. This city, now called
Yen-den, lies about seventy miles west of the Yalu River, near the 42d
parallel, just beyond what was “the neutral strip,” and inside the
palisades erected later. In the battle, which ensued, the Coreans first
faced the Manchius. The imperial legions were beaten, and the Coreans,
seeing which way the victory would finally turn, deserted from the
Chinese side to that of their enemy. This was in 1619.
The Manchiu general sent back some of the runaway Coreans to their
king, intimating that, though the Coreans were acting gratefully in
assisting the Chinese, who had formerly helped the Coreans against the
Japanese, yet it might hereafter be better to remain neutral. So far
from taking any notice of this letter, the government at Seoul allowed
the king’s subjects to cross the Yalu and assist the people of Liao
Tung against the Manchius, who were making Hing-king their capital. At
the same time the Chinese commander was permitted to enter Corea, and
thence to make expeditions against the Manchius, by which they
inflicted great damage upon the enemy. This continued until the winter
of 1827, when the Manchius, having lost all patience with Corea,
prepared to invade the peninsula. Compelling two refugees to act as
their guides, they crossed the frozen Yalu in four divisions, in
February, and at once attacked the Chinese army, which was defeated,
and retreated into Liao Tung. They then began the march to Seoul.
Ai-chiu was the first town taken, and then, after crossing the
Ching-chong River, followed in succession the cities lining the high
road to Ping-an. Thence, over the Tatong River, they pressed on to
Seoul, the Coreans everywhere flying before them. Thousands of
dwellings and magazines of provisions were given to the flames, and
their trail was one of blood and ashes. Among the slain were two
Hollanders, who were captives in the country.
Heretofore a line of strong palisades had separated Corea from
Manchuria, on the north, but large portions of it were destroyed at
this time in the constant forays along the border. Those parts which
stood yet intact were often seen by travellers along the Manchurian
side as late as toward the end of the last century. Since then this
wooden wall, a pigmy imitation of China’s colossal embargo in masonry,
has gradually fallen into decay.
The Manchius invested Seoul and began its siege in earnest. The queen
and ladies of the court had already been sent to Kang-wa Island. The
king, to avoid further shedding of blood, sent tribute offerings to the
invaders, and concluded a treaty of peace by which Chō-sen again
exchanged masters, the king not only acknowledging from the Manchiu
sovereign the right of investiture, but also direct authority over his
person, that is, the relation of master and subject.
The Coreans now waited to see whether events were likely to modify
their new relations, so reluctantly entered into, for the Chinese were
far from beaten as yet. When free from the presence of the invading
army the courage of the ministers rose, and by their advice the king,
by gradual encroachments and neglect, annulled the treaty.
No sooner were the Manchius able to spare their forces for the purpose,
than, turning from China, they marched into Corea, one hundred thousand
strong, well supplied with provisions and baggage-wagons. Entering the
peninsula, both at Ai-chiu and by the northern pass, they reached
Seoul, and, after severe fighting, entered it. Being now provided with
cannon and boats, they took Kang-wa, into which all the royal, and many
of the noble, ladies had fled for safety.
The king now came to terms, and made a treaty in February, 1637, in
which he utterly renounced his allegiance to the Ming emperor, agreed
to give his two sons as hostages, promised to send an annual embassy,
with tribute, to the Manchiu court, and to establish a market at the
Border Gate, in Liao Tung. These covenants were ratified by the solemn
ceremonial of the king, his sons and his ministers confessing their
crimes and making “kow-tow” (bowing nine times to the earth). Tartar
and Corean worshipped together before Heaven, and the altar erected to
Heaven’s honor. A memorial stone, erected near this sacred place,
commemorates the clemency of the Manchiu conqueror.
In obedience to the orders of their new masters, the Coreans despatched
ships, loaded with grain, to feed the armies operating against Peking,
and sent a small force beyond the Tumen to chastise a tribe that had
rebelled against their conquerors. A picked body of their matchlock men
was also admitted into the Manchiu service.
After the evacuation of Corea, the victors marched into China, where
bloody, civil war was already raging. The imperial army was badly
beaten by the rebels headed by the usurper Li-tse-ching. The Manchius
joined their forces with the Imperialists, and defeated the rebels, and
then demanded the price of their victory. Entering Peking, they
proclaimed the downfall of the house of Ming. The Tâtar (vassal) was
now a “Tartar.” The son of their late king was set upon the
dragon-throne and proclaimed the Whang Ti, the Son of Heaven, and the
Lord of the Middle Kingdom and all her vassals. The following tribute
was fixed for Chō-sen to pay annually:
100 ounces of gold, 1,000 ounces of silver, 10,000 bags of rice, 2,000
pieces of silk, 300 pieces of linen, 10,000 pieces of cotton cloth, 400
pieces of hemp cloth, 100 pieces of fine hemp cloth, 10,000 rolls
(fifty sheets each) of large paper, 1,000 rolls small sized paper,
2,000 knives (good quality), 1,000 ox-horns, 40 decorated mats, 200
pounds of dye-wood, 10 boxes of pepper, 100 tiger skins, 100 deer
skins, 400 beaver skins, 200 skins of blue (musk?) rats.
When, as it happened the very next year, the shō-gun of Japan demanded
an increase of tribute to be paid in Yedo, the court of Seoul plead in
excuse their wasted resources consequent upon the war with the
Manchius, and their heavy burdens newly laid upon them. Their excuse
was accepted.
Twice, within a single generation, had the little peninsula been
devastated by two mighty invasions that ate up the land. Between the
mountaineers of the north, and “the brigands” from over the sea, Corea
was left the Issachar among nations. The once strong ass couched down
between two burdens. “And he saw that the rest was good, and the land
that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a
servant unto tribute.”
The Manchius, being of different stock and blood from the Chinese, yet
imposed their dress and method of wearing the hair upon the millions of
Chinese people, but here their tyranny seemed to stop. Hitherto, the
Chinese and Corean method of rolling the hair in a knot or ball, on the
top of the head, had been the fashion for ages. As a sign of loyalty to
the new rulers, all people in the Middle Kingdom were compelled to
shave the forefront of the head and allow their hair to grow in a
queue, or pig-tail, behind on their back. At first they resisted, and
much blood was shed before all submitted; but, at length, the once
odious mark of savagery and foreign conquest became the national
fashion, and the Chinaman’s pride at home and abroad. Even in foreign
lands, they cling to this mark of their loyalty as to life and country.
The object of the recent queue-cutting plots, fomented by the
political, secret societies of China, is to insult the imperial family
at Peking by robbing the Chinese of their loyal appendage, and the
special sign of the Tartar dominion.
As a special favor to the Coreans who first submitted to the new
masters of Kathay, they were spared the infliction of the queue, and
allowed to dress their hair in the ancient style.
The Corean king hastened to send congratulations to the emperor, Shun
Chi, which ingratiated him still more in favor at Peking. In 1650 a
captive Corean maid, taken prisoner in their first invasion, became
sixth lady in rank in the imperial household. Through her influence her
father, the ambassador, obtained a considerable diminution of the
annual tribute, fixed upon in the terms of capitulation in 1637. In
1643, one-third of this tribute had been remitted, so that, by this
last reduction, in 1650, the tax upon Corean loyalty was indeed very
slight. Indeed it has long been considered by the Peking government
that the Coreans get about as much as they give, and the embassy is one
of ceremony rather than of tribute-bringing. Their offering is rather a
percentage paid for license to trade, than a symbol of vassalage.
Nevertheless, the Coreans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
found out, to their cost, that any lack of due deference was an
expensive item of freedom. Every jot and tittle, or tithe of the mint
or anise of etiquette, was exacted by the proud Manchius. In 1695, the
king of Chō-sen was fined ten thousand ounces of silver for the
omission of some punctilio of vassalage. At the investiture of each
sovereign in Seoul, two grandees were sent from Peking to confer the
patent of royalty. The little bill for this costly favor was about ten
thousand taels, or dollars, in silver. The Coreans also erected, near
one of the gates of Seoul, a temple, which still stands, in honor of
the Manchius general commanding the invasion, and to whom, to this day,
they pay semi-divine honors. Yet to encourage patriotism it was
permitted, by royal decree, to the descendants of the minister who
refused, at the Yalu River, to allow the Manchius to cross, and who
thereby lost his life, to erect to his memory a monumental gate, a mark
of high honor only rarely granted.
The Jesuits at Peking succeeded in ingratiating themselves with the
conquerors, and Shun-chi, the emperor, was a pupil of Adam Schall, a
German Jesuit, who became President of the Board of Mathematicians.
Nevertheless, in the troubles preceding the peace, many upright men
lost their lives, and hundreds of scholars who hated the Tâtar
conquerors of their beloved China—as the Christians of Constantinople
hated the Turks—fled to Corea and Japan, conferring great literary
influence and benefit. In both countries their presence greatly
stimulated the critical study of Chinese literature. With the Mito and
Yedo scholars in Japan, they assisted to promote the revival of
learning, so long neglected during the civil wars. At Nagasaki, a
Chinese colony of merchants, and trade between the two countries, were
established, after the last hope of restoring the Mings had been
extinguished in Kokusenya (Coxinga), who also drove the Dutch from
Formosa. This exodus of scholars was somewhat like the dispersion of
the Greek scholars through Europe after the fall of the Byzantine
empire.
To the Jesuits in Peking, who were mostly Frenchmen, belongs the credit
of beginning that whole system of modern culture, by which modern
science and Christianity are yet to transform the Chinese mind, and
recast the ideas of this mighty people concerning nature and Deity.
They now began to make known in Europe much valuable information about
China and her outlying tributary states. They sent home a map of
Corea—the first seen in Europe. Imperfect, though it was, it made the
hermit land more than a mere name. In “China Illustrata,” written by
the Jesuit Martini, and published in 1649, in Amsterdam—the city of
printing presses and the Leipsic of that day—there is a map of Corea.
The same industrious scholar wrote, in Latin, a book, entitled “De
Bello inter Tartaros et Seniensis” (On the War between the Manchius and
the Chinese), which was issued at Antwerp in 1654, and in Amsterdam in
1661. It was also translated into English, French, and Spanish, the
editions being issued at London, Donay, and Madrid. The English title
is “Bellum Tartaricum; or, the Conquest of the Great and Most Renowned
Empire of China by the Invasion of the [Manchiu] Tartars,” London,
1654, octavo.
The Dutch had long tried to get a hand in the trade of China, and, in
1604, 1622, and 1653, had sent fleets of trading vessels to Chinese
ports, but were in every instance refused. The Russians, however, were
first allowed to trade on the northern frontier of China before the
same privileges were granted to other Europeans. The Cossacks, when
they first crossed the Ural Mountains, in 1579, with their faces set
toward the Pacific, never ceased their advance till they had added to
the Czar’s domain a portion of the earth’s surface as large as the
United States, and half of Europe. Once on the steppes, there began
that long duel between Cossack and Tartar, which never ended until the
boundaries of Russia touched those of Corea, Japan, and British
America. Cossacks discovered, explored, conquered, and settled this
triple-zoned region of frozen moss, forest land and fertile soil,
bringing over six million square miles of territory under the wings of
the double-headed eagle. They brought reports of Corea to Russia, and
it was from Russian sources that Sir John Campbell obtained the
substance of his “Commercial History of Chorea and Japan” in his
voyages and travels, printed in London, 1771.
In 1645, a party of Japanese traversed Chō-sen from Ai-chiu to Fusan,
the Dan and Beersheba of the peninsula. Returning from their travels,
one of them wrote a book called the “Romance of Corea” (Chō-sen
Monogatari). Takéuchi Tosaémon and his son, Tozo, and shipmaster Kunida
Hisosaémon, on April 26, 1645, left the port of Mikuni in the province
of Echizen—the same place to which the first native of Corea is said to
have reached Japan in the legendary period. With three large junks,
whose crews numbered fifty-eight men, they set sail for the north on a
trading voyage. Off the island of Sado a fearful storm broke upon them,
which, after fifteen days, drove them on the mountain coast of Tartary,
where they landed, May 12th, to refit and get fresh water. At first the
people treated them peacefully, trading off their ginseng for the saké,
or rice-beer, of the Japanese. Later on, the Japanese were attacked by
the natives, and twenty-five of their number slain. The remainder were
taken to Peking, where they remained until the winter of 1646.
Honorably acquitted of all blame, they were sent homeward, into the
Eastern Kingdom, under safe conduct of the Chinese emperor Shun-chi.
They began the journey December 18th, and, crossing the snow-covered
mountains and frozen rivers of Liao Tung, reached Seoul, after
twenty-eight days travel, February 3, 1647.
The Japanese were entertained in magnificent style in one of the royal
houses with banquets, numerous servants, presents, and the attendance
of an officer, named Kan-shun, who took them around the city and showed
them the sights. The paintings on the palace walls, the tiger-skin
rugs, the libraries of handsomely bound books, the festivities of New
Year’s day, the evergreen trees and fine scenery, were all novel and
pleasing to the Japanese, but still they longed to reach home. Leaving
Seoul, February 12th, they passed through a large city, where, at
sunset and sunrise, they heard the trumpeters call the laborers to
begin and cease work. They noticed that the official class inscribed on
their walls the names and dates of reign and death of the royal line
from the founder of the dynasty to the father of the ruling sovereign.
This served as an object lesson in history for the young. The merchants
kept in their houses a picture of the famous Tao-jō-kung, who, by skill
in trade, accumulated fortunes only to spend them among his friends. On
February 21st, they passed through Shang-shen (or Shang-chiu?), where
the Japanese gained a great victory.
In passing along the Nak-tong River, they witnessed the annual trial of
archery for the military examinations. The targets were straw
mannikins, set up on boats, in the middle of the river. On March 6th
they reached Fusan. The Japanese settlement, called Nippon-machi, or
Japan Street, was outside the gates of the town, a guard-house being
kept up to keep the Japanese away. Only twice a year, on August 15th
and 16th, were they allowed to leave their quarters to visit a temple
in the town. The Coreans, however, were free to enter the Japanese
concession to visit or trade. The waifs were taken into the house of
the daimiō of Tsushima, and glad, indeed, were they to talk with a
fellow countryman. Sailing to Tsushima, they were able there to get
Japanese clothes, and, on July 19th, they reached Ozaka, and finally
their homes in Echizen. One of their number wrote out an account of his
adventures.
Among other interesting facts, he states that he saw, hanging in the
palace at Peking, a portrait of Yoshitsuné, the Japanese hero, who, as
some of his countrymen believe, fled the country and, landing in
Manchuria, became the mighty warrior Genghis Khan. Whether mistaken or
not, the note of the Japanese is interesting.
Mr. Leon Pages, in his “Histoire de la Religion Chrétienne au Japon,”
says that these men referred to above found established in the capital
a Japanese commercial factory, but with the very severe restrictions
similar to those imposed upon the Hollanders at Deshima. This is
evidently a mistake. There was no trading mart in the capital, but
there was, and had been, one at Fusan, which still exists in most
flourishing condition.
The Manchius, from the first, showed themselves “the most improvable
race in Asia.” In 1707, under the patronage of the renowned emperor
Kang Hi, the Jesuits in Peking began their great geographical
enterprise—the survey of the Chinese Empire, including the outlying
vassal kingdoms. From the king’s palace, at Seoul, Kang Hi’s envoy
obtained a map of Corea, which was reduced, drawn, and sent to Europe
to be engraved and printed. From this original, most of the maps and
supposed Corean names in books, published since that time, have been
copied. Having no Corean interpreter at hand, the Jesuit cartographers
gave the Chinese sounds of the characters which represent the local
names. Hence the discrepancies between this map and the reports of the
Dutch, Japanese, French, and American travellers, who give the
vernacular pronunciation. To French genius and labor, from first to
last, we owe most of what is known in Europe concerning the secluded
nation. The Jesuits’ map is accurate as regards the latitude and
longitude of many places, but lacking in true coast lines.
While making their surveys, the party of missionaries, whose assignment
of the work was to Eastern Manchuria, caught something like a Pisgah
glimpse of the country which, before a century elapsed, was to become a
land of promise to French Christianity. In 1709, as they looked across
the Tumen River, they wrote: “It was a new sight to us after we had
crossed so many forests, and coasted so many frightful mountains to
find ourselves on the banks of the river Tumen-ula, with nothing but
woods and wild beasts on one side, while the other presented to our
view all that art and labor could produce in the best cultivated
kingdoms. We there saw walled cities, and placing our instruments on
the neighboring heights, geometrically determined the location of four
of them, which bounded Korea on the north.” The four towns seen by the
Jesuit surveyors were Kion-wen, On-son, and possibly Kion-fun and
Chon-shon.
The Coreans could not understand the Tartar or Chinese companions of
the Frenchmen, but, at Hun-chun, they found interpreters, who told them
the names of the Corean towns. The French priests were exceedingly
eager and anxious to cross the river, and enter the land that seemed
like the enchanted castle of Thornrose, but, being forbidden by the
emperor’s orders, they reluctantly turned their backs upon the smiling
cities.
This was the picture of the northern border in 1707, before it was
desolated, as it afterward was, so that the Russians might not be
tempted to cross over. At Hun-chun, on the Manchiu, and Kion-wen, on
the Corean side of the river, once a year, alternately, that is, once
in two years, at each place, a fair was held up to 1860, where the
Coreans and Chinese merchants exchanged goods. The lively traffic
lasted only half a day, when the nationals of either country were
ordered over the border, and laggards were hastened at the spear’s
point. Any foreigner, Manchiu, Chinese, or even Corean suspected of
being an alien, was, if found on the south side of the Tumen, at once
put to death without shrift or pity. Thus the only gate of parley with
the outside world on Corea’s northern frontier resembled an embrasure
or a muzzle. When at last the Cossack lance flashed, and the Russian
school-house rose, and the church spire glittered with steady radiance
beyond the Tumen, this gateway became the terminus of that “underground
railroad,” through which the Corean slave reached his Canada beyond, or
the Corean Christian sought freedom from torture and dungeons and
death.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE DUTCHMEN IN EXILE.
The old saw which tells us that “truth is stranger than fiction”
receives many a new and unexpected confirmation whenever a traveller
into strange countries comes back to tell his tale. Marco Polo was
denominated “Signor Milliano” (Lord Millions) by his incredulous
hearers, because, in speaking of China, he very properly used this
lofty numeral so frequently in his narratives. Mendez Pinto, though
speaking truthfully of Japan’s wonders, was dubbed by a pun on his
Christian name, the “Mendacious,” because he told what were thought to
be very unchristian stories. In our own day, when Paul Du Chaillu came
back from the African wilds and told of the gorilla which walked
upright like a man, and could dent a gun-barrel with his teeth, most
people believed, as a college professor of belles lettres, dropping
elegant words for the nonce, once stated, that “he lied like the
mischief.” When lo! the once mythic gorillas have come as live guests
at Berlin and Philadelphia, while their skeletons are commonplaces in
our museums. Even Stanley’s African discoveries were, at first,
discredited.
The first European travellers in Corea, who lived to tell their tale at
home, met the same fate as Polo, Pinto, Du Chaillu, and Stanley. The
narratives were long doubted, and by some set down as pure fiction.
Like the Indian braves that listen to Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, who,
in the lodges of the plains, recount the wonders of Washington and
civilization, the hearers are sure that they have taken “bad medicine.”
Later reports or personal experience, however, corroborate the first
accounts, and by the very commonplaceness of simple truth the first
reports are robbed alike of novelty and suspicion.
The first known entrance of any number of Europeans into Corea was that
of Hollanders, belonging to the crew of the Dutch ship Hollandia, which
was driven ashore in 1627. In those days the Dutch were pushing their
adventurous progress in the eastern seas as well as on the American
waters. They had forts, trading settlements, or prosperous cities in
Java, Sumatra, the Spice Islands, Formosa, and the ports of Southern
Japan. The shores of these archipelagoes and continents being then
little known, and slightly surveyed, shipwrecks were very frequent. The
profits of a prosperous voyage usually repaid all losses of ships,
though it is estimated that three out of five were lost. The passage
between China and Japan and up the seas south of Corea, has, from
ancient times, been difficult, even to a Chinese proverb.
A big, blue-eyed, red-bearded, robust Dutchman, named John Weltevree,
whose native town was De Rijp, in North Holland, volunteered on board
the Dutch ship Hollandia in 1626, in order to get to Japan. In that
wonderful country, during the previous seventeen years, his
fellow-countrymen had been trading and making rich fortunes,
occasionally fighting on the seas with the Portuguese and other
buccaneers of the period.
The good ship, after a long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, and
through the Indian and Chinese Seas, was almost in sight of Japan.
Coasting along the Corean shores, Mr. John Weltevree and some
companions went ashore to get water, and there were captured by the
natives. The Coreans were evidently quite willing to have such a man at
hand, for use rather than ornament. After the Japanese invasions a
spasm of enterprise in the way of fortification, architecture, and
development of their military resources possessed them, and to have a
big-nosed and red-bearded foreigner, a genuine “Nam-ban,” or barbarian
of the south, was a prize. To both Coreans and Japanese, the Europeans,
as coming in ships from the southward, were called “Southerners,” or
“Southern savages.” Later on, after learning new lessons in geography,
they called them “Westerners,” or “Barbarians from the West.”
Like the black potentates of Africa, who like to possess a white man,
believing him to be a “spirit,” or a New Zealand chief, who values the
presence of a “paheka Maori” (Englishman), the Coreans of that day
considered their western “devil” a piece of property worth many tiger
skins. It may be remembered—and the Coreans may have borrowed the idea
thence—that the Japanese, then beginning their hermit policy, had also
a white foreigner in durance for their benefit. This was the Englishman
Will Adams, who had been a pilot on a Dutch ship that sailed from the
same Texel River. Perhaps the boy Weltevree had seen and talked with
the doughty Briton on the wharves of the Dutch port. Adams served the
Japanese as interpreter, state adviser, ship architect, mathematician,
and in various useful ways, but was never allowed to leave Japan. It is
highly probable that the ambassadors from Seoul, while in Yedo, saw
Will Adams, since he spent much of his time in public among the
officials and people, living there until May, 1620.
The magnates of Seoul probably desired to have a like factotum, and
this explains why Weltevree was treated with kindness and comparative
honor, though kept as a prisoner. When the Manchius invaded Corea, in
1635, his two companions were killed in the wars, and Weltevree was
left alone. Having no one with whom he could converse, he had almost
forgotten his native speech, when after twenty-seven years of exile, in
the fifty-ninth year of his age, he met some of his fellow-Hollanders
and acted as interpreter to the Coreans, under the following
circumstances:
In January, 1653, the Dutch ship Sperwer (Sparrowhawk) left Texel
Island, bound for Nagasaki. Among the crew was Hendrik Hamel, the
supercargo, who afterward became the historian of their adventures.
After nearly five months’ voyage, they reached Batavia, June 1st, and
Formosa July 16th. From this island they steered for Japan, fortunately
meeting no “wild Chinese” or pirates on their course. Off Quelpart
Island, a dreadful storm arose, and, being close on a lee shore with
death staring all in the face, the captain ordered them “to cut down
the mast and go to their prayers.” The ship went to pieces, but
thirty-six out of the sixty-four men composing the crew reached the
shore alive. The local magistrate, an elder of some seventy years of
age, who knew a little Dutch, met them with his retainers, and learned
their plight, who they were, and whence they came. The Hollanders were
first refreshed with rice-water. The Coreans then collected the pieces
of the broken ship, and all they could get from the hulk, and burned
them for the sake of the metal. One of the iron articles happened to be
a loaded cannon, which went off during the firing. The liquor casks
were speedily emptied into the gullets of the wreckers, and the result
was a very noisy set of heathen.
The old leader, however, evidently determined to draw the line between
virtue and vice somewhere. He had several of the thieves seized and
spanked on the spot, while others were bambooed on the soles of their
feet, one so severely that his toes dropped off.
On October 29th the survivors were brought by the officials to be
examined by the interpreter Weltevree. The huge noses, the red beards
and white faces were at once recognized by the lone exile as belonging
to his own countrymen. Weltevree was very “rusty” in his native
language, after twenty-seven years’ nearly complete disuse, but in
company with the new arrivals he regained it all in a month.
Of course, the first and last idea of the captives was how to escape.
The native fishing-smacks were frequently driven off to Japan, which
they knew must be almost in sight. One night they made an attempt to
reach the sea-shore. They at first thought they were secure, when the
dogs betrayed them by barking and alarming the guards.
It is evident that the European body has an odor entirely distinct from
a Mongolian. The Abbé Huc states that even when travelling through
Thibet and China, in disguise, the dogs continually barked at him and
almost betrayed him, even at night. In travelling, and especially when
living in the Japanese city of Fukui, the writer had the same
experience. In walking through the city streets at night, even when
many hundred yards off, the Japanese dogs would start up barking and
run toward him. This occurred repeatedly, when scores of native
pedestrians were not noticed by the beasts. The French missionaries in
Corea, even in disguise, report the same facts.
The baffled Hollanders were caught and officially punished after the
fashion of the nursery, but so severely that some had to keep their
beds for a month, in order to heal their battered flanks. Finally they
were ordered to proceed to the capital, which the Dutchmen call Sior
(Seoul).
Hamel gives a few names of the places through which he passed. These
are in the pronunciation of the local dialect, and written down in
Dutch spelling. Most of them are recognizable on the map, though the
real sound is nearly lost in a quagmire of Dutch letters, in which
Hamel has attempted to note the quavers and semi-demi-quavers of Corean
enunciation. He writes Coeree for Corea, and Tyocen-koeck for Chō-sen
kokŭ, and is probably the first European to mention Quelpart Island, on
which the ship was wrecked.
The first city on the mainland to which they came was Heynam (Hai-nam),
in the extreme southwest of Chulla. This was about the last of May.
Thence they marched to Jeham, spending the night at Na-diou (Nai-chiu).
The gunner of the ship died at Je-ham, or Je-ban. They passed through
San-siang (Chan-shon), and came to Tong-ap (Chon-wup?), after crossing
a high mountain, on the top of which was the spacious fortress of
Il-pam San-siang. The term “San-siang,” used twice here, means a
fortified stronghold in the mountains, to which, in time of war, the
neighboring villagers may fly for refuge. Teyn (Tai-in), was the next
place arrived at, after which, “having baited at the little town of
Kuniga” (Kumku), they reached Khin-tyo (Chon-chiu), where the governor
of Chillado (Chulla dō) resided. This city, though a hundred miles from
the sea, was very famous, and was a seat of great traffic. After this,
they came to the last town of the province, Jesan, and, passing through
Gunun and Jensan, reached Konsio (Kong-chiu), the capital of
Chung-chong province. They reached the border of Kiung-kei by a rapid
march, and, after crossing a wide river (the Han), they traversed a
league, and entered Sior (Seoul). They computed the length of the
journey at seventy-five leagues. This, by a rough reckoning, is about
the distance from Hainam to Seoul, as may be seen from the map.
In the capital, as they had been along the road, the Dutchmen were like
wild beasts on show. Crowds flocked to see the white-faced and
red-bearded foreigners. They must have appeared to the natives as Punch
looks to English children. The women were even more anxious than the
men to get a good look. Every one was especially curious to see the
Dutchmen drink, for it was generally believed that they tucked their
noses up over their ears when they drank. The size and prominence of
the nasal organ of a Caucasian first strikes a Turanian with awe and
fear. Thousands of people no doubt learned, for the first time, that
the western “devils” were men after all, and ate decent food and not
earthworms and toads. Some of the women, so Hamel flattered himself,
even went so far as to admire the fair complexions and ruddy cheeks of
the Dutchmen. At the palace, the king (Yo-chong, who reigned from 1648
to 1658) improved the opportunity for a little fun. It was too good a
show not to see how the animals could perform. The Dutchmen laughed,
sang, danced, leaped, and went through miscellaneous performances for
His Majesty’s benefit. For this they were rewarded with choice drink
and refreshments. They were then assigned to the body-guard of the king
as petty officers, and an allowance of rice was set apart for their
maintenance. Chinese and Dutchmen drilled and commanded the palace
troops, who were evidently the flower of the army. During their
residence at the capital the Hollanders learned many things about the
country and people, and began to be able to talk in the “Coresian”
language.
The ignorance and narrowness of the Coreans were almost incredible.
They could not believe what the captives told them of the size of the
earth. “How could it be possible,” said they, in sneering incredulity,
“that the sun can shine on all the many countries you tell us of at
once?” Thinking the foreigners told exaggerated lies, they fancied that
the “countries” were only counties and the “cities” villages. To them
Corea was very near the centre of the earth, which was China.
The cold was very severe. In November the river was frozen over, and
three hundred loaded horses passed over it on the ice.
After they had been in Seoul three years, the “Tartar” (Manchiu)
ambassador visited Seoul, but before his arrival the captives were sent
away to a fort, distant six or seven leagues, to be kept until the
ambassador left, which he did in March. This fort stood on a mountain,
called Numma, which required three hours to ascend. In time of war the
king sought shelter within it, and it was kept provisioned for three
years. Hamel does not state why he and his companions were sent away,
but it was probably to conceal the fact that foreigners were drilling
the royal troops. The suspicions of the new rulers at Peking were
easily roused.
When the Manchiu envoy was about to leave Seoul, some of the prisoners
determined to put in execution a plan of escape. They put on Dutch
clothes, under their Corean dress, and awaited their opportunity. As
the envoy was on the road about to depart, some of them seized the
bridle of his horse, and displaying their Dutch clothing, begged him to
take them to Peking. The plan ended in failure. The Dutchmen were
seized and thrown into prison. Nothing more was ever heard of them, and
it was believed by their companions that they had been put to death.
This was in March.
In June there was another shipwreck off Quelpart Island, and Weltevree
being now too old to make the journey, three of the Hollanders were
sent to act as interpreters. Hamel does not give us the result of their
mission.
The Manchiu ambassador came again to Seoul in August. The nobles urged
the king to put the Hollanders to death, and have no more trouble with
them. His Majesty refused, but sent them back into Chulla, allowing
them each fifty pounds of rice a month for their support.
They set out from Seoul in March, 1657, on horseback, passing through
the same towns as on their former journey. Reaching the castle-city of
“Diu-siong,” they were joined by their three comrades sent to
investigate the wreck at Quelpart, which made their number
thirty-three. Their chief occupation was that of keeping the castle and
official residence in order—an easy and congenial duty for the neat and
order-loving Dutchmen.
Hamel learned many of the ideas of the natives. They represented their
country as in the form of a long square, “in shape like a
playing-card”—perhaps the Dutchmen had a pack with them to beguile the
tedium of their exile. Certain it is that they still kept the arms and
flag of Orange, to be used again.
The exiles were not treated harshly, though in one case, after a change
of masters, the new magistrate “afflicted them with fresh crosses.”
This “rotation in office” was evidently on account of the change on the
throne. Yo-chong ceased to reign in 1658, and “a new king arose who
knew not Joseph.” Yen-chong succeeded his father, reigning from 1658 to
1676.
Two large comets appearing in the sky with their tails toward each
other, frightened the Coreans, and created intense alarm. The army was
ordered out, the guards were doubled, and no fires were allowed to be
kindled along the coast, lest they might attract or guide invaders or a
hostile force. In the last few decades, comets had appeared, said the
Coreans, and in each case they had presaged war. In the first, the
Japanese invasions from the east, and, in the second, the Manchius from
the west. They anxiously asked the Dutchmen how comets were regarded in
Holland, and probably received some new ideas in astronomy. No war,
however, followed, and the innocent comets gradually shrivelled up out
of sight, without shaking out of their fiery hair either pestilence or
war.
The Dutchmen saw many whales blowing off the coast, and in December
shoals of herring rushed by, keeping up an increasing stream of life
until January, when it slackened, and in March ceased. The whales made
sad havoc in these shoals, gorging themselves on the small fry. These
are the herring which arrive off the coast of Whang-hai, and feed on
the banks and shoals during the season. The catching of them affords
lucrative employment to hundreds of junks from North China.
From their observations, the Dutchmen argued—one hundred and twenty
years before La Perouse demonstrated the fact—that there must be a
strait north of Corea, connecting with the Arctic Ocean, like that of
Waigats (now called the Strait of Kara), between Nova Zemla and the
island lying off the northwestern end of Russia. They thus conjectured
the existence of the Straits of Tartary, west of Saghalin, before they
appeared on any European map. Waigats was discovered by the Englishman,
Stephen Burroughs, who had been sent out by the Muscovy company to find
a northwest passage to China. Their mention of it shows that they were
familiar with the progress of polar research, since it was discovered
in 1556, only seven years before they left Holland. It had even at that
time, however, become a famous hunting-place for whalers and herring
fishers.
These marine studies of the captives, coupled with the fact that they
had before attempted to escape, may have aroused the suspicions of the
government. In February, 1663, by orders from Seoul, they were
separated and put in three different towns. Twelve went to “Saysiano,”
five to Siun-schien, and five to Namman, their numbers being now
reduced to twenty-two. Two of these places are easily found on the
Japanese map. During all the years of their captivity, they seem not to
have known anything of the Japanese at Fusan, nor the latter of them.
Though thus scattered, the men were occasionally allowed to visit each
other, which they did, enjoying each other’s society, sweetened with
pipes and tobacco, and Hamel devoutly adds that “it was a great mercy
of God that they enjoyed good health.” A new governor having been
appointed over them, evidently was possessed with the idea of testing
the skill of the bearded foreigners, with a view of improving the art
productions of the country. He set the Dutchmen to work at moulding
clay—perhaps to have some pottery and tiles after Dutch patterns, and
the Delft system of illustrating the Bible at the fireplace. This was
so manifestly against the national policy of making no improvements on
anything, that the poor governor lost his place and suffered
punishment. The spies informed on him to the king. An explosion of
power took place, the ex-governor received ninety strokes on his
shin-bones, and was disgraced from rank and office. The quondam
improvers of the ceramic art of Corea were again set to work at pulling
up grass and other menial duties about the official residence.
As the years passed on, the poor exiles were in pitiful straits. Their
clothing had been worn to tatters, and they were reduced even to
beggary. They were accustomed to go off in companies to seek alms of
the people, for two or three weeks at a time. Those left at home,
during these trips, worked at various odd jobs to earn a pittance,
especially at making arrows. The next year, 1664, was somewhat easier
for them, their overseer being kind and gentle; but, in 1665, the
homesick fellows tried hard to escape. In 1666, they lost their
benefactor, the good governor. Now came the time for flight.
All possible preparations were made, in the way of hoarding provisions,
getting fresh water ready, and studying well the place of exit. They
waited for the sickness or absence of their overseer, to slacken the
vigilance of their guards.
In the latter part of August, or early in September, 1667, as the
fourteenth year of their captivity was drawing to a close, the governor
fell sick. The Dutchmen, taking time by the forelock, immediately, as
soon as dark, on the night of September 4th, climbed the city wall, and
reaching the seaside succeeded, after some parleying, in getting a
boat. “A Corean, blinded by the offer of double the value of it,” sold
them his fishing craft. They returned again to the city. At night they
crept along the city wall, and this time the dogs were asleep, absent,
or to windward, though the Dutchmen’s hearts were in their mouths all
the time. They carried pots of rice and water, and that darling of a
Dutchman—the frying-pan. Noiselessly they slipped the wood and stone
anchor, and glided out past the junks and boats in the harbor, none of
the crews waking from their mats.
They steered directly southeast, and on the 6th found themselves in a
current off the Goto Islands. They succeeded in landing, and cooked
some food. Not long after, some armed natives (probably from the
lingering influence of the comet) approached them cautiously, as the
Japanese feared they were Coreans, and forerunners of an invading band.
Hamel at once pulled out their flag, having the arms and colors of the
Prince of Orange. Surrendering themselves, they stated their history,
and condition, and their desire of getting home. The Japanese were
kind, “but made no return for the gifts” of the Dutchmen. They finally
got to Nagasaki in Japanese junks, and met their countrymen at Déshima.
The annual ship from Batavia was then just about to return, and in the
nick of time the waifs got on board, reached Batavia November 20th,
sailed for Holland December 28th, and on July 20, 1668, stepped ashore
at home.
Hamel, the supercargo of the ship, wrote a book on his return,
recounting his adventures in a simple and straightforward style. It was
written in Dutch and shortly after translated into French, German, and
English. Four editions in Dutch are known. The English version may be
found in full in the Astley, and in the Pinkerton, Collections of
Voyages and Travels.
The French translator indulges in skepticism concerning Hamel’s
narrative, questioning especially his geographical statements. Before a
map of Corea, with the native sounds even but approximated, it will be
seen that Hamel’s story is a piece of downright unembroidered truth. It
is indeed to be regretted that this actual observer of Corean life,
people, and customs gave us so little information concerning them.
The fate of the other survivors of the Sparrowhawk crew was never
known. Perhaps it never will be learned, as it is not likely that the
Coreans would take any pains to mark the site of their graves. Yet as
the tomb of Will Adams was found in Japan, by a reader of Hildreth’s
book, so perhaps some inquiring foreigner in Corea may discover the
site of the graves of these exiles, and mark their resting-places.
There is no improbability in supposing that other missing vessels,
previous to the second half of the nineteenth century, shared the fate
of the Sparrowhawk. The wrecks, burned for the sake of the iron, would
leave no trace; while perhaps many shipwrecked men have pined in
captivity, and dying lonely in a strange land have been put in unmarked
graves.
At this point, we bring to an end our sketch of the ancient and
mediæval history of Corea. Until the introduction of Christianity into
the peninsula, the hermit nation was uninfluenced by any ideas which
the best modern life claims as its own. As with the whole world, so
with its tiny fraction Corea, the door of ancient history shut, and the
gate of modern history opened, when the religion of Jesus moved the
hearts and minds of men. We now glance at the geography, politics,
social life, and religion of the Coreans; after which we shall narrate
the story of their national life from the implanting of Christianity
until their rivulet of history flowed into the stream of the world’s
history.
II.
POLITICAL AND SOCIAL COREA.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE EIGHT PROVINCES.
PING-AN, OR THE PACIFIC.
This province bears the not altogether appropriate name of Peaceful
Quiet. It is the border land of the kingdom, containing what was for
centuries the only acknowledged gate of entrance and outlet to the one
neighbor which Corea willingly acknowledged as her superior. It
contains, probably, the largest area of any province, unless it be
Ham-kiung. Its northern, and a great part of its western, frontier is
made by the Yalu River, called also the Ap-nok, the former name
referring to its sinuous course, meaning “dragon’s windings,” and the
latter after its deep green color.
The Yalu is the longest river in Corea. Its source is found near the
40th parallel. Flowing northwardly, for about eighty miles, the stream
forms the boundary between Ping-an and Ham-kiung. Then, turning to the
westward, it receives on the Manchurian side twelve tributaries, which
run down the gorges of the Ever-White Mountains. Each of these streams
is named, beginning westwardly, after the numerals of arithmetic. The
waters of so many valleys on the west, as well as on the north and
east, emptying into the Yalu, make it, in spring and fall, a turbulent
stream, which sinuates like the writhing of a dragon; whence its name.
In the summer, its waters are beautifully clear, and blue or green—the
Coreans having no word to distinguish between these two colors. It
empties by three mouths into the Yellow Sea, its deltas, or islands,
being completely submerged during the melting of the snows. It is
easily navigable for junks to the town of Chan-son, a noted trading
place, sixty miles from the sea. The valley of the Yalu is extremely
fertile, and well wooded, and the scenery is superb. Its navigation was
long interdicted to the Chinese, but steamers and gunboats have entered
it, and access to the fertile valley and the trade of the region will
be gained by other nations. The Tong-kia River drains the neutral
strip.
The town nearest the frontier, and the gateway of the kingdom, is
Ai-chiu. It is situated on a hill overlooking the river, and surrounded
by a wall of light-colored stone. The annual embassy always departed
for its overland journey to China through its gates. Here also are the
custom-house and vigilant guards, whose chief business it was to
scrutinize all persons entering or leaving Corea by the high road,
which traverses the town. A line of patrols and guard-houses picketed
the river along a length of over a hundred miles.
Nevertheless, most of the French missionaries have entered the
mysterious peninsula through this loophole, disguising themselves as
wood-cutters, crossing the Yalu River on the ice, creeping through the
water-drains in the granite wall, and passing through this town. Or
they have been met by friends at appointed places along the border, and
thence have travelled to the capital.
Through this exit also, Corea sent to Peking or Mukden the waifs and
sailors cast on her shores. A number of shipwrecked Americans, after
kind treatment at the hands of the Coreans, have thus reached their
homes by way of Mukden. This prosperous city, having a population of
over two hundred thousand souls, and noted for its manufactures,
especially in metal, is the capital of the Chinese province of
Shing-king, formerly Liao Tong. It is surrounded by a long wall pierced
with eight gates, one of which—that to the northeast—is called “the
Corean Gate.” Niu-chwang has also a “Corean Gate.”
Fifty miles beyond the Corean frontier is the “Border Gate” (Pien-mun),
at which there was a fair held three or four times a year, the chief
markets being at the exit and return of the Corean embassy to China.
The value of the products here sold annually averaged over five hundred
thousand dollars. In the central apartment of a building inhabited at
either end by Chinese and Corean mandarins respectively, the
customs-officers sat to collect taxes on the things bartered. The
Corean merchants were obliged to pay “bonus” or tribute of about four
hundred dollars to the mandarin of Fung-wang Chang, the nearest Chinese
town, who came in person to open the gates of the building for the
spring fair. For the privilege of the two autumn fairs, the Coreans
were mulcted but half the sum, as the gates were then opened by an
underling Manchiu official. The winter fair was but of slight
importance. For the various Chinese goods, and European cottons, the
Coreans bartered their furs, hides, gold dust, ginseng, and the
mulberry paper used by Chinese tailors for linings, and for windows.
Ping-an has the reputation of being very rich in mineral and metallic
wealth. Gold and silver by report abound, but the natives are
prohibited by the government from working the mines. The neutrality of
the strip of territory, sixty miles wide and about three hundred miles
long, and drained by the Tong-kia River, between Chō-sen and Chin, was
respected by the Chinese government until 1875, when Li Hung Chung, on
complaint of the king of Corea, made a descent on the Manchiu outlaws
and squatters settled on the strip. Having despatched a force of
troops, with gunboats up the Yalu, to co-operate with them, he found
the region overspread with cultivators. The eyes of the viceroy being
opened to the fertility of this land, and the navigability of the
river, he proposed, in a memorial to Peking, that the land be
incorporated in the Chinese domain, but that a wall and ditch be built
to isolate Corea, and that all Chinese trespassers on Corean ground be
handed over to the mandarins to be sent prisoners to Mukden, and to be
there beheaded, while Chinese resisting capture should be lawfully
slain by Coreans. To this the Seoul government agreed. By this clever
diplomacy the Chinese gained back a huge slice of valuable land,
probably without the labor of digging ditches or building palisades.
The old wall of stakes still remains, in an extremely dilapidated
condition. Off the coast are a few islands, and a number of shallow
banks, around which shell- and scale-fish abound. Chinese junks come in
fleets every year in the fishing season, but their presence is
permitted only on condition of their never setting foot on shore. In
reality much contraband trade is done by the smugglers along the coast.
A group of islands near the mouth was long the nest of Chinese pirates,
but these have been broken up by Li Hung Chang’s gunboats. Next to the
Yalu, the most important river of the province is the Ta-tong or
Ping-an, which discharges a great volume of fresh water annually into
the sea. A number of large towns and cities are situated on or near its
banks, and the high road follows the course of the river. It is the
Rubicon of Chō-sen history, and at various epochs in ancient times was
the boundary river of China, or of the rival states within the
peninsula. About fifty miles from its mouth is the city of Ping-an, the
metropolis of the province, and the royal seat of authority, from
before the Christian era, to the tenth century. Its situation renders
it a natural stronghold. It has been many times besieged by Chinese and
Japanese armies, and near it many battles have been fought. “The
General Sherman affair,” in 1866, in which the crew of the American
schooner were murdered—which occasioned the sending of the United
States naval expedition in 1871—took place in front of the city of
Ping-an, Commander J. C. Febiger, in the U. S. S. Shenandoah, visited
the mouths of the river in 1869, and while vainly waiting for the
arrest of the murderers, surveyed the inlet, to which he gave the name
of “Shenandoah.”
By official enumeration, Ping-an contains 293,400 houses, and the
muster-rolls give 174,538 as the number of men capable of military
duty. The governor resides at Ping-an.
There is considerable diversity of character between the inhabitants of
the eight provinces. Those of the two most northern, particularly of
Ping-an, are more violent in temper than the other provincials. Very
few nobles or official dignitaries live among them, hence very few of
the refinements of the capital are to be found there. They are not
overloyal to the reigning dynasty, and are believed to cherish enmity
against it. The government keeps vigilant watch over them, repressing
the first show of insubordination, lest an insurrection difficult to
quell should once gain headway. It is from these provinces that most of
the refugees into Russian territory come. It was among these men that
the “General Sherman affair” took place, and it is highly probable that
even if the regent were really desirous of examining into the outrage,
he was afraid to do so, when the strong public sentiment was wholly on
the side of the murderers of the Sherman’s crew.
THE YELLOW-SEA PROVINCE.
All the eight circuits into which Chō-sen is divided are maritime
provinces, but this is the only one which takes its name from the body
of water on which its borders lie, jutting out into the Whang-hai, or
Yellow Sea, its extreme point lies nearest to Shantung promontory in
China. Its coast line exceeds its land frontiers. In the period
anterior to the Christian era, Whang-hai, was occupied by the tribes
called the Mahan, and from the second to the sixth century, by the
kingdom of Hiaksai. It has been the camping-ground of the armies of
many nations. Here, besides the border forays which engaged the troops
of the rival kingdoms, the Japanese, Chinese, Mongols, and Manchius,
have contended for victory again and again. The ravages of war, added
to a somewhat sterile soil, are the causes of Whang-hai being the least
populated province of the eight in the peninsula. From very ancient
times the Corean peninsula has been renowned for its pearls. These are
of superior lustre and great size. Even before the Christian era, when
the people lived in caves and mud huts, and before they had horses or
cattle, the barbaric inhabitants of this region wore necklaces of
pearls, and sewed them on their clothing, row upon row. They amazed the
invading hordes of the Han dynasty, with such incongruous mixture of
wealth and savagery; as the Indians, careless of the yellow dust,
surprised by their indifference to it the gold-greedy warriors of
Balboa. Later on, the size and brilliancy of Corean pearls became
famous all over China. They were largely exported. The Chinese merchant
braved the perils of the sea, and of life among the rude Coreans, to
win lustrous gems of great price, which he bartered when at home for
sums which made him quickly rich. In the twelfth century the fame of
these “Eastern pearls,” as they were then called, and which outrivalled
even those from the Tonquin fisheries, became the cause of an attempted
conquest of the peninsula, the visions of wealth acting as a lure to
the would-be invaders. It may even be that the Corean pearl fisheries
were known by fame to the story-tellers of the “Arabian Nights
Entertainments.” Much of the mystic philosophy of China concerning
pearls is held also by the Coreans. The Corean Elysium is a lake of
pearls. In burying the dead, those who can afford it, fill the mouth of
the corpse with three pearls, which, if large, will, it is believed,
preserve the dead body from decay. This emblem of three flashing
pearls, is much in vogue in native art The gems are found on the banks
lying off the coast of this province, as well as in the archipelago to
the south, and at Quelpart. The industry is, at present, utterly
neglected. The pearls are kept, but no use seems to be made of the
brilliant nacre of the mussel-shells, which are exported to Japan, to
be used in inlaying.
More valuable to the modern people than the now almost abandoned pearl
mussel-beds, are the herring fisheries, which, during the season,
attract fleets of junks and thousands of fishermen from the northern
coast provinces of China. Opposite, at a distance of about eighty miles
as the crow flies, measuring from land’s end to land’s end, is the
populous province of Shantung, or “Country east of the mountains.” On
the edge of this promontory are the cities of Chifu and Teng Chow,
while further to the east is Tientsin, the seaport of Peking. From the
most ancient times, Chinese armadas have sailed, and invading armies
have embarked for Corea from these ports. Over and over again has the
river Tatong been crowded with fleets of junks, fluttering the
dragon-banners at their peaks. From the Shantung headlands, also,
Chinese pirates have sailed over to the tempting coasts and green
islands of Corea, to ravage, burn, and kill. To guard against these
invaders, and to notify the arrival of foreigners, signal fires are
lighted on the hill-tops, which form a cordon of flame and speed the
alarm from coast to capital in a few hours. These pyrographs or fire
signals are called “Pong-wa.” At Mok-mie′ san, a mountain south of the
capital, the fire-messages of the three southern provinces are
received. By day, instead of the pillars of fire, are clouds of smoke,
made by heaping wet chopped straw or rice-husks on the blaze. Instantly
a dense white column rises in the air, which, to the sentinels from
peak to peak, is eloquent of danger. In more peaceful times, Corean
timber has been largely exported to Chifu, and tribute-bearing ships
have sailed over to Tientsin. The Chinese fishermen usually appear off
the coast of this province in the third month, or April, remaining
until June, when their white sails, bent homeward, sink from the gaze
of the vigilant sentinels on the hills, who watch continually lest the
Chinese set foot on shore. This they are forbidden to do on pain of
death. In spite of the vigilance of the soldiers, however, a great deal
of smuggling is done at night, between the Coreans and Chinese boatmen,
at this time, and the French missionaries have repeatedly passed the
barriers of this forbidden land by disembarking from Chifu junks off
this coast. The island of Merin (Merin-to) has, on several occasions,
been trodden by the feet of priests who afterward became martyrs. At
one time, in June, 1865, four Frenchmen entered “the lion’s den” from
this rendezvous. There is a great bank of sand and many islands off the
coast, the most important of the latter being the Sir James Hall group,
which was visited, in 1816, by Captains Maxwell and Hall, in the ships
Lyra and Alceste. These forest-clad and well-cultivated islands were
named after the president of the Edinburgh Geographical Society, the
father of the gallant sailor and lively author who drove the first
British keel through the unknown waters of the Yellow Sea. Eastward
from this island cluster is a large bay and inlet near the head of
which is the fortified city of Chan-yon.
In January, 1867, Commander R. W. Shufeldt, in the U. S. S. Wachusett,
visited this inlet to obtain redress for the murder of the crew of the
American schooner General Sherman, and while vainly waiting, surveyed
portions of it, giving the name of Wachusett Bay to the place of
anchorage. Judging from native maps, the scale of the chart made from
this survey was on too large a scale, though the recent map-makers of
Tōkiō have followed it. The southern coast also is dotted with groups
of islands, and made dangerous by large shoals. One of the approaches
to the national capital and the commercial city of Sunto, or Kai-seng,
is navigable for junks, through a tortuous channel which threads the
vast sand-banks formed by the Han River. Hai-chiu, the capital, is near
the southern central coast, and Whang-chiu, an old baronial walled
city, is in the north, on the Ta-tong River, now, as of old, a famous
boundary line.
Though Whang-hai is not reckoned rich, being only the sixth in order of
the eight circuits, yet there are several products of importance. Rock,
or fossil salt, is plentiful. Flints for fire-arms and household use
were obtained here chiefly, though the best gun-flints came from China.
Lucifer matches and percussion rifles have destroyed, or will soon
destroy, this ancient industry. One district produces excellent
ginseng, which finds a ready sale, and even from ancient times
Whang-hai’s pears have been celebrated. Splendid yellow varnish, almost
equal to gilding, is also made here. The native varnishers are expert
and tasteful in its use, though far behind the inimitable Japanese.
Fine brushes for pens, made of the hair of wolves’ tails, are also in
repute among students and merchants.
The high road from the capital, after passing through Sunto, winds
through the eastern central part, and crosses a range of mountains, the
scenery from which is exceedingly fine. Smaller roads thread the border
of the province and the larger towns, but a great portion of Whang-hai
along its central length, from east to west, seems to be mountainous,
and by no means densely populated. There are, in all, twenty-eight
cities with magistrates.
Whang-hai was never reckoned by the missionaries as among their most
promising fields, yet on their map we count fifteen or more signs of
the cross, betokening the presence of their converts, and its soil,
like that of the other provinces, has more than once been reddened by
the blood of men who preferred to die for their convictions, rather
than live the worthless life of the pagan renegade. Most of the victims
suffered at Hai-chiu, the capital, though Whang-chiu, in the north,
shares the same sinister fame in a lesser degree. The people of
Whang-hai are said, by the Seoul folks, to be narrow, stupid, and dull.
They bear an ill name for avarice, bad faith, and a love of lying quite
unusual even among Coreans. The official enumeration of houses and men
fit for military duty, is 103,200 of the former and 87,170 of the
latter.
KIUNG-KEI, OR THE CAPITAL PROVINCE.
Kiung-kei, the smallest of the eight circuits, is politically the royal
or court province, and physically the basin of the largest river inside
the peninsula. The tremendous force of its current, and the volume of
its waters bring down immense masses of silt annually. Beginning at a
point near the capital, wide sand-banks are formed, which are bare at
low water, but are flooded in time of rain, or at the melting of the
spring snows. The tides rise to the height of twenty or thirty feet,
creating violent eddies and currents, in which the management of ships
is a matter of great difficulty. The Han is navigable for foreign
vessels, certainly as far as the capital, as two French men-of-war
proved in 1866, and it may be ascended still farther in light steamers.
The causes of the violence, coldness, and rapidity of the currents of
Han River (called Salt or Salée on our charts), which have baffled
French and American steamers, will be recognized by a study of its
sources. The head waters of this stream are found in the distant
province of Kang-wen, nearly the whole breadth of the peninsula from
the mouth. Almost the entire area of this province of the
river-sources, including the western watershed of the mountain range
that walls the eastern coast, is drained by the tributaries which form
the river, which also receives affluents from two other provinces.
Pouring their united volume past the capital, shifting channels and
ever new and unexpected bars and flats are formed, rendering
navigation, and especially warlike naval operations, very difficult.
Its channel is very hard to find from the sea. The French, in 1845,
attempting its exploration, were foiled. Like most rivers in Chō-sen,
the Han has many local names.
The city of Han-Yang, or Seoul, is situated on the north side of the
river, about thirty-five miles from its mouth, measuring by a straight
line, or fifty miles if reckoned by the channel of the river. It lies
in 37° 30′ north latitude, and 127° 4′ longitude, east from Greenwich.
The name Han-yang, means “the fortress on the Han River.” The common
term applied to the royal city is Seoul, which means “the capital,”
just as the Japanese called the capital of their country Miako, or Kiō,
instead of saying Kiōto. Seoul is properly a common noun, but by
popular use has become a proper name, which, in English, may be
correctly written with a capital initial. According to the locality
whence they come, the natives pronounce the name Say´-ool, Shay´-ool,
or Say´-oor. The city is often spoken of as “the king’s residence,” and
on foreign maps is marked “King-ki Taö,” which is the name of the
province. The city proper lies distant nearly a league from the river
bank, but has suburbs, extending down to the sand-flats. A pamphlet
lately published in the city gives it 30,723 houses, which, allowing
five in a house, would give a population of over 150,000 souls. The
natural advantages of Seoul are excellent. On the north a high range of
the Ho Mountain rises like a wall, to the east towers the Ridge of
Barriers, the mighty flood of the Han rolls to the south, a bight of
which washes the western suburb.
The scenery from the capital is magnificent, and those walking along
the city walls, as they rise over the hill-crests and bend into the
valleys, can feast their eyes on the luxuriant verdure and glorious
mountain views for which this country is noted. The walls of the city
are of crenellated masonry of varying height, averaging about twenty
feet, with arched stone bridges spanning the watercourses, as seen in
the reproduced photograph on page 79. The streets are narrow and
tortuous. The king’s castle is in the northern part. The high roads to
the eight points of the compass start from the palace, through the city
gates. Within sight from the river are the O-pong san, and the Sam-kak
san or three-peaked mountain, which the French have named Cock’s Comb.
North of the city is Chō-kei, or tide-valley, in which is a waterfall
forty feet high. This spot is a great resort for tourists and picnic
parties in the spring and summer. From almost any one of the hills near
the city charming views of the island-dotted river may be obtained, and
the sight of the spring floods, or of the winter ice breaking up and
shooting the enormous blocks of ice with terrific force down the
current, that piles them up into fantastic shapes or strews the shores,
is much enjoyed by the people. Inundations are frequent and terrible in
this province, but usually the water subsides quickly. Not much harm is
done, and the floods enrich the soil, except where they deposit sand
only. There are few large bridges over the rivers, but in the cities
and towns, stone bridges, constructed with an arch and of good masonry,
are built. The islands in the river near the capital are inhabited by
fishermen, who pay their taxes in fish. Another large stream which
joins its waters with the Han, within a few miles from its mouth near
Kang-wa Island, is the Rin-chin River, whose head waters are among the
mountains at the north of Kang-wen, within thirty miles of the
newly-opened port of Gen-san on the eastern coast. Several important
towns are situated on or near its banks, and it is often mentioned in
the histories which detail the movements of the armies, which from
China, Japan, and the teeming North, have often crossed and recrossed
it.
Naturally, we expect to find the military geography of this province
well studied by the authorities, and its strategic points strongly
defended. An inspection of the map shows us that we are not mistaken.
Four great fortresses guard the approaches to the royal city. These are
Suwen to the south, Kwang-chiu to the southeast, Sunto or Kai-seng to
the north, and Kang-wa to the west. All these fortresses have been the
scene of siege and battle in time past. On the walls of the first
three, the rival banners of the hosts of Ming from China and of Taikō
from Japan were set in alternate succession by the victors who held
them during the Japanese occupation of the country, between the years
1592 and 1597. The Manchiu standards in 1637, and the French eagles in
1866, were planted on the ramparts of Kang-wa. Besides these castled
cities, there are forts and redoubts along the river banks, crowning
most of the commanding headlands, or points of vantage. Over these the
stars and stripes floated for three days, in 1871, when the American
forces captured these strongholds. In most cases the walls of cities
and forts are not over ten feet high, though, in those of the first
order, a height of twenty-five feet is obtained. None of them would
offer serious difficulty to an attacking force possessing modern
artillery.
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 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 (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 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.
The large shoal off the coast is called Chasseriau. Other wide and
dangerous shoals line parts of the coast, making navigation exceedingly
difficult. Fogs are frequent and very dense, shrouding all landmarks
for hours. The tides and currents are very strong, rising in some
places even as high as sixty feet. The international body-snatching
expedition, undertaken by a French priest, a German merchant, and an
American interpreter, in 1867, to obtain the bones or ancestral relics
of the Regent, was planned to take advantage of a certain “nick of
time.” The river emptying into the Prince Jerome Gulf, runs some thirty
miles inland, and can be ascended by a barge, or very light-draught
steamer, only within the period of thirty hours during spring tides,
when the water rises to a height of three feet at the utmost, while
during the rest of the month it dries up completely. On account of
delays, through grounding, miscalculated distances, and the
burglar-proof masonry of Corean tombs, the scheme failed. The narrative
of this remarkable expedition is given in a certain book on Corea, and
in the proceedings of the United States Consular Court at Shanghae,
China, for the year 1867.
The flora is a brilliant feature of the summer landscape. Tiger-lilies
and showy compositæ, asters, cactus plants, cruciferæ, labiatæ, and
many other European species abound side by side with tropical
varieties. The air is full of insects, and the number and variety of
the birds exceed those of Japan. Pigeons, butcher-birds, fly-catchers,
woodpeckers, thrushes, larks, blackbirds, kingfishers, wrens,
spoonbills, quail, curlew, titmouse, have been noticed. The
ever-present black crows contrast with the snowy heron, which often
stand in rows along the watercourses, while on the reefs the cormorant,
sea-gulls, and many kinds of ducks and diving birds, many of them being
of species differing from those in Europe, show the abundance of winged
life. The archipelago and the peninsula alike, are almost virgin soil
to the student of natural history and the man of science will yet, in
this secluded nook of creation, solve many an interesting problem
concerning the procession of life on the globe. So far as known, the
Coreans seem far behind the Japanese in the study and classification of
animate nature.
The Coreans are not a seafaring people. They do not sail out from land,
except upon rare occasions. A steamer is yet, to most Coreans, a
wonderful thing. The common folks point to one, and call it “a divine
ship.” The reason of this is, that they think the country of steamships
so utterly at the ends of the earth, that to pass over ten million
leagues, and endure the winds and waves, could not be done by human
aid, and therefore such a ship must have, in some way, the aid of the
gods. The prow and stern of fishing-boats are much alike, and are
neatly nailed together with wooden nails. They use round stems of trees
in their natural state, for masts. The sails are made of straw, plaited
together with cross-bars of bamboo. The sail is at the stern of the
boat. They sail well within three points of the wind, and the fishermen
are very skilful in managing them. In their working-boats, they do not
use oars, but sculls, worked on a pivot in the gunwale or an outrigger.
The sculls have a very long sweep, and are worked by two, three, and
even ten men. For narrow rivers this method is very convenient, and
many boats can easily pass each other, or move side by side, taking up
very little room. For fishing among the rocks, or for landing in the
surf, rafts are extensively used all along the coasts. These rafts have
a platform, capable of holding eight or ten persons. The boats or
barges, which are used for pleasure excursions and picnic parties, have
high bows and ornamental sterns, carved or otherwise decorated. Over
the centre a canopy stretched on four poles, tufted with horsehair,
shelters the pleasure-seekers from the sun as they enjoy the river
scenery. In the cut we see three officials, or men of rank, enjoying
themselves at a table, on which may be tea, ginseng infusion, or rice
spirit, with fruits in dishes. They sit on silken cushions, and seem to
be pledging each other in a friendly cup. Perhaps they will compose and
exchange a pedantic poem or two on the way. In the long, high bow there
is room for the two men to walk the deck, while with their poles they
propel the craft gently along the stream, while the steersman handles
the somewhat unwieldy rudder. The common people use a boat made of
plain unpainted wood, neatly joined together, without nails or metal,
the fastenings being of wood, the cushions of straw matting and the
cordage of sea grass.
By official reckoning Chung-chong contains 244,080 houses, with 139,201
men enrolled for military service, in fifty-four districts. It contains
ten walled cities, and like every other one of the eight provinces is
divided into two departments, Right and Left.
CHULLA, OR COMPLETE NETWORK.
This province, the most southern of the eight, is also the warmest and
most fertile. It is nearest to Shang-hae, and to the track of foreign
commerce. Its island-fringed shores have been the scene of many
shipwrecks, among which were the French frigates, whose names Glory and
Victory, were better than their inglorious end, on a reef near Kokun
Island.
Until the voyage of Captains Maxwell and Basil Hall, in the Alceste and
Lyra, in 1816, “the Corean archipelago” was absolutely unknown in
Europe, and was not even marked on Chinese charts. In the map of the
empire, prepared by the Jesuits at Peking in the seventeenth century,
the main land was made to extend out over a space now known to be
covered by hundreds of islands, and a huge elephant—the conventional
sign of ignorance of the map-makers of that day—occupied the space. In
these virgin waters, Captain Hall sailed over imaginary forests and
cities, and straight through the body of the elephant, and for the
first time explored an archipelago which he found to be one of the most
beautiful on earth. A later visitor, and a naturalist, states that from
a single island peak, one may count one hundred and thirty-five islets.
Stretching far away to the north and to the south, were groups of dark
blue islets, rising mistily from the surface of the water. The sea was
covered with large picturesque boats, which, crowded with natives in
their white fluttering robes, were putting off from the adjacent
villages, and sculling across the pellucid waters to visit the stranger
ship.
On these islands, as Arthur Adams tells us, the seals sport, the
spoonbill, quail, curlew, titmouse, wagtail, teal, crane and
innumerable birds thrive. The woody peaks are rich in game, and the
shores are happy hunting-grounds for the naturalist. Sponges are very
plentiful, and in some places may be gathered in any quantity. There
are a number of well-marked species. Some are flat and split into
numerous ribbon-like branches, others are round and finger-shaped, some
cylindrical, and others like hollow tubes. Though some have dense white
foliations, hard or horny, others are loose and flexible, and await
only the hand of the diver. The Corean toilet requisites perhaps do not
include these useful articles, which lie waste in the sea. The
coral-beds are also very splendid in their living tints of green, blue,
violet, and yellow, and appear, as you look down upon them through the
clear transparent water, to form beautiful flower-gardens of marine
plants. In these submarine parterres, amid the protean forms of the
branched corals, huge madrepores, brain-shaped, flat, or headed like
gigantic mushrooms, are interspersed with sponges of the deepest red
and huge star-fishes of the richest blue. Seals sport and play unharmed
on many of the islands, and the sea-beach is at times blue with the
bodies of lively crabs. An unfailing storehouse of marine food is found
in this archipelago.
The eight provinces take their names from their two chief cities, as
Mr. Carles has shown. Whang Hai Dō, for instance, is formed by uniting
the initial syllables of the largest cities, Whang-chiu and Hai-chiu.
In the case of Chulla-Dō, the Chon and Nai in Chon-chiu and Nai-chiu
(or Chung-jiu and Na-jiu) become, by euphony, Chulla or Cholla. Hamel
tells of the great cayman or “alligator,” as inhabiting this region,
asserting that it was “eighteen or twenty ells long,” with “sixty
joints in the back,” and able to swallow a man. [8]
The soil of Chulla is rich and well cultivated, and large quantities of
rice and grain are shipped to the capital. The wide valleys afford
juicy pasture for the herds of cattle that furnish the beef diet which
the Coreans crave more than the Japanese. The visiting or shipwrecked
foreign visitors on the coast speak in terms of highest praise of fat
bullocks, and juicy steaks which they have eaten. Considerable
quantities of hides, bones, horns, leather, and tallow now form a class
of standard exports to Japan, whose people now wear buttons and leather
shoes. As a beef market, Corea exceeds either China or Japan—a point of
importance to the large number of foreigners living at the ports, who
require a flesh diet. Troops of horses graze on the pasture lands.
Chulla is well furnished with ports and harbors for the junks that ply
northward. The town of Mopo, in latitude 34° 40′, has been looked upon
by the Japanese as a favorable place for trade and residence, and may
yet be opened under the provisions of the treaty of 1876. This region
does not lack sites of great historic interest. The castle of Nanon, in
the eastern part, was the scene of a famous siege and battle between
the allied Coreans and Chinese and the Japanese besiegers, during the
second invasion, in 1597. The investment lasted many weeks, and over
five thousand men were slaughtered. It was in this province also that
the crew of the Dutch ship Sparrowhawk were kept prisoners, some for
thirteen years, some for life, of whom Hendrik Hamel wrote so graphic a
narrative. For two centuries his little work afforded the only European
knowledge of Corea accessible to inquirers. Among other employments,
the Dutch captives were set to making pottery, and this province has
many villages devoted to the fictile art. The work turned out consists,
in the main, of those huge earthen jars for holding water and grains,
common to Corean households, and large enough to hold one of the forty
thieves of Arabian Nights story.
Through the labors of the French missionaries, Christianity has
penetrated into Chulla-dō, and a large number of towns, especially in
the north, still contain believers who are the descendants or relatives
of men and women who have exchanged their lives for a good confession.
The tragedy and romance of the Christian martyrs, of this and other
provinces, have been told by Dallet. Most of the executions have taken
place at the capital city of Chon-chiu. Many have been banished to
Quelpart, or some of the many islands along the coast, where it is
probable many yet live and pine.
Three large, and several small rivers drain the valleys. Two of these
flow into the Yellow Sea and one into the sea of Japan. The main
highway of this province traverses the western portion near the sea,
the other roads being of inferior importance. Fortified cities or
castle towns are numerous in this part of Corea, for this province was
completely overrun by the Japanese armies in 1592–1597, and its soil
was the scene of many battles. By official enumeration there are
290,550 houses, and 206,140 males enrolled for service in war. The
districts number fifty-six. The capital is Chon-chiu, which was once
considered the second largest city in the kingdom.
If Corea is “the Italy of the East,” then Quelpart is its Sicily. It
lies about sixty miles south of the main land. It may be said to be an
oval, rock-bound island, covered with innumerable conical mountains,
topped in many instances by extinct volcanic craters, and “all bowing
down before one vast and towering giant, whose foot is planted in the
centre of the island, and whose head is lost in the clouds.” This peak,
called Mount Auckland, or Han-ra san, by the people, is about 6,500
feet high. On its top are three extinct craters, within each of which
is a lake of pure water. Corean children are taught to believe that the
three first-created men of the world still dwell on these lofty
heights.
The whole surface of the island, including plains, valleys, and
mountain flanks, is carefully and beautifully cultivated. The fields
are neatly divided by walls of stone. It contains a number of towns and
three walled cities, but there are no good harbors. As Quelpart has
long been used as a place for the banishment of convicts, the islanders
are rude and unpolished. They raise excellent crops of grain and fruit
for the home provinces. The finely-plaited straw hats, which form the
staple manufacture, are the best in this land of big hats, in which the
amplitude of the head-coverings is the wonder of strangers. Immense
droves of horses and cattle are reared, and one of the outlying islands
is called Bullock Island. This island has been known from ancient
times, when it formed an independent kingdom, known as Tam-na. About
100 A.D., it is recorded that the inhabitants sent tribute to one of
the states on the main land. The origin of the high central peak, named
Mount Auckland, is thus given by the islanders. “Clouds and fogs
covered the sea, and the earth trembled with a noise of thunder for
seven days and seven nights. Finally the waves opened, and there
emerged a mountain more than one thousand feet high, and forty ri in
circumference. It had neither plants nor trees upon it, and clouds of
smoke, widely spread out, covered its summit, which appeared to be
composed chiefly of sulphur.” A learned Corean was sent to examine it
in detail. He did so, and on his return to the main land published an
account of his voyage, with a sketch of the mountain thus born out of
the sea. It is noticeable that this account coincides with the ideas of
navigators, who have studied the mountain, and speculated on its
origin.
KIUNG-SANG, OR RESPECTFUL CONGRATULATION.
Kiung-sang dō, or the Province of Respectful Congratulation, is nearest
to Japan, and consists chiefly of the valleys drained by the Nak-tong
River and its tributaries. It admirably illustrates the principle of
the division of the country on the lines furnished by the river basins.
One of the warmest and richest of the eight provinces, it is also the
most populous, and the seat of many historical associations with Japan,
in ancient, mediæval, and modern times. Between the court of Kion-chiu,
the capital of Shinra, and that of Kiōto, from the third to the tenth
century, the relations of war and peace, letters, and religion were
continuous and fruitful. When the national capital was fixed at Sunto,
and later at Seoul, this province was still the gateway of entrance and
exit to the Japanese. Many a time have they landed near the mouth of
the Nak-tong River, which opens as a natural pass in the mountains
which wall in the coast. Rapidly seizing the strategic points, they
have made themselves masters of the country. The influence of their
frequent visitations is shown in the language, manners, and local
customs of southern Chō-sen. The dialect of Kiung-sang differs to a
marked degree from that of Ping-an, and much more closely resembles
that of modern Japanese. Kiung-sang seems to show upon its surface that
it is one of the most ancient seats of civilization in the peninsula.
This is certainly so if roads and facilities for travelling be
considered. The highways and foot-paths and the relays and horses kept
for government service, and for travellers, are more numerous than in
any other province. It also contains the greatest number of cities
having organized municipal governments, and is the most densely
populated of the eight provinces. It is also probable that in its
natural resources it leads all the others. The province is divided into
seventy-one districts, each having a magistrate, in which are 421,500
houses, and 310,440 men capable of military duty. Two officials of high
rank assist the governor in his functions, and the admirals of the
“Sam-nam,” or three southern provinces, have their headquarters in
Kiung-sang. This title and office, one of the most honorable in the
military service, was created after the Japanese war of 1592–1597, in
honor of a Corean commander, who had successfully resisted the invaders
in many battles. There are five cities of importance, which are under
the charge of governors. Petty officials are also appointed for every
island, who must report the arrival or visit of all foreigners at once
to their superiors. They were always in most favor at court who
succeeded in prevailing upon all foreign callers to leave as soon as
possible. Fusan has been held by the Japanese from very ancient times.
Until 1868 it was a part of the fief of the daimiō of Tsushima. It lies
in latitude 35° 6′ north, and longitude 129° 1′ east from Greenwich,
and is distant from the nearest point on the Japan coast, by a straight
line, about one hundred and fifty miles. It was opened to the Japanese
by the treaty of 1876, and is now a bustling mart of trade. The name
means, not “Gold Hill,” but Pot or Skillet Mountain.
The approach to the port up the bay is through very fine scenery, the
background of the main land being mountainous and the bay studded with
green islands. The large island in front of the settlement, to the
southward, called Tetsuyé, or the Isle of Enchanting View, has hills
eight hundred feet high. Hundreds of horses were formerly reared here,
hence it is often called Maki, or island of green pastures. The
fortifications of Fusan, on the northern side, are on a hill, and front
the sea. The soil around Fusan is of a dark ruddy color, and fine fir
trees are numerous. The fort is distant about a league from the
settlement, and Tong-nai city and castle, in which the Corean governor
resides, are about two leagues farther. Tai-ku, the capital, lies in
the centre of the province. Shang-chiu, in the northwestern part, is
one of the fortified cities guarding the approach to the capital from
the southeast. It was captured by Konishi during his brilliant march,
in eighteen days, to the capital in 1592. In recent years, much
Christian blood has been shed in Shang-chiu, though the city which
justly claims the bad eminence in slaughtering Christians is Tai-ku,
the capital of the province. Uru-san, a few miles south, is a site rich
in classic memories to all Japanese, for here, in 1597, the Chinese and
Corean hosts besieged the intrepid Kato and the brave, but not
over-modest, Ogawuchi for a whole year, during which the garrison were
reduced, by straits of famine, to eat human flesh. When the Chinese
retreated, and a battle was fought near by, between them and the
relieving forces, ten thousand men were slain.
Foreign navigators have sprinkled their names along the shore. Cape
Clonard and Unkoffsky Bay are near the thirty-sixth parallel. Chō-san
harbor was named by Captain Broughton, who on asking the name of the
place in 1797, received the reply “Chō-san,” which is the name of the
kingdom instead of the harbor. Other names of limited recognition are
found on charts made in Europe. Many inhabited islands lie off the
coast, some of which are used as places of exile to Christians and
other offenders against the law. Christianity in this province seems to
have flourished chiefly in the towns along the southern sea border.
Nearly the whole of the coast consists of the slopes of the two
mountain ranges which front the sea, and is less densely inhabited than
the interior, having few or no rivers or important harbors. The one
exception is at the mouth of the Nak-tong River, opposite Tsushima.
This is the gateway into the province, and the point most vulnerable
from Japan. The river after draining the whole of Kiung-sang, widens
into a bay, around which are populous cities and towns, the port of
Fusan and the two great roads to Seoul. Tsushima (the Twin Islands)
lies like a stepping-stone between Corea and Japan, and was formerly
claimed by the Coreans, who call it Tu-ma. Its port of Wani-ura is
thirty miles distant from Fusan, and often shelters the becalmed or
storm-stayed junks which, with fair wind and weather, can make the run
between the two countries in a single day.
From a strategic military point of view, the Twin Islands are
invaluable to the mikado’s empire, guarding, as they do, the sea of
Japan like a sentinel. The Russians who now own the long island at the
upper end of the sea, attempted, in 1859, to obtain a footing on
Tsushima. They built barracks and planted seed, with every indication
of making a permanent occupation. The timely appearance on the scene of
a fleet of British ships, under Sir James Hope, put an end to Russian
designs on Tsushima.
A Japanese writer reports that the Kiung-sang people are rather more
simple in their habits, less corrupted in their manners, and their
ancient customs are more faithfully preserved than in some of the other
provinces. There is little of luxury and less of expensive folly, so
that the small estates or property are faithfully transmitted from
father to son, for many generations, in the same families. Studious
habits prevail, and literature flourishes. Often the young men, after
toiling during the day, give the evening to reading and conversation,
for which admirable practice the native language has a special word.
Here ladies of rank are not so closely shut up in-doors as in other
provinces, but often walk abroad, accompanied by their servants,
without fear of insult. In this province also Buddhism has the largest
number of adherents. Kion-chiu, the old capital of Shinra, was the
centre of the scholastic and missionary influences of the Buddha
doctrine in Corea, and, though burned by the Japanese in 1597, its
influence still survives.
The people are strongly attached to their superstitions, and difficult
to change, but to whatever faith they are once converted they are
steadfast and loyal. The numerous nobles who dwell in this province,
belong chiefly to the Nam In party.
KANG-WEN, THE RIVER-MEADOW PROVINCE.
Kang-wen fronts Japan from the middle of the eastern coast, and lies
between Ham-kiung and Kiung-sang. Its name means River Meadow. Within
its area are found the sources of “the river” of the realm. Though
perhaps the most mountainous of all the provinces, it contains several
fertile plains, which are watered by streams flowing mainly to the
west, forming the Han River, which crosses the entire peninsula, and
empties into the Yellow Sea. The main mountain chain of the country,
called here the Makira, runs near the coast, leaving the greater area
of the province to the westward. The larger part of the population, the
most important high roads, and the capital city Wen-chiu, are in the
western division, which contains twenty-six districts, the eastern
division having seventeen. The official census gives the number of
houses at 93,000, and of men capable of bearing arms, 44,000.
Some of the names of mountains in this province give one a general idea
of the geographical nomenclature of the kingdom, reflecting, as it
does, the ideas and beliefs of the people. One peak is named Yellow
Dragon, another the Flying Phœnix, and another the Hidden Dragon (not
yet risen up from the earth on his passage to the clouds or to heaven).
Hard Metal, Oxhead, Mountain facing the Sun, Cool Valley, Wild Swamp,
White Cloud, and Peacock, are other less heathenish, and perhaps less
poetical names. One range is said to have twelve hundred peaks, and
from another, rivers fall down like snow for several hundred feet.
These “snowy rivers” are cataracts. Deer are very plentiful, and the
best hartshorn for the pharmacy of China comes from these parts. Out in
the sea, about a degree and a half from the coast, lies an island,
called by the Japanese Matsu-shima, or Pine Island, by the Coreans
U-lon-to, and by Europeans, Dagelet. This island was first discovered
by the French navigator, La Perouse, in June, 1787. In honor of an
astronomer, it was named Dagelet Island. “It is very steep, but covered
with fine trees from the sea-shore to the summit. A rampart of bare
rock, nearly as perpendicular as a wall, completely surrounds it,
except seven sandy little coves at which it is possible to land.” The
grand central peak towers four thousand feet into the clouds. Firs,
sycamores, and juniper trees abound. Sea-bears and seals live in the
water, and the few poor Coreans who inhabit the island dry the flesh of
the seals and large quantities of petrels and haliotis, or sea-ears,
for the markets or the main land. The island is occasionally visited by
Japanese junks and foreign whaling ships, as whales are plentiful in
the surrounding waters. The Japanese obtained the timber for the public
and other buildings at their new settlement at Gensan from this island.
The Land of Morning Calm is, by all accounts of travellers, a land of
beauty, and the customs and literature of the people prove that the
superb and inspiring scenery of their peninsula is fully appreciated by
themselves. Not only are picnics and pleasure gatherings, within the
groves, common to the humbler classes, but the wealthy travel great
distances simply to enjoy the beauty of marine or mountain views.
Scholars assemble at chosen seats, having fair landscapes before them,
poets seek inspiration under waterfalls, and the bonzes, understanding
the awe-compelling influence of the contemplation of nature’s grandeur,
plant their monasteries and build their temples on lofty mountain
heights. These favorite haunts of the lovers of natural beauty are as
well known to the Coreans as Niagara and Yo Semite are to Americans, or
Chamouni to all Europe. The places in which the glory of the Creator’s
works may be best beheld are the theme of ardent discussion and
competing praise with the people of each province. The local
guide-books, itineraries, and gazetteers, descant upon the merits of
the scenery, for which each of the eight divisions is renowned. In the
River-meadow province, the eight most lovely “sceneries” are all
located along the coast. Beginning at the south, and taking them in
order toward the north, they are the following:
1. The house on Uru-chin, a town below the thirty-seventh parallel of
latitude. The inn is called “The House of the Emerging Sun,” because
here the sun seems to rise right out of the waters of the ocean. In
front of the coast lies an island, set like a gem in the sea. The view
of the rising sun, the tints of sky, river, waves, land, and mountains
form a vision of gorgeous magnificence.
2. Hion-hai (Tranquil Sea). Out in the sea, in front of this village,
are many small islands. When the moon rises, they seem to be floating
in a sea of molten silver. The finest effect is enjoyed just before the
orb is fully above the horizon. In many of the dwellings of the men of
rank and wealth, there is a special room set apart for the enjoyment of
the scenery, upon which the apartment looks. Especially is this the
case, with the houses of public entertainment. At Hion-hai, one of the
inns from which the best view may be obtained is called the “House
Fronting the Moon.” In it are several “looking-rooms.”
3. One of the finest effects in nature is the combination of fresh
fallen snow on evergreens. The pure white on the deep green is
peculiarly pleasing to the eye of the Japanese, who use it as a popular
element in their decorative art, in silver and bronze, in embroidery,
painting, and lacquer. The Coreans are equally happy in gazing upon the
snow, as it rests on the deep shadows of the pine, or the delicate hue
of the giant grass called bamboo. Near the large town of San-cho is a
tower or house, built within view of a stream of water, which flows in
winding course over the rocks, sparkling beneath the foliage. It has a
scene-viewing room to which people resort to enjoy the “chikusetsu,” or
snow and bamboo effect.
4. From an elevation near the town of Kan-nun, or Bay Hill, one may
obtain a pretty view of the groves and shrubbery growing upon the
rocks. During the spring showers, when the rain falls in a fine mist,
and the fresh vegetation appears in a new rich robe of green, the sight
is very charming.
5. Beneath the mound at An-an the river flows tranquilly, tinted by the
setting sun. The sunsets at this place are of exquisite beauty.
6. At the old castle town of Kan-nun, there is a room named “The
Chamber between the Strong Fortress and the Tender Verdure.” Here the
valley is steep, and in the bosom of the stream of water lie “floating
islands”—so called because they seem to swim on the surface of the
water.
7. Near Ko-sion, or High Fortress, is “Three Days Bay,” to which lovers
of the picturesque resort on summer mornings, to see the sun rise, and
on autumnal evenings, to watch the moonlight effects. The fishers’
boats gliding to and fro over the gleaming waters delight the eye.
8. At Tsu-sen is the “Rock-loving Chamber.” Here, among some steep
rocks, grow trees of fantastic form. The combination of rock-scenery
and foliage make the charm of this place, to which scholars, artists,
and travellers resort. In spring and autumn, literary parties visit the
chamber dedicated to those who love the rocks. There, abandoning
themselves to literary revels, they compose poems, hold scholarly
reunions, or ramble about in search of health or pleasure.
The people of Kang-wen are industrious and intelligent, with less
energy of body than the southern provincials, but like their northern
countrymen, they have the reputation of being bold, obstinate, and
quarrelsome. In time of bad harvests or lax government, “tramps” form
bands of thirty or fifty, and roam the country, stealing food or
valuables from the villages. Local thieves are sufficiently abundant.
During the heavy snows of winter, people travel the mountain paths on
snow-shoes, and in exceptional places, cut tunnels under the snow for
communication from house to house. Soldiers test their strength by
pulling strong bows, and laborers by carrying heavy burdens on their
shoulders. Strong men shoulder six hundred pounds of copper, or two
bales of white rice (260 pounds each). The women of this province are
said to be the most beautiful in Corea. Even from ancient times, lovely
damsels from this part of the peninsula, sent to the harem of the
Chinese emperor, were greatly admired. Christianity has made little
progress in Kang-wen, only a few towns in the southern part being
marked with a cross on the French missionary map. In the most ancient
times the Chinhan tribes occupied this portion of Corea. From the
Christian era, until the tenth century, it was alternately held by
Kokorai, or Korai, and by Shinra.
HAM-KIUNG, OR COMPLETE VIEW.
Ham-kiung is that part of Corean territory which touches the boundary
of Russia. Only a few years ago all the neighbors along the land
frontiers of Chō-sen were Chinese subjects. Now she has the European
within rifle-shot of her shores. Only the Tumen River separates the
Muscovites from the once hermits of the peninsula. The southern
boundary of Russia in Asia, which had been thrown farther south after
every European war with China, touched Corea in 1858. What was before
an elastic line, has in each instance become the Czar’s “scientific
frontier.” By the supplementary treaty of Aigun, March 28, 1858, Count
Mouravieff “rectified” the far eastern line of the Czar’s domain, by
demanding and obtaining that vast and fertile territory lying south of
the Amur River, and between the Gulf of Tartary and the river Usuri,
having a breadth of one hundred and fifty miles. This remote, but very
desirable, slice of Asia, is rich in gold and silk, coal and cotton,
rice and tobacco. With energy and enterprise, the Russian government at
once encouraged emigration, placed steamers built in New York on the
Usuri River and Lake Hanka, laid out the ports of Vladivostok, and
Possiet, constructed a telegraph from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific
Ocean, and enforced order among the semi-civilized and savage tribes.
The name of the new Russian territory between the Amur River and the
Sea of Okhotsk, is Primorskaïa, with Vladivostok for the capital, which
is finely situated on Peter the Great or Victoria Bay. Immense
fortifications have been planned, and the place is to be made the
Sebastopol of the Czar’s Pacific possessions. This gigantic work was
begun under the charge of the late Admiral Popoff, whose name has been
given to the iron-turreted war vessels of which he was the inventor,
and to a mountain in Central Corea. Possiet is within twenty-five miles
of the Corean frontier. It is connected with Nagasaki by electric
cable. In the event of a war between China and Russia, or even of
Anglo-Russian hostilities, the Czar would most probably make Corea the
basis of operations against China; for Corea is to China as Canada is
to the United States, or, as the people say, “the lips of China’s
teeth.”
Russia needs a coast line in the Pacific with seaports that are not
frozen up in winter, and her ambition is to be a naval power. While
England checks her designs in the Mediterranean, and in Europe, her
desire is great and her need is greater to have this defenceless
peninsula on her eastern borders. The Coreans know too well that the
possession of their country by “Russia the ravenous” is considered a
necessity of the absorption policy of Peter the Great’s successors. The
Tumen River, which rises at the foot of the Ever-White Mountains and
separates Corea from Russia, is about two hundred miles in length. It
drains a mountainous and rainy country. Ordinarily it is shallow and
quiet; but in spring, or after heavy rains, and swollen by a great
number of tributaries, its current becomes very turbulent and powerful.
In winter it is frozen over during several months, and hence is easily
crossed. Thousands of Coreans fleeing from famine, or from the
oppression of government officials, Christians persecuted for their
faith, criminals seeking to escape the clutches of the law, emigrants
desirous of bettering their condition, have crossed this river and
settled in Primorskaïa, until they now number, in all, about eight
thousand. The majority of them are peasants from Ham-kiung, and know
little of the southern parts of their country. There is, however, an
“underground railroad” by which persecuted Christians can fly for
refuge to Russian protection. Their houses are built of stout timbers,
wattled with cane, plastered with mud, and surrounded with a neat
fencing of interlaced boughs. They cover their houses with strips of
bamboo, well fastened down by thatching. The chimney is detached from
the house, and consists of a hollow tree. Under the warmed floor is the
usual system of flues, by which the house is kept comfortable in
winter, and every atom of fuel utilized. Their food is millet, corn,
venison, and beef. They pare and dry melon-like fruits, cutting them up
in strips for winter use. They dress in the national color, white,
using quilted cotton clothes. They make good use of bullock-carts, and
smoke tobacco habitually. The national product—thick strong paper—is
put to a great variety of uses, and a few sheets dressed with oil,
serve as windows.
Some of the Russian merchants have married Corean women, who seem to
make good wives. Their offspring are carefully brought up in the
Christian faith. Some of these Corean children have been sent to the
American Home at Yokohama, where the ladies of the Woman’s Union
Missionary Society of America have given them an education in English.
Through the Russian possessions, the Corean liberal, Kin Rinshio, made
his escape. From this man the Japanese officials learned so much of the
present state of the peninsula, and by his aid those in the War
Department at Tōkiō were enabled to construct and publish so valuable a
map of Corea, the accuracy of which astonishes his fellow-countrymen.
The Russians have taken the pains to educate the people in schools,
and, judging from the faces and neat costumes, as seen in photographs
taken on the spot, they enjoy being taught. The object of instruction
is not only to civilize them as loyal subjects of the Czar, but also to
convert them to the Russian form of Christianity. In this work the
priests and schoolmasters have had considerable success. There are but
few Coreans north of the Tumen who cannot read and write, and the young
men employed as clerks are good linguists. A number of them are
fishermen, living near the coast. Most of the converts to the Greek
church are gathered at Vladivostok.
So great has been the fear and jealousy felt by Corea toward Russia,
that during the last two generations the land along the boundary river
has been laid desolate. The banks were picketed with sentinels, and
death was the penalty of crossing from shore to shore. Many interesting
relics of the ancient greatness of Corea still abound in Manchuria and
on Russian soil. Travellers have visited these ruins, now overgrown
with large forest trees, and have given descriptions and measurements
of them. One fortification was found to cover six acres, with walls
over thirty feet in height, protected by a moat and two outer ditches,
with gateways guarded by curtains. In the ruins were elaborately carved
fragments of columns, stone idols or statues, with bits of armor and
weapons. Some of these now silent ruins have sustained famous sieges,
and once blazed with watch-fires and echoed to battle-shouts. They are
situated on spurs or ends of mountain chains, commanding plains and
valleys, testifying to the knowledge of strategic skill possessed by
their ancient builders.
The Shan-yan Alin, range on range, visible from the Corean side of the
river, are between eight thousand and twelve thousand feet high, and
are snow-covered during most of the year. The name means Long-white, or
Ever-White Mountains, the Chinese Shang-bai, meaning the same thing.
Two of the peaks are named after Chinese emperors. Paik-tu, or White
Head, is a sacred mountain famous throughout the country, and is the
theme of enthusiastic description by Chinese, Japanese, and Corean
writers, the former comparing it to a vase of white porcelain, with a
scolloped rim. Its flora is mostly white, and its fauna are reputed to
be white-haired, never injuring or injured by man. It is the holy abode
of a white-robed goddess, who presides over the mountain. She is
represented as a woman holding a child in her arms, after a legendary
character, known in Corean lore and Chinese historical novels. Formerly
a temple dedicated to her spirit was built, and for a long time was
presided over by a priestess. The Corean Buddhists assign to this
mountain, the home of Manchusri, one of their local deities, or
incarnations of Buddha. Lying in the main group of the range, over
eight thousand feet above the sea, is a vast lake surrounded by naked
rocks, probably an extinct crater. Large portions of the mountain
consist of white limestone, which, with its snow, from which it is free
only during two months of the year, gives it its name.
Another imposing range of mountains follows the contour of the coast,
and thus presents that lofty and magnificent front of forest-clad
highland which strikes the admiration of navigators. Other conspicuous
peaks are named by the natives, Continuous Virtue, The Peak of the
Thousand Buddhas, Cloud-toucher, Sword Mountain, Lasting Peace,
Heaven-reaching.
Twenty-four rivers water and drain this mountainous province. The coast
of Ham-kiung down to the fortieth parallel is devoid of any important
harbors. A glance at a foreign chart shows that numerous French,
Russian, and English navigators have visited it, and gained precarious
renown by sprinkling foreign names upon its capes and headlands. At the
south, Yung-hing, or Broughton’s Bay, so named by the gallant British
captain in 1797, is well known for its fine harbors and its high tides.
It contains a small archipelago, while the country around it is the
most populous and fertile portion of the province. Port Lazareff, east
of Yon-fun, near the mouth of the Dungan River, and west of Virginie
Bay, is well known. A large Japanese army under Kato occupied this
territory during the year 1592.
By the recent treaty with Japan, the port of Gensan, fronting on the
south of Broughton’s Bay, was opened for trade and commerce, from May
1, 1880. Gensan lies near the thirty-ninth parallel of latitude. Near
the shore is the island of Chotoku, and within the twenty-five mile
circuit allowed to Japanese merchants for general travel, or free
movement, is the old castle-town of Tokugen. The tomb of the founder of
the reigning dynasty of Chō-sen is situated near the bay and is a
highly venerated spot. As the dragon is in native ideas the type of all
that is strong, mighty, and renowned, the place is named the “Rise of
the Dragon.” One of the high roads of the kingdom traverses the strip
of land skirting the sea from north to south throughout the province,
touching the water at certain places. The greater part of the people
dwelling in the province live along this road. The interior, being a
mass of mountains, is thinly inhabited, and the primeval forests are
populated chiefly by tigers and other beasts of prey.
In the current scouring the coast of Ham-kiung swim unnumbered shoals
of herring, ribbon fish, and other species inhabiting the open seas.
After these follow in close pursuit schools of whales, which fatten on
them as prey. Thousands of natives from the interior and the shore
villages come down in the season and fish. They often stand knee-deep
in the water, looking like long rows of the snowy heron of a
rice-swamp, in their white clothes. They use a kind of catamaran or
raft for fishing and for surf navigation, which is very serviceable.
They sometimes hunt the whales at sea, or capture them in shoal water,
driving them in shore till stranded. Sticking in the bodies of these
huge creatures have been found darts and harpoons of European whalers.
This chase of the herring by the whales was noticed, even in the
extreme south of Corea, by Hamel, and by shipwrecked Dutchmen. Since
the present year, Japanese whale-hunters have been engaged by Coreans
to improve their methods of catching this huge sea-mammal.
The capital city of this largest of the provinces, and the residence of
the governor, is Ham-hung, situated near the fortieth parallel of north
latitude. According to a native geography this province contains
103,200 houses, which gives a population varying from 309,600 to
516,000 souls. There are enrolled and capable of military service (on
paper) 87,170 men. For administrative purposes the province is divided
into divisions, the northern and the southern. There are fifteen walled
cities.
Formerly, and until the Russians occupied the Primorskaia territory, an
annual or bi-annual fair was held at the Corean city of Kion-wen, which
lies close to the border. The Manchiu and Chinese merchants bartered
tea, rice, pipes, gold, and furs for the Corean ginseng, hides, and
household implements. Furs of a thousand sorts, cotton stuff, silks,
artificial flowers, and choice woods, changed hands rapidly, the
traffic lasting but two or three days, and sometimes only one day, from
noon until sunset. Such was the bustle and confusion that these fairs
often terminated in a free fight, which reminds one of the famous
Donnybrook. One of the articles most profitable to the Coreans was
their cast-off hair. Immense quantities cut from the heads of young
persons, and especially by those about to be married, were and are
still sold by the Chinese to lengthen out their “pig-tails”—that mark
of subjection to their Manchiu conquerors. During the time of trade no
Chinese or Manchiu was allowed to enter a Corean house, all the streets
and doorways being guarded by soldiers, who at the end of the fair
drove out any lingering Chinese, who, if not soon across the border,
were forced to go at the point of the spear. Any foreigner found inside
the border at other seasons might be, and often was, ruthlessly
murdered.
The nearest town beyond the frontier, at which the Chinese merchants
were wont to assemble, is Hun-chun. [9] This loophole of entrance into
Corea, corresponded to Ai-chiu at the Yalu River in the west. As at the
latter place, foreigners and Christian natives have attempted to
penetrate the forbidden country at Kion-wen, but have been
unsuccessful.
An outline of the political history of the part of the peninsula now
called Ham-kiung shows that many masters have in turn been its
possessors. When the old kingdom of Chō-sen, which comprehended Liao
Tung and that part of the peninsula between the Ta-tong and the Tumen
Rivers, was broken up toward the end of the first century, the northern
half of what is now Ham-kiung was called Oju or Woju, the southern
portion forming part of the little state of Wei, or Whi. These were
both conquered by Kokorai, which held dominion until the seventh
century, when it was crushed by the Chinese emperors of the Han
dynasty, and the land fell under the sway of Shinra, whose borders
extended in the ninth and tenth centuries, from Eastern Sea to the
Tumen River. After Shinra, arose Korai and Chō-sen, the founders of
both states being sprung from this region and of the hardy race
inhabiting it. From very ancient times, the boundaries of this
province, being almost entirely natural and consisting of mountain,
river, and sea, have remained unchanged.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE KING AND ROYAL PALACE.
The title of majesty in Chō-sen is Hap-mun. In full robes of state the
sovereign wears a silken garment, the gift of his suzerain, the Emperor
of China. It is embroidered with dragons, the emblems of regal power.
His throne has riong or dragons sculptured around it. The steps leading
to it are called “the staircase of jade.” The cord which is used to tie
criminals has a dragon’s head at the ends, to signify that the officers
act in obedience to the royal command. Chief of the regalia of Corean
sovereignty is the Great Seal, the possession of which makes the holder
the actual sovereign of Chō-sen. This seal, of which we shall hear
again, seems to have been captured by the French in 1866. In time of
war or public danger, the royal library, archives and regalia are sent
to Kang-wa Island for safety. Ridel wrote in 1866:
“In another case, they found a marble tortoise, sculptured in perfect
art, upon the pedestal of which was the great seal of state. This royal
cartouche was to the simple Corean folk neither visible nor
approachable, the possession of which has sufficed many times to
transfer the royal authority and to terminate revolutions. It was the
regalia of Corean sovereignty. The one which he saw was new and
appeared never to have been used.”
The sovereign, in speaking of himself, uses the term “Hap-mun,” which
is the equivalent of the imperial “We” of Asiatic state documents. The
word is somewhat similar to that employed by, or for, other
rulers—Pharaoh, Sublime Porte, Mikado, all of which mean the Grand,
Chief, or First, Gate of all the gates in the country. The first
character in Hap-mun is, however, different from that in Mikado, or
Honorable Gate, but the hap is honorific. No other person in the land,
official or private, is allowed to use this compound word in speech or
writing as applying to anyone except the king. Even in transcribing the
term hap, a stroke must be omitted out of respect to the august
personage to whom alone it is applied. At his death, three cups of rice
are set out in the households in memoriam. This ceremony must not be
imitated for any other person. So also, if the character with which the
name of the ruling emperor of China is written be found in that of a
public person, a gateway, a palace or edifice in Seoul, the graphic
sign must be temporarily changed, though the pronunciation remains the
same. This same system of graduated honors, of which, in Corea, the
king is the culmination, slopes down to the common people, and is duly
protected by law.
The sovereign’s person is hedged round with a divinity that has an
antipathy to iron. This metal must never touch his august body, and
rather than have an abscess lanced, the king Cheng-jong, in 1800, died
from the effects of the disease. No ordinary mortal must touch him, and
if by accident this is done, the individual must ever afterward wear a
red silk cord. Notwithstanding such regulated veneration for the
Hap-mun’s person, the royal harem numbers several hundred inmates, duly
presided over by eunuchs. None but the king can drink out of a cup made
of gold, and a heavy penalty is visited upon all who presume to do so.
When outside the palace, the three signs of the sovereign’s power of
life and death over his subjects, are the axe, sabre, and trident. The
huge violet fan and red umbrella are likewise borne before him. The
Chinese envoy is always escorted by soldiers bearing the three emblems,
and by a band of musicians. When the Hap-mun, or king, is in his
minority, the queen, who is regent, sits behind a curtain in the
council of ministers, and takes part in the discussions. When she is
pregnant, the slaughter of beeves is prohibited during the space of
three months. This is done in order “to honor heaven by abstinence,”
and may also be ordered to procure rain. Once every year, the queen
entertains at her palace some worthy woman in humble life, who has
reached the advanced age of eighty years. The king likewise shows favor
to old men in the lower walks of life. Whenever an auspicious event
happens, or good fortune befalls the kingdom, all the officials over
seventy, and the common people over eighty years of age, are feasted at
the expense of the government. When the first male child is born to the
king, criminals are pardoned, and general festivity is observed. The
birthdays of the royal pair are celebrated every year. The royal
princes are supposed to have nothing whatever to do with politics, and
any activity in matters of government on their part is jealously
resented by the nobles, who form the political parties.
The Royal Castle contains over three acres (15,202 square yards),
surrounded by a wall twenty feet high, and formerly by a moat, now
filled up, measuring fifty feet wide or less. It is crossed by stone
bridges in several places. This castled palace is called the “Place of
Government,” and is divided into two parts called the “East and West”
palace. The East, or Lower Palace, is the residence of the king and is
so called because situated on level land. The Western palace is used
for the reception of the Chinese ambassadors. The gates of the outer
city proper, and inner city, or palace, are named in high-sounding
phrase, such as “Beneficent Reception,” “Exalted Politeness,” “Perfect
Change,” “Entrance of Virtue,” and the throne-room is styled “The Hall
of the Throne of the Humane Government.” The Chinese ambassador of 1866
spent the night in that part of the royal residence called “The Palace
Reserved for the South,”—“the south” here evidently referring to the
imperial favor, or the good graces, of the emperor.
A marked difference concerning “the freedom of the city” is noticed in
the relative treatment of the two embassies. While the entire body of
Coreans, dignitaries, servants, merchants, and cart-men enter Peking,
and all circulate freely in the streets among the people, the Chinese
envoy to Seoul, must leave his suite at the frontier, and proceed to
the capital with but a few servants, and while there dwell in
seclusion. After the long and rough journey through Shin-king and
Corea, the Chinese envoy in 1866 stayed less than three days in Seoul,
and most of the time in-doors. The Japanese who, in 1646, were feasted
in some part of the Eastern palace, describe it as being handsomely
furnished, with the walls gilded and painted with landscapes, beasts,
birds, and flowers, with artistic effects in gold-dust and leaf. The
royal family live each in separate buildings, those above the ninth
degree of relationship reside inside the enclosure, all others live
beyond the wall in the city. When the wife of the king has a child, she
dwells apart in a separate building. The queen is selected from among
the old and most loyal families of the nobility. The palace pages, who
attend the king day and night, number thirty. There are also three
hundred court ladies, and eunuchs are among the regularly-appointed
officers of the court. The royal archives and library form an
interesting portion of the royal residence. Part of this library, when
removed to Kang-wa in 1866, was captured by the French. Bishop Ridel
wrote of it, “The library is very rich, consisting of two or three
thousand books printed in Chinese with numerous illustrations upon
beautiful paper, all well labeled, for the most part in many volumes
hooped together with copper bands, the covers being of green or crimson
silk. I notice among other things the ancient history of Corea in sixty
volumes. What was most curious of all was a book formed of tablets of
marble, with characters in gold encrusted in the marble, folding upon
one another like the leaves of a screen, upon hinges of gilded copper,
and each tablet protected by a cushion of scarlet silk, the whole
placed in a handsome casket made of copper, which was in its turn
enclosed in a box of wood painted red, with chased ornaments in gilt
copper. These square tablets formed a volume of a dozen pages. They
contain, as some say, the moral laws of the country, but according to
others, whose opinion is more probable, the honors accorded the kings
of Corea by the Emperor of China. The Coreans set great store by it.”
A custom, similar to the old “curfew” of England prevails in the
capital. The great city bell is struck at sunset, after which male
citizens are not allowed to go out of their houses even to visit their
neighbors. If such nocturnal prowlers are caught, they run the risk of
receiving the bastinado on their legs. At eight o’clock another three
strokes are given on the bell. At the hours of midnight, and at two and
four A.M. the drum is struck, and the brass cymbals sounded. At these
signals the watchmen or guards of the palace are relieved. The
night-watch consists of ten reliefs of eighteen each. Twenty stand
guard at midnight, thirty at two A.M., twenty at four A.M., and ten at
six A.M. There are also extra reliefs with their officers ready. The
sentinels change after giving the pass-word. The military garrison of
the city is divided into five portions, or four in addition to the
household or palace troops. This is the modern form of the old division
of Kokorai, into five tribes or clans.
There are several noted holidays, on which the curfew law is suspended,
and the people are allowed to be out freely at night. These are the
first and the last day of the year, the fourteenth and fifteenth day of
the first month, and the fifteenth of August.
Even under a despotism there are means by which the people win and
enjoy a certain measure of liberty. The monarch hears the complaints of
his subjects. Close communication between the palace and populace is
kept up by means of the pages employed at the court, or through
officers, who are sent out as the king’s spies all over the country. An
E-sa, or commissioner, who is to be sent to a distant province to
ascertain the popular feeling, or to report the conduct of certain
officers, is also called “The Messenger on the Dark Path.” He receives
sealed orders from the king, which he must not open till beyond the
city walls. Then, without even going to his own house, he must set out
for his destination, the government providing his expenses. He bears
the seal of his commission, a silver plate having the figure of a horse
engraved on it. In some cases he has the power of life and death in his
hands. Yet, even the Messenger of the Dark Path is not free from
espionage, for after him forthwith follows his “double”—the yashi or
Night Messenger, who reports on the conduct of the royal inspector and
also on the affairs of each province through which he passes. The
whereabouts of these emissaries are rarely discoverable by the people,
as they travel in strict disguise, and unknown. This system corresponds
almost exactly to that of the ométsuké (eye-appliers), for many
centuries in use in Japan, but abolished by the mikado’s government at
the revolution of 1868. It was by means of these E-sa or spies that
many of the Corean Christians of rank were marked for destruction. The
system, though abominable in free countries, is yet an excellent medium
between the throne and the subject, and serves as a wholesome check on
official rapine and cruelty.
The king rarely leaves the palace to go abroad in the city or country.
When he does, it is a great occasion which is previously announced to
the public. The roads are swept clean and guarded to prevent traffic or
passage while the royal cortége is moving. All doors must be shut and
the owner of each house is obliged to kneel before his threshold with a
broom and dust-pan in his hand as emblems of obeisance. All windows,
especially the upper ones, must be sealed with slips of paper, lest
some one should look down upon his majesty. Those who think they have
received unjust punishment enjoy the right of appeal to the sovereign.
They stand by the roadside tapping a small flat drum of hide stretched
on a hoop like a battledore. The king as he passes hears the prayer or
receives the written petition held in a split bamboo. Often he
investigates the grievance. If the complaint is groundless the
petitioner is apt to lose his head. The procession for pleasure or a
journey, as it leaves the palace, is one of the grandest spectacles the
natives ever witness. His body-guard and train amount to many thousand
persons. There are two sedan chairs made exactly alike, and in which of
them the king is riding no one knows except the highest ministers. They
must never be turned round, but have a door to open at both ends. The
music used on such occasions is—to a Corean ear—of a quiet kind, and
orders are given along the line by signals made with pennons. In case
of sudden emergencies, when it is necessary to convey an order from the
rear to the front or far forward of the line, the message is sent by
means of an arrow, which, with the writing attached, is shot from one
end of the line to the other.
Five caparisoned horses with embroidered saddles precede the royal
sedan. The great dragon-flag, which is about fourteen feet square,
mounted in a socket and strapped on the back of a strong fresh
horse—with four guy ropes held by footmen, like banner-string boys in a
parade—forms the most conspicuous object in the procession. Succession
to the throne is at the pleasure of the sovereign, who may nominate his
legitimate son, or any one of his natural male offspring, or his
cousin, or uncle, as he pleases. A son of the queen takes precedence
over other sons, but the male child of a concubine becomes king when
the queen is childless, which, in Corean eyes, is virtually the case
when she has daughters only. Since the founding of the present dynasty
in 1392, there have been twenty-nine successors to the founder, among
whom we find nephews, cousins, or younger sons, in several instances.
Four were kun, princes, or king’s son only, and not successors in the
royal line. They are not styled wang, or kings, but only kun, or
princes, in the official light. One of these four kun, degraded from
the throne, was banished after eleven years, and another was served in
like manner after fourteen years’ reign. The heir to the throne holds
the rank of wang (Japanese Ō), king, while the younger sons are kun,
princes. From 1392 to 1882, the average reign of the twenty sovereigns
of Corea who received investiture is very nearly sixteen and a half
years.
CHAPTER XXV.
POLITICAL PARTIES.
During the past three centuries the nobles have been steadily gaining
political power, or rather we might say have been regaining their
ancient prestige at court. They have compelled the royal princes to
take the position of absolute political neutrality, and the policy of
the central government is dictated exclusively by them. Those who hold
no office are often the most powerful in influence with their own
party.
The origin of the political parties, which have played such an
influential part in the history of modern Corea, is referred to about
the time of the discovery of America. During the reign of Sien-chong
(1469–1494), the eleventh sovereign of the house of Ni, a dispute broke
out between two of the most powerful of the nobles. The court had
bestowed upon one of them a high dignity, to which his rival laid equal
claim. As usual in feudalism everywhere, the families, relatives,
retainers, and even servants, of either leader took part in the
quarrel. The king prudently kept himself neutral between the contending
factions, which soon formed themselves into organized parties under the
names of “Eastern” and “Western.” Later on, from a cause equally
trivial to an alien eye, two other parties formed themselves under the
names “Southern” and “Northern.” Soon the Easterners joined themselves
to the Southerners, and the Northerners, who were very numerous, split
into two divisions, called the Great North and the Little North. In one
of those unsuccessful palace intrigues, called conspiracies, the Great
North party was mixed up with the plot, and most of its members were
condemned to death. The survivors hastened to range themselves under
the banner of the Little North. The next reaction which arranged the
parties on new lines, occurred during the reign of Suk-chong
(1676–1720), and well illustrates that fanaticism of pedantry to which
the literary classes in time of peace formerly devoted their energies.
The father of a young noble named Yun, who belonged to the Western
party, having died, the young man composed an epitaph. His tutor, an
influential man of letters, not liking the production of his pupil,
proposed another. Unable to agree upon the proper text, a lively
controversy arose, and out of a literary acorn sprang up a mighty oak
of politics. The Western party split into the Sho-ron, and No-ron, in
which were found the adherents of the pupil and master. A free
translation of the correlative terms sho and no, would be “Old Corea”
and “Young Corea,” or Conservative and Progressive, or radical. There
were now four political parties.
The Shi-seik, or “the four parties,” are still in existence, and
receive illustration better from French than from British politics.
Every noble in the realm is attached to one or the other of the four
parties, though “trimmers” are not unknown. These Tuhil-poki, or “right
and left men,” are ever on the alert for the main chance, and on the
turn of the political vane promptly desert to the winning side.
However trivial the causes which led to their formation, as Western
eyes see, the objects kept in view by the partisans are much the same
as those of parties in European countries and in the United States.
Nominally the prime purpose of each faction is to advance the interests
of the country. Actual and very powerful motives have reference to the
spoils of office. Each party endeavors to gain for its adherents as
many of the high appointments and dignities as possible. Their
rallying-point is around the heirs apparent, or possible, to the
throne. When a strong and healthy king holds the reins of power,
political activity may be cool. When the sovereign dies and the
succession is uncertain, when a queen or royal concubine is to be
chosen, when high ministers of state die or resign, the Corean
political furnace is at full blast. When king Suk-chong was reigning in
1720, having no son to succeed him, the four parties coalesced into
two, the Opposition and the Court or royal party. The former supported
in this case one who proved the successful candidate, a brother of the
king; the latter party urged the claims of an expected heir to the
reigning king, which, however, was not born, as the king died
childless. To secure the throne to their nominee, the brother of the
childless king, the opposition secretly despatched a courier to Peking
to obtain the imperial investiture. The other party sent assassins to
waylay or overtake the courier, who was murdered before he had crossed
the frontier.
Yeng-chong, the nominee of the Opposition, mounted the throne after the
death of his brother, and reigned from 1724 to 1776. He was an able
ruler, and signalized his reign by abolishing many of the legal
tortures until then practised, especially the branding of criminals.
Yet personally he was cruel and unscrupulous. Public rumor credited him
with having found a road to power by means of a double crime. By the
use of various drugs he made it impossible for his brother to have an
heir, after which he poisoned him.
Stung by these reports, he began, as soon as he was made sovereign, to
send to the block numbers of the opposite party whom he knew to be his
enemies. Some years after, his eldest son having died, he nominated his
second son, Sato, to be his heir, and associated him with himself in
the government of the kingdom. This young and accomplished prince
endeavored to make his father forget his bitter hatred against the
Si-pai party, to proclaim general amnesty, and to follow out a frank
policy of reconciliation. The king, irritated by his son’s reproaches,
and hounded on by his partisans, resolved to put the prince out of the
way. By the royal command a huge chest of wood was made, into which the
young prince was ordered to sleep while living. The ponderous lid was
put on during one of his slumbers and sealed with the royal seal. They
then covered this sarcophagus with leaves and boughs, so that in a
short time the young prince was smothered. This horrible crime served
only to exasperate the party of the prince, and they demanded that his
name should be enrolled in the list of sovereigns. Their opponents
refused, and this question is still a burning one. The king’s
defenders, to this day decline to rehabilitate the character of the
smothered prince. The others demand that historic justice be done.
Though other questions have since arisen, of more immediate moment,
this particular moot point makes its distinct hue in the opposing
colors of Corean politics. This, however, does not take on the features
of an hereditary feud, for oftentimes in the same family, father and
son, or brothers may hold varying views on this historical dispute, nor
does it affect marriage between holders of diverse views. The Corean
Romeo and Juliet may woo and wed without let or danger. In general, it
may be said that the Piek-pai are radical and fiery, the Si-pai are
conservative and conciliatory.
Cheng-chong, who ruled from 1776 to 1800, a wise, moderate, and prudent
prince, and a friend of learning, favored the men of merit among the
Southern Si-pai, and is also noted for having revised the code of laws.
Among the more radical of the partisans, the object in view is not only
to gain for their adherents the public offices, but also to smite their
rivals hip and thigh, and prevent their getting appointments. Hence the
continual quarrels and the plots, which often result in the death of
one or other of the leaders. Assassination and murderous attacks are
among the means employed, while to supplant their enemies the king is
besought to order them to death or exile. Concessions are made by the
dominant party to the other only to avoid violent outbreaks, and to
keep the peace. With such a rich soil for feuds, it is not wonderful
that Corea is cursed with elements of permanent disturbance like those
in mediæval Scotland or Italy. As each of the noble families have many
retainers, and as the feuds are hereditary, the passions of human
nature have full sway. All manner of envy and malice, with all
uncharitableness flourish, as in a thicket of interlacing thorns. The
Southern and No-ron parties have always been the most numerous,
powerful, and obstinate. Between them marriages do not take place, and
the noble who in an intrigue with one of his enemies loses caste, his
honors, or his life, hands down to his son or his nearest relative his
demand for vengeance. Often this sacred duty is associated with an
exterior and visible pledge. He may give to his son, for instance, a
coat which he is never to take off until revenge is had. The kinsman,
thus clad with vengeance as with a garment, must wear it, it may be
until he dies, and then put it upon his child with the same vow. It is
not rare to see noblemen clad in rags and tatters during two or three
generations. Night and day these clothes call aloud to the wearer,
reminding him of the debt of blood which he must pay to appease the
spirits of his ancestors.
In Corea, not to avenge one’s father is to be disowned, to prove that
one is illegitimate and has no right to bear the family name, it is to
violate, in its fundamental point, the national religion, which is the
worship of ancestors. If the father has been put to death under the
forms of law, it behooves that his enemy or his enemy’s son should die
the same death. If the father has been exiled, his enemy’s exile must
be secured. If the parent has been assassinated, in like manner must
his enemy fall. In these cases, public sentiment applauds the avenger,
as fulfilling the holy dictates of piety and religion.
The pretext of accusation most often employed by the rival factions is
that of conspiracy against the life of the king. Petitions and false
evidence are multiplied and bribery of the court ministers is
attempted. If, as is often the case, the first petitioners are thrown
in jail, beaten, or condemned to mulct or exile, the partisans assess
the fine among themselves and pay it, or manage by new methods, by the
favor or venality of the court ministers, or the weakness of the king,
at last to compass their ends, when those of the vanquished party are
ousted from office, while the victors use and abuse their positions to
enrich themselves and ruin their enemies, until they in their turn are
supplanted.
It is no wonder that a Corean liberal visiting in Tōkiō, in 1882,
declared to a Japanese officer his conviction that Corea’s difficulties
in the way of national progress were greater than those of which Japan
had rid herself, mighty as these had been. By the revolutions of 1868,
and later, the ripened fruits of a century of agitation and the
presence of foreigners, Japan had purged from her body politic
feudalism and caste, emancipating herself at once from the thrall of
the priest and the soldier; but Corea, with her feudalism, her court
intrigues, her Confucian bigotry, and the effete products of ages of
seclusion and superstition has even a more hopeless task to attempt.
The bearing of these phases of home politics will be further displayed
when the new disturbing force of Christianity enters to furnish a lever
to ambition and revenge, as well as to affection and philanthropy.
A native caricature, which was published about a generation ago, gives
even a foreigner a fair idea of the relative position of each party at
that epoch. At a table gorgeously furnished, a No-ron is seated at his
ease, disposing of the bountiful fare. A Sho-ron seated beside him, yet
in the rear, graciously performs the office of servant, receiving part
of the food as reward for his attendance. The Little North, seeing that
the viands are not for him, is also seated, but with a more sedate and
serious visage. Last of all the Southern, covered with rags, keeps far
in the rear, behind the No-ron, who does not notice him, while he, in
vexation, grinds his teeth and shakes his fist like a man who means to
take burning vengeance. Such was the political situation before 1850,
as some native wit pictured it for the amusement of the Seoulians.
It requires a ruler of real ability to be equal to the pressure brought
upon him by the diverse and hostile political parties. Nominally
sovereign of the country, he is held in check by powerful nobles
intrenched in privileges hoary with age, and backed by all the
reactionary influences of feudalism. The nobles are the powerful middle
term in the problem of Corean politics, who control both king and
commons. The nobles have the preponderance of the government patronage,
and fill the official positions with their liegemen to an extent far
beyond what the theory of the law, as illustrated in the literary
examinations, allows them. A native caricature thus depicts the
situation. Chō-sen is represented as a human being, of whom the king is
the head, the nobles the body, and the people the legs and feet. The
breast and belly are full, while both head and lower limbs are gaunt
and shrunken. The nobles not only drain the life-blood of the people by
their rapacity, but they curtail the royal prerogative. The nation is
suffering from a congestion, verging upon a dropsical condition of
over-officialism.
The disease of Corea’s near neighbor, old Japan, was likewise a surplus
of government and an excess of official patronage, but the body politic
was purged by revolution. The obstructions between the throne and the
people were cleared away by the removal of the shō-gunate and the
feudal system. Before the advent of foreigners, national unity was not
the absolute necessity which it became the instant that aliens fixed
their dwelling on the soil. Now, the empire of the mikado rejoices in
true political unity, and has subjects in a strong and not
over-meddlesome government. The people are being educated in the
rudiments of mutual obligations—their rights as well as their duties.
The mikado himself took the oath of 1868, and his own hand shaped the
august decree of 1881, which will keep his throne unshaken, not because
it was won by the bows and arrows of his divine ancestors, but because
it will rest broad-based upon the peoples’ will. So in Chō-sen the work
of the future for intelligent patriots is the closer union of king and
people, the curtailment of the power of the nobles, and the excision of
feudalism. Already, to accomplish this end, there are Coreans who are
ready to die. During the last decade, the pressure from Japan, the
jealousy of China, the danger from Russia, the necessity, at first
shrunk from and then yielded to, of making treaties with foreign
nations, has altered the motives and objects of Corean politics. Old
questions have fallen out of sight, and two great parties,
Progressionists and Obstructionists, or Radical and Conservative, have
formed for the solution of the problems thrust upon them by the
nineteenth century.
CHAPTER XXVI.
ORGANIZATION AND METHODS OF GOVERNMENT.
Next in authority to the king are the three chong or high ministers.
The chief of these (Chen-kun) is the greatest dignitary in the kingdom,
and in time of the minority, inability, or imbecility of the king,
wields royal authority in fact if not in name. Another term applied to
him when the king is unable to govern, is “Foundation-stone Minister,”
upon whom the king leans and the state rests as a house upon its
foundation-stone. The title of Tai-wen-kun, which suggests that of the
“Tycoon” of Japan, seems to have been a special one intended for the
emergency. It was given to the Regent who is the father of the present
King, and who ruled with nearly absolute power from 1863 to 1874, when
the king reached his majority. In the troubles in Seoul in July, 1882,
his title, written in Japanese as Tai-in kun, became familiar to
western newspapers.
After the king, and the three prime ministers, come the six ministries
or boards of government, the heads of which rank next to the three
chong or ministers forming the Supreme Council. In the six departments,
the heads are called pan-cho, and these are assisted by two other
associates, the cham-pan, or substitutes, and the cham-é, or
counsellor. These four grades and twenty-one dignitaries constitute the
royal council of dai-jin (great ministers), though the actual authority
is in the supreme council of the three chong. The six boards, or
departments of the government, are: 1, Office and Public Employ; 2,
Finance; 3, Ceremonies; 4, War; 5, Justice; 6, Public Works. The heads
of these tribunals make a daily report of all affairs within their
province, but refer all matters of importance to the Supreme Council.
There are also three chamberlains, each having his assistants, who
record every day the acts and words of the king. A daily government
gazette, called the Chō-po, is issued for information on official
matters. The general cast and method of procedure in the court and
government is copied after the great model in Peking.
Each of the eight provinces is under the direction of a kam-sa, or
governor. The cities are divided into six classes (yin, mu, fu, ki,
ling, and hilu), and are governed by officers of corresponding rank.
The towns are given in charge of the petty magistrates, there being
twelve ranks or dignities in the official class. In theory any male
Corean able to pass the government examinations is eligible to office,
but the greater number of the best positions are secured by nobles and
their friends.
From the sovereign to the beggar, the gate, both figuratively and
actually, is very prominent in the public economy and in family
relationships. A great deal of etiquette is visible in the gates. At
the entrance to the royal palace are, or were formerly, two huge
effigies, in wood, of horses, painted red. Only high officials can pass
these mute guardians. All persons riding past the palace must dismount
and walk. To the houses of men of rank there are usually two, sometimes
three, gates. The magistrate himself enters by the largest, his parents
and nearer friends by the eastern, and servants by the west or
smallest. When a visitor of equal grade calls upon an officer or noble,
the host must come all the way to the great or outer gate to receive
him, and do likewise on dismissing him. If he be of one degree lower
rank, the host comes only to the outside of the middle gate. If of
third or fourth rank, the caller is accompanied only to the space
inside the middle gate. The man of fifth and sixth rank finds that
etiquette has so tapered off that the lord of the mansion walks only to
the piazza. In front of a magistrate’s office, at the gateway, are
ranged the symbols of authority, such as spears and tridents. The gates
are daily opened amid the loud cries of the underlings, and their
opening and closing with a vocal or instrumental blast is a national
custom, illustrated as well at the city as at the office. The porters
who close them at sunset and open them at dawn execute a salvo on their
trumpets, often lasting a quarter of an hour. This acoustic
devastation, so distressing to foreign ears, is considered good music
to the native tympanum.
In sitting, the same iron tongue upon the buckle of custom holds each
man to his right hole in the social strap. People of equal rank sit so
that the guest faces to the east and the host to the west. In ordinary
easy style, the visitor’s nose is to the south, as he sits eastward of
his host. A commoner faces north. In social entertainments, after the
yup, or bows with the head and hands bent together, have been made,
wine is sipped or drunk three or five times, and then follows what the
Coreans call music.
The sumptuary laws of the kingdom are peculiar, at many points amusing
to occidentals. To commit pem-ram is to violate these curious
regulations. What may be worn, or sat upon, is solemnly dictated by
law. Nobles sit on the kan-kio, or better kind of chairs. Below the
third rank, officers rest upon a bench made of ropes. Chairs, however,
are not common articles of use, nor intended to be such. At
entertainments for the aged, in time of rich harvests, local feasts,
archery tournaments, and on public occasions, these luxuries are
oftener used. In short, the chair seems to be an article of ceremony,
rather than a constant means of use or comfort.
Only men above the third rank are allowed to put on silk. Petty
officials must wear cotton. Merchants and farmers may not imitate
official robes, but don tighter or more economical coats and trowsers.
A common term for officials is “blue clouds,” in reference to their
blue-tinted garments. To their assistants, the people apply the
nickname, not sarcastic, but honorable, of “crooked backs,” because
they always bend low in talking to their employers.
The magistrates lay great stress on the trifles of etiquette, and keep
up an immense amount of fuss and pomp to sustain their dignity, in
order to awe the common folks. Whenever they move abroad, their
servants cry out “chii-wa,” “chii-wa,” “get down off your horse,” “get
down off your horse,” to riders in sight. The Il-san, or large banner
or standard in the form of an umbrella, is borne at the head of the
line. To attempt to cross one of their processions is to be seized and
punished, and anyone refusing to dismount, or who is slow about
slipping off his horse, is at once arrested, to be beaten or mulcted.
When permission is given to kill an ox, the head, hide, and feet
usually become the perquisites of the magistrate or his minions. The
exuberant vocabulary in Corean, for the various taxes, fines, mulcts,
and squeezes of the understrappers of the magistrate, in gross and in
detail, chief and supplementary, testify to the rigors and expenses of
being governed in Chō-sen.
Overreaching magistrates, through whose injustice the people are goaded
into rebellion, are sometimes punished. It seems that one of the
penalties in ancient times was that the culpable official should be
boiled in oil. Now, however, the condemned man is exiled, and only
rarely put to death, while a commutation of justice—equivalent to being
burned in effigy—is made by a pretended boiling in oil. Good and
upright magistrates are often remembered by mok-pi, or inscribed
columns of wood, erected on the public road by the grateful people. In
many instances, this testimonial takes the form of sculptured stone. A
number of the public highways are thus adorned. These, with the tol-pi,
or monumental bourne, which marks distances or points out the paths to
places of resort, are interesting features of travel in the peninsula,
and more pleasant to the horseman than the posts near temples and
offices on which one may read “Dismount.” At the funeral of great
dignitaries of the realm, a life-sized figure of a horse, made of
bamboo, dragged before the coffin, is burned along with the clothes of
the deceased, and the ashes laid beside his remains.
As the magistrates are literary men, their official residences often
receive poetic or suggestive names, which, in most cases, reflect the
natural scenery surrounding them. “Little Flowery House,” “Rising
Cloud,” “Sun-greeting,” “Sheet of Resplendent Water,”
“Water-that-slides-as-straight-as-a-sword Dwelling,” “Gate of
Lapis-lazuli,” “Mansion near the Whirlpool,” are some of these names,
while, into the composition of others, the Morning-star, the
Heaven-touching, the Cave-spirit, and the Changing-cloud Mountain, or
the Falling-snow Cataract may enter. Passionately fond of nature, the
Corean gentleman will erect a tablet in praise of the scenery that
charms his eye. One such reads, “The beauty of its rivers, and of its
mountains, make this district the first in the country.”
If, as the French say, “Paris is France,” then Seoul is Corea. An
apparently disproportionate interest centres in the capital, if one may
judge from the vast and varied vocabulary relating to Seoul, its people
and things, which differentiate all else outside its wall. Three
thousand official dignitaries are said to reside in the capital, and
only eight hundred in all the other cities and provinces. Seoul is “the
city,” and all the rest of the peninsula is “the country.” A provincial
having cultivated manners is called “a man of the capital.” “Capital
and province” means the realm.
The rule of the local authorities is very minute in all its
ramifications. The system of making every five houses a social unit is
universal. When a crime is committed, it is easy to locate the group in
which the offender dwells, and responsibility is fixed at once. Every
subject of the sovereign except nobles of rank, must possess a passport
or ticket testifying to his personality, and all must “show their
tickets” on demand. For the people, this certificate of identity is a
piece of branded or inscribed wood, for the soldiers of horn, for the
literary class and government officials of bone. Often, the tablet is
in halves, the individual having one-half, and the government keeping
its tally. The people who cannot read or write have their labels
carefully tied to their clothing. When called upon to sign important
documents, or bear witness on trial, they make a blood-signature, by
rudely tracing the signs set before them in their own blood. The name,
residence of the holder, and the number of the group of houses in which
he lives, are branded or inscribed on the ho-pai, or passport.
The actual workings of Corean justice will be better understood when
treating of Christianity—an element of social life which gave the pagan
tribunals plenty of work. Civil matters are decided by the ordinary
civil magistrate, who is judge and jury at once; criminal cases are
tried by the military commandant. Very important cases are referred to
the governor of the province. The highest court of appeal is in the
capital. Cases of treason and rebellion, and charges against high
dignitaries, are tried in the capital before a special tribunal
instituted by the king.
The two classes of assistants to the magistrate, who are called
respectively hai-seik and a-chen, act as constables or sheriffs, police
messengers, and jailers. French writers term them “pretorians” and
“satellites.” These men have practically the administration of justice,
and the details and spirit of local authority are in their power. The
hai-seik, or constables, form a distinct class in the community, rarely
intermarrying with the people, and handing down their offices,
implements, and arts from father to son. The a-chen, who are the
inferior police, jailers, and torturers, are from the very lowest
classes, and usually of brutal life and temper.
The vocabulary of torture is sufficiently copious to stamp Chō-sen as
still a semi-civilized nation. The inventory of the court and prison
comprises iron chains, bamboos for beating the back, a paddle-shaped
implement for inflicting blows upon the buttocks, switches for whipping
the calves till the flesh is ravelled, ropes for sawing the flesh and
bodily organs, manacles, stocks, and boards to strike against the knees
and shin-bones. Other punishments are suspension by the arms, tying the
hands in front of the knees, between which and the elbows is inserted a
stick, while the human ball is rolled about. An ancient but now
obsolete mode of torture was to tie the four limbs of a man to the
horns of as many oxen, and then to madden the beasts by fire, so that
they tore the victim to fragments. The punishment of beating with
paddles often leaves scars for life, and causes ulcers not easily
healed. One hundred strokes cause death in most cases, and many die
under forty or fifty blows. For some crimes the knees and shin-bones
are battered. A woman is allowed to have on one garment, which is
wetted to make it cling to the skin and increase the pain. The chief of
the lictors, or public spanker, is called siu-kiō. With the long,
flexible handle swung over his head, he plies the resounding blows,
planting them on the bare skin just above the knee-joint, the victim
being held down by four gaolers. The method of correction is quite
characteristic of paternal government, and is often inflicted upon the
people openly and in public, at the whim of the magistrate. The
bastinado was formerly, like hundreds of other customs common to both
countries, in vogue in Japan. As in many other instances, this has
survived in the less civilized nation.
When an offender in the military or literary class is sentenced to
death, decapitation is the rather honorable method employed. The
executioner uses either a sort of native iron hatchet-sword or cleaver,
or one of the imported Japanese steel-edged blades, which have an
excellent reputation in the peninsula.
Undoubtedly the severity of the Corean code has been mitigated since
Hamel’s time. According to his observations, husbands usually killed
their wives who had committed adultery. A wife murdering her husband
was buried to the shoulders in the earth at the road side, and all
might strike or mutilate her with axe or sword. A serf who murdered his
master was tortured, and a thief might be trampled to death. The acme
of cruelty was produced, as in old Japan, by pouring vinegar down the
criminal’s throat, and then beating him till he burst. The criminal
code now in force is, in the main, that revised and published by the
king in 1785, which greatly mitigated the one formerly used. One
disgraceful, but not very severe, mode of correction is to tie a drum
to the back of the offender and publicly proclaim his transgression,
while the drum is beaten as he walks through the streets. Amid many
improvements on the old barbarous system of aggravating the misery of
the condemned, there still survives a disgraceful form of capital
punishment, in which the cruelty takes on the air of savage refinement.
The cho-reni-to-ta appears only in extreme cases. The criminal’s face
is smeared with chalk, his hands are tied behind him, a gong is tied on
his back, and an arrow is thrust through either ear. The executioner
makes the victim march round before the spectators, while he strikes
the gong, crying out, “This fellow has committed [adultery, murder,
treason, etc.]. Avoid his crime.” The French missionaries executed near
Seoul were all put to death in this barbarous manner.
Officials often receive furloughs to return home and visit their
parents, for filial piety is the supreme virtue in Chinese Asia. The
richest rewards on earth and brightest heaven hereafter await the
filial child. Curses and disgrace in this life and the hottest hell in
the world hereafter are the penalties of the disobedient or neglectful
child. The man who strikes his father is beheaded. The parricide is
burned to death. Not to mourn long and faithfully, by retiring from
office for months, is an incredible iniquity.
Coreans, like Japanese, argue that, if the law punishes crime, it ought
also to reward virtue. Hence the system which prevails in the mikado’s
empire and in Chō-sen of publicly awarding prizes to signal exemplars
of filial piety. These in Japan may be in the form of money, silver
cups, rolls of silk, or gewgaws. In Corea, they are shown in monumental
columns, or dedicatory temples, or by public honors and promotion to
office. Less often are the rewarded instances of devotion to the mother
than to the father.
Official life has its sunshine and shadows in this land as elsewhere,
but perhaps one of the hardest tasks before the Corean ruling classes
of this and the next generation is the duty of diligently eating their
words. Accustomed for centuries to decry and belittle the foreigner
from Christendom, they must now, as the people discern the superiority
of westerners, “rise to explain” in a manner highly embarrassing. In
intellect, government, science, social customs, manual skill,
refinement, and possession of the arts and comforts of life, the
foreigner will soon be discovered to be superior. At the same time the
intelligent native will behold with how little wisdom, and how much
needless cruelty, Chō-sen is governed. The Japanese official world has
passed through such an experience. If we may argue from a common
ancestry and hereditary race traits, we may forecast the probability
that to Corea, as to Japan, may come the same marvellous revolution in
ideas and customs.
CHAPTER XXVII.
FEUDALISM, SERFDOM, AND SOCIETY.
It is remarked by Palladius that the Fuyu race, the ancestors of the
modern Coreans, was the first to emerge from the desert under feudal
forms of organization. The various migrations of new nations rising out
of northern and eastern Asia were westward, and were held together
under monarchical systems of government. The Fuyu tribes who, by
turning their face to the rising, instead of the setting sun, were
anomalous in the direction of their migration, were unique also in
their political genius. Those emigrants who, descending from the same
ancestral seats in Manchuria, and through the peninsula, crossed toward
Nippon, or Sunrise, and settled Japan, maintained their feudalism
until, through ambitious desire to rival great China, they borrowed the
centralized system of court and monarchy from the Tang dynasty, in the
seventh century. The mikado, by means of boards or ministries like the
Chinese, ruled his subjects until the twelfth century. Then, through
the pride and ambition of the military clans, which had subdued all the
tribes to his sway, feudalism, which had spread its roots, lifted its
head. By rapid growths, under succeeding military regents, it grew to
be the tree overspreading the empire. It was finally uprooted and
destroyed only by the revolution of 1868, and the later victories of
united Japan’s imperial armies, at an awful sacrifice of life and
treasure.
That branch of the Fuyu migration which remained in the Corean
peninsula likewise preserved the institution of feudalism which had
been inherited from their ancestors. In their early history, lands were
held on the tenure of military service, and in war time, or on the
accession of a new dynasty, rewards were made by parcelling out the
soil to the followers of the victor. Provision for a constant state of
servitude among one class of the political body was made by the custom
of making serfs of criminals or their kindred. A nucleus of slavery
being once formed, debt, famine, capture in war, voluntary surrender,
would serve to increase those whose persons and labor were wholly or
partly owned by another. To social prosperity, religion, and the
increase of general intelligence, we may look as elements for the
amelioration of serfdom and the elevation of certain classes of
bondsmen into free people. The forms of Corean society, to this day,
are derived from feudal ranks and divisions, and the powers, status,
divisions, and practical politics of the nobles have their roots in the
ancient feudalism which existed even “before the conquest.” Its fruit
and legacy are seen in the serfdom or slavery which is Corea’s
“domestic” or “peculiar” institution.
Speaking in general terms, the ladder of society has four rungs, the
king, nobles, and the three classes of society, in the last of which
are “the seven low callings.” In detail, the grades may be counted by
the tens and scores. In the lowest grade of the fourth class are “the
seven vile callings,” viz.: the merchant, boatman, jailor, postal or
mail slave, monk, butcher, and sorcerer.
The “four classes of society” include the literary men or officials,
the farmers, the artisans, and the traders. Among the nobility are
various ranks, indicated by titles, high offices at court, or nearness
of relationship to the king. He is “neither ox nor horse” is the native
slang for one who is neither noble nor commoner. The nobles are usually
the serf-proprietors or slave-holders, many of them having in their
households large numbers whom they have inherited along with their
ancestral chattels. The master has a right to sell or otherwise dispose
of the children of his slaves if he so choose. The male slave is called
chong-nom. A free man may marry a female slave, in which case he is
termed a pi-pu. The male children by this marriage are free, but the
female offspring belong to the master of the mother, and may be sold. A
liberated slave is called pal-sin, and he speaks of his former master
as ku-siang. The native vocabulary for the slave in his various
relations is sufficiently copious. “Fugitive” slaves, “slave-hunters,”
and “slave-drivers,” are as common to the Corean ear, as to the
American in the long-ago days of “before the war.” A pan-no is a
bondsman trying to escape, and to attempt chiu-ro is to hunt the
fugitive and bring him back. The in-chang is the public slave of the
village. Yet such a thing as the bondsman’s servile love of place,
rising into swollen and oppressive pride that looks down on the poor
freeman, is a common thing, and cruel and overbearing treatment of the
peasantry by the minions of a noble is too frequently witnessed in
Corea. “Tek-pun-ai” (“By your favor,” equivalent to “Let me live, I
pray you”) is a cry, more than once heard by French missionaries, from
a man beaten by the swaggering serfs of some nobleman. It is not
exactly the feeling of the sleek and well-bred black slave of old-time
Virginia for “the poor white trash,” since in Corea slavery has no
color-line; yet, in essentials of circumstance, it is the same. Such a
phase of character is more likely to be developed among the serfs of
the old barons or landed proprietors who have longest occupied their
hereditary possessions, and who keep up a petty court within their
castles or semi-fortified mansions.
Slavery or serfdom in Corea is in a continuous state of decline, and
the number of slaves constantly diminishing. In the remote provinces it
is practically at an end. The greater number of serfs are to be found
attached to the estates of the great noble families of the central
provinces. The slaves are those who are born in a state of servitude,
those who sell themselves as slaves, or those who are sold to be such
by their parents in time of famine or for debt. Infants exposed or
abandoned that are picked up and educated become slaves, but their
offspring are born free. The serfdom is really very mild. Only the
active young men are held to field labor, the young women being kept as
domestics. When old enough to marry, the males are let free by an
annual payment of a sum of money for a term of years. Often the slaves
marry, are assigned a house apart, and bound only to a fixed amount of
labor. Although the master has the power of life and death over his
slaves, the right is rarely exercised unjustly, and the missionaries
report that there were few cases of excessive cruelty practised. An
unjust master could be cited before the tribunals, and the case
inquired into. Often the actual condition of the serfs is superior to
that of the poor villagers, and instances are common in which the poor,
to escape the rapacity and cruelty of the nobles, have placed
themselves under the protection of a master known to be a kind man, and
thus have purchased ease and comfort at the sacrifice of liberty.
Outside of private ownership of slaves, there is a species of
government slavery, which illustrates the persistency of one feature of
ancient Kokorai perpetuated through twenty centuries. It is the law
that in case of the condemnation of a great criminal, the ban of
Ui-ro-ui-pi shall fall upon his wife and children, who at once become
the slaves of the judge. These unfortunates do not have the privilege
of honorably serving the magistrate, but usually pass their existence
in waiting on the menials in the various departments and magistracies.
Only a few of the government slaves are such by birth, most of them
having become so through judicial condemnation in criminal cases; but
this latter class fare far worse than the ordinary slaves. They are
chiefly females, and are treated very little better than beasts. They
are at the mercy not only of the officers but even of their satellites,
servants, and grooms, or to whomever they are sold for an hour. Nothing
can equal the contempt in which they are held, and for an honest or an
innocent woman, such a fate is worse than many deaths. In the earliest
written account of the Kokorai people, the ancestors of the modern
Coreans, we find this same feature of ancient feudalism by which a
class of serfs may be continually provided. To Christian eyes it is a
horrible relic of barbarism.
The penal settlements on the sea-coast, and notably Quelpart Island,
are worked by colonies of these male government slaves or convicts. The
females are not usually sent away from the place of their parents or
their own crime.
In ancient times of Kokorai and Korai there were only two classes of
people, the nobles and their free retainers, and the serfs or slaves.
The nobles were lords of cities and castles, like the daimiōs of Japan,
and were very numerous. The whole country was owned by them, or at
least held in the king’s name under tenure of military service—a lien
which length of time only strengthened. In the long centuries of peace,
many of these old families—weakly descendants of vigorous founders—have
died out, and the land reverting to the sovereign, or possessed by the
people, is now owned by a more numerous and complex class, while nearly
all the cities and towns are governed by officers sent out by the
central authority at Seoul. The ancient class of serfs has, by industry
and intelligence and accumulation of rights vested in their special
occupations, developed into the various middle classes. The nobles are
now in a minority, though at present their power is on the increase,
and their ancestral landholds comprise but a small portion of the soil.
As in mediæval Europe, so in Corea, where feudalism, which rests on
personal loyalty to a reigning sovereign, or a particular royal line,
prevails, a more or less complete revolution of titles and possessions
takes place upon a change of dynasty. On the accession of the present
royal house in 1392, the old Korai nobility were impoverished and the
partisans of the founder of the Ni, and all who had aided him to the
throne, became at once the nobility of the kingdom, and were rewarded
by gifts of land. To the victors belonged the spoils. The honors,
riches, and the exclusive right to fill many of the most desirable
public offices were awarded in perpetuity to the aristocracy. The mass
of the people were placed or voluntarily put themselves under the
authority of the nobles. The agricultural class attached to the soil
simply changed masters and landlords, while the cities and towns people
and sea-coast dwellers became, only in a nominal sense, the tenantry of
the nobles. Gradually, however, those who had ability and address
obtained their full liberty, so that they were in no way bound to pay
tithe or tax to the nobles, but only to the central government. Under
peace, with wealth, intelligence, combination, trade-unions, and
guilds, and especially by means of the literary examinations, the
various classes of the people emerged into independent existence,
leaving but a few of the lowest of the population in the condition of
serfs or slaves. Between the accounts of Hamel in 1653, and of the
French missionaries in the last decade, there are many indications of
progress. Laborers, artisans, merchants, soldiers, etc., now have a
right to their own labor and earnings, and the general division of the
commonwealth is into three classes—nobles, common people, and serfs or
slaves.
Speaking generally, the peculiar institution of Chō-sen is serfdom
rather than slavery, and is the inheritance of feudalism; yet, as
Russia has had her Alexander, America her Lincoln, and Japan her
Mutsŭhito, we may hope to see some great liberator yet arise in the
“Land of Morning Calm.”
Under absolute despotisms, as most Asiatic governments are, it is a
wonder to republicans how the people enjoy any liberty at all. If they
have any, it is interesting to study how they have attained it, and how
they hold it. Politically, they have absolutely no freedom. They know
nothing of government, except to pay taxes and obey. Their political
influence is nothing. In Chō-sen, according to law, any person of the
common people may compete at the public examinations for civil or
military employment, but, in point of fact, his degree is often
worthless, for he is not likely to receive office by it. In a country
where might and wealth make right, and human beings are politically
naught, being but beasts of burden or ciphers without a unit, how do
the people protect themselves and gain any liberty? How does it come to
pass that serfs may win their way to social freedom?
It is by union and organization. The spirit of association, so natural
and necessary, is spread among the Coreans of all classes, from the
highest families to the meanest slaves. All those who have any kind of
work or interest in common form guilds, corporations, or societies,
which have a common fund, contributed to by all for aid in time of
need. Very powerful trade-unions exist among the mechanics and
laborers, such as porters, ostlers, and pack-horse leaders,
hat-weavers, coffin-makers, carpenters, and masons. These societies
enable each class to possess a monopoly of their trade, which even a
noble vainly tries to break. Sometimes, they hold this right by writ
purchased or obtained from government, though usually it is by
prescription. Most of the guilds are taxed by the government for their
monopoly enjoyed. They have their chief or head man, who possesses
almost despotic power, and even, in some guilds, of life and death. New
members or apprentices may be admitted by paying their rate and
submitting to the rules of the guild. In the higher grades of society
we see the same spirit of association. The temple attendants, the
servants of the nobles, the gardeners, messengers, and domestics of the
palace, the supernumeraries and government employes, all have their
“rings,” which an outsider may not break. Even among the noble families
the same idea exists in due form. The villages form each a little
republic, and possess among themselves a common fund to which every
family contributes. Out of this money, hid in the earth or lent out on
interest, are paid the public taxes, expenses of marriage and burial,
and whatever else, by custom and local opinion, is held to be a public
matter. Foreigners, accustomed to the free competition of
English-speaking countries, will find in Chō-sen, as they found in
Japan, and even more so, the existence of this spirit of protective
association and monopoly illustrated in a hundred forms which are in
turn amusing, vexatious, or atrocious. A man who in injustice, or for
mere caprice, or in a fit of temper, discharges his ostler,
house-servant, or carpenter, will find that he cannot obtain another
good one very easily, even at higher wages, or, if so, that his new one
is soon frightened off the premises. To get along comfortably in
Chinese Asia, one must, willy-nilly, pay respect to the visible or
invisible spirit of trade-unionism that pervades all society in those
old countries.
One of the most powerful and best organized guilds is that of the
porters. The interior commerce of the country being almost entirely on
the backs of men and pack-horses, these people have the monopoly of it.
They number about ten thousand, and are divided by provinces and
districts under the orders of chiefs, sub-chiefs, censors, inspectors,
etc. A large number of these porters are women, often poor widows, or
those unable to marry. Many of them are of muscular frame, and their
life in the open air tends to develop robust forms, with the strength
of men. They speak a conventional language, easily understood among
themselves, and are very profuse in their salutations to each other.
They have very severe rules for the government of their guild, and
crimes among them are punished with death, at the order of their chief.
They are so powerful that they pretend that even the government dare
not interfere with them. They are outside the power of the local
magistrate, just as a German University student is responsible to the
Faculty, but not to the police. They are honest and faithful in their
business, delivering packages with certainty to the most remote places
in the kingdom. They are rather independent of the people, and even
bully the officers. When they have received an insult or injustice, or
too low wages, they “strike” in a body and retire from the district.
This puts a stop to all travel and business, until these grievances are
settled or submission to their own terms is made.
Owing to the fact that the country at large is so lacking in the shops
and stores so common in other countries, and that, instead, fairs on
set days are so numerous in the towns and villages, the guild of
peddlers and hucksters is very large and influential. The class
includes probably 200,000 able-bodied adult persons, who in the various
provinces move freely among the people, and are thus useful to the
government as spies, detectives, messengers, and, in time of need,
soldiers. It was from this class that the Corean battalions which
figured prominently in the affair of December 4–6, 1887, were
recruited.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
SOCIAL LIFE.—WOMAN AND THE FAMILY.
According to the opinions of the French missionaries, who were familiar
with the social life of the people, a Corean woman has no moral
existence. She is an instrument of pleasure or of labor; but never
man’s companion or equal. She has no name. In childhood she receives
indeed a surname by which she is known in the family, and by near
friends, but at the age of puberty, none but her father and mother
employ this appellative. To all others she is “the sister” of such a
one, or “the daughter” of so-and-so. After her marriage her name is
buried. She is absolutely nameless. Her own parents allude to her by
employing the name of the district or ward in which she has married.
Her parents-in-law speak of her by the name of the place in which she
lived before marriage, as women rarely marry in the same village with
their husbands. When she bears children, she is “the mother” of
so-and-so. When a woman appears for trial before a magistrate, in order
to save time and trouble, she receives a special name for the time
being. The women below the middle class work very hard. Farm labor is
done chiefly by them. Manure is applied by the women, rarely by the
men. The women carry lunch to the laborers in the field, eating what is
left for their share. In going to market, the women carry the heavier
load. In their toilet, the women use rouge, white powders, and hair
oil. They shave the eyebrows to a narrow line—that is, to a perfectly
clean arch, with nothing straggling. They have luxuriant hair, and, in
addition, use immense switches to fill out large coiffures.
In the higher classes of society, etiquette demands that the children
of the two sexes be separated after the age of eight or ten years.
After that time the boys dwell entirely in the men’s apartments, to
study and even to eat and drink. The girls remain secluded in the
women’s quarters. The boys are taught that it is a shameful thing even
to set foot in the female part of the house. The girls are told that it
is disgraceful even to be seen by males, so that gradually they seek to
hide themselves whenever any of the male sex appear. These customs,
continued from childhood to old age, result in destroying the family
life. A Corean of good taste only occasionally holds conversation with
his wife, whom he regards as being far beneath him. He rarely consults
her on anything serious, and though living under the same roof, one may
say that husband and wife are widely separated. The female apartments
among the higher classes resemble, in most respects, the zenanas of
India. The men chat, smoke, and enjoy themselves in the outer rooms,
and the women receive their parents and friends in the interior
apartments. The same custom, based upon the same prejudice, hinders the
common people in their moments of leisure from remaining in their own
houses. The men seek the society of their male neighbors, and the
women, on their part, unite together for local gossip. In the higher
classes, when a young woman has arrived at marriageable age, none even
of her own relatives, except those nearest of kin, is allowed to see or
speak to her. Those who are excepted from this rule must address her
with the most ceremonious reserve. After their marriage, the women are
inaccessible. They are nearly always confined to their apartments, nor
can they even look out in the streets without permission of their
lords. So strict is this rule that fathers have on occasions killed
their daughters, husbands their wives, and wives have committed suicide
when strangers have touched them even with their fingers. The common
romances or novels of the country expatiate on the merits of many a
Corean Lucretia. In some cases, however, this exaggerated modesty
produces the very results it is intended to avoid. If a bold villain or
too eager paramour should succeed in penetrating secretly the
apartments of a noble lady, she dare not utter a cry, nor oppose the
least resistance which might attract attention; for then, whether
guilty or not, she would be dishonored forever by the simple fact that
a man had entered her chamber. Every Corean husband is a Cæsar in this
respect. If, however, the affair remains a secret, her reputation is
saved.
There is, however, another side. Though counting for nothing in
society, and nearly so in their family, they are surrounded by a
certain sort of exterior respect. They are always addressed in the
formulas of honorific language. The men always step aside in the street
to allow a woman to pass, even though she be of the poorer classes. The
apartments of females are inviolable even to the minions of the law. A
noble who takes refuge in his wife’s room may not be seized. Only in
cases of rebellion is he dragged forth, for in that case his family are
reckoned as accomplices in his guilt. In other crimes the accused must
in some way be enticed outside, where he may be legally arrested. When
a peddler visits the house to show his wares, he waits until the doors
of the women’s apartments are shut. This done, his goods are examined
in the outer apartments, which are open to all. When a man wishes to
mend, or go up on his roof, he first notifies his neighbors, in order
that they may shut their doors and windows, lest he risk the horrible
suspicion of peeping at the women. As the Coreans do not see a “man in
the moon,” but only a rabbit pounding drugs, or a lady banished there
for a certain fault, according as they are most familiar with Sanskrit
or the Chinese story, the females are not afraid of this luminary, nor
are the men jealous of her, the moon being female in their ideas of
gender.
Marriage in Chō-sen is a thing with which a woman has little or nothing
to do. The father of the young man communicates, either by call or
letter, with the father of the girl whom he wishes his son to marry.
This is often done without consulting the tastes or character of
either, and usually through a middle-man or go-between. The fathers
settle the time of the wedding after due discussion of the contract. A
favorable day is appointed by the astrologers, and the arrangements are
perfected. Under this aspect marriage seems an affair of small
importance, but in reality it is marriage only that gives one any civil
rank or influence in society. Every unmarried person is treated as a
child. He may commit all sorts of foolishness without being held to
account. His capers are not noticed, for he is not supposed to think or
act seriously. Even the unmarried young men of twenty-five or thirty
years of age can take no part in social reunions, or speak on affairs
of importance, but must hold their tongues, be seen but not heard.
Marriage is emancipation. Even if mated at twelve or thirteen years of
age, the married are adults. The bride takes her place among the
matrons, and the young man has a right to speak among the men and to
wear a hat. The badge of single or of married life is the hair. Before
marriage, the youth, who goes bareheaded, wears a simple tress, hanging
down his back. The nuptial tie is, in reality, a knot of hair, for in
wedlock the hair is bound up on the top of the head and is cultivated
on all parts of the scalp. According to old traditions, men ought never
to clip a single hair; but in the capital the young gallants, in order
to add to their personal attractions—with a dash of fashionable
defiance—trim their locks so that their coiffure will not increase in
size more than a hen’s egg. The women, on the contrary, not only
preserve all their own hair, but procure false switches and braids to
swell their coiffures to fashionable bulk. They make up two large
tresses, which are rolled to the back and top of the head, and secured
by a long pin of silver or copper. The common people roll their plaits
around their heads, like a turban, and shave the front of the scalp.
Young persons who insist on remaining single, or bachelors arrived at a
certain or uncertain age, and who have not yet found a wife, secretly
cut off their hair, or get it done by fraud, in order to pass for
married folks and avoid being treated as children. Such a custom,
however, is a gross violation of morals and etiquette. (See
illustration, page 161.)
On the evening before the wedding, the young lady who is to be married
invites one of her friends to change her virginal coiffure to that of a
married woman.
The bridegroom-to-be also invites one of his acquaintance to “do up”
his hair in manly style. The persons appointed to perform this service
are chosen with great care, and as changing the hair marks the
turning-point in life, the hair-dresser of this occasion is called the
“hand of honor,” and answers to the bridesmaid and groomsman of other
countries.
On the marriage-day, in the house of the groom, a platform is set up
and richly adorned with decorative woven stuffs. Parents, friends, and
acquaintances assemble in a crowd. The couple to be married—who may
never have seen or spoken to each other—are brought in and take their
places on the platform, face to face. There they remain for a few
minutes. They salute each other with profound obeisance, but utter not
a word. This constitutes the ceremony of marriage. Each then retires,
on either side; the bride to the female, the groom to the male
apartments, where feasting and amusement, after fashions in vogue in
Chō-sen, take place. The expense of a wedding is considerable, and the
bridegroom must be unstinting in his hospitality. Any failure in this
particular may subject him to unpleasant practical jokes.
On her wedding-day, the young bride must preserve absolute silence,
both on the marriage platform and in the nuptial chamber. Etiquette
requires this at least among the nobility. Though overwhelmed with
questions and compliments, silence is her duty. She must rest mute and
impassive as a statue. She seats herself in a corner clothed in all the
robes she can bear upon her person. Her husband may disrobe her if he
wishes, but she must take no part or hinder him. If she utters a word
or makes a gesture, she is made the butt of the jokes and gossip of her
husband’s house or neighborhood. The female servants of the house place
themselves in a peeping position to listen or look through the windows,
and are sure to publish what they see and hear amiss. Or this may be
done to discover whether the husband is pleased with his wife, or how
he behaves to her, as is the case in Japan. A bit of gossip—evidently a
stock story—is the following from Dallet:
A newly married Corean groom spent a whole day among his male friends,
in order to catch some words from his wife at their first interview,
after their hours of separation. His spouse was informed of this, and
perhaps resolved to be obstinate. Her husband, having vainly tried to
make her speak, at last told her that on consulting the astrologers
they had said that his wife was mute from birth. He now saw that such
was the case, and was resolved not to keep for his wife a dumb woman.
Now in a Corean wedding, it is quite possible that such an event may
take place. One of the contracting parties may be deaf, mute, blind, or
impotent. It matters not. The marriage exists. But the wife, stung by
her husband’s words, broke out in an angry voice, “Alas, the horoscope
drawn for my partner is still more true. The diviner announced that I
should marry the son of a rat.” This, to a Corean, is a great insult,
as it attaints father and son, and hence the husband and his father.
The shouts of laughter from the eavesdropping female servants added to
the discomfiture of the young husband, who had gained his point of
making his bride use her tongue at a heavy expense, for long did his
friends jeer at him for his bravado, and chaff him at catching a
Tartar.
From the language, and from Japanese sources, we obtain some
side-lights on the nuptial ceremony and married life. In Corean phrase
hon-sang (the wedding and the funeral) are the two great events of
life. Many are the terms relating to marriage, and the synonyms for
conjugal union. “To take the hat,” “to clip the hair,” “to don the
tuft,” “to sit on the mat,” are all in use among the gentlemen of the
peninsula to denote the act or state of marriage. The hat and the hair
play an important part in the transition from single to double
blessedness. All who wear their locks ta-rai, or in a tress behind, are
youths and maidens. Those with the tuft or top-knot are married. At his
wedding and during the first year, the bridegroom wears a cap, made of
a yellow herb, which is supposed to grow only near Sunto. Other
honeymoon caps are melon-shaped, and made of sable skin. After the
chung-mai, or middle-man, has arranged the match, and the day is
appointed for the han-sa, or wedding, the bride chooses two or three
maiden friends as “bridesmaids.” If rich, the bride goes to her future
husband’s house in a palanquin; if poor, she rides on horseback. Even
the humblest maid uses a sort of cap or veil, with ornaments on the
breast, back, and at the girdle. When she cannot buy, she borrows. The
prominent symbolic figure at the wedding is a goose; which, in Corean
eyes, is the emblem of conjugal fidelity. Sometimes this mok-an is of
gilded wood, sometimes it is made out of a fish for eating, again it is
a live bird brought in a cloth with the head visible. If in the house,
as is usual, the couple ascend the piled mats or dais and the
reciprocal prostrations, or acts of mutual consent, form the
sacramental part of the ceremony, and constitute marriage. The bride
bows four times to her father-in-law and twice to the groom. The groom
then bows four times to the bride. Other symbolic emblems are the
fantastic shapes of straw (otsuka) presented to bride and groom alike.
Dried pheasant is also brought in and cut. A gourd-bottle of rice-wine,
decorated or tied with red and blue thread, is handed by the bride to
the groom. The bridesmaids standing beside the couple pour the liquid
and pass for exchange the one little “cup of the wine of mutual joy,”
several times filled and emptied.
Then begins the wedding-feast, when the guests drink and make merry.
The important document certifying the fact of wedlock is called the
hon-se-chi, and is signed by both parties. When the woman is unable to
write, she makes “her mark” (siu-pon) by spreading out her hand and
tracing with a pencil the exact profile of palm, wrist, and fingers.
Sometimes the groom, in addition to his four prostrations, which are
significant of fidelity to the bride, gives to his father-in-law a
written oath of constancy to his daughter. Faithfulness is, however, a
typical feminine, rather than masculine, virtue in the hermit nation.
The pong-kang, a kind of wild canary bird, is held up to the wife as
her model of conjugal fidelity. Another large bird, somewhat exceeding
a duck in size, and called the ching-kiong, is said never to remate
after the death of its consort. Corean widows are expected to imitate
this virtuous fowl. In some places may be seen the vermilion arch or
monumental gateway erected to some widow of faithful memory who wedded
but once. Married women wear two rings on the ring finger. Sixty years,
or a cycle, completes the ideal length of marital life, and “a golden
wedding” is then celebrated.
Among the most peculiar of women’s rights in Chō-sen is the curious
custom forbidding any males in Seoul from being out after eight o’clock
in the evening. When this Corean curfew sounds, all men must hie
in-doors, while women are free to ramble abroad until one A.M. To
transgress this law of pem-ya brings severe penalty upon the offender.
In-doors, the violation of the privacy of the woman’s quarters is
punishable by exile or severe flagellation.
The following story, from Dallet, further illustrates some phases of
their marriage customs, and shows that, while polygamy is not allowed,
concubinage is a recognized institution:
A noble wished to marry his own daughter and that of his deceased
brother to eligible young men. Both maidens were of the same age. He
wished to wed both well, but especially his own child. With this idea
in view he had already refused some good offers. Finally he made a
proposal to a family noted alike for pedigree and riches. After
hesitating some time which of the maidens he should dispose of first,
he finally decided upon his own child. Without having seen his future
son-in-law, he pledged his word and agreed upon the night. Three days
before the ceremony he learned from the diviners that the young man
chosen was silly, exceedingly ugly, and very ignorant. What should he
do? He could not retreat. He had given his word, and in such a case the
law is inflexible. In his despair he resolved upon a plan to render
abortive what he could not avert. On the day of the marriage, he
appeared in the women’s apartments, and gave orders in the most
imperative manner that his niece, and not his daughter, should don the
marriage coiffure and the wedding-dress, and mount the nuptial
platform. His stupefied daughter could not but acquiesce. The two
cousins being of about the same height, the substitution was easy, and
the ceremony proceeded according to the usual forms. The new bridegroom
passed the afternoon in the men’s apartments, where he met his supposed
father-in-law. What was the amazement of the old noble to find that far
from being stupid and ugly, as depicted by the diviners, the young man
was good-looking, well-formed, intelligent, highly educated, and
amiable in manners. Bitterly regretting the loss of so accomplished a
son-in-law, he determined to repair the evil. He secretly ordered that,
instead of his niece, his daughter should be introduced as the bride.
He knew well that the young man would suspect nothing, for during the
salutations the brides are always so muffled up with dresses and loaded
with ornaments that it is impossible to distinguish their countenances.
All happened as the old man desired. During the two or three days which
he passed with the new family, he congratulated himself upon obtaining
so excellent a son-in-law. The latter, on his part, showed himself more
and more charming, and so gained the heart of his supposed
father-in-law that, in a burst of confidence, the latter revealed to
him all that had happened. He told of the diviners’ reports concerning
him, and the successive substitutions of niece for daughter and
daughter for niece.
The young man was at first speechless, then, recovering his composure,
said: “All right, and that is a very smart trick on your part. But it
is clear that both the two young persons belong to me, and I claim
them. Your niece is my lawful wife, since she has made to me the legal
salute, and your daughter—introduced by yourself into my
marriage-chamber—has become of right and law my concubine.” The crafty
old man, caught in his own net, had nothing to answer. The two young
women were conducted to the house of the new husband and master, and
the old noble was jeered at both for his lack of address and his bad
faith.
It is the reciprocal salutation before witnesses on the wedding-dais
that constitutes legitimate marriage. From that moment a husband may
claim the woman as his wife. If he repudiates or divorces her, he may
not marry another woman while his former wife is living, but he is free
to take as many concubines as he can support. It is sufficient that a
man is able to prove that he has had intimate relations with a maiden
or a widow; she then becomes his legal property. No person, not even
her parents, can claim her if the man persists in keeping her. If she
escape, he may use force to bring her back to his house. Conjugal
fidelity—obligatory on the woman—is not required of the husband, and a
wife is little more than a slave of superior rank. Among the nobles,
the young bridegroom spends three or four days with his bride, and then
absents himself from her for a considerable time, to prove that he does
not esteem her too highly. Etiquette dooms her to a species of
widowhood, while he spends his hours of relaxation in the society of
his concubines. To act otherwise would be considered in very bad taste,
and highly unfashionable. Instances are known of nobles who, having
dropped a few tears at the death of their wives, have had to absent
themselves from the saloons of their companions to avoid the torrent of
ribaldry and jeers at such weakness. Such eccentricity of conduct makes
a man the butt of long-continued raillery.
Habituated from infancy to such a yoke, and regarding themselves as of
an inferior race, most women submit to their lot with exemplary
resignation. Having no idea of progress, or of an infraction of
established usage, they bear all things. They become devoted and
obedient wives, jealous of the reputation and well-being of their
husbands. They even submit calmly to the tyranny and unreason of their
mothers-in-law. Often, however, there is genuine rebellion in the
household. Adding to her other faults of character, violence and
insubordination, a Corean wife quarrels with her mother-in-law, makes
life to her husband a burden, and incessantly provokes scenes of choler
and scandal. Among the lower classes, in such cases, a few strokes of a
stick or blows of the fist bring the wife to terms. In the higher
classes it is not proper to strike a woman, and the husband has no
other course than that of divorce. If it is not easy for him to marry
again, he submits. If his wife, not content with tormenting him, is
unfaithful to him, or, deserting his bed, goes back to her own house,
he can lead her before the magistrate, who after administering a
beating with the paddles, gives her as a concubine to one of his
underlings.
Women of tact and energy make themselves respected and conquer their
legitimate position, as the following example shows. It is taken by
Dallet from a Corean treatise on morals for the youth of both sexes:
Toward the end of the last century a noble of the capital, of high
rank, lost his wife, by whom he had had several children. His advanced
age rendered a second marriage difficult. Nevertheless, the middle-men
(or marriage-brokers employed in such cases) decided that a match could
be made with the daughter of a poor noble in the province of
Kiung-sang. On the appointed day he appeared at the mansion of his
future father-in-law, and the couple mounted the stage to make the
salute according to custom. Our grandee, casting his eyes upon his new
wife, stopped for the moment thunderstruck. She was very fat, ugly,
hump-backed, and appeared to be as slightly favored with gifts of mind
as of body.
But he could not withdraw, and he played his part firmly. He resolved
neither to take her to his house nor to have anything to do with her.
The two or three days which it was proper to pass in his
father-in-law’s house being spent, he departed for the capital and paid
no further attention to his new relatives.
The deserted wife, who was a person of a great deal of intelligence,
resigned herself to her isolation and remained in her father’s house,
keeping herself informed, from time to time, of what happened to her
husband. She learned, after two or three years, that he had become
minister of the second rank, and that he had succeeded in marrying his
two sons very honorably. Some years later, she heard that he proposed
to celebrate, with all proper pomp, the festivities of his sixtieth
birthday. Immediately, without hesitation and in spite of the
remonstrances and opposition of her parents, she took the road to the
capital. There hiring a palanquin, she was taken to the house of the
minister and announced herself as his wife. She alighted, entered the
vestibule, and presented herself with an air of assurance and a glance
of tranquillity at the women of the united families. Seating herself at
the place of honor, she ordered some fire brought, and with the
greatest calmness lighted her pipe before the amazed domestics. The
news was carried to the outer apartments of the gentlemen, but,
according to etiquette, no one appeared surprised.
Finally the lady called together the household slaves and said to them,
in a severe tone, “What house is this? I am your mistress, and yet no
one comes to receive me. Where have you been brought up? I ought to
punish you severely, but I shall pardon you this time.” They hastened
to conduct her into the midst of all the female guests. “Where are my
sons-in-law?” she demanded. “How is it that they do not come to salute
me? They forget that I am without any doubt, by my marriage, the mother
of their wives, and that I have a right, on their part, to all the
honors due to their own mothers.”
Forthwith the two daughters-in-law presented themselves with a shamed
air, and made their excuses as well as they were able. She rebuked them
gently, and exhorted them to show themselves more scrupulous in the
accomplishment of their duties. She then gave different orders in her
quality as mistress of the house.
Some hours after, seeing that neither of the men appeared, she called a
slave to her, and said to him: “My two sons are surely not absent on
such a day as this. See if they are in the men’s apartments, and bid
them come here.” The sons presented themselves before her, much
embarrassed, and blundered out some excuses. “How?” said she, “you have
heard of my arrival for several hours and have not come to salute me?
With such bad bringing up, and an equal ignorance of principles of
action, how will you make your way in the world? I have pardoned my
slaves and my daughters-in-law for their want of politeness, but for
you who are men I cannot let this fault pass unpunished.” With this she
called a slave and bade him give them some strokes on the legs with a
rod. Then she added, “For your father, the minister, I am his servant,
and I have not had orders to yield to him; but, as for you, henceforth
do you act so as not to forget proprieties.” Finally the minister
himself, thoroughly astonished at all that had passed, was obliged to
come to terms and to salute his wife. Three days after, the festivities
being ended, he returned to the palace. The king asked familiarly if
all had passed off happily. The minister narrated in detail the history
of his marriage, the unexpected arrival of his wife, and how she had
conducted herself. The king, who was a man of sense, replied: “You have
acted unjustly toward your wife. She appears to me to be a woman of
spirit and extraordinary tact. Her behavior is admirable, and I don’t
know how to praise her enough. I hope you will repair the wrongs you
have done her.” The minister promised, and some days later solemnly
conferred upon his wife one of the highest dignities of the court.
The woman who is legally espoused, whether widow or slave, enters into
and shares the entire social estate of her husband. Even if she be not
noble by birth she becomes so by marrying a noble, and her children are
so likewise. If two brothers, for example, espouse an aunt and a niece,
and the niece falls to the lot of the elder, she becomes thereby the
elder sister, and the aunt will be treated as a younger sister. This
relation of elder and younger sisters makes an immense difference in
life, position, and treatment, in all Chinese Asia.
It is not proper for a widow to remarry. In the higher classes a widow
is expected to weep for her deceased husband, and to wear mourning all
her life. It would be infamy for her, however young, to marry a second
time. The king who reigned 1469–1494 excluded children of remarried
widows from competition at the public examinations, and from admittance
to any official employment. Even to the present day such children are
looked upon as illegitimate.
Among a people so passionate as Coreans, grave social disorders result
from such a custom. The young noble widows who cannot remarry become,
in most cases, secretly or openly the concubines of those who wish to
support them. The others who strive to live chastely are rudely exposed
to the inroads of passion. Sometimes they are made intoxicated by
narcotics which are put in their drink, and they wake to find
themselves dishonored. Sometimes they are abducted by force, during the
night, by the aid of hired bandits. When they become victims of
violence, there is no remedy possible. It often happens that young
widows commit suicide, after the death of their husbands, in order to
prove their fidelity and to secure their honor and reputation beyond
the taint of suspicion. Such women are esteemed models of chastity, and
there is no end to their praises among the nobles. Through their
influence, the king often decrees a memorial gateway, column, or
temple, intended to be a monument of their heroism and virtue. Thus it
has often happened that Christian widows begged of the missionary
fathers permission to commit suicide, if attempts were made to violate
their houses or their persons; and it was with difficulty that they
could be made to comprehend the Christian doctrine concerning suicide.
The usual method of self-destruction is ja-mun, or cutting the throat,
or opening the abdomen with a sword. In this the Coreans are like the
Japanese, neck-cutting or piercing being the feminine, and hara-kiri
(belly-cutting) the masculine, method of ending life at one’s own
hands.
Among the common people, second marriages are forbidden neither by law
nor custom, but wealthy families endeavor to imitate the nobles in this
custom as in others. Among the poor, necessity knows no law. The men
must have their food prepared for them, and women cannot, and do not
willingly die of famine when a husband offers himself. Hence second
marriages among the lowly are quite frequent.
Most of the facts stated in this chapter are drawn from Dallet’s
“History of the [Roman Catholic] Church in Corea.” Making due allowance
for the statements of celibate priests, who are aliens in religion,
nationality, and civilization, the picture of the social life of
Chō-sen is that of abominable heathenism.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHILD LIFE.
Judging from a collection of the toys of Corean children, and from
their many terms of affection and words relating to games and sports,
festivals and recreation, nursery stories, etc., the life of the little
Kim or Ni must be a pleasant one. For the blessings of offspring the
parents offer rice to the god of the household (sam-sin-hang), whose
tiny shrine holds a place of honor in some ornamental niche in the best
room. When the baby begins to grow, cradles being unknown, the mother
puts the infant to sleep by to-tak, to-tak—patting it lightly on the
stomach. When it is able to take its first step across the floor—the
tiger-skin rug being ready to ease its possible fall—this important
household event, spoken of with joy as the ja-pak, ja-pak, is described
to the neighbors. As the child grows up and is able to walk and run
about, the hair is mostly shaved off, so that only a “button of jade”
is left on the top of the head. This infantile tuft takes its name from
the badge or togle worn on the top of the men’s caps in winter. A
child, “three feet high,” very beautiful and well formed, docile and
strong, if a son, is spoken of “as a thousand-mile horse”—one who
promises to make an alert and enduring man. A child noted for filial
piety will even cheerfully commit tan-ji—cutting his finger to furnish
his blood as a remedy for the sickness of father or mother. Should the
child die, a stone effigy or statue of itself is set up before his
grave.
In the capital and among the higher classes, the children’s toys are
very handsome, ranking as real works of art, while in every class the
playthings of the tiny Corean humanity form but a miniature copy of the
life of their elders. Among the living pets, the monkey is the
favorite. These monkeys are fitted with jackets, and when plump and not
too mischievous make capital pets for the boys. Puppies share the
affections of the nursery with the tiger on wheels. Made of paper pulp
and painted, this harmless effigy of the king of beasts is pulled about
with a string. A jumping-jack is but a copy of the little boy who pulls
it. A jerk of the string draws in the pasteboard tongue, and sends the
trumpet to his mouth. Official life is mirrored in the tasselled
umbrella, the fringed hats, and the toy-chariot with fancy wheels.
Other toys, such as rattles, flags, and drums, exactly imitate the
larger models with which the grown-up men and women amuse themselves.
All these are named, fashioned, and decorated in a style peculiarly
Corean. Among the most common of the children’s plays are the
following: A ring is hidden in a heap of sand, and the urchins poke
sticks into and through the pile to find it. Whoever transfixes the
circlet wins the game, suggesting our girls’ game of grace-hoop, though
often taking a longer time. Rosettes or pinwheels of paper are made and
fastened on the end of sticks. Running before the breeze, the miniature
windmills afford hilarious delight.
The children’s way of bringing rain is to move the lips up and down,
distending the cheeks and pressing the breath through the lips. Playing
“dinner” with tiny cups and dishes, and imitating the ponderous
etiquette of their elders, is a favorite amusement. See-saw is rougher
and more exhilarating. Games of response are often played with hands,
head, or feet, in which one watches the motions of his rival, opens or
shuts his hands, and pays a forfeit or loses the game when a false move
is made. For the coast-dwellers, the sea-shore, with the rocks which
are the refuge of the shell-fish, is the inexhaustible playground of
the children. Looking down in the clear deep water of the archipelago
they see the coral reefs, the bright flower-gardens of marine plants,
and shoals of striped, banded, crimson-tailed, and green-finned fish,
which, in the eastern seas, glitter with tints of gold and silver. The
children, half naked, catch the crabs and lobsters, learning how to
hold their prizes after many a nab and pinch, which bring infantile
tears and squalls. One of the common playthings of Corean children, the
“baby’s rattle,” is the dried leathery egg of the skate, which with a
few pebbles inside makes the infant, if not its parents, happy with the
din.
Besides a game of patting and dabbling in the water—chal-pak,
chal-pak—boys amuse themselves by fishing with hook and line or net.
One method is to catch fish by means of the yek-kui. This is a plant of
peppery taste, which poisons or stupefies the fish that bite the
tempting tip, making them easy prey. More serious indoor games played
by women and children are pa-tok, or backgammon; sang-pi-yen, dominoes;
siu-tu-chen, game of eighty cards; and chang-keui, or chess. All these
pastimes are quite different from ours of the same name, yet enough
like them to be recognized as belonging to the species named. The
festivals most intensely enjoyed by the children are those of “Treading
the Bridges,” “The Meeting of the Star Lovers,” and the “Mouse Fire.”
There is one evening in the year in which men and children, as well as
women, are allowed to be out in the streets of the capital. The people
spend the greater part of the night in passing and repassing upon the
little bridges of stone. It is a general “night out” for all the
people. Comedians, singers, harlequins, and merry-makers of all kinds
are abroad, and it being moonlight, all have a good time in “treading
the bridges.” On the seventh day of the seventh month, the festival
honored in China, Corea, and Japan takes place, for which children
wait, in expectation, many days in advance. Sweetmeats are prepared,
and bamboos strung with strips of colored paper are the symbols of
rejoicing. On this night the two stars Capricornus and Alpha Lyra (or
the Herd-boy and Spinning Maiden) are in conjunction in the milky way
[10] (or the River of Heaven), and wishes made at this time are
supposed to come true.
Chu-pul, or the Mouse Fire, occurs in the twelfth month, on the day of
the Mouse (or rat). Children light brands or torches of dry reeds or
straw, and set fire to the dry herbage, stubble, and shrubbery on the
borders of the roads, in order to singe the hair of the various field
or ground-burrowing animals, or burn them out, so as to obtain a
plentiful crop of cotton.
At school, the pupils study according to the method all over Asia, that
is, out loud, and noisily. This kang-siong, or deafening buzz, is
supposed to be necessary to sound knowledge. Besides learning the
Chinese characters and the vernacular alphabet, with tongue, ear, eye,
and pen, the children master the ku-ku (“nine times nine”), or the
multiplication table, and learn to work the four simple rules of
arithmetic, and even fractions, involution, and evolution on the
chon-pan, or sliding numeral frame. A “red mark” is a vermilion token
of a good lesson, made by the examiner; and for a good examination
passed rewards are given in the form of a first-rate dinner, or one or
all of “the four friends of the study table”—pens, ink, paper, and
inkstand, or brushes, sticks of “India” ink, rolls of unsized paper,
and an inkstone or water-dropper. Writing a good autograph
signature—“one’s own pen”—is highly commended. Sometimes money is given
for encouragement, which the promising lad saves up in an earthen
savings-bank. Not a few of the youth of the humbler classes, who work
in the fields by day and study the characters by night, rise to be able
officers who fill high stations.
The French missionaries assure us that the normal Corean is fond of
children, especially of sons, who in his eyes are worth ten times as
much as daughters. Such a thing as exposure of children is almost
unknown. In times of severe famine this may happen after failure to
give away or sell for a season, that they may be bought back. Parents
rarely find their family too numerous.
The first thing inculcated in a child’s mind is respect for his father.
All insubordination is immediately and sternly repressed. Far different
is it with the mother. She yields to her boy’s caprices and laughs at
his faults and vices without rebuke. The child soon learns that a
mother’s authority is next to nothing. In speaking of his father a lad
often adds the words “severe,” “terrible,” implying the awe and
profound respect in which he holds his father. (Something of the same
feeling prevails as in Japan, where the four dreadful things which a
lad most fears, and which are expressed in a rhyming proverb, are:
“Earthquake, wind, fire, and father,” or “daddy.”) On the contrary, in
speaking of his mother, he adds the words “good,” “indulgent,” “I’m not
afraid of her,” etc. A son must not play nor smoke in his father’s
presence, nor assume free or easy posture before him. For lounging,
there is a special room, like a nursery. The son waits on his father at
meals and gets his bed ready. If he is old or sickly, the son sleeps
near him and does not quit his side night or day. If he is in prison
the son takes up his abode in the vicinity, to communicate with his
parent and furnish him with luxuries. In case of imprisonment for
treason, the son at the portal, on bended knees day and night, awaits
the sentence that will reduce himself to slavery. If the accused is
condemned to exile, the son must at least accompany his father to the
end of the journey, and, in some cases, share banishment with him.
Meeting his father in the street, the son must make profound salute on
his knees, in the dust, or in the ditch. In writing to him, he must
make free use of the most exaggerated honorifics which the Corean
knows.
The practice of adoption is common, as it is abnormally so in all
countries where ancestral worship is prevalent and underlies all
religions. The preservation of the family line is the supreme end and
aim of life. In effect all those persons are descendants of particular
ancestors who will keep up the ancestral sacrifices, guard the tablets
and observe the numerous funeral and mourning ceremonies which make
life such a burden in Eastern Asia. Daughters are not adopted, because
they cannot accomplish the prescribed rites. When parents have only a
daughter, they marry her to an adopted son, who becomes head of the
family so adopted into. Even the consent of the adopted, or of his
parents, is not always requisite, for as it is a social, as well as a
religious necessity, the government may be appealed to, and, in case of
need, forces acceptance of the duty. In this manner, as in the
patriarchal age of biblical history, a man may be coerced into “raising
up seed” to defunct ancestors.
Properly, an adoption, to be legal, ought to be registered at the
office of the Board of Rites, but this practice has fallen into disuse,
and it is sufficient to give public notice of the fact among the two
families concerned. An adoption once made cannot be void except by a
decree from the Tribunal of Rites, which is difficult to obtain. In
practice, the system of adoption results in many scandals, quarrels,
jealousies, and all the train of evils which one familiar with men and
women, as they are, might argue a priori without the facts at hand. The
iron fetters of Asiatic institutions cannot suppress human nature.
Primogeniture is the rigid rule. Younger sons, at the time of their
marriage, or at other important periods of life, receive paternal
gifts, now more, now less, according to usage, rank, the family
fortune, etc., but the bulk of the property belongs to the oldest son,
on whom the younger sons look as their father. He is the head of the
family, and regards his father’s children as his own. In all Eastern
Asia the bonds of family are much closer than among Caucasian people of
the present time. All the kindred, even to the fifteenth or twentieth
degree, whatever their social position, rich or poor, educated or
illiterate, officials or beggars—form a clan, a tribe, or more exactly
one single family, all of whose members have mutual interests to
sustain. The house of one is the house of the other, and each will
assist to his utmost another of the clan to get money, office, or
advantage. The law recognizes this system by levying on the clan the
imposts and debts which individuals of it cannot pay, holding the
sodality responsible for the individual. To this they submit without
complaint or protest.
Instead of the family being a unit, as in the west, it is only the
fragment of a clan, a segment in the great circle of kindred. The
number of terms expressing relationship is vastly greater and much more
complex than in English. One is amazed at the exuberance of the
national vocabulary in this respect. The Coreans are fully as clannish
as the Chinese, and much more so than the Irish; and in this, as in the
Middle Kingdom, lies one great obstacle to Christianity or to any kind
of individual reform. Marriage cannot take place between two persons
having the same family cognomen. There are in the kingdom only one
hundred and forty or fifty family, or rather clan names. Yet many of
these names are widespread through the realm. All are formed of a
single Chinese letter, except six or seven, which are composed of two
characters. To distinguish the different families who bear the same
patronymic, they add the name which they call the pu, or Gentile name,
to indicate the place whence the family originally came. In the case of
two persons wishing to marry, if this pu is the same, they are in the
eyes of the law relatives, and marriage is forbidden. If the pu of each
is different, they may wed. The most common names, such as Kim and
Ni—answering to our Smith and Jones—have more than a score of pu, which
arise from more than twenty families, the place of whose origin is in
each case different. The family name is never used alone. It is always
followed by a surname; or only the word so-pang, junior, sang-wen,
senior, lord, sir, etc.
Male adults usually have three personal names, that given in childhood,
the common proper name, and the common legal name, while to this last
is often added the title. Besides these, various aliases, nicknames,
fanciful and punning appellatives, play their part, to the pleasure or
vexation of their object. This custom is the source of endless
confusion in documents and common life. It was formerly in vogue in
Japan, but was abolished by the mikado’s government in 1872, and now
spares as much trouble to tongue, types, and pens, as a reform in our
alphabet and spelling would save the English-speaking world. As in
Nippon, a Corean female has but one name from the cradle to the grave.
The titles “Madame,” or “Madame widow,” are added in mature life. As in
old Japan, the common people do not, as a rule, have distinguishing
individual names, and among them nicknames are very common. Corean
etiquette forbids that the name of father, mother, or uncle be used in
conversation, or even pronounced aloud.
CHAPTER XXX.
HOUSEKEEPING, DIET, AND COSTUME.
Corean architecture is in a very primitive condition. The castles,
fortifications, temples, monasteries and public buildings cannot
approach in magnificence those of Japan or China. The country, though
boasting hoary antiquity, has few ruins in stone. The dwellings are
tiled or thatched houses, almost invariably one story high. In the
smaller towns these are not arranged in regular streets, but scattered
here and there. Even in the cities and capital the streets are narrow
and tortuous.
In the rural parts, the houses of the wealthy are embosomed in
beautiful groves, with gardens surrounded by charming hedges or fences
of rushes or split-bamboo. The cities show a greater display of
red-tiled roofs, as only the officials and nobles are allowed this
sumptuary honor. Shingles are not much used. The thatching is of rice
or barley straw, cut close, with ample eaves, and often finished with
great neatness.
A low wall of uncemented stone, five or six feet high, surrounds the
dwelling, and when kept in repair gives an air of neatness and imposing
solidity to the estate. Often a pretty rampart of flat bamboo or
rushes, plaited in the herring-bone pattern, surmounts the wall, which
may be of pebbles or stratified rock and mortared. Sometimes the
rampart is of wattle, covered with smooth white plaster, which, with
the gateway, is also surmounted by an arched roofing of tiles. Instead
of regular slanting lines of gables, one meets with the curved and
pagoda-like roofs seen in China, with a heavy central ridge and
projecting ornaments of fire-hardened clay, like the “stirrup” or
“devil” tiles of Japan. These curves greatly add to the beauty of a
Corean house, because they break the monotony of the lines of Corean
architecture.
Doors, windows, and lintels are usually rectangular, and are set in
regularly, instead of being made odd to relieve the eye, as in Japan.
Bamboo is a common material for window-frames.
The foundations are laid on stone set in the earth, and the floor of
the humble is part of the naked planet. People one grade above the
poorest cover the hard ground with sheets of oiled paper, which serve
as rugs or a carpet. For the better class a floor of wood is raised a
foot or so above the earth, but in the sleeping- and sitting-room of
the average family, the “kang” forms a vaulted floor, bed, and stove.
The kang is characteristic of the human dwelling in northeastern Asia.
It is a kind of tubular oven, in which human beings, instead of
potatoes, are baked. It is as though we should make a bedstead of
bricks, and put foot-stoves under it. The floor is bricked over, or
built of stone over flues, which run from the fireplace, at one end of
the house, to the chimney at the other. The fire which boils the pot or
roasts the meat is thus utilized to warm those sitting or sleeping in
the room beyond. The difficulty is to keep up a regular heat without
being alternately chilled or smothered. With wood fuel this is almost
impossible, but by dint of tact and regulated draught may be
accomplished. As in the Swedish porcelain stove, a pail of live coals
keeps up a good warmth all night. The kangs survive in the kotatsù of
Japan.
The “fire” in sentiment and fact is the centre of the Corean home, and
the native phrase, “he has put out his fire,” is the dire synonym
denoting that a man is not only cold and fasting, but in want of the
necessities of life.
Bed-clothes are of silk, wadded cotton, thick paper, and tiger, wolf,
or dog skins, the latter often sewn in large sheets like a carpet.
Comfort, cleanliness, and luxury make the bed of the noble on the warm
brick in winter, or cool matting in summer; but with the poor, the cold
of winter, and insects of summer, with the dirt and rags, make sleeping
in a Corean hut a hardship. Cushions or bags of rice-chaff form the
pillows of the rich. The poor man uses a smooth log of wood or slightly
raised portion of the floor to rest his head upon. “Weariness can snore
upon the flint when resty sloth finds the down pillow hard.”
Three rooms are the rule in an average house. These are for cooking,
eating, and sleeping. In the kitchen the most noticeable articles are
the ang-pak, or large earthen jars, for holding rice, barley, or water.
Each of them is big enough to hold a man easily. The second room,
containing the kang, is the sleeping apartment, and the next is the
best room or parlor. Little furniture is the rule. Coreans, like the
Japanese, sit, not cross-legged, but on their heels. Among the
well-to-do, dog-skins, or kat-tei, cover the floor for a carpet, or
splendid tiger-skins serve as rugs. Matting is common, the best being
in the south.
As in Japan, the meals are served on the floor on low sang, or little
tables, one for each guest, sometimes one for a couple. The best table
service is of porcelain, and the ordinary sort of earthenware with
white metal or copper utensils. The table-cloths are of fine glazed
paper and resemble oiled silk. No knives or forks are used; instead,
chopsticks, laid in paper cases, and, what is more common than in China
or Japan, spoons are used at every meal. The climax of æsthetic taste
occurs when a set of historic porcelain and faience of old Corean
manufacture and decoration, with the tall and long-spouted teapot, are
placed on the pearl-inlaid table and filled with native delicacies.
The walls range in quality of decoration from plain mud to colored
plaster and paper. The Corean wall-paper is of all grades, sometimes as
soft as silk, or as thick as canvas. Sa-peik is a favorite reddish
earth or mortar which serves to rough-cast in rich color tones the
walls of a room.
Pictures are not common; the artistic sense being satisfied with
scrolls of handsome Chinese characters containing moral and literary
gems from the classics, or the caligraphic triumph of some king,
dignitary, or literary friend. To possess a sign-manual or autograph
scrap of Yung, Hong, or O, the three most renowned men of Chō-sen, is
reckoned more than a golden manuscript on azure paper.
The windows are square and latticed without or within, and covered with
tough paper, either oiled or unsized, and moving in grooves—the
originals of the Japanese sliding-doors and windows. In every part of a
Corean house, paper plays an important and useful part.
Very fine Venetian blinds are made of threads split from the
ever-useful bamboo, which secures considerable variety in window
decoration. The doors are of wood, paper, or plaited bamboo. Glass was,
till recently, a nearly unknown luxury in Corea among the common
people. Even with the nobles, it is rather a curiosity. The windows
being made of oiled or thin paper, glass is not a necessity. This fact
will explain the eagerness of the people to possess specimens of this
transparent novelty. Even old porter and ale bottles, which sailors
have thrown away, are eagerly picked up, begged, bought, or stolen. An
old medicine-vial, among the Coreans, used to fetch the price of a
crystal goblet among us. The possessor of such a prize as a Bass’ ale
bottle will exhibit it to his neighbor as a rare curio from the Western
barbarians, just as an American virtuoso shows off his last new Satsuma
vase or box of Soochow lacquer. When English ship captains, visiting
the coast, gave the Coreans a bottle of wine, the bottle, after being
emptied, was always carefully returned with extreme politeness as an
article of great value. The first Corean visitor to the American
expedition of 1871, went into ecstacies, and his face budded into
smiles hitherto thought impossible to the grim Corean visage, because
the cook gave him an arm-load of empty ale-bottles. The height of
domestic felicity is reached when a Corean householder can get a morsel
of glass to fasten into his window or sliding-door, and thus gaze on
the outer world through this “loophole of retreat.” This not only saves
him from the disagreeable necessity of punching a finger-hole through
the paper to satisfy his curiosity, but gives him the advantage of not
being seen, and of keeping out the draft. When a whole pane has been
secured, it is hard to state whether happiness or pride reigns
uppermost in the owner’s bosom.
Candlesticks are either tall and upright, resting on the floor in the
Japanese style, or dish-lamps of common oil are used.
Flint and steel are used to ignite matches made of chips of wood dipped
in sulphur, by which a “fire-flower” is made to blossom, or in more
prosaic English, a flame is kindled. Phosphorus matches, imported from
Japan, are called by a word signifying “fire-sprite,”
“will-of-the-wisp,” or ignis-fatuus.
Usually in a gentleman’s house there is an ante-room or vestibule, in
which neighbors and visitors sit and talk, smoke or drink. In this
place much freedom is allowed and formalities are laid aside. Here are
the facilities and the atmosphere which in Western lands are found in
clubs, coffee- and ale-houses, or obtained from newspapers. One such,
of which the picture is before us, has in it seats, and looks out on a
garden or courtyard. On a ledge or window-seat are vases of blossoms
and cut flowers; a smaller vase holds fans, and another is presumably
full of tobacco or some other luxury. Short eave-curtains and longer
drapery at the side, give an air of inviting comfort to these free and
easy quarters, where news and gossip are exchanged. These oi-tiang, or
outer apartments, are for strangers and men only, and women are never
expected or allowed to be present.
The Ching-ja is a small house or room on the bank of a river, or
overlooking some bit of natural scenery, to which picnic parties
resort, the Coreans most heartily enjoying out-door festivity, in
places which sky, water, and foliage make beautiful to the eye.
There are often inscribed on the portals, in large Chinese characters,
moral mottoes or poetical sentiments, such as “Enter happiness, like
breezes bring the spring, and depart evil spirit as snow melts in
water.” Before a new house is finished, a sheet of pure white paper, in
which are enclosed some nip, or “cash,” with grains of rice which have
been steeped in wine, is nailed or fastened on the wall, over the door,
and becomes the good spirit or genius of the house, sacrifices being
duly offered to it. In more senses than one, the spirit that presides
over too many Corean households is the alcohol spirit.
The Corean liquor, by preference, is brewed or distilled from rice,
millet, or barley. These alcoholic drinks are of various strength,
color, and smell, ranging from beer to brandy. In general their
beverages are sufficiently smoky, oily, and alcoholic to Western
tastes, as the fusel-oil usually remains even in the best products of
their stills. No trait of the Coreans has more impressed their numerous
visitors, from Hamel to the Americans, than their love of all kinds of
strong drink, from ale to whiskey. The common verdict is, “They are
greatly addicted to the worship of Bacchus.” The Corean vocabulary
bears ample witness to the thorough acquaintance of the people with the
liquor made from grain by their rude processes. The inhabitants of the
peninsula were hard drinkers even in the days of Fuyu and Kokorai. No
sooner were the ports of modern Chō-sen open to commerce than the
Chinese established liquor-stores, while European wines, brandies,
whiskeys, and gins have entered to vary the Corean’s liquid diet and
increase the national drunkenness.
Strange as it may seem, the peasant, though living between the two
great tea-producing countries of the world—Japan and China—and in the
latitude of tea-plantations, scarcely knows the taste of tea, and the
fragrant herb is as little used as is coffee in Japan. The most common
drink, after what the clouds directly furnish, is the water in which
rice has been boiled. Infusions of dried ginseng, orange-peel, or
ginger serve for festal purposes, and honey when these fail; but the
word “tea,” or cha, serves the Corean, as it does the typical Irishman,
for a variety of infusions and decoctions. With elastic charity the
word covers a multitude of sins, chiefly of omission; all that custom
or euphony requires is to prefix the name of the substance used to
“cha” and the drink is tea—of some kind.
The staple diet has in it much more of meat and fat than that of the
Japanese. The latter acknowledge that the average Corean can eat twice
as much as himself. Beef, pork, fowls, venison, fish, and game are
consumed without much waste in rejected material. Nearly everything
edible about an animal is a tidbit, and a curious piece of cookery,
symbolical of a generous feast, is often found at the board of a
liberal host. This tang-talk (which often becomes the “town-talk”) is a
chicken baked and served with its feathers, head, claws, and inwards
intact. “To treat to an entire fowl” is said of a liberal host, and is
equivalent to “killing the fatted calf.”
Fish are often eaten raw from tail to head, especially if small, with
only a little seasoning. Ho-hoi, or fish-bone salad, is a delicacy.
Dog-flesh is on sale among the common butchers’ meats, and the Coreans
enjoy it as our Indians do. In the first month of the year, however,
owing to religious scruples, no dog-meat is eaten, or dishes of canine
origin permitted.
The state dinner, given to the Japanese after the treaty, consisted of
this bill of fare: two-inch squares of pastry, made of flour, sugar,
and oil; heaps of boiled eggs; pudding made of flour, sesame, and
honey; dried persimmons; “pine-seeds,” honey-like food covered with
roasted rice colored red and white; macaroni soup with fowl; boiled
legs of pork, and wine, rice or millet spirit with everything. It is
customary to decorate the tables on grand occasions with artificial
flowers, and often the first course is intended more for show than for
actual eating. For instance, when the Japanese party, feasted at Seoul
in 1646, first sat down to the table, one of them began to help himself
to fish, of which he was very fond. The dish seemed to contain a
genuine cooked carp basted with sauce, but, to the embarrassment of the
hungry guest, the fish would not move. He was relieved by the servant,
who told him that it was put on the table only for show. The courses
brought on later contained more substantial nourishment, such as fish,
flesh, fowl, vegetables, soups, cakes, puddings and tea. Judging from
certain words in the language, these show-dishes form a regular feature
at the opening of banquets. The women cook rice beautifully, making it
thoroughly soft by steaming, while yet retaining the perfect shape of
each grain by itself. Other well-known dishes are barley, millet,
beans, taro (potato cooked in a variety of ways), lily-bulbs,
sea-weeds, acorns, dai-kon (radishes), turnips, and potatoes. Macaroni
and vermicelli are used for soups and refreshing lunches. Apples,
pears, plums, grapes, persimmons, and various kinds of berries help to
furnish the table, though the flavor of these is inferior to the same
fruits grown in our gardens.
All kinds of condiments, mustard, vinegar, pepper, and a variety of
home-made sauces, are much relished. Itinerant food-sellers are not so
common as in China, but butcher-shops and vermicelli stands are
numerous. Two solid meals, with a light breakfast, is the rule. Opan,
or midday rice, is the dinner. Tai-sik is a regular meal. The
appearance of the evening star is the signal for a hearty supper, and
the planet a synonym for the last meal of the day. At wakes or funeral
feasts, and on festal days, the amount of victuals consumed is
enormous, while a very palatable way of remembering the dead is by the
yum-pok, or drinking of sacrificial wine. The Coreans understand the
preservative virtues of ice, and in winter large quantities of this
substance are cut and stored away for use in the summer, in keeping
fresh meat and fish. Their ice-houses are made by excavating the ground
and covering over the store with earth and sod, from which in hot
weather they use as may be necessary. These ice stores are often under
the direction of the government, especially when large quantities of
fish are being preserved for rations of the army in time of war. Those
who oversee the work are called “Officers of the Refrigerator.”
One striking fault of the Coreans at the table is their voracity, and
to this trait of their character Japanese, French, Dutch, and Chinese
bear witness. It might be supposed that a Frenchman, who eats lightly,
might make a criticism where an Englishman would be silent; but not so.
All reports concerning them seem to agree. In this respect there is not
the least difference between the rich and poor, noble or plebeian. To
eat much is an honor, and the merit of a feast consists not in the
quality but in the quantity of the food served. Little talking is done
while eating, for each sentence might lose a mouthful. Hence, since a
capacious stomach is a high accomplishment, it is the aim from infancy
to develop a belly having all possible elasticity. Often the mothers
take their babies upon their knees, and after stuffing them with rice,
like a wad in a gun, will tap them from time to time with the paddle of
a ladle on the stomach, to see that it is fully spread out or rammed
home, and only cease gorging when it is physically impossible for the
child to swell up more. A Corean is always ready to eat; he attacks
whatever he meets with, and rarely says, “Enough.” Even between meals,
he will help himself to any edible that is offered. The ordinary
portion of a laborer is about a quart of rice, which when cooked makes
a good bulk. This, however, is no serious hindrance to his devouring
double or treble the quantity when he can get it. Eating matches are
common. When an ox is slaughtered, and the beef is served up, a heaping
bowl of the steaming mess does not alarm any guest. Dog-meat is a
common article of food, and the canine sirloins served up in great
trenchers are laid before the guests, each one having his own small
table to himself. When fruits, such as peaches or small melons, are
served, they are devoured without peeling. Twenty or thirty peaches is
considered an ordinary allowance, which rapidly disappears. Such a
prodigality in victuals is, however, not common, and for one feast
there are many fastings. Beef is not an article of daily food with the
peasantry. Its use is regulated by law, the butcher being a sort of
government official; and only under extraordinary circumstances, as
when a grand festival is to be held, does the king allow an ox to be
killed in each village. The Coreans are neither fastidious in their
eating nor painstaking in their cooking. Nothing goes to waste. All is
grist that comes to the mill in their mouths.
They equal Japanese in devouring raw fish, and uncooked food of all
kinds is swallowed without a wry face. Even the intestines pass among
them for delicate viands. Among the poorer classes, a cooked fish is
rarely seen on the table; for no sooner is it caught than it is
immediately opened and devoured. The raw viands are usually eaten with
a strong seasoning of pepper or mustard, but they are often swallowed
without condiment of any sort. Often in passing along the banks of a
river, one may see men fishing with rod and line. Of these some are
nobles who are not able, or who never wish to work for a living, yet
they will fish for food and sport. Instead of a bag or basket to
contain the game, or a needle to string it upon, each fisher has at his
side a jar of diluted pepper, or a kind of soy. No sooner is a fish
hooked, than he is drawn out, seized between the two fingers, dipped
into the sauce, and eaten without ceremony. Bones do not scare them.
These they eat, as they do the small bones of fowls.
Nationally, and individually, the Coreans are very deficient in
conveniences for the toilet. Bath-tubs are rare, and except in the
warmer days of summer, when the river and sea serve for immersion, the
natives are not usually found under water. The Japanese in the treaty
expedition in 1876 had to send bath-tubs on shore from their ships.
Morning ablutions are made in a copper basin. The sponges which grow on
the west coast seem to find no market at home. This neglect of more
intimate acquaintance with water often makes the lowest classes “look
like mulattos,” as Hamel said. Gutzlaff, Adams, and others, especially
the Japanese, have noted this personal defect, and have suggested the
need of soap and hot water. It may be that the contrast between costume
and cuticle tempts to exaggeration. People who dress in white clothing
have special need of personal cleanliness. Perhaps soap factories will
come in the future.
The men are very proud of their beards, and the elders very particular
in keeping them white and clean. The lords of creation honor their
beard as the distinctive glory and mark of their sex. A man is in
misery if he has only just enough beard to distinguish him from a
woman. A full crop of hair on cheek and chin insures to its possessor
unlimited admiration, while in Corean billingsgate there are numerous
terms of opprobrium for a short beard. Europeans are contemptuously
termed “short-hairs”—with no suspicion of the use of the word in New
York local politics. Old gentlemen keep a little bag in which they
assiduously collect the combings of their hair, the strokings of their
beard and parings of their nails, in order that all that belongs to
them may be duly placed in their coffin at death.
The human hair crop is an important item in trade with China, to which
country it is imported and sold to piece out the hair-tails which the
Chinese, in obedience to their Manchiu conquerors, persist in wearing.
Some of this hair comes from poor women, but the staple product is from
the heads of boys who wear their hair parted in the middle, and plaited
in a long braid, which hangs down their backs. At marriage, they cut
this off, and bind what remains in a tight, round knot on the top of
the scalp, using pins or not as they please.
The court pages and pretty boys who attend the magnates, usually
rosy-cheeked, well fed, and effeminate looking youths, do not give any
certain indication of their sex, and foreigners are often puzzled to
know whether they are male or female. Their beardless faces and long
hair are set down as belonging to women. Most navigators have made this
mistake in gender, and when the first embassy from Seoul landed in
Yokohama, the controversy, and perhaps the betting, as to the sex of
these nondescripts was very lively. Captain Broughton declared that the
whole duty of these pages seemed to be to smooth out the silk dresses
of the grandees. Officials and nobles cover their top-knots with neat
black nets of horse-hair or glazed thread. Often country and town
people wear a fillet or white band of bark or leaves across the
forehead to keep the loose hair in order, as the ancient Japanese used
to do. Women coil their glossy black tresses into massive knots, and
fasten them with pins or golden, silver, and brass rings. The heads of
the pins are generally shaped like a dragon. They oil their hair, using
a sort of vegetable pomatum. Among the court ladies and female
musicians the styles of coiffure are various; some being very pretty,
with loops, bands, waves, and “bangs,” as the illustration on page 161
shows.
Corea is decidedly the land of big hats. From their amplitude these
head-coverings might well be called “roofs,” or, at least, “umbrellas.”
Their diameter is so great that the human head encased in one of them
seems but as a hub in a cart-wheel. They would probably serve admirably
as parachutes in leaping from a high place. Under his wide-spreading
official hat a magistrate can shelter his wife and family. It serves as
a numeral, since a company is counted by hats, instead of heads or
noses. How the Corean dignitary can weather a gale remains a mystery,
and, perhaps, the feat is impossible and rarely attempted. A slim man
is evidently at a disadvantage in a “Japanese wind” or typhoon. The
personal avoirdupois, which is so much admired in the peninsula,
becomes very useful as ballast to the head-sail. Corean magnates, cast
away at sea, would not lack material for ship’s canvas. In shape, the
gentleman’s hat resembles a flower-pot set on a round table, or a
tumbler on a Chinese gong. Two feet is a common diameter, thus making a
periphery of six feet. The top or cone, which rises nine inches higher,
is only three inches wide. This chimney-like superstructure serves as
ornament and ventilator. Its purpose is not to encase the head, for
underneath the brim is a tight-fitting skull-cap, which rests on the
head and is held on by padded ties under the ears. The average rim for
ordinary people, however, is about six inches in radius. The huge
umbrella-hat of bleached bamboo is worn by gentlemen in mourning. After
death it is solemnly placed on the bier, and forms a conspicuous object
at the funeral. The native name for hat is kat or kat-si.
The usual material is bamboo, split to the fineness of a thread, and
woven so as to resemble horse-hair. The fabric is then varnished or
lacquered, and becomes perfectly weather-proof, resisting sun and rain,
but not wind. The prevalence of cotton clothing, easily soaked and
rendered uncomfortable, requires the ample protection for the back and
shoulders, which these umbrella-like hats furnish. In heavy rain, the
kat-no is worn, that is, a cone of oiled paper, fixed on the hat in the
shape of a funnel. Indeed, the umbrella in Corea is rather for a symbol
of state and dignity than for vulgar use, and is often adorned with
knobs and strips. Quelpart Island is the home of the hatters, whose
fashionable wares supply the dandies and dignitaries of the capital and
of the peninsula. The highest officers of the government have the cone
truncated or rounded at the vertex, and surmounted by a little figure
of a crane in polished silver, very handsome and durable. This
long-legged bird is a symbol of civil office. “To confer the hat,”
means as much to an officer high in favor at the court of Seoul as to a
cardinal in the Vatican, only the color is black, not red. It is Corean
etiquette to keep the hat on, and in this respect, as well as in their
broad brims, the hermits resemble the Quakers. Marriage and mourning
are denoted also by the hat.
A variety of materials is employed by other classes. Soldiers wear
large black or brown felt hats, resembling Mexican sombreros, which are
adorned with red horse-hair or a peacock’s feather, swung on a swivel
button.
Suspended from the sides, over the ears and around the neck, are
strings of round balls of blue porcelain, cornelian, amber, or what
resembles kauri gum. Sometimes these ornaments are tubular, reminding
one of the millinery of a cardinal’s hat.
For the common people, plaited straw or rushes of varied shapes serve
for summer, while in winter shaggy caps of lynx, wolf, bear, or
deer-skin are common, made into Havelock, Astrachan, Japanese, and
other shapes, some resembling wash-bowls, some being fluted or
fan-like, winged, sock-shaped, or made like a nightcap. Variety seems
to be the fashion.
The head-dress of the court nobles differs from that of the vulgar as
much as the Pope’s tiara differs from a cardinal’s rubrum. It is a
crown or helmet, which, eschewing brim, rises in altitude to the
proportions of a mitre. Without earstrings or necklaces of beads, it is
yet highly ornamental. One of these consists of a cap, with a sort of
gable at the top. Another has six lofty curving folds or volutes set in
it. On another are designs from the pa-kwa, or sixty-four mystic
diagrams, which are supposed to be sacred symbols of the Confucian
philosophy, and of which fortune-tellers make great use.
The wardrobe of the gentry consists of the ceremonial and the house
dress. The former, as a rule, is of fine silk, and the latter of
coarser silk or cotton. These “gorgeous Corean dresses” are of pink,
blue, and other rich colors. The official robe is a long garment like a
wrapper, with loose, baggy sleeves. This is embroidered with the stork
or phœnix for civil, and with the kirin, lion, or tiger for military
officers. Buttons are unknown and form no part of a Corean’s attire,
male or female, thus greatly reducing the labor of the wives and
mothers who ply the needle, which in Corea has an “ear” instead of an
“eye.” Strings and girdles, and the shifting of the main weight of the
clothing to the shoulders, take the place of these convenient, but
fugitive, adjuncts to the Western costume. There are few tailors’
shops, the women of each household making the family outfit.
Soldiers in full dress wear a sleeveless, open surcoat for display. The
under dress of both sexes is a short jacket with tight sleeves, which
for men reaches to the thighs, and for women only to the waist, and a
pair of drawers reaching from waist to ankle, a little loose all the
way down for the men, and tied at the ankles, but for the women made
tight and not tied. The females wear a petticoat over this garment, so
that the Coreans say they dress like Western women, and foreign-made
hosiery and under-garments are in demand. Although they have a variety
of articles of apparel easily distinguishable to the native eye, yet
their general style of costume is that of the wrapper, stiff, wide, and
inflated with abundant starch in summer, but clinging and baggy in
winter. The rule is tightness and economy for the working, amplitude
and richness of material for the affluent classes. The women having no
pockets in their dresses, wear a little bag suspended from their
girdle. This is worn on the right side, attached by cords. These
contain their bits of jewelry, scissors, knife, a tiger’s claw for
luck, perfume-bottle or sachet, a tiny chess-board in gold or silver,
etc. Besides the rings on their fingers the ladies wear hair-pins of
gold ornamented with bulbs or figures of birds. Many of them dust pun,
or white powder, on their faces, and employ various other cosmetics,
which are kept in their kiong-tai, or mirror toilet-stands; in which
also may be their so-hak, or book containing rules of politeness.
The general type of costume is that of China under the Ming dynasty. To
a Chinaman a Corean looks antiquated, a curiosity in old clothes; a
Japanese at a little distance, in the twilight, is reminded of ghosts,
or the snowy heron of the rice-fields, while to the American the Corean
swell seems compounded chiefly of bed-clothes, and in his most
elaborate costume to be still in his under-garments.
Plenty of starch in summer, and no stint of cotton in winter, are the
needs of the Corean. His white dress makes his complexion look darker
than it really is. The monotonous dazzle of bleached garments is
relieved by the violet robes of the magistrate, the dark blue for the
soldiers, and lighter shades of that color in the garb of the middle
class; the blue strip which edges the coat of the literary graduates,
and the pink and azure clothes of the children. Less agreeable is the
nearness which dispels illusion. The costume, which seemed snowy at a
distance, is seen to be dingy and dirty, owing to an entire ignorance
of soap.
The Corean dress, though simpler than the Chinese, is not entirely
devoid of ornament. The sashes are often of handsome blue silk or
brocaded stuff. The official girdles, or flat belts a few inches wide,
have clasps of gold, silver, or rhinoceros horn, and are decorated with
polished ornaments of gold or silver. For magistrates of the three
higher ranks these belts are set with blue stones; for those of the
fourth and fifth grade with white stones, and for those below the fifth
with a substance resembling horn. Common girdles are of cotton, hemp
cloth, or rope.
Fans are also a mark of rank, being made of various materials,
especially silk or cloth, stretched on a frame. The fan is an
instrument of etiquette. To hide the face with one is an act of
politeness. The man in mourning must have no other kind than that in
which the pin or rivet is of cow’s horn. Oiled paper fans serve a
variety of purposes. In another kind, the ribs of the frame are bent
back double. The finer sort for the nobility are gorgeously inlaid with
pearl or nacre.
A kind of flat wand or tablet, seen in the hands of nobles, ostensibly
to set down orders of the sovereign, is made of ivory for officers
above, and of wood for those below the fourth grade.
Another badge of office is the little wand, half way between a toy whip
and a Mercury’s caduceus, of black lacquered wood, with cords of green
silk. This is carried by civil officers, and may be the original of the
Japanese baton of command, made of lacquered wood with pendant strips
of paper.
Canes are carried by men of the literary or official class when in
mourning. These tall staves, which, from the decks of European vessels
sailing along the coast, have often looked like spears, are the
sang-chang, or smooth bamboo staves, expressive of ceremonial grief,
and nothing more.
As the Coreans have no pockets, they make bags, girdles, and their
sleeves serve instead. The women wear a sort of reticule hung at the
belt, and the men a smoking outfit, consisting of an oval bag to hold
his flint and steel, some fine-cut tobacco, and a long, narrow case for
his pipe.
Foot-gear is either of native or of Chinese make. The laborer contents
himself with sandals woven from rice-straw, which usually last but a
few days. A better sort is of hempen twine or rope, with many strands
woven over the top of the foot. A man in mourning can wear but four
cords on the upper part. Socks are too expensive for the poor, except
in the winter. Shoes made of cotton are often seen in the cities,
having hempen or twine soles. The low shoes of cloth, or velvet, and
cowhide, upturned at the toe, worn by officials, are imported from
China. Small feet do not seem to be considered a beauty, and the
foot-binding of the Chinese is unknown in Chō-sen, as in Japan.
CHAPTER XXXI.
MOURNING AND BURIAL.
The fashion of mourning, the proper place and time to shed tears and
express grief according to regulations, are rigidly prescribed in an
official treatise or “Guide to Mourners,” published by the government.
The corpse must be placed in a coffin of very thick wood, and preserved
during many months in a special room prepared and ornamented for this
purpose. It is proper to weep only in this death-chamber, but this must
be done three or four times daily. Before entering it, the mourner must
don a special weed, which consists of a gray cotton frock coat, torn,
patched, and as much soiled as possible. The girdle must be of twisted
straw and silk, made into a rope of the thickness of the wrist. Another
cord, the thickness of the thumb, is wound round the head, which is
covered with dirty linen, each of the rope’s ends falling upon the
cheek. A special kind of sandals is worn, and a big knotty stick
completes the costume of woe. In the prescribed weeds the mourner
enters the death-chamber in the morning on rising, and before each
meal. He carries a little table filled with food, which he places upon
a tray at the side of the coffin. The person who is master of the
mourners presides at the ceremonies. Prostrate, and struck by the
stick, he utters dolorous groans, sounding “ai-kō” if for a parent. For
other relatives he groans out “oi, oi.” According to the noise and
length of the groans and weeping, so will the good opinion of the
public be. The lamentations over, the mourner retires, doffs the
mourning robes, and eats his food. At the new and the full moon, all
the relatives are invited and expected to assist at the ceremonies.
These practices continue more or less even after burial, and at
intervals during several years. Often a noble will go out to weep and
kneel at the tomb, passing a day, and even a night, in this position.
In some instances, mourners have built a little house before the grave,
and watched there for years, thus winning a high reputation for filial
piety.
Among the poor, who have not the means to provide a death-chamber and
expensive mourning, the coffin is kept outside their houses covered
with mats until the time of sepulture.
Though cremation, or “burying in the fire,” is known in Chō-sen, the
most usual form of disposing of the dead is by inhumation. Children are
wrapped up in the clothes and bedding in which they die, and are thus
buried. As unmarried persons are reckoned as children, their shroud and
burial are the same. With the married and adult, the process is more
costly, and the ceremonial more detailed and prolonged. This, which is
described very fully in Ross’ “Corea,” and with which Hamel’s curt
notes agree, consists of minute ceremonial and mourning among the
living and the washing, combing, nail-paring, robing, and laying out in
state of the dead, with calling of the spirits, and with screens,
lights, and offerings, according to Confucian ritual. In many
interesting features, the most ancient rites of China have survived in
the peninsula after they have become obsolete in the former country.
The very old tombs opened, and the painted coffins, coated with many
layers of silicious paint, dug up near Shanghai recently, are much like
those of the Coreans.
The coffin, which fits the body, is made air-tight with wax, resin, or
varnish, and is borne on a bier to the grave by men who make this their
regular business. Often there are two coffins, one inside the other.
Sons follow the body of their father on foot, relatives ride in
palanquins or on horseback. Prominent at the head of the procession is
the red standard containing the titles and honors of the deceased. This
banner, or sa-jen, has two points on it to frighten away the spirits,
and at the funeral of a high officer, a man wears a hideous mask for
the same purpose. When there are no titles, only the name of the
deceased is inscribed upon the banner.
The selection of a proper site for a tomb is a matter of profound
solicitude, time, and money; for the geomancers must be consulted with
a fee. The pung-sui superstition requires for the comfort of both
living and dead that the right site should be chosen. Judging from the
number of times the word “mountain” enters into terms relating to
burial, most interments are on the hillsides. If these are not done
properly, trouble will arise, and the bones must then be dug up,
collected, and reburied, often at heavy expense. Thousands of
professional cheats and self-duped people live by working upon the
feelings of the bereaved through this superstition.
The tombs of the poor consist only of the grave and a low mound of
earth. These mounds, subjected to the forces of nature, and often
trampled upon by cattle, disappear after the lapse of a few years, and
oblivion settles over the spot.
With the richer class monuments are of stone, sometimes neat or even
imposing, sometimes grotesque. Some, as the pi-popi, are shaped like a
house or miniature temple; or, two stones, cut in the form of a ram and
a horse respectively, are placed before the sepulchre. The man-tu,
“gazing headstone,” consists of two monoliths or columns of masonry,
flanking the tomb on either side, so that the soul of the dead, changed
into a bird, may repose peacefully. In the graveyards are many tombs
paved with granite slabs around the temple model, but for the most part
a Corean cemetery is filled with little obelisks, or tall, square
columns, either pointed at the top or surmounted with the effigy of a
human head, or a rudely sculptured stone image, which strangely reminds
a foreigner of “patience on a monument, smiling at grief.” This
apparition of a human head rising above the tall grass of the
burial-ground may be the original of Japanese pictures of the ghosts
and spirits which seem to rise dark and windblown out of the wet grass.
Often the carving in Corean grave-yards is so rude as to be almost
indistinguishable.
Mourning is of many degrees and lengths, and is betokened by dress,
abstinence from food and business, visits to the tomb, offerings,
tablets, and many visible indications, detailed even to absurdity.
Pure, or nearly pure white is the mourning color, as a contrast to red,
the color of rejoicing. Even the rivets of the fan, the strings on the
shoes, and the carrying of a staff in addition to the mourning-hat,
betoken the uniform of woe.
When noblemen don the peaked hat, which covers the face as well as the
head, they are as dead to the world—not to be spoken to, molested, or
even arrested if charged with crime. This Corean mourning hat proved
“the helmet of salvation” to Christians, and explains the safety of the
French missionaries who lived so long in disguise, unharmed in the
country where the police were as lynxes and hounds ever on their track.
The Jesuits were not slow to see the wonderful shelter promised for
them, and availed themselves of it at once and always.
The royal sepulchres within the peninsula have attracted more than one
unlawful descent upon the shores of Chō-sen. The various dynasties of
sovereigns during the epoch of the Three Kingdoms in the old capitals
of these states, the royal lines of Kokorai at Ping-an, of Korai at
Sunto, and of the ruling house at Seoul, have made Corea during her two
thousand years of history rich in royal tombs. These are in various
parts of the country, and those which are known are under the care of
the government.
Are these mausoleums filled with gold or jewels? Foreign grave-robbers
have believed so, and shown their faith by their works, as we shall
see. French priests in the country have said so. The ancient Chinese
narratives descriptive of the customs of the Fuyu people, confirm the
general impression. Without having the facts at hand to demonstrate
what eager foreigners have believed, we know that vast treasures have
been spent upon the decoration of the royal sepulchres, and the
erection of memorial buildings over them, and that the fear of their
violation by foreign or native outlaws has been for centuries ever
before the Corean people. That these fears have too often been
justified, we shall find when we read of that memorable year, A.D.
1866. The profuse vocabulary of terms relating to burial, mourning, and
memorial tablets in Corea show their intense loyalty to the Confucian
doctrines, the power of superstition, and the shocking waste of the
resources of the living upon the dead.
The voluble Corean envoys when in Tōkiō, visited the Naval College, and
on learning that in certain emergencies the students from distant
provinces were not allowed to go home to attend the funeral of their
parents, nor to absent themselves from duty on account of mourning,
were amazed beyond measure, and for a few moments literally speechless
from surprise. It is hard for a Corean to understand the sayings of
Jesus to the disciple who asked, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury
my father,” and “Let the dead bury their dead.”
From the view-point of political economy, this lavish expense of time,
energy, money, and intellect upon corpses and superstition is
beneficial. Without knowing of Malthus or his theories, the Chō-senese
have hit upon a capital method of limiting population, and keeping the
country in a state of chronic poverty. The question has been asked the
writer, “How can a people, pent in a little mountainous peninsula like
Corea, exist for centuries without overpopulating their territory?”
Wars, famine, pestilence, ordinary poverty answer the question in part.
The absurd and rigorous rules of mourning, requiring frightful expense,
postponement of marriage to young people—who even when betrothed must
mourn three years for parents and grandparents, actual and expected,
the impoverishing of the people, and the frequent hindrances to
marriage at the proper season, serve to keep down population. This fact
is an often chosen subject for native anecdotes and romances. The
vexations and delays often caused by the long periods of idle mourning
required by etiquette, are well illustrated by the following story,
from the “Grammaire Coréenne,” which is intended to show the sympathy
of the king Cheng-chong (1776 to 1800) with his subjects. It is
entitled “A Trait of Royal Solicitude.”
It was about New Year’s that Cheng-chong walked about here and there
within the palace enclosure. Having come to the place reserved for the
candidates at the literary examinations, he looked through a crack in
the gate. The competitors had nearly all gone away to spend the New
Year holidays at home, and there remained only two of them, who were
talking together.
“Well, all the others have gone off to spend New Year’s at home; isn’t
it deplorable that we two, having no place to go to, must be nailed
here?”
“Yes, truly,” said the other; “you have no longer either wife,
children, or house. How is this?”
“Listen to my story,” said the first man. “My parents, thinking of my
marriage, had arranged my betrothal, but some time before the
preparations were concluded, my future grandfather died, and it became
necessary to wait three years. Hardly had I put off mourning, when I
was called on to lament the death of my poor father. I was now
compelled to wait still three years. These three years finished, behold
my mother-in-law who was to be died, and three years passed away.
Finally, I had the misfortune to lose my poor mother, which required me
to wait again three years. And so, three times four—a dozen years—have
elapsed, during which we have waited the one for the other. By this
time she, who was to be my wife, fell ill. As she was upon the point of
death, I went to make her a visit. My intended brother-in-law came to
see me, found me, and said, ‘Although the ceremonies of marriage have
not been made, they may certainly consider you as married, therefore
come and see her.’ Upon his invitation I entered her house, but we had
hardly blown a puff of smoke, one before the other, than she died.
“Seeing this, I have no more wished even to dream at night. I am not
yet married. You may understand, then, why I have neither wife,
children, nor home.”
In his turn the other thus spoke: “My house was extremely poor. Our
diet looked like fasting. We had no means of freeing ourselves from
embarrassment. When the day of the examination came I presented myself.
During my absence my wife contrived in such a manner, that putting in
the brazier a farthing’s worth of charcoal, she set a handful of rice
to cook in a skillet, and settled herself to wait for me. She served
this to me every time I came back. But I never obtained a degree. The
day on which I was at last received as a bachelor of arts, on returning
after examination, I found that she had as before lighted the charcoal,
put to boil a dish of soup, and seating herself before the fire, she
waited. In this position she was dead.
“At sight of this my grief was without bounds. Having no desire to
contract a new union, I have never re-married.”
Hearing these narratives, Cheng-chong was touched with pity. Entering
the palace, seating himself upon the throne, and having had the two
scholars brought in, he said to them:
“All the other scholars have gone to their homes to spend New Year’s.
Why have not you two gone also?” They answered, “Your servants having
no house to go to, remained here.”
“What does that mean?” said Cheng-chong. “The fowls and the dogs, oxen
and horses have shelter. The birds have also a hole to build their
nests in. Can it be that men have no dwelling? There should be a reason
for this. Speak plainly.” One of the scholars answered: “Your servant’s
affairs are so-and-so. I have come even till now without re-marriage.
It is because I have neither wife, child, nor family.”
The story being exactly like that which he had heard before, the king
cried out, “Too bad!”
Then addressing the other, he put this question: “And you, how is it
that you are reduced to this condition?” He answered, “My story is
almost the same.”
“What do you wish? Speak!” replied the king.
“The circumstances being such and such, I am at this moment without
wife and without food. That is my condition.”
As there was in all this nothing different from the preceding, the
king, struck with compassion, bestowed upon them immediately lucrative
offices.
If he had not examined for himself, how could he have been able to know
such unfortunate men, and procure for them so happy a position in the
world? In truth, the goodness of his Majesty Cheng-chong has become
celebrated.
CHAPTER XXXII.
OUT-DOOR LIFE.—CHARACTERS AND EMPLOYMENTS.
Six public roads of the first class traverse the peninsula and centre
at the capital. They are from twenty to thirty feet in width, with
ditches at the side for drainage. One of these begins near the ocean,
in Chulla Dō, and in general follows the shores of the Yellow Sea
through three provinces to Tong-chin opposite Kang-wa Island, and
enters the capital by branch roads. Another highway passes through the
interior of the three provinces bordering the Yellow Sea, and enters
Seoul by the southern gate. Hamel and his fellow-captives journeyed by
this road. The road by which the annual embassy reaches Peking, after
leaving the capital, passes through Sunto and Ping-an and Ai-chiu,
crosses the Neutral Strip, and enters Manchuria for Peking by way of
Mukden. This was the beaten track of the French missionaries, and the
shipwrecked men from the United States and Japan, and is the military
road from China. It is well described, with a good map, in Koei-Ling’s
“Journal of a Mission into Corea,” which Mr. F. Scherzer has translated
for us.
From Fusan and Tong-nai, in the southeast, Seoul is reached by no less
than three roads. One strikes westward through Chung-chong, and joins
the main road coming up from the south. Another following the Nak-tong
River basin, crosses the mountains to Chulla, and enters Seoul by the
south gate. Eight river crossings must be made by this road, over which
Konishi marched in 1593. The third route takes a more northerly trend,
follows the sea-coast to Urusan, and passing through Kion-chiu, enters
the capital by the east gate.
The fifth great road issuing from the north gate of the capital passes
into Kang-wen, and thence upward to Gensan, and to the frontiers at the
Tumen River.
The roads of the second class are eight or nine feet wide, and without
side ditches. They ramify through all the provinces, but are especially
numerous in the five southern. The three northern circuits, owing to
their mountainous character, are but poorly furnished with highways,
and these usually follow the rivers.
The third class roads, which are nothing more than bridle-paths, or
trails, connect the villages.
The hilly nature of the country, together with the Asiatic apathy to
bestowing much care on the public highways, makes travelling difficult.
Inundations are frequent, though the water subsides quickly. Hence in
summer the road-beds are dust, and in winter a slough of mud.
Macadamized, or paved roads, are hardly known, except for short
lengths. Few of the wide rivers are bridged, which necessitates
frequent fordings and ferriages. Stone bridges, built with arches, are
sometimes seen over streams not usually inundated, but few of the
wooden bridges are over one hundred and eighty feet long.
In one respect the roads are well attended to. The distances are well
marked. At every ri is a small, and at every three ri a large mound,
surmounted with an inscribed post or “mile-stone,” called chang-sung.
They are two, six, and even ten feet in length.
In ancient times, it is said, there was a man named Chang-sung, who
killed his servant and wife. When punished, his head was placed on a
small mound. Legend even declares that it was successively exposed on
all the distance mounds in the kingdom. This is said to be the origin
of the bournes or distance-mounds, which suggests, as Mr. Adams has
shown, the termini of the Romans. When of stone, they are called
pio-sek, but they are often of wood, rudely carved or hacked out of a
whole tree by an axe into the exaggerated form of a man, and are of a
ludicrous or absurd appearance. The face is meant to be that of the
murderer Chang-sung. The author of “A Forbidden Land” mistook these for
“village idols,” and was surprised to find the boys in some cases
sacrilegiously kicking about some that had rotted down or fallen. The
“gods of the roads” may, however, have their effigies, which are
worshipped or profaned.
All distances in every direction are measured from the front gate of
the magistrates’ offices, the standard of all being the palace at
Seoul. Not the least interesting sights to the traveller are the
memorial stones set up and inscribed with a view to commemorate local
or national worthies, or the events of war, famine, or philanthropy.
The Coreans are “idolaters of letters,” and the erection of memorial
tablets or columns occasionally becomes a passion. Sometimes the
inscriptions are the means of stirring up patriotism, as the following
inscription shows. It was graven on a stone in front of a castle
erected after the French and American expeditions, and was copied by a
Japanese correspondent.
“It is nothing else than selling the kingdom into slavery, in order to
avoid war, to make peace without fighting when any Western nation comes
to attack it; such should never be done even by our descendants
thousands of years hence.”
In this country, in which sumptuary laws prevent the humbler classes
from travelling on horseback, and where wagons and steam-roads are
unknown, the roads are lively with numerous foot-passengers. Palanquins
are used by the better classes and the wealthy. The rambling life of
many of the people, the goodly numbers of that character not unknown in
Christendom—the tramp—the necessities of trade, literary examinations,
government service, and holy pilgrimages, prevent too many weeds from
growing in the highways. In travelling over the high roads one meets a
variety of characters that would satisfy a Corean Dickens, or the
Japanese author who wrote the Tokaidō Hizakurigé (Leg-hair, i.e.,
“Shanks’ mare,” on the East Sea Road). Bands of students on their way
to the capital or provincial literary examinations, some roystering
youths in the full flow of spirits, are hastening on, others,
gray-headed and solemn, are wending their way to fail for the twentieth
time. Pompous functionaries in umbrella-hats, on horseback, before whom
ordinary folks dismount or kneel or bow, brush past with noisy
attendants. Pilgrims in pious garb are on their way to some holy
mountain or famous shrine, men to pray for success in business, women
to beseech the gods for offspring. Here hobbles along the lame or
rheumatic, or the pale-faced invalid is borne to the hot springs. Here
is a party of pic-nickers, or poets intent on the joys of drink, verse,
and scenery. Here a troop of strolling players or knot of masqueraders
are in peripatetic quest of a livelihood, toiling fearfully hard in
order to escape settled industry. Nobles in mourning pass with their
faces invisible. Postal slaves, women doing the work of express agents
in forwarding parcels, pass the merchant with his loaded pack-horses
returning from Sunto, or going to Gensan. There a packman is doing
horse’s work in transportation. Here an ox laden with brushwood is led
by a woman. Beggars, corpses, kang-si, or men dead of hunger in times
of famine, make the lights and shadows of life on the road.
There are other methods of travel besides those of horseback, on foot,
and sedan chair, for oxen are often straddled by the men, and poor
women travel on an ox, in a sort of improvised palanquin having four
poles recurved to centre and covered with robe or cloak. In winter,
among the mountains not only in the north, but even in Chulla, the
people go on racquettes or snow-shoes. These are in shape like a
battledore, and are several feet long. At regular distances are yek, or
relays or offices, at which sit clerks or managers under government
auspices, with hereditary slaves or serfs, porters, guides,
mail-couriers, and pack-horses. These await the service of the
traveller, especially of official couriers, the finer beasts being
reserved for journeying dignitaries.
All these throughout a certain district, of which there are several in
each province, are under the direction of the Tsal-peng, or Director of
Posts. Kiung-sang, the province having the greatest number of roads,
has also the best equipment in the way of post-officers, relays, and
horses. The following table from Dallet shows the equipment of the
eight provinces:
-------------+----------------------+---------+--------
|Post Superintendents. | Relays. | Horses.
-------------+----------------------+---------+--------
Kiung-Kei | 6 | 47 | 449
Chung-chong | 5 | 62 | 761
Chulla | 6 | 53 | 506
Kiung-sang | 11 | 115 | 1,700
Kang-wen | 4 | 78 | 447
Wang hei | 3 | 28 | 396
Ham-kiung | 3 | 58 | 792
Ping-an | 2 | 30 | 311
| -- | ---- | -----
| 40 | 471 | 5,362
-------------+----------------------+---------+--------
Yet with this provision for locomotion, the country is very deficient
in houses for public accommodation. Inns are to be found only along the
great highways, and but rarely along the smaller or sequestered roads.
This want arises, perhaps, not so much from the poverty of the people,
as from the fact that their proverbial hospitality does away with the
necessity of numerous inns. The Coreans have been so often represented,
or rather misrepresented, as inhospitable, fierce, and rude by
foreigners, that to give an inside view of them as seen through
information gathered from the French missionaries in Corea is a
pleasant task. From them we may learn how much the white-coated
peninsulars are like their cousins, the Japanese, and that human nature
in good average quantity and quality dwells under the big hats of the
Coreans. The traveller usually takes his provisions along with him, but
he need not eat it out-doors. As he sits along the wayside, he will be
invited into some house to warm his food. When obliged to go some
distance among the mountains to cut wood or make charcoal, a man is
sure to find a hut in which he can lodge. He has only to bring his
rice. The villagers will cook it for him, after adding the necessary
pickles or sauces. Even the oxen, except during the busy season, are
easily obtained on loan.
The great virtue of the Coreans is their innate respect for and daily
practice of the laws of human brotherhood. Mutual assistance and
generous hospitality among themselves are distinctive national traits.
In all the important events of life, such as marriages and funerals,
each one makes it his duty to aid the family most directly interested.
One will charge himself with the duty of making purchases; others with
arranging the ceremonies. The poor, who can give nothing, carry
messages to friends and relatives in the near or remote villages,
passing day and night on foot and giving their labors gratuitously. To
them, the event is not a mere personal matter, but an affair of public
interest.
When fire, flood, or other accident destroys the house of one of their
number, neighbors make it a duty to lend a hand to rebuild. One brings
stone, another wood, another straw. Each, in addition to his gifts in
material, devotes two or three days’ work gratuitously. A stranger,
coming into a village, is always assisted to build a dwelling.
Hospitality is considered as one of the most sacred duties. It would be
a grave and shameful thing to refuse a portion of one’s meal with any
person, known or unknown, who presents himself at eating-time. Even the
poor laborers, who take their noon-meal at the side of the roads, are
often seen sharing their frugal nourishment with the passer-by. Usually
at a feast, the neighbors consider themselves invited by right and
custom. The poor man whose duty calls him to make a journey to a
distant place does not need to make elaborate preparations. His stick,
his pipe, some clothes in a packet hung from his shoulder, some cash in
his purse, if he has one, and his outfit is complete. At night, instead
of going to a hotel with its attendant expense, he enters some house,
whose exterior room is open to any comer. There he is sure to find food
and lodging for the night. Rice will be shared with the stranger, and,
at bed-time, a corner of the floor-mat will serve for a bed, while he
may rest his head on a foot-length of the long log of wood against the
wall, which serves as a pillow. Even should he delay his journey for a
day or two, little or nothing to his discredit will be harbored by his
hosts. In Corea, the old proverb concerning fish and company after
three days does not seem to hold good.
As may be imagined, such a system is prolific in breeding beggars,
tramps, blackmailers, and lazy louts, who “sponge” upon the
benevolently disposed. Rich families are often bored by these
self-invited parasites, who eat with unblushing cheek at their tables
for weeks at a time. They do not even disdain—nay, they often clamor
for—clothing as well. To refuse would only result in bringing down
calumny and injury. Peddlers, strolling players, astrologers, etc.,
likewise avail themselves of the opportunities, and act as plundering
harpies. Often whole bands go round quartering themselves on the
villages, and sometimes the government is called upon to interpose its
authority and protect the people.
Corea is full of Micawbers, men who are as prodigal as avaricious, who
when they have plenty of money, scatter it quickly. When flush they
care only to live in style, to treat their friends, to satisfy their
caprices. When poverty comes, they take it without complaint, and wait
till the wheel of fortune turns again to give them better days. When by
any process they have made some gain by finding a root of ginseng, a
bit of gold ore, a vein of crystal, what matters it? Let the future
take care of itself. Hence it happens that the roads are full of men
seeking some stroke of luck, hoping to discover at a distance what they
could not find at home, to light upon some treasure not yet dug up or
to invent some new means of making money. People forever waiting for
something to turn up emigrate from one village to another, stop a year
or two, and then tramp on, seeking better luck, but usually finding
worse.
Strolling companies of mountebanks, players and musicians, in numbers
of five, six, or more, abound in Chō-sen. They wander up and down
through the eight circuits, and, in spring and summer, earn a
precarious and vagabond livelihood. Their reputation among the
villagers is none of the best, being about on a par with that of the
gypsies, or certain gangs of railroad surveyors of our own country.
They often levy a sort of blackmail upon the people. They are jugglers,
acrobats, magicians, marionette players, and performers on musical
instruments. Some of them display an astonishing amount of cleverness
and sleight of hand in their feats. In the villages crowds of gaping
urchins are their chief spectators, but in the large cities they are
invited to private houses to give exhibitions and are paid for it. When
about to begin a performance, they secure attention by whistling on the
nail of their little finger. On the occasion of the anniversary of some
happy event, a public fête day, a marriage or a social company, the
lack of what we call society—that is, social relations between
gentlemen and ladies—is made up, and amusement is furnished by these
players, engaged for an evening or two. The guests fully appreciate the
“hired music,” and “best talent” thus secured for a variety
entertainment. The company of one class of these “men of society,” or
pang-tang, a kind of “professional diner-out,” is so desirable that
several are taken along by the ambassadors to China to amuse them on
their long and tedious journey, especially at nights. The chang-pu are
character-comedians, who serenade the baccalaureates that have passed
successfully the government examinations. They play the flute and other
instruments of music, forming the escort which accompanies the graduate
on his visits to relatives and officials. A band of performers is
always attached to the suite of ambassadors to China and Japan, or when
visiting a foreign vessel.
A character common to Corea and Japan is the singing-girl, who is also
a great aid in making life endurable to the better class of Coreans,
whose chief business it is to kill time. The singing-girl is the one
poem and picture in the street life of the humbler classes, whose
poverty can rarely, if ever, allow them to purchase her society or
enjoy her charms and accomplishments. Socially, her rank is low, very
low. She is herself the child of poverty and toil. Her parents are poor
people, who gladly give up their daughter, if of pretty face and form,
to a life of doubtful morals, in order that she may thereby earn her
own support and assist her parents. She herself gladly leaves the
drudgery of the kitchen, and the abject meanness of the hovel, to shine
in the palace and the mansion. Her dress is of finest fabric, her
luxuriant black hair is bound with skill and grace, her skin is
whitened by artificial cosmetics as far as possible, and with powder,
paint, and pomatum, she spends much of her life before the
looking-glass, studying in youth to increase, and in womanhood to
retain, her charms. At home, she practises her music, occasionally
enlivening a party of her humble neighbors. As she passes along the
street, fresh, clean, bright, and pretty, she may dispense smiles for
popularity’s sake, but her errand is to the houses of the wealthy, and
especially to the official, who, for his own amusement as he dines
alone, or for his friends in social gathering, may employ from two to
twenty geishas (as the Japanese call them). Most Corean cities have
these geishas, who form themselves into a sort of guild for fixed
prices, etc. Often they organize complete bands or choirs, by which
music may be had in mass and volume. At a feast they serve the wine,
fill and pass the dishes, and preside generally at the table. When
eating has fairly begun, they sing (chant), play the guitar, recite in
pantomime or vocally, and furnish general amusement. The dancing is
usually not of an immoral character. Such a life, however, amid feast
and revel, wine and flattery, makes sad wreck of many of them, morally
and physically. A large proportion of the most beautiful girls become
concubines to wealthy men or officials, or act as ladies of the chamber
(brevet wives) to young men and widowers. Not a few join the business
of prostitutes with that of musicians. Nevertheless, it is quite
possible for a respectable family to enjoy a pleasant and harmless
evening by the aid of the lively geishas. Of course, Seoul is the chief
headquarters of the fairest and most accomplished geishas, who are, as
a class, the best educated of their sex in Corea.
The theatre, proper, does not seem to exist in Corea. The substitute
and nearest approach to it is recitation in monologue of certain events
or extracts from the standard or popular histories, a single individual
representing the successive rôles. The histrionic artist pitches his
tabernacle of four posts in some popular street or corner. He spreads
mats for a roof or shade from the sun in front, and for a background in
the rear. A platform, and a box to squat on, with a small reading-desk,
and a cup of gingery water to refresh his palate, complete his outfit.
A few rough benches or mats constitute all the accommodation for the
audience. A gaping crowd soon collects around him, his auditors pull
out their pipes, and refreshment venders improve the occasion for the
chance sale of their viands. With his voice trained to various tones
and to polite and vulgar forms of speech, he will hold dialogues and
conversations, and mimic the attitude and gestures of various
characters. The trial of a criminal before a magistrate, the bastinado,
a quarrel between husband and wife, scenes from high life and low life
will be in turn rendered. He will imitate the grave tones and visage of
the magistrate, the piteous appeals, the cries and groans and
contortions of the victim under torture, the angry or grumbling voice
of the husband, the shrill falsetto of the scolding shrew or the shower
of tears and the piteous appeals of the wife. Smiles, frowns, surprise,
sorrow, and all the emotions are simulated, and the accompaniment of
voice is kept up with jokes, puns, bon-mots, irony, or well-expressed
pathos. In short, the reciter is a theatrical stock company, and a band
of minstrels, rolled into one person. For the use of beginners, and the
mediocrity of the profession, there are a number of “jest-books,”
collections of jokes and anecdotes, more or less threadbare, and of
varying moral quality, from which speakers may prime for the occasion.
With the advanced of the profession, however, most of the smart sayings
are original and off-hand. The habitués of the booths have their “star”
favorite, as theatre-goers with us go into raptures over their actors.
Able men make a good living at the business, as they “pass round the
hat” to take up a collection in the audience. This usually comes at the
most telling point of the narrative, when the interest of the hearers
is roused to the highest pitch (or when it is to be “continued in our
next,” as the flash newspapers say). Sometimes the speaker will not go
on till the collection is deemed by the tyrant a sufficient
appreciation of his talents. In addition to their public street income,
the best of them are often invited to perform in private houses, at
family reunions, social parties, and as a rule, in visits to
dignitaries by candidates who have won degrees.
The Corean gamut, differing from the scale used in European countries,
makes a fearful and wonderful difference in effect upon our ears. Some
of their melodies upon the flute are plaintive and sweet, but most of
their music is distressing to the ear and desolating to the air. One
hearer describes their choicest pieces as “the most discordant sounds
that ever were emitted under the name of music from brass tubes.” Some
of the flute music, however, is very sweet. As most of the ancient
music of Japan is of Corean origin, one can get a fair idea of the
nature of the sounds that delight a Corean ear from the music of the
imperial band of Tōkiō, which plays the classical scores. Yet it is
evident that the modern tunes of Seoul are not melodious to Japanese
auditory nerves. One would think that, as the mikado’s subjects “hear
themselves as others hear them” when Corean musicians play, they would
be delighted. On the contrary, Corean music seems to horrify and
afflict the Japanese ear. Evidently, in the course of centuries the
musical scales of the two countries, originally identical, have altered
in tone and interval. Wan-ka is the father of Corean music—though the
mere fact that he belonged to antiquity would secure his renown. The
various stringed musical instruments known are the kemunko, a kind of
large guitar; the kanyakko, mandolin; the ko-siul, or guitar of
twenty-five strings; and the five-stringed harp or violin. The wind
instruments comprise a whole battery of flutes, long and short
trumpets, while cymbals, drums, and other objects of percussion are
numerous. Ambassadors and other high officers at home, and when on duty
to foreign countries, are accompanied by a band of musicians. Laborers
on government works are summoned to begin and end work by music, but
the full effect of a musical salvo is attained at the opening and
closing of the city gates. Then the sound is most distressing—or most
captivating, according as the ears are to the manner born, or receive
their first experience of what tortures the air may be made to vibrate.
The chief out-door manly sport in Corea is, by excellence, that of
archery. It is encouraged by the government for the national safety in
war, and nobles stimulate their retainers to excellence by rewards.
Most gentlemen have targets and arrow-walks for practice in their
gardens. At regular times in the year contests of skill are held, at
which archers of reputation compete, the expense and prizes being paid
for out of the public purse. Hamel says the great men’s retainers have
nothing to do but to learn to shoot. The grandees rival each other in
keeping the most famous archers, as an Englishman might his fox-hounds
or as the daimiōs of Japan formerly vied with each other in patronizing
the fattest and most skilful wrestlers. Other manly sports are those of
boxing and fist-fights. Young men practice the “manly art” in play with
each other, and at times champions are chosen by rival villages and a
set-to between the bruisers is the result, with more or less of broken
heads and pulpy faces. In large cities the contestants may come from
different wards of the same city. In Seoul, usually in the first month,
there are some lively tussles between picked champions, with betting
and cheering of the backers of either party. Often these trials of
skill degenerate into a free fight, in which clubs and stones are used
freely; cracked skulls and loss of life are common. The magistrates do
not usually interfere, but allow the frolic to spend itself.
Another class of men worthy of notice, and identified with out-door
life, are the sportsmen. The bird-hunters never shoot on the wing. They
disguise themselves in skins, feathers, straw, etc., and lurk in some
coigne of vantage to bring down the game that comes within their range.
The skilled fowler understands perfectly how to imitate the cries of
the various birds, particularly that of the pheasant calling his mate.
By this means most of the female pheasants are captured. The call used
is an iron whistle, shaped like the apricot-stone, and similar to that
used by the Japanese hunters. The method of hunting the deer is as
follows: During the months of June and July deer-horn commands a very
high price, for it is at this season that the deer-horns are
developing, and the “spike-bucks” are special prizes. A party of three
or four hunters is formed. They beat up the mountain sides during
several days, and, at night, when obliged to cease for awhile, they
have a wonderful instinct for detecting the trail of the game, except
when the earth is too dry. Usually they come up to their game on the
third day, which they bring down with a gunshot. The horn is sold to
the native physicians or is exported to China and Japan, where
hartshorn and valuable medicines are concocted from it. A successful
deer-hunt usually enables a hunter to live on his profits for a good
part of the year, and in some cases individuals make small fortunes.
Those who hunt bears wait for the occasion when the mother bear leads
her cubs to the seashore to feast them on the crabs. Then the hunters
bide their time till they see the mother lifting up the heavy rocks on
edge, while the little cubs eat the crabs. The hunters usually rush
forward and assault the bear, which, frightened, lets fall the rock,
which crushes the cub. When on the open field or shore they do not fire
at the she-bear, unless sure of killing her. For the various parts of
the animal good prices await the hunter who sells. In addition to the
proceeds from hide, flesh, fat, and sinews, the liver and gall of the
brute, supposed to possess great potency in medicine, are sold for
their weight in silver. In another chapter we have written of the
tiger-hunters and their noble game.
Gambling and betting are fearfully common habits in Corea, and
kite-flying gives abundant occasion for money to change hands. The two
months of the winter, during which the north wind blows, is “kite
time.” The large and strong kites are flown with skill, requiring stout
cords and to be held by young men. A large crowd usually collects to
witness the battle of the kites, when the kites are put through various
evolutions in the air, by which one seeks to destroy, tear, or saw off
the string of the other.
Resources for in-door amusement are chiefly in the form of gossip,
story-telling, smoking, lounging, and games of hazard, such as chess,
checkers, and backgammon. The game of chess is the same as that played
in Japan and China. Card-playing, though interdicted by law, is
habitual among the common people. The nobles look upon it as vulgar
amusement beneath their dignity. The people play secretly or at night,
often gambling to a ruinous extent. It is said that the soldiers,
especially those on guard, and at the frontiers, are freely allowed to
play cards, as that is the surest way to keep them awake and alert in
the presence of enemies, and as safeguards against night attacks. They
shuffle and cut the cards as we do. Games with the hands and fingers,
similar to those in Japan, are also well known.
In pagan lands, where a Sabbath, or anything like it, is utterly
unknown alike to the weary laborer, the wealthy, and the men of
leisure, some compensation is afforded by the national and religious
holidays. These in Corea consist chiefly of the festal occasions
observed in China, the feasts appropriate to the seasons, planting, and
harvest, the Buddhist saints’ anniversaries, the king’s birthday, and
the new year.
Among the poorer classes the families celebrate the birthday of the
head of the family only, but among the noble and wealthy, each member
of the family is honored with gifts and a festal gathering of friends.
There are certain years of destiny noticed with extra joy and
congratulations, but the chief of all is the sixty-first year. With us,
the days of man are three score years and ten, but in the hermit
kingdom the limit of life is three score years and one, and the reason
is this: The Coreans divide time according to the Chinese cycle of
sixty years, which is made up of two series of ten and twelve each
respectively. Every year has a name after the zodiacal sign, or one of
the five elements. The first birthday occurring after the entire
revolution of the cycle is a very solemn event to a sexagenarian, and
the festival commemorative of it is called Wan-kap. All, rich and poor,
noble and vulgar, observe this day, which definitely begins old age,
when man, having passed the acknowledged limit of life, must remember
and repose. When it happens—a rare event—that the sixty-first
anniversary of a wedding finds both parties alive, there are
extraordinary rejoicings, and the event is celebrated like our “diamond
weddings.” For both these feasts children and friends must strain every
nerve, and spend all their cash to be equal to the occasion and to
spread the table for all comers; for at such a time, not only the
neighbors, but often the whole country folk round are interested. A
silk robe for the honored aged, new clothes for themselves, and no end
of wine and good cheer for friends, acquaintances, hangers-on, country
cousins, and strangers from afar, must be provided without stint. Poems
are recited, games and sports enjoyed, minstrels sing and dance, and
recitations are given. All come with compliments in their mouths—and a
ravenous appetite. All must be fed and none turned away, and the
children of the honored one must be willing to spend their last coin
and economize, or even starve, for a year afterward. It is often as
dreadful an undertaking as a funeral pageant in other lands. In the
event of the queen, royal mother, or king, reaching the sixty-first
birthday the profusion and prodigality of expense and show reaches a
height of shameful extravagance. All the prisons are opened by general
amnesty, and the jail-birds fly free. An extraordinary session of
examiners is held to grant degrees. In the capital all the grandees
present themselves before the king with gifts and homage. In all the
rural districts, a large picture of the king is hung up in a noted
place. The chief magistrate, preceded by music and followed by his
satellites, and all the people proceed to the place and prostrate
themselves before the effigy, offering their congratulations. In the
capital the soldiers receive gifts from the court, and the day is a
universal holiday for the entire nation.
Almost as matter of course, the festivals are used as means of
extortion and oppression of the people by the officials, who grind the
masses mercilessly to provide the necessary resources for the waste and
luxury of the capital and the court. New Year’s day is not only the
greatest of all Corean feasts in universal observance, but is also the
only real Sabbath time of the year, when for days together all regular
employments cease and rejoicing reigns supreme. All debts must be paid
and accounts squared up, absentees must return, and children away from
home must rejoin the family. The magistrates close the tribunals, no
arrests are made, and prisoners held to answer for slight offences are
given leave of absence for several days, after which they report again
as prisoners. All work, except that of festal preparation, ought to
cease during the last three days of the old year. It is etiquette to
begin by visits on New Year’s Eve, though this is not universal.
On New Year’s morning salutations or calls are made on friends,
acquaintances, and superiors. To this rule there must be no exception,
on pain of a rupture of friendly relations. The chief ceremony of the
day is the sacrifice at the tablets of ancestors. Proceeding to the
family tombs, if near the house, or to the special room or shelf in the
dwelling itself, the entire family make prostrations. Costly
ceremonies, with incense-sticks, etc., regulated according to the
family purse, follow. This is the most important filial and religious
act of the year. In cases where the tombs are distant, the visit must
not be postponed later than during the first month. After the ancestral
sacrifices, comes the distribution of presents, which are enclosed in
New Year’s boxes. These consist of new dresses, shoes, confectionery,
jewelry for the boys and girls, and various gifts, chiefly cooked
delicacies, for neighbors, friends, and acquaintances. For five days
the festivities are kept up by visits, social parties, and
entertainments of all sorts. The ordinary labors of life are resumed on
the sixth day of the new year, but with many, fun, rest, and frolic are
prolonged during the month.
The tenth day of the second month is the great house-cleaning day of
the year, when mats are taken up and shaken, the pots, kettles, and
jars scoured, and the clothing renovated.
Tomb-cleaning day occurs in the third month. On this occasion they make
offerings of food to their ancestors, and cleanse tombs and tablets. It
is a busy time in the graveyards, to which women transfer their straw
scrubbers, dippers, and buckets, when monuments and idols are well
soused and scoured. It is more like a picnic, with fun and work in
equal proportions.
The third day of the third month comes in spring, and is the great
May-day and merrymaking. The people go out on the river with food and
drink, and spend the day in feasting and frolic. Others wander in the
peach-orchards to view the blossoms. Others so inclined, enjoy
themselves by composing stanzas of poetry.
On the eighth day of the fourth month the large cities are illuminated
with paper lanterns of many colors, and people go out on hills and
rivers to view the gay sights and natural scenery.
The fifth day of the fifth month is a great festival day, on which the
king presents fans to his courtiers.
On the fifteenth day of the seventh month occurs the ceremony of
distributing seed. The king gives to his officials one hundred kinds of
seed for the crops of the next year.
On the fifteenth day of the eighth month sacrifices are offered at the
graves of ancestors and broken tombs are repaired.
The chrysanthemum festival is one of much popular interest. Among the
most brilliant flowers of the peninsula are the chrysanthemums, which
are cultivated with great pride and care by gentlemen and nobles. The
flower is brought to unusual perfection by allowing but a single flower
to grow upon one stem. They are often cultivated apart, under oiled
paper frames. On the ninth day of the ninth month the perfected
blossoms are in their glory, and the owner of a crop of brilliant
chrysanthemums invites his friends to his house to feast and enjoy the
sight of the blooms. The florists exhibit their triumphs, and picnic
parties enjoy the scenery from the bridges and on the mountains.
The article chiefly used for pastry among oblique-eyed humanity is what
the Japanese call mochi, a substance made by boiling rice and pounding
it into a tough mass resembling pie-crust. Like oysters, it may be
eaten “in every style,” raw, warmed, baked, toasted, boiled, or fried.
It occupies an important place in ceremonial offerings to the dead, in
the temple, and in household festal decoration. It is made in immense
quantities, and eaten especially at New Year’s time, and on the two
equinoctial days of the year. Another favorite mixed food for festive
occasions is “red rice” and beans. The Corean housewife takes as much
pains to color the rice properly as a German lavishes upon his
meerschaum, and if the color fails, or is poor, it is a sign of bad
luck.
The fourteenth day of the first month a person who is entering upon a
critical year of his life makes an effigy of straw, dresses it up with
his own clothing at evening, and casts it out on the road, and then
feasts merrily during the whole night. Whatever happens to the man of
straw thus kicked out of the house, is supposed to happen to the man’s
former self, now gone into the past; and Fate is believed to look upon
the individual in new clothes as another man.
The fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth of each month are called “broken
days,” on which they avoid beginning anything new. These are the
“Fridays” of Chō-sen. In the beginning of each of the four seasons of
the year they post up on the doors of their houses slips of paper, on
which are written mottoes, such as “Longevity is like the South
Mountain,” “Wealth is like the Eastern Sea,” etc. Certain years in each
person’s life are supposed to be critical, and special care as to
health, food, clothing, new ventures, etc., must be taken during these
years, which are ended with a feast, or, what is more economical, a
sigh of relief.
The fifteenth day of the first month is called “Stepping on the
Bridge.” A man and woman go out together over the bridge at the rising
of the moon and view the moonlit scenery, indulging meanwhile in
refreshments, both of the solid and liquid sort. It is believed that if
one crosses over seven bridges on this night, he will be free from
calamities during the year.
Not the least interesting of the local or national festivals, are those
held in memory of the soldiers slain in the service of their country on
famous battle-fields. Besides holding annual memorial celebrations at
these places, which fire the patriotism of the people, there are
temples erected to soothe the spirits of the slain. Especially
noteworthy are these monumental edifices, on sites made painful to the
national memory by the great Japanese invasion of 1592–97, which keep
fresh the scars of war. A revival of these patriotic festivals has been
stimulated by the fanatical haters of Japan, since this neighbor
country broke away from Asiatic traditions.
Though much has been written concerning the population of Corea, we
consider all conjectures of persons alike unfamiliar with the interior
and the true sources of information as worthless. These random figures
vary from 250,000 (!) to 6,000,000. Dallet presumes a population of
10,000,000. A rude enumeration made thirty years ago gives the number
of houses at 1,700,000, and of the people at 7,000,000. Our own
opinion, formed after a study of the map and official lists of towns
and cities, is that there are at least 12,000,000 souls in Chō-sen. A
Japanese correspondent of the Tōkiō Hochi Shimbun, writing from Seoul,
states that a census made last year (1881) shows that there are
3,480,911 houses and 16,227,885 persons in the kingdom.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
SHAMANISM AND MYTHICAL ZOÖLOGY.
Shamanism is the worship of a large number of primitive North Asiatic
tribes, having no idols except a few fetishes and some rude ancestral
images or representations of the spirits of the earth and air. It is a
gross mixture of sorcery and sacrificial ceremonies for the
propitiation of evil spirits. These malignant beings are supposed to
populate the earth, the clouds, and the air, and to be the cause of
most of the ills suffered by man. They take various forms, chiefly
those of animals whose structure and anatomy are more or less
imaginary, each imp or demon being a composite creature, compiled from
the various powers of locomotion, destruction, and defence possessed by
the real creatures that inhabit water, earth, and air. Some of them,
however, are gentle and of lovely form and mien. Their apparition on
earth is welcomed with delight as the harbinger of good things to come.
Confucius, the teacher, hailed by the Chinese as their holiest sage,
and to whom even divine honors are paid, believed firmly in these
portents and appearances. Chief among these mythic creatures are the
phœnix, the kirin, the dragon, besides a variety of demons of various
sizes, colors, habits, and character. Much of the mythology of Chō-sen
is that common to Chinese Asia. Instead of a gallery of beautiful
human, or partially human, presences like that of Greece, the mythology
of China deals largely with mythic animals, though legendary heroes,
sages, and supernatural beings in human form are not lacking. The four
chief ideal creatures are the dragon, phœnix, tortoise, and kirin.
There is another animal which, though a living reality, the Coreans
have idealized and gifted with powers supernatural and supra-animal,
almost as many in number as those with which the Japanese have endowed
the white fox. This is the tiger. They not only ascribe to him all the
mighty forces and characteristics of which he is actually possessed,
but popular superstition attributes to him the powers of flying, of
emitting fire and hurling lightning. He is the symbol of strength and
ubiquity, the standard of comparison with all dangers and dreadful
forces, and the paragon of human courage. On the war-flags this animal
is painted or embroidered in every posture, asleep, leaping, erect,
couchant, winged, and holding red fire in his fore-paw. On works of
art, cabinets, boxes, and weapons the tiger is most frequently
portrayed and is even associated as an equal with the four supernatural
beings. In ancient time he was worshipped.
The riong, or dragon, whose figure, as depicted in Corean art, is
perhaps nothing more than a highly idealized form of an extinct
geological species of saurian, is one of the four supernatural or
spiritually endowed creatures. He is an embodiment of all the forces of
motion, change, and power for offence and defence in animal life, fin,
wing, tusk, horn, claws, with the mysterious attributes of the serpent.
There are many varieties of the species dragon, which is the chief of
scaly monsters. It possesses the gift of transformation and of
rendering itself visible or invisible at will. In the spring it ascends
to the skies and in the autumn buries itself in the watery depths.
It is this terrific manifestation of movement and power which the
Corean artist loves to depict—always in connection with water, clouds,
or the sacred jewel of which it is the guardian, and for which it
battles, causing commotion in heaven and earth. The dragon is
synonymous in Chinese philosophy with the third of the four creative
influences and indicative of the East and Springtime, the blue dragon
being the guardian of the East.
Another cycle of popular notions and artistic ideas is suggested by its
change of bulk, for this omnipotent monster “becomes at will reduced to
the size of a silkworm or swollen till it fills the space of heaven and
earth. It desires to mount, and it rises until it affronts the clouds;
to sink, and it descends until hidden below the fountains of the deep.”
The dragon is the embodiment of the watery principle of the atmosphere,
and its Protean shapes are but the varied ideal expression of the many
forms and forces of water. Moisture in its fertilizing or destructive
aspects—from the silent dew to the roaring tempest, from the trickling
of a rill to the tidal wave that engulphs cities—blessed, terrible,
gentle, irresistible, is symbolized by the dragon. The functions of the
celestial dragon are to guard the mansions of the gods in heaven, so
that they do not fall; of the spiritual, to cause the wind to blow and
produce rain for the benefit of mankind; of the terrestrial, to mark
out the courses of rivers and streams, while another watches over the
hidden treasures concealed from mortals. This last is the dragon that
presides over mines and gems, and which mortals must propitiate or
overcome in order to gain the precious metals and minerals out of the
earth. Intense belief in the dragon is one of the chief reasons why the
mines in Chō-sen are so little worked, and the metals disturbed. The
dragon pursuing the invaders of their sanctuaries or fighting each
other to gain possession of the jewel balls or sacred crystals is a
favorite subject in all art of Chinese parentage. Rarely is the whole
figure of the writhing creature exposed. Partly hidden in clouds or
water, he seems ever in motion. There are also four dragon-kings, who
have their palaces in the world under the sea, one ruling in the
northern, one in the eastern, one in the southern, and one in the
western sea. The ministers and messengers of these four monarchs are
the terrible dragons whose battles in the air and in the deep are the
causes of the commotion of the elements. There is also a dragon without
horns, and another that never ascends to the skies. The yellow dragon
is reckoned the most honorable of his tribe. In common belief the
dragon carries on his forehead a pear-shaped pearl, supposed to possess
wondrous virtues of healing and power. Whoever possesses these jewels
will be invincible, and the power of his descendants endure.
From its divine origin and character the dragon is symbolical of all
that pertains to the emperor of Great China. Hence it is made use of
not only by him, but by his vassal, the king of Chō-sen, and by his
rival the mikado of Japan. Hence the significance of the trio of these
sacred jewels on ornaments and instruments belonging to the royal
family, whether embroidered on the robes of state worn by the king,
surmounting the large drum of his musicians, or glistening in golden
embroidery on the banners of his body-guard. The “dragon robe” and
“dragon’s bed,” “dragon standard,” refer to the mantle, throne, and
flag of the king. In the popular speech, whatever is most excellent is
compared to a dragon. A “dragon-child” is a paragon, a “dragon horse”
is one of extraordinary speed. When “the fish has been metamorphosed
into the dragon,” some happy change or promotion has taken place—the
student-competitor has received his degree of doctorate, or the
office-holder has been told by royal appointment to “come up higher.”
The kirin (kilin or lin) is another of the four supernatural creatures
of Chinese philosophy and mythology, believed in by the Coreans, and
depicted in Corean art especially as a symbol of peace and joy, and on
articles used on auspicious and happy occasions. This beast, which to
the Corean is a “living creature,” has the body of a deer and the tail
of an ox, usually highly curled and twisted in a manner to suggest the
work of a hair-dresser. On its forehead is a single soft horn. It is
said never to tread on or injure any living being. It is the emblem of
perfect rectitude, and the incarnate essence of the five primordial
elements of all things, viz.: water, fire, wood, metal, earth. It is
considered the noblest form of the animal creation. Its appearance on
the earth is ever regarded as a happy omen, as the harbinger of good
government and the birth of good rulers. Hence the wealth of
association to the Oriental mind in the kirin. The male beast is called
ki and the female rin or lin. The two words combined form the general
term kirin.
The tortoise is the centre of a great circle of pleasing superstitions,
and hence is one of the set of symbols oftenest employed in Corean art.
The practice of divination is mostly associated with tortoise-shell,
the figuring of a tortoise’s back having a mystic signification. In
Chinese legend a divine tortoise emerged from the Yellow River, on the
shell of which a sage discovered the system of numerals, and thus
obtained the foundation of mathematics and the rudiments of philosophy.
This tortoise was said to be the embodiment of the star in Ursa Major,
and the progenitor of all the tortoise tribe. It can transform itself
into other forms of life and lives to the age of ten thousand years.
Hence it is the symbol of long life. It is said to conceive by thought
alone. There are said to be ten kinds of tortoises, one of them being
half dragon, half tortoise, and with a tail like a fringe of silver.
This is the attendant of the god of waters, and hence is often used as
the top of a well. The tortoise is also the symbol of immortality and
strength, hence is often used over walls and places of entrance. Many
Corean gateways are surmounted with huge tortoises sculptured in stone.
The same idea is expressed in making the representations of this
creature, cut from a single rock, the base for monumental tablets set
into its back. The great seal of state, the regalia of sovereignty in
Chō-sen, has the form of a tortoise. The phœnix is also represented as
standing upon a tortoise. Closely connected with the Hindoo idea of the
world resting on an elephant which stands on a tortoise, is the Chinese
idea of “supporting the earth with the feet of a tortoise.” A common
idea in Chō-sen, as in China, is the huge tortoise which supports
mountains on its back, and having a shell which is one thousand leagues
in circumference.
The phœnix (fung-wang or hōwō), like the kirin, appears on the earth at
or near the birth of a good ruler, and hence is the emblem of peace and
good government. The male is called fung, or ho, and the female wang,
or wō, hence the generic name fung-wang or hōwō. In its marvellous
plumage the sheen of the five colors may be descried, each of which is
typical of the five cardinal virtues. In figure it seems to be an ideal
combination of the peacock and the golden pheasant, but with feathers
wondrously curled and made into ringlets. It is not only a symbol of
auspicious government, but of inseparable fellowship, and many stanzas
of poetry refer to it as typical of courtship and conjugal love. In its
voice are many intonations, to each of which a name is given. For this
reason it is a favorite element in the decoration of musical
instruments.
Another symbol often used is the Chinese lion, with marvellously curled
hair and mane. Every tuft is a mass of fanciful ringlets, and the beast
is so pictured as to make a masterpiece of ugliness and terror. The dog
of the breed called ngao, so named after the earth-supporting tortoise,
is also liberally furnished with tooth, nail, and hair. It usually cuts
the figure of guardian on the edge or lid of vessels in which are kept
treasures which, because they tempt the palate, tempt also the fingers
that lift to the mouth. The marvellous creature called the Dog of Fo,
or Buddha, usually associated with Chinese-Buddhist art, is believed to
be of Corean origin. Jacquemart calls it the “Dog of Corea.”
Other mythical creatures that have their existence in the Corean
imagination are in the form of fishes and serpents. The in-é (fish-man
or merman) is a sort of siren that is supposed to inhabit the Sea of
Japan and the Eastern Sea, but whether partly fabulous or entirely
real, we are unable to say. It is six or seven feet long, and in its
head and body resembles a human being, as its nose, mouth, ears, and
arms, or flippers, are covered with white skin without scales. It has a
long and slender tail, like that of a horse. It suckles its young, and
sheds tears when its offspring are captured. It is probable that this
creature, though called a fish-man by the Coreans, is the animal of
which we read, in several instances, being presented to the Manchiu
emperors in Peking. One of them inquired whether such a creature was
known in Europe, and the Jesuit friar, producing a book, showed an
engraving of one similar. Perhaps this “fish-man” is the same as a
reported “dog-fish or shark,” living in the seas around Quelpart, whose
tears produce pearls.
The i-sium, a colossal marine creature, is purely imaginary, like the
“earthquake-fish” of the Japanese, which causes the continent to shake.
The word is pure Corean, and may answer to our symbol of vastness and
uncertainty—the sea-serpent. Mr. Fergusson would doubtless find a new
chapter for his “Tree and Serpent Worship” in Chō-sen, for, in the
peninsula, not only are trees reverenced as the abode of spirits, but
the sa, or snakes, are rarely, if ever, harmed. The people feed,
venerate, and even worship them as the guardian genii of their
households. The epkuron-gi (a pure Corean word) is the name by which
they call the serpent which presides over their family Edens. Instead
of being looked upon as the embodiment of the principle of evil, as in
Semitic lore, their presence is hailed as an omen of blessing. They are
treated like pets. In their heads they are believed to carry a precious
jewel after they have lived long. A serpent often lives to be one
thousand years old, and then bears in his front a glistening gem,
called ya-kang-chiu, which name the people also apply to any glittering
stone, especially the diamond. The guardian serpent is represented as
double-winged, with forked tongue, long and darting, flying among the
clouds and protecting its worshippers by pursuing their enemies. The
illustration here given is copied from one of the war-flags carried by
the Corean mountaineers from their homes to the forts on the Han River,
in 1871. The staff is tipped with pheasant-feathers and horse-hair.
Their fear of the serpent is the basis of their worship, and the
average Corean does not fail to take due precaution to guard against
its sting. In addition to the ordinary osa or black snake, there is the
venomous viper, salmo, which “kills its mother at birth.” Its bite is
considered exceedingly dangerous. The tai-mang is a great serpent. The
flower called kiuk-sa-wa (snake-bane), or Eye of India, is believed by
Coreans to keep away the reptiles, and hence is highly valued.
Hamel and the French missionaries agree in picturing Corea as a land
well supplied with reptiles, serpents, and vermin of all sorts, and
testify to the veneration of them by the people. In the folk-lore of
the country, the beasts play a conspicuous part.
Another creature to whom wings rightfully belong is the gin-sai. This
fabulous bird is capable of diffusing so venomous an influence that
even its shadow poisons food.
Even the brief list of creatures which we have enumerated does not
exhaust the list of the beings which are real and active to the
imagination of the people. Science and Christianity are the remedies
for this delirium tremens of paganism.
The ancient and still lingering belief in the powers of the air and all
the creatures therein, visible and invisible, is reflected on their
triangular and streamer-shaped war-banners. They believe that all these
creatures and all the forces of nature are under the control of the
spirits, who will give or withhold sunshine or rain, send blasting
mildew and pestilence, or fertility, plenty and joy, according as they
are pleased or displeased.
It will be seen at once what a soil the demagogue has for sowing
dragons’ teeth, and what frightful popular commotion may be stirred up
by playing upon the fears of the populace. The most recent illustration
of this is seen in the frightful massacre of the ministers and the
Japanese, in July, 1882. The long drought having ruined the rice crop,
the leaders of the anti-foreign faction persuaded the common people
that the spirits were annoyed at the introduction of foreigners, and
therefore withheld the rain. In this belief they were strengthened from
the fact that it rained heavily for many hours after the Japanese had
been driven out of Seoul.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
LEGENDS AND FOLK-LORE.
It is not difficult to appreciate or understand the history of people
whose psychology is our own. We seem to look through white light in
gazing at their past as told in the words of a language that grew in
the same mental sunlight with our own. In eating fruit that grows on
familiar intellectual soil, we may sometimes recognize a slightly
strange flavor, but the pulp is good food which our mental stomach does
not reject, but readily assimilates. Truth, like the moon, usually
presents one side only, but the mass of mankind do not think of this,
even if they know it. They go on blissfully imagining they have seen
all sides, even the full orb.
With the history of the Aryan nations we are familiar, and think it is
clear to us. We insist that we know we can understand what they did and
that their thoughts need no translation to us.
A visitor at the American Centennial, or any exposition of the industry
of all nations, sees before him for comparative study the art, symbols
of religion, architecture, implements of domestic life, and all the
outward expressions of inward ideas. They are the clothed or concrete
soul of man under the varied civilizations of this planet. Standing
before the exhibits of India—the home of the Aryan nations—the man of
Western Christendom, as his mind’s eye surveys the vastness of
difference between him and the Hindoo, is yet able to bridge the gulf.
The researches into language, art, myths, folk-lore, show him that the
infancy of the two races was the same, and that modern differences are
impertinent accidents. At bottom the Aryan and the Hindoo are brothers.
No such reconciliation of ideas is yet demonstrable between the
Mongolian and the Aryan. Before the art, symbols, ideas, literature,
language, and physical presence of the man of Cathay, no bridging of
the gulf seems yet possible. He appears to be a man of another planet.
Language gives as yet little clue to a common origin; art and symbol
seem at the other pole, and in psychology the difference at present
seems total and irreconcilable.
Hence, to attempt to write the history of a Turanian people by simply
narrating bald facts in an occidental language, seems to be but putting
another white skeleton in the museum of nations. Even the attempt, by a
purely destructive method of criticism, to manufacture a body, or
corpse, rather, of history, by hacking away all legend and tradition to
get out what the critic is pleased to call “history,” seems at once
unnatural and false. It is like attempting to correlate the genius of
Shakspeare with ounces of beef and cheese, or to measure the market
value of poetry by avoirdupois. A history of an Asiatic people ought to
be as much a history of mind, of psychology, as of facts or dynasties.
Hence, in writing of a new and almost unknown people like the Coreans,
we think it as important to tell what they believe to have happened, as
to attempt to state what we think actually did happen. To understand a
people we must know their thoughts, as well as their physical
environment.
According to Corean tradition, the origin of their country and people
is thus outlined:
Of old the land had neither prince nor chiefs. A Divine Being descended
from heaven and took up his abode at the foot of a sandal-wood tree on
the Ever-White Mountains. The people of the land became his subjects,
made him their sovereign and called him Dan Kun (the Sandal Prince),
and his realm Chō-sen (Morning Calm). This took place in the time of
Tang Ti Yao (2356 B.C.). His first residence was at Ping-an. Later he
transferred it to Pe-yo, where his descendants remained till the eighth
year of the emperor Wu Ting of the Chang dynasty (1317 B.C.), when they
were established in Mount Asstak. His descendants reigned in Chō-sen
more than one thousand years, but nothing more is known of them after
the period covered by their reign. Then followed the occupation of the
country by the Chinese noble Ki Tsze.
The mythical origin and founding of Shinra is thus told in the local
legends of the place. After the invasion of Chō-sen, by the Chinese
emperor, many of the original inhabitants fled and scattered over the
east coast. They made settlements on the mountains, in the valleys, and
along the sea-shore, some of which in time grew to be cities and large
towns. One day the attention of the head man of one of the villages was
attracted by the neighing of horses toward a mountain. He went in the
direction of the sounds, but instead of a horse he found an egg of
extraordinary size, shaped like a gourd. Carefully breaking it open, he
discovered a beautiful rosy boy-baby inside. The old man’s heart was
touched by the sight, and he took the child to his home and adopted it
as his own. The boy grew up beloved of all who saw or knew him. When
but thirteen years old, the elders of the six principal towns gathered
together and chose him as their lord and master. They gave him a name
signifying “Coming Out of the West,” and to the country a name meaning
“Born of the Gourd-egg.” The new king took to wife a fair maiden who
was reputed to be the offspring of a well-dragon. They reigned for
sixty years, when their daughter succeeded to the throne.
In the fifth year of her reign she married a youth who had come from
afar, whose origin was as wonderful as that of her own parents. His
mother the queen had been delivered of an egg. Her husband, not
enjoying such a form of offspring, threw the egg away, but the queen
recovering it, carefully wrapped it in a silk napkin, and with many
other treasures put it in a box and set it adrift on the sea. After
many days the box was washed ashore on a distant coast. The fishermen
who picked it up in their nets thought nothing of it, and threw it into
the sea again. It drifted into one of the harbors of Shinra. An old
woman finding it, opened the lid and found a lovely boy with a smile on
his face. Carefully nourishing him, he grew up to be a man of strength,
nine feet high. He excelled all other youths in bodily vigor and
accomplishments. When the old woman first picked up the waif, there
were a number of crows standing around the shore, and the crone gave
him a name referring to the presence of these birds—“Opened in Presence
of the Crows.” Excelling in the knowledge of geomancy, he found a good
place for a residence and built on it. Hearing of his renown, the queen
of Shinra married him to her daughter.
One evening the newly made king heard a cock crow in the woods toward
the west. He sent his servants after it, who found a small golden
casket suspended from a tree. Under it a white cock was crowing. The
servant reported the matter to his master. Another servant was
despatched to the place. He returned with the box, which, being opened,
was found to contain a boy baby, who was given the name signifying “The
Golden Boy from the Grove in which the Cock crowed.” The baby boy grew
up and succeeded his father. In the reign of the twenty-second king of
the line, the people of the country, then called Shin-han, changed the
name of their country to Shinra.
In the “Grammaire Coréenne” there are a number of specimens of
folk-lore given in Corean and French, from which we extract a few of
the most characteristic. The first one is an illustration of our
universal human nature.
THE THREE WISHES.
There were once two old married folks who had not a single child, boy
or girl. Extremely poor, they lived a pitiable life. One evening, when
it was very cold in winter, after having supped, they gazed into the
fire in the brazier, and sitting in their room face to face they warmed
themselves a moment in silence, when the good old man thus spoke:
“For the rich the winter is an excellent season; their food is prepared
in advance. Having no toil they have only to take their ease. But for
the poor, it is a rough time when they have neither food for the mouth
nor fuel. If they go out over the mountain through the rain or the snow
to seek wood, they die of cold or frost.”
The good dame replied: “They say that Heaven is just. Why then does he
permit this? They say, besides, that when you pray to Heaven, it is
easy to obtain that which you need. If we ask to become rich—” said
she.
“You are right, do so,” replied the husband.
And both prostrating themselves, prayed fervently to the Deity, when
suddenly an angel appeared.
“In spite of your sin of murmuring, Heaven having pitied you, accords
you three things, after which you can ask no more. Reflect well,
choose, and ask.” Saying this he disappeared.
The old man made this proposition: “If we ask riches, freedom from
sickness, or long life—”
“No,” said the old woman, “we should not enjoy these things properly if
we do not have a child. What pleasure will it be?”
“Hold! I have not asked. What shall I do? If he had only said four
things at the good moment! Why did he say only three? Since we wish to
have a child, must we forego freedom from sickness, must we renounce
riches, must we give up long life? It is hard to decide. Think, then,
seriously this night, and decide to-morrow.”
Breaking off their conversation, both sat plunged in reverie. At the
moment of lying down to sleep, the old woman, stirring up the fire with
the tongs, launched out with this reflection, “If we could have three
or four feet of pudding to set to toast on this brazier, that would be
royally excellent.”
She spoke, and there was three feet of food placed by her side.
The husband, beside himself with rage, screamed out—
“Oh! what a woman! By one stroke you have lost all our benefits. To
punish you I wish the pudding would hang itself on the point of your
nose.”
Immediately the pudding made a leap and attached itself to the old
dame’s nose.
At this the husband cried out, “Hello! Angry as I am, I have also by my
fault lost a wish.” Seizing the sausage to detach it, they pulled,
first one, then the other, almost dislocating the nose, but the sausage
held on.
“Alas!” said the woman in tears, “if this is always to remain hanging
here, how can I live?”
The husband, on the contrary, without being at all disturbed, said, “If
even yet our wish of fortune is fulfilled, we could make a tube of gold
to hide this sausage, and then drawing it out at length, it will be
only more beautiful to see.”
The wife, still more miserable, cried out, “Oh, wretched me, only to
think that fortune should wish to put it there. Well! whether you be
rich or live long, as for me, I should like to kill myself.”
Saying this she took a cord and went to strangle herself at the end of
a beam. The husband, struck with fear, and touched with compassion,
hastened to set her free.
“Stop,” said he, “there remains one wish to us. Have your own way about
it.”
“If that is so, I wish that what hangs to my nose comes loose. Quick,
quick, that it may go swift away. That is my chief wish.”
She had hardly finished speaking when the sausage fell plump to the
ground, and out of the midst of the heaven an angry voice was heard:
“You have obtained the three things which you wished for, and have you
gained a great advantage? If you wish to enjoy true blessing in this
world be content to live with what Heaven gives, and do not form vain
desires.”
The two old folks spitted the pudding, ate it, and from this night they
abstained from foolish wishes.
On the morrow, agreeably to their supreme ambition, which was to have a
baby, they found a little fatherless and motherless orphan. Having
adopted it as their child, they gave him a good education and lived
happily to extreme old age.
The following illustrates official shrewdness and rapacity:
THE HISTORY OF A NOSE.
In the chief city of Chulla, there was a politician who was in debt to
the government to the amount of ten thousand strings of cash. Unable to
pay the same, he was condemned to death. Cast into prison, he awaited
only the orders of the king to carry out the sentence. As he had
thought hard without discovering any means to get out of the affair, he
bethought himself of a stratagem. So, addressing the jailer, he said:
“Helloa! you there, you’ll do well to let me go free a little while.”
“Helloa!” answered the jailer, “what wretched talk! After I have set
free a man who ought to be put to death to-morrow or day after
to-morrow, what shall I do?”
The prisoner replied, “Are we not friends both of us? If you do not let
me go, who can save my life? Think over it a little and see. My wife,
my children, my house, all I have, all my relations and friends being
here, where shall I fly? If you set me at liberty for some moments not
only will I not abscond but there will be found means for preserving my
life safely. Do so.”
As he thus besought him eagerly, the jailer, struck with compassion,
could not do otherwise than let him go.
So at midnight he presented himself before the door of the room where
the governor slept, and thus addressed him.
“Are you asleep? Is your excellency sleeping?”
Hearing the sound and astonished at recognizing the voice of the
officer who had been cast into prison and was to be executed in a short
time, the governor asked.
“Who are you?”
“Your servant,” answered the officer.
“A scoundrel who is at the point of being executed, how is it you are
here?”
“If I may be allowed to enter to salute you,” said the officer, “I have
something particular to say to you.”
“Oh, well, come in and speak.”
The officer entering, approached, sat down, and said:
“I pray your excellency to reflect and consider my purpose. If you put
your servant to death this will be simply one man of means less in the
world, and the money I owe will be lost to the government. What
advantage will you thus derive? If, on the contrary, you preserve my
life there will be one man more in the world, and I shall repay the
whole of my debt to the government. Let me then live.”
“If it ought to be so I wish you well in the matter.”
“Your servant will come again, then, to-morrow, during the night, to
see you.”
“Do as you will.”
The morrow during the night the officer presented himself anew and
asked to be introduced. Approaching he made the prostrations before the
governor, drew from his sleeve a packet which he undid and took out a
sketch representing a human nose. He immediately besought the governor
to please put his seal upon the sketch.
Agreeing to the proposal the governor imposed his seal.
The officer now associated three companions who were in the plot, and
they all assembled upon the coast of the Eastern Sea, where they found
a populous village, in the midst of which rose a high and grand
mansion. Taking their drink of spirits at a hotel in the suburbs of the
next village beyond, they prepared to sup. Addressing their host they
put this question:
“What is the name of the village which is just behind us? Whose is the
largest house?”
The inn-keeper answered, “That is the house of a very rich noble. Last
year he received the degree of the doctorate and is eligible to fill
very soon a very high position under the government.”
The officer taking with him one of his comrades repaired to the
mansion, where, as he noticed, everything showed abundant means, and
thus spoke to the son.
“As we have a secret affair to treat of, let us go into another room,”
said the officer.
They did so. “See here, the king is very sick, and they have called all
the physicians from all the eight provinces for a consultation. They
have declared that the only means to obtain healing is to find the nose
of a man just like this, and to concoct a remedy from it. This is why
we have been commanded by the Court, where they have said to us,
putting in our hand this sketch of the nose: ‘Without distinction of
place or person if you meet a nose similar to this, strike it off and
produce it before us in this place.’ Obeying this severe order we have
been out many times without being able to find a nose conforming to the
sketch, and thus far have made useless journeys, but now, without
peradventure, your honorable father’s nose exactly resembles this. We
demand to see him, and wherever he may be we shall not depart till we
have cut it off.”
The son cried out: “Perhaps they do say such things!”
“Who dare oppose the government business? Hurry, hurry, strike it off
and we’ll go.”
The son fell into a study and reflected.
“It is an affair of state. This is a matter which we cannot prevent.
Cut it off, they say, but to cut off the nose of my old father, that is
altogether impossible. The entire family, men, women, young and old,
every one will be plunged into woe. You can bear away the half of our
fortune at least, if you will go away without taking my father’s nose.”
The officer replied, “We had proposed to ourselves to depart only after
having cut off the nose. However, as this is a matter of a son devoted
to his father, and that they may not repress filial piety in others, we
shall not cut off the nose. If you will give us a certain sum we will
go elsewhere to procure a nose which we shall present to the king.”
He accepted with thanks a sum equal to many times ten thousand strings
of cash, for which he gave a receipt, told the sender of the money such
a day, such a place, and on leaving offered this recommendation:
“Upon the whole, say nothing of this affair. If it should leak out, and
the government comes to know that having found a proper nose we have
been bribed not to cut it off, we shall be arrested and put to death,
they will certainly cut off your father’s nose and take your money
also. Pray then be careful not to divulge this secret.” Upon this they
took their leave.
Overjoyed at not having his parent’s nose amputated, but believing that
the king on being informed would send again on this business, the son
dared let no one know until the day of his father’s death. Then
breaking the silence he said, “I have bought my father’s nose for ——
thousand strings of cash.”
The story here told explains itself. Cheng-chong was the Haroun al
Raschid of Corea.
AN INSTANCE OF ROYAL SOLICITUDE.
There was in Chō-sen a king called His Majesty Cheng-chong, who was
celebrated in all the kingdom for his goodness. One night, disguised as
a countryman, and accompanied only by a single companion, he started
out from the midst of the capital to make a circuit in order to inform
himself of the temper of his subjects, and to become himself acquainted
with the details of their life.
Arrived at a certain point he looked in the window. There was a
miserable house, of which the outer dilapidation, extremely pitiable as
it was, led him to suspect in the interior a state of things difficult
to imagine. Eagerly wishing to know what it was, he punched a peep-hole
in the paper door and perceived an old man weeping, a man in mourning
singing, and a nun or widow dancing. Unable to divine the cause of this
spectacle, he ordered his companion to call the master of the house.
The king’s servant doing so, said:
“Is the proprietor of the house at home?”
Hearing this voice the man in mourning made his appearance. His Majesty
saluting him said:
“We have never before met.”
“True,” said the man in mourning, “but whence are you? How is it that
you should come to find me at midnight? To what family do you belong?”
Cheng-chong answered, “I am Mr. Ni, living at Tong-ku-an. As I was
passing before your house, I was attracted by strange sounds. Then by a
hole which I made in the door, I saw an old man weeping, a nun who
danced, and a gentleman in mourning who sang. Why did the old man shed
tears, the nun dance, and the man in mourning sing? Unable to fathom
the motive I have made my friend call the householder with the purpose
of informing myself.”
The man in mourning rejoined, “Have you any business to know other
people’s matters? What is your reason for acting thus when it concerns
you so little? The night is well gone. Get back as quickly as
possible.”
“No, not at all. I acknowledge that it is not becoming to pry into the
affairs of others, but this is such an extraordinary case I beg of you
give me some light on the matter.”
“Alas!” said the man in mourning, “why is the gentleman so eager to
know other people’s matters?”
Cheng-chong replied, “It is important that I should be somewhat
informed.”
“Since the gentleman wishes so much to know, I cannot do other than
tell. This is why. My family has always been poor. In my hut one could
never find sufficient grain for a meal and one flea would not have
enough room upon my land to squat upon. I have no victuals for my old
father. This is why, morning and evening, in default of all other
resource, my wife has often cut off a tress of her hair and gone and
sold it to buy a cup of bean-soup, which she graciously offers to my
father. This evening she clipped and sold all of her hair that
remained, and by this she has become bare-headed like a nun. My old
father, seeing that for his sake his young daughter-in-law has become a
nun, broke out into mourning in these terms:
“‘Why have I lived to this day? Why am I not dead? Why have I thus
degraded my daughter-in-law?’ And in saying this he shed tears. To
console him, my wife said to him, ‘Do not weep,’ and she danced. I,
also, although in mourning, joined in with my wife. One danced, the
other sang. This made my old father smile, and perhaps gave him solace.
There! that is why we behaved so. Do not think it strange, and go
away.”
Listening to this narrative the king was impressed with such a marked
supreme devotion on the part of the son and daughter-in-law, even in
the time of deepest misfortune, and he said, “This is the most
extraordinary thing in the world. How will it do to present you at the
examination to-morrow?”
“What examination to-morrow?” asked the man.
“Why, certainly,” said Cheng-chong, “to-morrow there will be an
examination. By all means don’t fail to be there.”
The man responded, “But I have not heard it said that there is to be an
examination.”
“Whether you have heard or not,” said the king, “prepare to compete,
and present yourself. As I shall also present myself to-morrow I shall
give you a stall in the enclosure.”
Having thus spoken he took his leave, returned to the palace and
awaited the stroke of the great clock-bell.
No sooner did he hear the vibration of the mighty gong than he
immediately gave the order to announce promptly the examination in the
city, and beyond the walls, to the utter astonishment of the literary
men, who said, “Even until yesterday no one had heard of an
examination, and behold it was published during the night. What does
this mean?”
The poor householder on his part made this reflection, “Although I knew
nothing about it, this man knows perfectly,” and he started out.
On the way he noticed a crowd of candidates. Without hesitation he
entered the enclosure. The subject of the examination was: “The song of
a man in mourning, the dance of a nun, the tears of an old man.”
Of all the students not one could derive the sense of such a subject.
This man alone knew it perfectly well, because he had had experience of
those very things in his own house. He treated the theme clearly and
sent in his copy. The king having examined the essay and found it
without a mistake, gave the degree of doctor and sent for him to come
to him.
When they were in each other’s presence the king said:
“Do you know me? It is I who yesterday recommended you to present
yourself at the examination. Lift up your head and look.”
Fixing his gaze attentively, the man recognized who he was—in effect
the same person—and manifested his feelings in appropriate actions of
gratitude.
“Go quickly,” said the king to him, “go find your old father and wife.”
Forthwith, with high appointment to office joined to magnificent
treatment, the king recompensed the filial piety of the son and
daughter-in-law.
The royal renown has been handed down from generation to generation. In
truth, beyond the goodness of the king, the reward bestowed upon the
filial devotion of these two married people is known to every one.
Evidently the following is a story told by metropolitans to show up the
bumpkins of the provinces:
THE PRODIGIOUS EFFECTS OF A LOOKING-GLASS.
A young noble of Kiung-sang province was going on a journey to Seoul.
Just as he was about to depart, his wife called him.
“He! say now, listen to me a little. I have heard the mother of Mr. Kim
speak of a very lovely thing which looks like glass and pretty metal.
They say that if you look in it you will see a very curious thing. You
must bring me one.”
“Is it dear or cheap?” asked the husband.
“It is not dear,” said she. “It will be necessary to spend some money,
but if you heed the matter at all, it will be easy to pay for it.” This
is what the husband heard as he set out for the capital.
Having finished his business at Seoul he was on the point of returning,
having almost lost sight of his wife’s order. At last he recalled it,
asked the name of the object in question, and made the purchase of a
mirror through one of his friends. In his eagerness to get home he put
his wife’s commission in his wallet without even looking at it. When he
arrived home, she hastened to take out the mirror. At once she
perceived in it a woman. Immediately she began to weep and to berate
her husband.
“Oh the villain! not only to play himself the vagabond and debauchee
but to bring along a concubine! Is it possible? This woman, what is
she?”
The amazed husband looked in the mirror, and at the side of his wife
perceived a man. Unable to contain his wrath which made his face first
dark and then blue, he uttered piercing cries.
“Is this the conduct for the wife of a noble. You have brought a
libertine here,” cried he.
He was about to murder his wife, when his old mother hearing the
squabble came in to know what it was. At sight of the old woman the
quarrel ceased on either side. Pointing at the mirror, the rivals spoke
both at once. The weeping daughter-in-law raved about a concubine, the
son, even more angry, talked of a paramour. As the couple had never
quarrelled before, there was no way of accounting for the mystery.
“Do not be vexed,” said she, and looking in the mirror she saw a woman.
At once she broke out into a laugh.
“Is it because you see the old woman, your neighbor, that you dispute?
The widow Pak has come to get some fire,” said she, and she went out to
speak to her, but she was not there.
Astonished, she called her husband and said to him
“There is in the children’s room a very funny thing. You can see in it
all kinds of extraordinary things and they are bickering over it. Come
and see a little.”
The venerable gentleman having entered the room perceived in the mirror
an aged man.
“Hello! the puppy of the teacher Tsoi has come to collect his fees and
I have not a penny. That is not very nice.”
The people of the village, one by one, two by two, all without
exception looked at the mirror, but unable to comprehend anything, they
made a tumult. Curious to know what should result, they carried it to
the magistrate. At sight of the instrument, the man of authority more
astonished than the others, called the policemen and gave them this
order:
“A new officer has arrived, why have I lost my place? Get ready men and
horses for him.”
Really believing that he had been cashiered he prepared to leave, when
a young policeman after a careful examination of the mirror, pointed
out the manner in which the visage of each individual was reflected.
CHAPTER XXXV.
PROVERBS AND PITHY SAYINGS.
Shut off, as they are, from the rest of the world, like fish in a well,
the Coreans nevertheless have coined a fair share of homely wisdom,
which finds ready circulation in their daily speech. Their proverbs not
only bear the mint-mark of their origin, but reflect truly the image
and superscription of those who send them forth. Many, indeed, of their
current proverbs and pithy expressions are of Japanese or Chinese
origin, but those we have selected are mainly of peninsular birth, and
have the flavor of the soil.
Do the Coreans place the seat of wisdom as they do the point of
vaccination, in the nose? They ask, “Who has a nose three feet long?”
which means, “If one is embarrassed, how can he put others at ease?”
Evidently they have a wholesome regard for that member. A “nose of
iron” describes an opinionated man and suggests unlimited “cheek.” A
common expression of the Christians, meaning to go to church and pray,
is “to see the long nose of the father”—that feature of the French
priest’s face being looked upon with awe as the seat of wisdom.
Between the rivals, Japan and China, Corea probably sees herself in
this proverb of the unhappy cur that wanders boneless between two
kitchens—the cook in each supposing it has been fed by the other. “The
dog which between two monasteries gets nothing.”
Corea’s isolation is “like a fish in a well,” or “like a hermit in the
market-place.” They say of a secluded villager, “He knows nothing
beyond the place which he inhabits.”
“One stick to ten blind men,” is something very precious.
“The cock of the village in a splendid city mansion,” is the bumpkin in
the capital.
“To have a cake in each hand,” is to know not which to eat first—to be
in a quandary.
“A volcano under the snow,” is a man of amiable manners who conceals a
violent temper.
“The treasure which always circulates without an obstacle,” is “cash,”
or sapeks.
“An apricot-blossom in the snow,” is said when something rare and
marvellous happens.
“To blow away the hair to see if there is a scar,” is to look for a
mote in another man’s eye, and to hunt for defects.
“As difficult as the roads of Thibet,” is evidently a reminiscence
derived from the ancient Buddhist missionaries who came from that
region.
“To put on a silk dress to travel at night,” is to do a good action and
not have it known.
Some pithy sayings show the local gauge of sense. “He does not know
silver from lead,” “He has round eyes,” “He can’t tell cheese from
wheat,” He is an idiot. “Doesn’t know lu from yu.” This last refers to
two Corean letters, jot and tittle.
“As opposed as fire and water.”
“A buckskin man,” is a man of no will or backbone.
“To have a big hand,” means to be liberal.
“A great blue sea,” refers to something very difficult, with no end to
it and no way out of it.
A man who is “not known in all the eight coasts,” is an utter stranger.
A very sick person is “a man who holds disease in his arms.”
“A bag of diseases,” is a chronic patient
“Who can tell in seeing a crow flying whether it be male or female?” is
a question referring to the impossible.
The numeral 10,000 (man) plays a great part in proverbial sayings as
“10,000 times certain.” Corea is a “land of 10,000 peaks.” Certain
success is “10,000 chances against one.” “To die 10,000 times and not
be regretted,” is to be “worthy of 10,000 deaths.” Ten thousand sorrows
means great grief. A mountain is “10,000 heights of a man high.” “Ten
thousand strings of cash,” is a priceless amount. Man-nin are 10,000
people—all the people in the universe.
“To lose one’s hands,” is to make a fiasco.
A comet is an “arrow star.”
“A hundred battles make a veteran.”
Almost as poetical as the Greek “anarithma gelasma” (unnumbered
laughings) is this Corean description of the sea—“Ten thousand
flashings of blue waves.”
“To lose both at a time,” is a proverb founded on a native love-story.
“When a raven flies from a pear-tree, a pear falls”—appearances are
deceitful, don’t hazard a guess.
“If one lifts a stone, the face reddens.” The Coreans are fond of rival
feats of lifting. Heavy stones are kept for that purpose. “Results are
proportionate to effort put forth.”
Mosquitoes are lively and jubilantly hungry in Chō-sen, yet it does not
do to fight them with heavy weapons or “seize a sabre to kill a
mosquito.”
A very poor man is thus described: “He eats only nine times in a
month,” or “He eats only three times in ten days.” To say he is in the
depths of poverty is to mention the pathetic fact that “he has
extinguished his fire;” for “he looks to the four winds and finds no
friend.”
“The right and left are different,” is said of a hypocrite who does not
speak as he thinks.
When a man is not very bright he “has mist before his eyes;” or he
“carries his wits under his arms;” or has “hidden his soul under his
arm-pits,” or he “goes to the east and goes to the west when he is
bothered.”
Like Beaconsfield’s dictum—“Critics are men who have failed in
literature and art,” is this Corean echo, “Good critic, bad worker.”
“On entering a village to know its usages,” is our “When in Rome do as
the Romans do.”
“To destroy jade and gravel together,” refers to indiscriminate
destruction.
“Without wind and without cloud,” describes a serene life.
“Go to sea,” is a provincial malediction heavier than a tinker’s, and
worse than “Go to grass.”
“I am I, and another is another,” is a formula of selfish, and Corean
for “ego et non ego,” “I and not I.”
“A poor horse has always a thick tail”—talent and capacity are badly
located.
The large number of morals pointed and tales adorned by the tiger are
referred to elsewhere.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE COREAN TIGER.
The one royal quadruped associated with Corea, as the white elephant is
with Siam, the bison with the United States, or the dromedary with
Egypt, is the tiger. Unlike his relative in India that roams in the hot
jungles and along the river bottoms, the Corean “king of the mountains”
is seen oftenest in the snow and forests of the north, ranging as far
as the fiftieth parallel.
Both actually and ideally the tiger is the symbol of power and
fierceness. The flag of the tiger-hunters, from the northern provinces
of Ping-an or Ham-kiung, who so bravely faced the rifles of the United
States marines and sailors in “our little war with the heathen,” in
1871, was a winged tiger rampant, spitting fire, holding the lightnings
in his lifted fore-claws, and thus embodying the powers of earth, air,
and heaven. It reminds one of the winged leopard in the vision of
Daniel, “After this, I beheld, and lo another like a leopard, which had
upon the back of it four wings of a fowl.” It is the tutelary genius of
the descendants of the aboriginal worshippers of the tiger, who even
yet cling to the religion of the soil. [11]
The caps of the body-guard of the sovereign are decorated with the
cheek and whiskers of the tiger, in order to inspire terror among
beholders. The Corean beauty carries among the jewelry and “charms” in
the reticule at her waist, a claw of the dreaded pem or tiger, nor can
the hardy mountaineer put in the hand of his bride a more eloquent
proof of his valor than one of these weapons of a man-eater. It means
even more than the edelweiss of other mountain lands. On the floors of
the better class of houses the tiger-skin rug not only adorns the best
room, but makes the children’s play-ground, or the baby’s cushion in
lieu of cradles, which are unknown. The soft hair of these natural rugs
is often a finger long. Curious toys are made of the fur.
The most prized articles among the tribute offerings (in these days,
rather a “bonus” or bribe, than a tax or humiliation) presented at the
court of Peking, as of old at Kiōto or Yedo, are these gorgeous pelts.
One of them, which the writer saw recently, the property of a Japanese
merchant, measured twelve feet long, exclusive of the tail. The symbol
of military rank in old Japan, as indicative as our shoulder-straps,
was a tiger-skin scabbard. Especially was it honorable to wear it if
captured with one’s own hands on “frontier service.” The hair of these
animals seems to have more of a woolly quality than those from India,
while the orange tint is far less predominant, white taking its place.
The black bars are, however, of equal magnificence with the tropical
product, and the tail seems to be rather longer. Some idea of the great
numbers and awful ravages of these huge felidæ in the two northern
provinces of the Peninsular Kingdom, may be gained from the common
saying of the Chinese that “the Coreans hunt the tiger during one half
the year and the tigers hunt the Coreans during the other half.” The
Coreans retort by the proverb born of the desolation that has so often
followed the presence of a Chinese army on their soil, whether as
invaders or allies: “After the Chinese, the tigers.” As a single man
can create the gigantic spectre of the Brocken, so in the national
literature this one animal seems to have cast a measureless shadow of
evil influence upon this hermit nation. From the most ancient times it
has been an object of religious reverence. “They also worshipped the
tiger, which they looked on as a god,” was written of the people living
on the sea of Japan before the Christian era. “They had also the
many-spotted leopard.” A few of the national proverbs will illustrate
the amount of attention which the subject receives in daily life, in
art, religion, and language, and how often it serves to point the
morals and adorn the tales told around Corean hearths. “A wooden
tiger,” is the ass in the lion’s skin.
“A broken-backed tiger” describes impotent and raging malice.
“To give wings to a tiger,” is to add shrewdness to force.
“If you don’t enter the tiger’s lair, you can’t get her cubs,” is said
to spur on the faint heart, “to beard the tiger in his cave.”
“A tiger’s repast,” describes excess in eating, or the gorging which
follows after fasting. “To nourish a tiger, and have him devour you,”
probably states a common fact of history, as well as it depicts
ingratitude. “If you tread on the tail of a tiger, you’ll know it,”
explains itself. “It is hard to let go the tail of a tiger,” suggests
our “fire” after the “frying-pan,” or the “other horn of the dilemma;”
while over-cautious people “in avoiding a deer, meet a tiger.” Men of
irascible temper or violent disposition are given the pet name of
maing-ho, which means an unusually ferocious tiger or “man-eater.”
Corean shrewdness utilizes the phenomena of local experience, and
equals the craft of the sellers of Joseph. So common is the
disappearance of a villager through visitations of the tiger, that the
standard method of escaping creditors or processes of law is to leave
bits of one’s torn clothes in the woods, and then to abscond. Obliging
friends or relatives quickly report, “Devoured by a tiger,” and too
often it is believed that “Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.”
This local substitute for our former G. T. T., or the usual trip to
Europe, is especially fashionable in places where “tigers as big as a
mountain” are plentiful. To drive away the dreaded kal-pem, the people
invoke the aid of the tu-e′, a fabulous monster, which is the enemy of
the tiger, and which the latter greatly fears. The cry of his name
tu-e′, tu-e′, is believed to act as a charm, and is often raised by
villagers at night.
In art, though the native picture-maker may draw a lion in such
preposterous shape and with such impossible attributes as to show at
once that no living model was ever before his eyes, yet in those
pictures of the tiger drawn by Corean artists which we have examined,
accuracy and vigor of treatment predominate over artistic grace.
The hunters who are familiar with every habit, trait of character, and
physical detail of the species, carefully distinguish his parts and
varieties. Ho-rang-i is the generic name for the felis tigris. Kal-pem,
is a mature fellow in full claw, scratchy and ferocious. Maing-ho is a
large one of unusual size and in the full rampancy of his vigor.
Mil-pal is an old brute that can no longer scratch, and is most
probably mangy, and well gouged and scarred from numerous household
quarrels and frequent tussles with rivals. Pi-ho is one agile in
turning tail to escape, rather than in showing teeth to fight—the term
being sometimes applied to the leopard. San-tol is a huge fellow that
makes annual visits to one place, making his lightning strike more than
once in the same spot. Siyo-ho is a little, and hal-pem is a female,
tiger. A “stone” tigress is sterile. Special terms suggestive, and even
poetical, for the murders, calamities, or ravages of the beast, for
traps or ditches, for the skin, tail (used for banners and
spear-sheaths), beard, moustaches, and the noises of purring, growling,
nocturnal caterwauling, and even for lashing the tail, enrich and
vivify the Chō-sen vocabulary.
Tiger-shooting is not a favorite sport among the nobles or young
bloods. Hunting in general is considered a servile occupation. Nobles,
except those of a few poor families in the northern provinces, never
practise it as sport. Yet it is free to all. There are no game laws, no
proscription of arms, no game preserves, no seasons interdicted.
The only animal which it is forbidden to kill is the falcon, whose life
is protected by stringent laws. From the most ancient times this bird
of the golden wing has been held in high honor. The hunting-grounds are
almost entirely among the mountains, as the valleys are too densely
occupied with rice and millet fields and cultivated soil, to allow game
to exist or be hunted. The chief weapon used is the flint-lock,
imported from Japan. With this a single hunter will attack the huge
game, although the animal, when not immediately killed, leaps right
upon his enemy and easily makes him his prey. When a tiger has caused
great ravages in a district, the local magistrate calls together all
the professional hunters and organizes a hunt in the mountains. In such
cases, the chase is usually, and of intent, without results; for the
skin is the property of the government, and the official always looks
out for himself, coming in first for the spoils. Hence it is that a
government hunt is usually a farce. Most of the tiger-hunters prefer to
meet the royal game alone, for then the prized skin, which they sell
secretly, is theirs. They eat the meat, and the bones stripped and
boiled make various medicines.
The number of human lives lost, and the value of property destroyed by
their ravages, is so great as at times to depopulate certain districts.
A hungry tiger will often penetrate a village in which the houses are
well secured, and will prowl around a hovel or ill-secured dwelling,
during several entire nights. If hunger presses he will not raise the
siege until he leaps upon the thatched roof. Through the hole thus made
by tearing through, he bounds upon the terrified household. In this
case a hand-to-claw fight ensues, in which the tiger is killed or comes
off victorious after glutting himself upon one or more human victims.
Rarely, however, need this king of Corean beasts resort to this
expedient, for such is the carelessness of the villagers that in spite
of the man-eater’s presence in their neighborhood, they habitually
sleep during the summer with the doors of their houses wide open, and
oftentimes even in the sheds in the open fields without dreaming of
taking the precaution to light a fire.
This sense of security is especially apt to follow after a grand hunt
successfully pursued. Then the prey is supposed to have been all killed
off in the vicinity or driven to the distant mountains. The Coreans are
as careless of tigers as the Japanese are of fires. Sometimes the tiger
is caught in a snare, without danger and by very simple means. A deep
pit is covered over with branches, leaves, and earth. At the bottom a
sharp stake is set up. This, however, is only rarely used. During the
winter the snow is half frozen over and strong enough to bear the
weight of a man, but is broken through by the paws of the tiger. The
beast sinks to the belly, and not being able to move fast, or escape,
is as helpless as a fly in molasses. It is then apparently quite easy
to approach the creature at bay, though woe be to the hunter who is too
sure of his prey. To be well-equipped for this method of mountain
sport, the hunter must have a short sword, lance, and snow-shoes. These
sel-mai, or racquettes, are of slightly curved elastic board, well
fitted with loops and thongs. With dogs, trained to the work, the
san-chang (lanceman) starts the game, and following up the trail
usually finishes him with a thrust of his spear; or, in bravado, with a
sword-stroke. This method of sport was the favorite one pursued by the
Japanese invaders. Though occasionally a man-at-arms was chewed up, or
clawed into ribbons, scores of glossy skins were carried back to Nippon
as trophies by the veterans. Indeed, it may be said, to most Japanese
children, the nearest country west of them has no other association in
their minds than as a land of tigers. At Gensan, the merchants from
Tōkiō had their dreary homesickness, about the time of their first New
Year’s season in the strange land, rather unpleasantly enlivened by the
advent of several striped man-eaters. These promenaded the settlement
at night, and seemed highly desirous of tasting a Japanese, after
having already feasted on several natives. The prospect of playing
Little Red Riding Hood to a whiskered man-eater was not a very pleasant
experience, though a possible one at any time. A tiger ten feet long
can easily stow away two five-feet Japanese without grievous symptoms
of indigestion. For an untrained hand, even when armed with a
Winchester breech-loader, to attempt hunting this Corean emblem of
power is not attractive sport. The tiger is more apt to hunt the man,
for elephants are not at hand to furnish the shelter of their backs.
The Japanese do not seem to hanker after tiger-claws or skins while in
the flesh, but prefer to buy for cash over their own counters at
Gensan. The “crop” of these costly pelts averages five hundred a year
at this one port.
Few experiences tend more to develop all the manly virtues than facing
a tiger on foot in his native wilds. The Coreans know this, and in
their lack of drilled troops capable of meeting the soldiers of
Europe—their “army” consisting almost entirely of archers, spearmen,
and jingal-firers—they summoned the tiger-hunters from Ping-an to fight
the Frenchmen of Admiral Roze’s expedition of 1866. Underrating their
enemy, the Frenchmen, in attempting to storm a fortified monastery
garrisoned by the hunters, were completely defeated. When the marines
and sailors of the American naval expedition of 1871 assaulted “Fort
McKee,” after it had been swept by the shells of the fleet, they were
amazed at the stern courage of their dark-visaged enemies, who, with
matchlock, spear, and sword, fought against the shells and
breech-loaders to the last. The Americans speak admiringly of these
brave fellows, so worthy of their lead and steel.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
RELIGION.
A careful study of the common names applied to the mountains, rivers,
valleys, caves, and other natural features of the soil and landscape of
any country will lay bare many of the primitive or hidden beliefs of a
people. No words are more ancient than the aboriginal names given to
the natural features of a country amid which the childhood of a nation
has been spent. With changing customs, civilization, or religion, these
names still hold their place, reflecting the ancient, and often
modified, or even vanished, faith.
Even a casual examination of the mountain, river, and other local names
of places in Corea will give one a tolerably clear outline of the
beliefs once fully held by the ancient dwellers of this peninsula.
Against the tenets and influences of Buddhism these doctrines have held
their sway over the minds of the people and are still the most
deeply-seated of their beliefs. The statements of ancient Chinese, and
later of Japanese writers, of foreign castaways, and of the French
missionaries all concur in showing us that Shamanism is the basis of
the Corean’s, and especially the northern Corean’s, faith. In the first
historic accounts of Fuyu, Kokorai, and the Sam-han, we find the
worship of the spirits of heaven and earth, and of the invisible powers
of the air, of nature, the guardian genii of hills and rivers, of the
soil and grain, of caves, and even of the tiger. They worshipped
especially the morning-star, and offered sacrifice of oxen to heaven.
From such scanty notices of early Corea, especially of the northern
parts, we may form some idea of the cultus of the people before
Buddhism was introduced. From the reports of recent witnesses, Dutch,
Japanese, and French, and the evidence of language, we incline to the
belief that the fibres of Corean superstition and the actual religion
of the people of to-day have not radically changed during twenty
centuries, in spite of Buddhism. The worship of the spirits of heaven
and earth, of mountains and rivers and caves, of the morning star, is
still reflected in the names of these natural objects and still
continues, in due form, as of old, along with the sacrifices of sheep
and oxen.
The god of the hills is, perhaps, the most popular deity. The people
make it a point to go out and worship him at least once a year, making
their pious trip a picnic, and, as of old, mixing their eating and
drinking with their religion. Thus they combine piety and pleasure,
very much as Americans unite sea-bathing and sanctification, croquet
and camp-meeting holiness, by the ocean or in groves. On mountain tops,
which pilgrims climb to make a visit for religious merit, may often be
seen a pile of stones called siong-wang-tang, dedicated to the god of
the mountain. The pilgrims carry a pebble from the foot of the mountain
to the top. These pilgrims are among those held in reputation for
piety.
The other popular gods are very numerous. The mok-sin, the genii of the
trees, the god of rain and of the harvest, are all propitiated, but the
robust Corean, blessed with a good appetite, especially honors
Cho-an-nim, the tutelary genius of the kitchen. To a Corean, the air is
far from being empty. It is thickly inhabited with spirits and
invisible creatures. Some of these figments of imagination, and the
additional powers for good and evil, which the Corean attributes to
animals of flesh and blood, are treated of in a former chapter on
Mythical Zoölogy. Even the breezes are the breath of spirits, and “a
devil’s wind” is a tempest raised by a demon intent on mischief. When a
person falls dead suddenly, heart-disease is not thought of; he has
been struck by a devil’s arrow. There are not wanting sorcerers who
seek to obtain supernatural force by magic, which they use against
their enemies or for hire, direct the spirits to wreak malignity
against the enemy of him who fees them. These sorcerers are social
outcasts, and reckoned the lowest of humanity.
The unlucky days are three in each month, the figure of ill-omen being
five. They are the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-fifth. On all
extraordinary occasions there are sacrifices, ceremonies, and prayers,
accompanied with tumultuous celebration by the populace. The chief
sacrifices are to heaven, earth, and to the King or Emperor of Heaven
[12] (Shang Ti of the Chinese).
The various superstitions concerning the direction of evil, the
auspicious or the ill-omened lay of the land, the site for the building
of a house, or the erection of a tomb, will be well understood by those
who know the meaning of the Chinese term, Fung Shuy, or the Corean
Pung-siu. This system of superstition has not only its millions of
believers, but also its priests or professors, who live by their
expertness and magnify their calling. The native vocabulary relating to
these pretenders and all their works is very profuse. Among the common
sights in Corea are little mounds raised on eligible, propitious
places, in which a pole is planted, from which little bells or cymbals
are hung. These jingled by the breeze are supposed to propitiate the
good spirits and to ward off the noxious influences of the demons. The
same idea is expressed in the festoons of wind-bells strung on their
pagodas and temples. Pung-siu means literally “wind and water,” but in
a broad sense is a rude cyclopædia of ideas relating to nature, and
bears nearly the same relation to natural philosophy as astrology does
to astronomy. Its ideas color every-day speech, besides having a rich
terminology for the advanced student of its mysteries.
Upon this system, and perhaps nearly coeval in origin with it, is the
cult of ancestral worship which has existed in Chinese Asia from
unrecorded time. Confucius found it in his day and made it the basis of
his teachings, as it had already been of the religious and ancient
documents of which he was the editor.
The Corean cult of ancestor-worship seems to present no features which
are radically distinct from the Chinese. Public celebrations are
offered at stated times to ancestors, and in every well-to-do house
will be found the gilt and black tablets inscribed with the names of
the departed. Before these tablets the smoke of incense and sacrifice
arises daily. In the temple also are rooms for the preservation of
duplicates of the tablets in the private houses for greater safety.
Like the iron atoms in his blood, the belief in ancestral piety and
worship is wrought into the Corean’s soul. The Christian missionaries
meet with no greater obstacle to their tenets and progress than this
practice. It is the source, even among their most genuine converts, of
more scandals, lapses, and renunciations, than are brought about by all
other causes.
Confucianism, or the Chinese system of ethics, is, briefly stated, an
expansion of the root idea of filial piety. It is duty based on
relation. Given the five great relations, all the manifold duties of
life follow. The five relations are that of king and subject (prince
and minister), of parent and child, of husband and wife, of the elder
brother and the younger brother, and between friends. The cardinal
virtues inculcated, or “The Five Constituents of Worth,” or constant
virtues displayed, according to the teachings of Confucius, by the
perfect man are: 1, Benevolence; 2, Uprightness of Mind; 3, Propriety
of Demeanor; 4, Knowledge or Enlightenment; 5, Good Faith; or,
Affection, Justice, Deference, Wisdom, Confidence.
With the ethics of the Chinese came their philosophy, which is based on
the dual system of the universe, and of which in Corean, yum-yang
(positive and negative, active and passive, or male and female) is the
expression. All things in heaven, earth, and man are the result of the
interaction of the yum (male or active principle) and the yang (female
or passive principle). Even the metals and minerals in the earth are
believed to be produced through the yum-yang, and to grow like plants
or animals.
The Confucian ethics, suiting well a state of feudalism, and being ever
acceptable to the possessors of authority, found congenial soil in the
peninsula, as they had already taken root in Kokorai. They nourished
the spirit of filial piety and personal loyalty, of feud and of
blood-revenge, by forbidding a man to live under the same heaven with
the murderer of his father or master. Notwithstanding the doctrines and
loftier morals of Buddha, the Chinese ethics and ancestor-worship,
especially in the northern part of the peninsula, underlaid the outward
adherence of the people to the religion of the Enlightened One. As the
average Christian, in spite of the spirit of Jesus and the Sermon on
the Mount, is very apt to base his behavior and legal procedure on the
code of Justinian, so the Corean, though he may believe in Fo (Buddha),
practises after the rules of Kong-ja (Confucius).
Official sacrifices are regulated by the government and are offered up
publicly at the national festivals. Something of the regulated
subordination in vogue among the Chinese prevails in Chō-sen when
ancestors are honored. High officials may sacrifice to three ancestors,
the gentry only to father and grandfather, and the common people to
father only. In every province, capital, and city ranked as Tai-mu-kan,
there are buildings containing statues of Confucius and his thirty-two
disciples, which are maintained at the public expense.
Confucianism overspreads the whole peninsula, but during the prevalence
of Buddhism, from the fourth to the fourteenth century, was probably
fully studied and practised only by the learned classes. Under the
present dynasty, or from the fifteenth century, the religion of China
has been both the official and popular cult of Chō-sen, long ago
reaching the point of bigotry, intolerance, and persecution. Taoism
seems to be little studied.
In Corean mouths Buddha becomes Pul, and his “way” or doctrine Pul-to
or Pul-chie. Introduced into Hiaksai in the fourth, and into Shinra in
the sixth century, the new faith from India made thorough conquest of
the southern half of the peninsula, but has only partially leavened the
northern portion, where the grosser heathenism prevails. The palmy days
of Corean Buddhism were during the era of Korai (from 905–1392, A.D.).
The missionary work had been accomplished, the reigning dynasty were
professors and defenders of the faith, and for these four centuries it
was the religion of the state. The few surviving monuments of this era
of splendor are the grand pagodas, monasteries, and temples that are
found, especially in the southern provinces. The profusion of legal and
ecclesiastical terms in the language which relate to lands set apart to
provide revenues for the temples, and to their boundaries and rents,
and the privileges of monks and priests, are more probably the relics
of a past time, being only verbal shells and husks of what were once
fruit and kernel.
Until the fifteenth or sixteenth century the Japanese Buddhists looked
to the “Treasure-land of the West,” as they termed Chō-sen, for
spiritual and even pecuniary aid in their ecclesiastical enterprises.
The special features of many renowned Japanese temples, libraries,
collections of books, images, altar furniture, etc., are of Corean
origin. This is especially noticeable in the old seats of the faith in
Kiōto. Images in gold, gilt wood, bronze, and some fire-resisting
material—perhaps platinum—are known and duly certified by genuine
documents in temples in other cities. In a building at Kamakura is a
copy of the Buddhist canon in a revolving library, said to have been
obtained by Sanétomo from Corea in the thirteenth century. Among the
amusing passages in the letters from Ashikaga in Kamakura, two hundred
years later, is the hint given to the king of Corea that a contribution
in aid of the repair of certain Japanese temples would be acceptable.
The site and general surroundings of Corean Buddhist temples and
monasteries greatly resemble those of China and Japan. They are often
situated on hills, rising ground, and even high mountains, and walled
round by lofty and venerable trees which seem to inspire awe and
veneration in the worshipper, besides acting as extinguishers to sparks
drifted from neighboring fires. An imposing gateway is usually built at
some distance before the temple, with massive curved roof of tiles, and
flanked by a wall of masonry which, in its upper part, consists of
plaster tiled at the top. On the frieze of the portal, the name of the
temple is inscribed in large Chinese characters. Sanskrit letters or
monograms are occasionally seen. Under a roofed shed in front hangs the
drum on which the bonze beats the hours for prayer, or of the clock. On
the other side stands the coffer for the cash of the faithful, or a
well for the manual ablutions of pious worshippers. Boards, on which
are written the names of those who have contributed money to the
temple, are suspended near by, and the thatched houses of the neophytes
and bonzes are close at hand.
The idols seen in a Corean temple are the same as those found
throughout Buddhist Asia. The chief is that of Shaka Muni, or Buddha,
the founder of the religion. In their sculpture and artistic treatment
of this, the central figure of their pantheon, the image-carvers of the
different countries do not greatly vary, adhering strictly to their
traditions. The sage in Nirvana sits on his knees with the soles of his
feet turned upward to the face. His hands touch, thumb to thumb, and
finger to finger. The folds of the robes, the round bead-like caste
mark of his forehead, the snails on his crown—which tradition says came
out to shelter his head from the rays of the sun—and the lop or pierced
ears, are substantially the same as those seen on idols from India,
Siam, and Thibet. The eye is only slightly oblique, and the ear-lobes
are made but slightly bulbous, to satisfy the tastes of worshippers in
Chinese Asia. The throne, consisting of the fully opened calyx of a
lotus flower—the symbol of eternity—with the petals around the base and
seed-holes open, is the same.
In the representation of local deities the artist asserts his
patriotism and displays his own taste. In the various countries overrun
by Buddhism, the indigenous heroes, sages, and gods have been renamed
and accepted by the Buddhists as avatars or incarnations of Buddha to
these countries before the advent of the teachers of “the true
religion.” There are also saints and subordinate magnates in the
Buddhist gallery of worshipped worthies, with whose effigies the artist
does not scruple to take certain liberties. One can easily recognize an
idol of Chinese, Corean, Siamese, or Japanese manufacture, though all
bear the same name. The god of war in Chō-sen holds the double-bladed
sword, with its tasselled cord, and wears the Chino-Corean armor and
helmet. In the aureole round the head are three fiery revolving
thunder-clouds. On the battle-flags captured by the American forces in
1871 were painted or embroidered the protecting deities of those who
fought under them. One of these, whether representing a Buddha, as
seems most probable, or, as is possible, some local hero—perhaps Dan
Kun or Ki Tsze—deified, rides on one of the curious little ponies,
stunted and piebald, of Ham-kiung, with which, even in ancient times,
one could ride under a fruit tree. Evidently it would have been safer
for Absalom in Corea than in woody Palestine.
The tutelary god on the stunted piebald horse is dressed in the
peculiar winged head-dress and frilled collar which travellers on
Ham-kiung soil noticed fifteen centuries ago. His armor is in scales,
or wrought in the “wave-pattern” characteristic of Corean art. His
shoes and saddle are of the Chinese type. He rides among the
conventional clouds, which in the native technique, are different from
those of either China or Japan. Evidently the Buddha and saints of
Shaka Muni are portrayed by the native artist according to the strict
canons of orthodoxy, while in dealing with indigenous deities, artistic
licence and local color have free play. Most of the artists and
sculptors of temple work are priests or monks. The principal idols are
of brass, bronze, or gilded wood, the inferior sorts are of stone. The
priests dress just like the Japanese bonzes. They attend the sick or
dying, but have little to do with the burial of the dead, owing to the
prevalence of the Pung-sui superstition, to which a Corean in life and
in death is a bond-slave. This all-powerful disease of the intellect is
the great corrupter of Corean Buddhism, many of its grossest ideas
being grafted into, or flourishing as parasites on a once pure faith.
In its development Corean Buddhism has frequently been a potent
influence in national affairs, and the power of the bonzes has at times
been so great as to practically control the court and nullify decrees
of the king. With the Fuyu race—that is in Chō-sen and Nihon—the
history of Buddhism has a decidedly military cast. During the first
centuries of its sway in the peninsula the ablest intellects were fed
and the ablest men were developed by it, so that it was the most potent
factor in Corea’s civilization. Over and over again have the political
and social revolutions been led by Buddhist priests, who have proved
agitators and warriors as well as recluses and students. Possessing
themselves of learning, they have made their presence at court a
necessity. Here they have acted as scribes, law-givers, counsellors,
and secretaries. Often they have been the conservers of patriotism. The
shaven-pated priest has ever been a standard character in the glimpses
of Corean history which we are allowed to catch.
Not always has this influence been exerted for good, for once possessed
of influence at court, they have not scrupled to use it for the purpose
of aggrandizing their sects. Tradition tells of high nobles won from
the pleasures of the palace to the seclusion of the cloisters, and even
of Corean queens renouncing the bed of their royal spouses to accept
the vows of the nuns. As in Japan, the frequent wars have developed the
formation of a clerical militia, not only able to garrison and defend
their fortified monasteries but even to change the fortune of war by
the valor of their exploits and the power of their commissariat. There
seems to be three distinct classes or grades of bonzes. The student
monks devote themselves to learning, to study, and to the composition
of books and the Buddhist ritual, the tai-sa being the abbot. The jung
are mendicant and travelling bonzes, who solicit alms and contributions
for the erection and maintenance of the temples and monastic
establishments. The military bonzes (siung kun) act as garrisons, and
make, keep in order, and are trained to use, weapons. Many of their
monasteries are built on the summit or slopes of high mountains, to
which access is to be gained only with the greatest difficulty up the
most rocky and narrow passages. Into these fastnesses royal and noble
professors of the faith have fled in time of persecution, or pious
kings have retired after abdication. In time of war they serve to
shelter refugees. It was in attacking one of these strongholds, on
Kang-wa Island, in 1866, that the French marines were repulsed with
such fearful loss.
Many temples throughout the country have been erected by the old kings
of Korai or by noblemen as memorials of events, or as proofs of their
devotion. The building of one of these at great expense and the
endowment of others from government funds, sometimes happens, even
during the present dynasty, as was the case in 1865, when the regent
was influenced by the bonzes. He rebuilt the temple in an unparalleled
style of magnificence, and made immense presents to other temples out
of the public treasury. It has been by means of these royal bounties,
and the unremitting collection of small sums from the people, that the
bonzes have amassed the vast property now held by them in
ecclesiastical edifices, lands, and revenues. Some of these mountain
monasteries are large and stately, with a wealth of old books,
manuscripts, liturgical furniture, and perhaps even yet of money and
land. The great monastery of Tong-to-sa, between Kiung-sang and Chulla,
is noted for its library, in which will be found the entire sacred
canon. The probabilities of American or European scholars finding rare
treasures in the form of Sanskrit MSS. in this unsearched field are
good, since the country is now opened to men of learning from
Christendom. As a rule, the company of monks does not number over ten,
twenty, or thirty, respectively, in the three grades of temples. Hamel
tells us that they live well and are jolly fellows, though his opinion
was somewhat biased, since he remarks that “as for religion, the
Coreans have scarcely any.... They know nothing of preaching or
mysteries, and, therefore, have no disputes about religion.” There were
swarms of monastics who were not held in much respect. He describes the
festivals as noisy, and the people’s behavior at them as boisterous.
Incense sticks, or “joss” perfumery, seemed very much in vogue. He
bears witness to their enjoyment in natural scenery, and the delightful
situation of the famous temples.
Even at the present day, Buddhist priests are made high officers of the
government, governors of provinces, and military advisers. Like as in
Japan, Buddhism inculcates great kindness to animals—the logical result
of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and all who kill are
under its ban. Though beef, pork, and mutton are greedily eaten by the
people, the trade of the butcher is considered the most degraded of all
occupations, and the butchers and leather dressers form a caste below
the level of humanity, like the Etas in Japan. They are beneath the
slaves. They must live in villages apart from the rest of the people,
and are debarred from receiving water, food, fire, or shelter at the
hands of the people. The creation of this class of Corean pariahs and
the exclusion of these people from the pale of recognized society is
the direct result of the teachings of the bonzes. Like the Chinese, and
unlike the Japanese bonze, the devotees will often mutilate themselves
in the frenzy of their orgies, in order to gain a character for
holiness or in fulfilment of a vow. One of these bonzes, appointed by
the magistrate to dispute publicly with a Christian, had lost four
fingers for the sake of manufacturing a reputation. The ceremony of
pul-tatta, or “receiving the fire,” is undergone upon taking the vows
of the priesthood. A moxa or cone of burning tinder is laid upon the
man’s arm, after the hair has been shaved off. The tiny mass is then
lighted, and slowly burns into the flesh, leaving a painful sore, the
scar of which remains as a mark of holiness. This serves as initiation,
but if vows are broken, the torture is repeated on each occasion. In
this manner, ecclesiastical discipline is maintained.
In the nunneries are two kinds of female devotees, those who shave the
head and those who keep their locks. The po-sal does not part with her
hair, and her vows are less rigid. Hamel mentions two convents in
Seoul, one of which was for maidens of gentle birth, and the other for
women of a lower social grade.
Excepting in its military phases, the type of Corean Buddhism
approaches that of China rather than of Japan. In both these countries
its history is that of decay, rather than of improvement, and it would
be difficult indeed for Shaka Muni to recognize the faith which he
founded, in the forms which it has assumed in Chō-sen and Nippon; nor
did it ever succeed in making the thorough missionary conquest of the
former, which it secured in the latter, country. The priority of the
Confucian teachings and the thorough indoctrination of the people in
them, the nearness of China, the close copying of Chinese manners,
customs, and materialistic spirit, the frequency of Chinese conquests,
and perhaps the presence of an indigenous religion even more strongly
marked than that of Shintō in Japan, were probably the potent reasons
why Buddhism never secured so strong a hold on the Corean intellect or
affections as upon the Japanese. Nevertheless, since Buddhism has
always been largely professed, and especially if Confucianism be
considered simply an ethical system and not a religion proper, Corea
may be classed among Buddhist countries. Among the surprises of history
is the fact that, in 1876, the Shin, or Reformed sect of Japanese
Buddhists, sent their missionaries to Corea to preach and convert.
Among their conquests was a young native of ability, who came to Kiōto,
in 1878, to study the reformed Buddhism, and who later returned to
preach among his own people. In 1880 five more young Coreans entered
the Shin theological school in Kiōto, and a new and splendid Shin
temple, dedicated to Amida Buddha, has been built at Gensan. Evidently
this vigorous sect is resolutely endeavoring, not only to recoup the
losses which Christianity has made in its ranks in Japan, but is
determined to forestall the exertions of Christian missionaries in the
peninsula.
So thoroughly saturated is the Corean mind with Chinese philosophy
(p. 329) that when of necessity a national emblem or flag must be
made, the symbol expressive of the male and female, or active and
passive principles dominating the universe, was selected. Though
Corea excels in the variety of her bunting and the wealth of
symbolism upon her flags and streamers, yet the national flag, as
now floated from her ships, custom-houses, and Legations in the
United States and Europe, has an oblong field, in the centre of
which are the two comma-shaped symbols, red and black, of the two
universal principles. In each of the four corners of the flag is
one of the Pak-wa or eight diagrams, consisting of straight and
broken lines, which Fu-hi, the reputed founder of Chinese
civilization, read upon the scroll on the back of the dragon-horse
which rose out of the Yellow River, and on the basis of which he
invented the Chinese system of writing. In these diagrams the
learned men in Chinese Asia behold the elements of all metaphysical
knowledge, and the clue to all the secrets of nature, and upon them
a voluminous literature, containing divers systems of divination
and metaphysical exegesis, has been written. The eight diagrams may
be expanded to sixty-four combinations; or, are reducible to four,
and these again to their two primaries. The continuous straight
line, symbol of the yum principle, corresponds to light, heaven,
masculinity, etc. The broken line symbolizes the yang principle,
corresponding to darkness, earth, femininity, etc. These two lines
signify the dual principle at rest, but when curved or
comma-shaped, betoken the ceaseless process of revolution in which
the various elements or properties of nature indicated by the
diagrams mutually extinguish or give birth to one another, thus
producing the phenomena of existence.
Professor Terrien de Lacouperie sees in the Pak-wa a link between
Babylonia and China, a very ancient system of phonetics or
syllabary explaining the pronunciation of the old Babylonian
characters and their Chinese derivatives. It is not likely that
Morse derived the idea of his magneto-electric telegraphic alphabet
from the Chinese diagrams. Possibly the Corean literati who
suggested the design for a national flag intended to show, in the
brightly colored and actively revolving germs of life set
prominently in the centre, and contrasted with the inert and
immovable straight lines in the background of the corners, the
progressive Corea of the present and future as contrasted with
Corea of the past and her hermit-like existence. Significantly, and
with unconscious irony of the Virginia advertisers, the new Corean
flag was first published to the Western world at large on the
covers of cigarette packages. For centuries the energies of Coreans
have been wasted in tobacco smoke, and the era of national decay is
almost synchronous with the introduction of tobacco.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
EDUCATION AND CULTURE.
Corea received her culture from China, and gave it freely to Japan. If
we may believe the doubtful story of Ki Tsze, then the Coreans have
possessed letters and writing, or, what is the equivalent thereto, they
have had “civilization,” during three thousand years. It is certain
that since about the opening of the Christian era, the light of China’s
philosophy has shone steadily among Corean scholars. Japanese early
tradition—unworthy of credence in the matter of chronology—claims that
literature was brought to Nippon as early as the period 157–30 B.C. The
legend of Jingu bringing back books and manuscripts from Shinra is more
probable; while the coming of Wani from Hiaksai, to teach the Chinese
characters and expound the classics, is a historic fact, though the
real date may be uncertain, or later than the accepted one, which is
285 A.D. While the Kokorai people may have brought letters with them,
as they migrated southward, in Hiaksai the Confucian analects were not
studied until the fourth century, when official recognition of
education was made by the appointment of Hanken as master of Chinese
literature. This is said to have been the first importation of learning
into the peninsula. It was so in the sense of being formally introduced
from China into the country south of the Ta-tong River.
As in most of the Asiatic countries, into which Chinese culture
penetrated, popular education was for centuries a thing unthought of.
Learning was the privilege of a few courtiers, who jealously guarded it
from the vulgar, as an accomplishment for those about the royal person,
or in the noble families. The classics and ethical doctrines seem in
every case to have penetrated the nations surrounding the Middle
Kingdom, and formed the basis of courtly and aristocratic education.
Buddhism furnished the popular or democratic element, which brought
learning to the lower strata of society. Neophytes were usually taken
from the humbler classes, and thus culture was diffused. Even the
idols, pictures, and scrolls, with the explanations and preaching in
the vernacular, served to instruct the people and lift their thoughts
out of the rut of every-day life—a result which is in itself true
education. Wherever Buddhism penetrated, there was more or less
literature published in the speech of the unlearned, and often the
first books for the people were works on religion. China gave her
language and ideographs; India sent Sanskrit and phonetic letters, from
which syllabaries or alphabets were constructed, not only for
vernacular writing and printing, but as aids to the easier apprehension
and more popular understanding of the tenets of Confucius.
The Corean syllabary seems to have been first invented by Chul-chong,
one of the ministers at the court of the king of Shinra, in the seventh
century. This was the Nido; like the kana of the Japanese, purely a
collection of syllables and not a true alphabet. The Nido was made by
giving to some of the commoner Chinese characters a phonetic value,
though the idea of having a vernacular system of writing was most
probably suggested by the Sanskrit letters, [13] some of which
accurately represented Corean sounds. The true alphabet of the Coreans,
called Unmun (common language), was invented by a Buddhist priest named
Syel-chong, or Sye′-chong, who is regarded as one of the ablest
scholars in the literary annals of Corea. The “Grammaire Coréenne”
states that this took place under the dynasty of Wang, at Sunto,
“toward the end of the eighth or ninth century of the Christian era.”
This is a palpable mistake, as the dynasty of Wang was not established
at Sunto until the tenth century. Mr. Aston, whose researches are based
on the statements of Corean and Japanese writers, believes that the
Unmun, or true Corean alphabet, “was invented not earlier than the
first half of the fifteenth century.” Yet, in spite of their national
system of writing, the influence of the finished philosophy and culture
of China, both in form and spirit, has been so great that the
hopelessness of producing a copy equal to the original became at once
apparent to the Corean mind. Stimulating to the receptive intellect, it
has been paralyzing to all originality. The culture of their native
tongue has been neglected by Corean scholars. The consequence is, that
after so many centuries of national life, Chō-sen possesses no
literature worthy of the name. Only in rare cases are native books
translated into either Chinese or Japanese.
At present, Corean literary men possess a highly critical knowledge of
Chinese. Most intelligent scholars read the classics with ease and
fluency. Penmanship is an art as much prized and as widely practised as
in Japan, and reading and writing constitute education. From the fifth
to the seventeenth century the Corean youth of gentle blood went to
Nanking to receive or complete their education. Since Peking has been
the Chinese capital (under the Mongols from 1279, and under the Ming
emperors from 1410) few young men have gone abroad to study until
within the last year, when numbers of Corean lads have entered the
naval, military, and literary schools of the imperial government.
The practical democratic element pervading China was long absent from
the nations which were her pupils and vassals. Of all these borrowers,
Corea has most closely imitated her teacher. She fosters education by
making scholastic ability, as tested in the literary examination, the
basis of appointment to office. This “Civil Service Reform” was
established in Chō-sen by the now ruling dynasty early in the fifteenth
century. Education in Corea is public, and encouraged by the government
only in this sense, that it is made the road to government employ and
official promotion. By instituting literary examinations for the civil
and military service, and nominally opening them to all competitors,
and filling all vacancies with the successful candidates, there is
created and maintained a constant stimulus to culture.
Corean culture resembles that in mediæval Europe. It is
extra-vernacular. It is in Latin—the Latin of Eastern Asia—the classic
tongue of the oldest of living empires. This literary instrument of the
learned is not the speech of the modern Chinamen, but the condensed,
vivid, artificial diction of the books, which the Chinese cannot and
never did speak, and which to be fully understood must be read by the
eye of the mind. The accomplished scholar of Seoul who writes a
polished essay in classic style packs his sentences with quotable
felicities, choice phrases, references to history, literary prismatics,
and kaleidoscopic patches picked out here and there from the whole
range of ancient Chinese literature, and imbeds them into a
mosaic—smooth, brilliant, chaste, and a perfect unity. This is the acme
of style. So in the Corean mind, the wise saws and ancient instances,
the gnomic wisdom, quotations and proverbs, political principles,
precedents, historical examples, and dynasties, are all Chinese, and
ancient Chinese. His heaven, his nature, his history, his philosophy,
are those of Confucius, and like the Chinaman, he looks down with
infinite contempt upon the barbarians of Christendom and their
heterodox conceptions of the universe. Meanwhile his own language,
literature, and history are neglected. The Corean child begins his
education by learning by voice, eye, and pen, the simple and beautiful
native alphabet of twenty-five letters, and the syllabary of one
hundred and ninety or more combinations of letters. He learns to read,
and practises writing in both the book or square style and the script
form or running hand. The syllabary is not analyzed, but committed to
memory from sight and sound. Spelling is nearly an unknown art, as the
vowel changes and requirements of euphony—so numerous as to terrify the
foreign student of Corean—are quickly acquired by ear and example in
childhood. With this equipment in the rudiments, which is all that
nearly all the girls, and most of the boys learn, the young reader can
master the story-books, novels, primers of history, epistles, and the
ordinary communications of business and friendship. If the lad is to
follow agriculture, cattle-raising, trade, mining, or hunting, he
usually learns no more, except the most familiar Chinese characters for
numbers, points of the compass, figures on the clock-dial, weights,
measures, coins, and the special technical terms necessary in his own
business. Thus it often happens that a Corean workman, like a Chinese
washerman, may be perfectly familiar with the characters even to the
number of hundreds relating to his trade or occupation, and yet be
utterly unable to read the simplest book, or construct one Chinese
sentence. With the Chinese characters, one can write English as well as
Corean or Japanese, but a thorough knowledge of the terms necessary to
a sailor, a jeweller, a farmer, or a lumber merchant would not enable
one to read Ivanhoe or Wordsworth.
If the Corean lad aspires to government service, he begins early the
study of the “true letters” or “great writing.” The first book put into
his hands is, “The Thousand Character Classic.” This work is said to
have been composed by a sage in one night—a labor which turned the hair
and beard of the composer to whiteness. In it no character is repeated,
and all the phrases are in two couplets, making four to a clause. The
copies for children are printed from wooden blocks in very large type.
At the right side of each character is its pronunciation in Corean, and
on the left the equivalent Corean word. The sounds are first learned,
then the meaning, and finally the syntax and the sense of the passages.
Meanwhile the brush-pen is kept busily employed until the whole text of
the author is thoroughly mastered by eye, ear, hand, and memory. In
this manner, the other classics are committed. Education at first
consists entirely of reading, writing, and memorizing. Etiquette is
also rigidly attended to, but arithmetic, mathematics, and science
receive but slight attention.
After this severe exercise of memory and with the pen, the critical
study of the text is begun. Passages are expounded by the teacher, and
the commentaries are consulted. Essays on literary themes are written,
and a style of elegant composition in prose and verse is striven for.
For the literary examinations in the capital and provinces, the
government appoints examiners, who give certificates to those who pass.
Those who succeed at the provincial tests, are eligible only to
subordinate grades of employ in the local magistracies. The aspirants
to higher honors, armed with their diplomas, set out to Seoul to attend
at the proper time the national examination. The journey of these lads,
full of the exultation and lively spirit born of success, moving in
hilarious revelry over the high roads, form one of the picturesque
features of out-door life in Corea. The young men living in the same
district or town go together. They go afoot, taking their servants with
them. Pluming themselves upon the fact that they are summoned to the
capital at the royal behest, they often make a roystering, noisy, and
insolent gang, and conduct themselves very much as they please. The
rustics and villagers gladly speed their parting. At the capital they
scatter, putting up wherever accommodations in inns or at the houses of
relatives permit.
Though young bachelors form the majority at these examinations, the
married and middle-aged are by no means absent. Gray-headed men try and
may be rejected for the twentieth time, and grandfather, father, and
son occasionally apply together.
On the appointed day, the several thousand or more competitors assemble
at the appointed place, with the provisions which are to stay the inner
man during the ordeal. The hour preparatory to the assignment of themes
is a noisy and smoky one, devoted to study, review, declamation, or to
eating, drinking, chatting, or sleeping, according to the inclination
or habit of each. The examination consists of essays, and oral and
written answers to questions. During the silent part of his work, each
candidate occupies a stall or cell. The copious, minute, and complex
vocabulary of terms in the language relating to the work, success and
failure, the contingencies, honest and dishonest shifts to secure
success, and what may be called the student’s slang and folk-lore of
the subject, make not only an interesting study to the foreigner, but
show that these contests subtend a large angle of the Corean
gentleman’s vision during much of his lifetime.
Examination over, the disappointed ones wend their way home with what
resignation or philosophy they may summon to their aid. The successful
candidates, on horseback, with bands of musicians, visit their patrons,
relatives, the examiners and high dignitaries, receiving
congratulations and returning thanks. Then follows the inevitable
initiation, which none can escape—corresponding to the French “baptism
of the line,” the German “introduction to the fox,” the English
“fagging,” and the American “hazing.”
One of the parents or friends of the new graduate, an “alumnus,” or one
who has taken a degree himself, one also of the same political party,
acts as godfather, and presides at the ceremony. The graduate presents
himself, makes his salute and takes his seat several feet behind the
president of the party. With all gravity the latter proceeds, after
rubbing up some ink on an ink-stone, to smear the face of the victim
with the black mess, which while wet he powders thickly over with
flour. Happy would the new graduate be could he escape with one layer
of ink and flour, but the roughness of the joke lies in this, that
every one present has his daub; and when the victim thinks the ordeal
is over new persons drop in to ply the ink-brush and handful of flour.
Meanwhile a carnival of fun is going on at the expense, moral and
pecuniary, of the graduate. Eating, drinking, smoking, and jesting are
the order of the day. It is impossible to avoid this trial of purse and
patience, for unless the victim is generous and good-natured, other
tricks and jokes as savage and cruel as those sometimes in vogue in
American and British colleges follow. After this farce, but not until
it has been undergone, is the title recognized by society.
The three degrees, corresponding somewhat to our B.A., M.A., and Ph.D.,
are cho-si, chin-sa, kiup-chiei. The diplomas are awarded in the king’s
name, the second written on white paper, and the third on red adorned
with garlands of flowers. The degrees are not necessarily successive.
The highest, or the second, may be applied for without the first. The
holder of the second degree may obtain office in the provinces, and
after some years may become a district magistrate or guardian of one of
the royal sepulchres. The highest degree qualifies one to fill
honorable posts at the palace and in the capital, in one of the
ministries, or to be the governor of a province, or of a great city.
Properly, the place of a “doctor” is in Seoul. The usual term of office
is two years.
The examinations for civil titles and offices attract students of the
highest social grade. The military studies are chiefly those of archery
or horsemanship, the literary part of their exercises being slight. But
one degree, the lowest, is awarded, and if the holder is of gentle
blood, and has political influence, he may rise to lucrative office and
honors, but if from the common people, he usually gets no more than his
title, or remains a private or petty officer.
The system of literary examinations which, when first established, and
during two or three centuries, was vigorously maintained with
impartiality, is said to be at present in a state of decay, bribery and
official favor being the causes of its decline.
The special schools of languages, mathematics, medicine, art, etc., are
under the patronage of the government. The teachers and students in
these branches of knowledge form a special class midway between the
nobles and people, having some of the privileges of the former. They
may also attend the examinations, gain diplomas, and fill offices.
Their professions are usually hereditary, and they marry only among
themselves. In most respects, these bodies of learned men resemble the
old guilds of scholars in Yedo, and the privileged classes, like
physicians, astronomers, botanists, etc., in Japan.
There are eight distinct departments of special knowledge. The Corps of
Interpreters include students and masters of the Chinese, Manchiu,
Mongol, and Japanese languages. These attend the embassy to Peking,
have posts on the frontier, or live near Fusan. The treaties recently
made with the United States and European powers will necessitate the
establishment of schools of foreign languages, as in Tōkiō and Peking.
The School of Astronomy, geoscopy, and the choice of fortunate days for
state occasions is for the special service of the king. Corea, like
China, has not yet separated astrology from astronomy, but still keeps
up official consultation with the heavenly bodies for luck’s sake. The
School of Medicine trains physicians for the royal, and for the public,
service. The School of Charts or documents has charge of the archives
and the preparation of the official reports sent to Peking. In the
School of Design, the maps, sketches, plans and graphic work required
by the government are made, and the portraits of the king are painted.
The School of Law is closely connected with the Ministry of Justice,
and serves for the instruction of judges, and as a court of appeals.
The School of Mathematics or Accounts assists the Treasury Department,
audits accounts, appraises values, and its members are often charged
with the task of overseeing public works. The School of Horology at
Seoul keeps the standard time and looks after the water-clock. Beside
these eight services, there is the band of palace musicians.
It is evident from all the information gathered from sources within and
without the hermit nation, that though there is culture of a certain
sort among the upper classes, there is little popular education worthy
of a name. The present condition of Chō-sen is that of Europe in the
Middle Ages. The Confucian temples and halls of scholars, the memorial
stones and walls inscribed with historical tablets and moral maxims,
the lectures and discussions of literary coteries, and the poetry
parties concentrate learning rather than diffuse it. The nobles and
wealthy scholars, the few monasteries and the government offices
possess libraries, but these are but dead Chinese to the common people.
Nothing like the number of book stores, circulating libraries, private
schools, or ordinary means of diffusing intelligence, common in China
and Japan, exists in Corea. Science and the press, newspapers and
hospitals, clocks and petroleum, and, more than all, churches and
school-houses, have yet a mighty work to do in the Land of Morning
Calm.
Paganism and superstition, Confucianism and Buddhism, having taken root
in Chō-sen, each with its educational influence, Christianity entered
within the last century to plant an acorn within the narrow bottle of
the Corean intellect. It is needless to say that the receptacle was
shattered by the spreading of the oak. The Corean body-politic,
confronted by this rooted and growing influence, must be transformed.
How the seed was dropped, how the tiny stem grew, how the trunk
received into its bosom the lightning bolts of persecution, how the
boughs were riven, and how life yet remains, will now be narrated.
III.
MODERN AND RECENT HISTORY.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY—1784–1794.
Christianity entered Corea through the gates of Rome and Peking. Though
some writers have supposed that Christianity was introduced into the
Corean peninsula by the Japanese, in 1592, yet it is nearly certain
that this religion was popularly unknown until near the end of the
eighteenth century. Then it entered from the west, and not from the
east. It was not brought by foreigners, but grew up from chance seed
wafted from the little garden of the church in Peking.
The soil upon which the exotic germ first lighted was in the mind of a
student well-named by his father, “Stonewall,” on account of his
character in choosing a literary career, instead of the hereditary
profession which his family wished him to adopt. During the winter of
1777, Stonewall was invited to form one of a party of students who were
to spend a season of literary dalliance in company with the famous
Confucian professor, Kwem.
The conference, held in a secluded temple, lasted ten days, during
which time the critical study of the texts of Confucius and Mencius was
indulged in with keen delight, and the profoundest problems that can
interest man were earnestly discussed; but most fertilizing to their
minds were some tracts on philosophy, mathematics, and religion just
brought from Peking. These were translations of the writings, or
original compositions in Chinese of the Jesuits in the imperial
capital. Among these publications were some tracts on the Christian and
Roman Catholic Religion, treating of the Existence of God, Divine
Providence, the Immortality of the Soul, the Conduct of Life, the Seven
Capital Sins, and the Seven Contrary Virtues. Surprised and delighted,
they resolved to attain, if possible, to a full understanding of the
new doctrines.
They began at once to practise what they knew, and morning and evening
they read and prayed. They set apart the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days
of the month as periods of rest, fasting, and meditation. How long they
continued this course of life is not known.
Stonewall, well knowing that his ideas of this new religion were
imperfect and confused, turned his thoughts longingly toward Peking,
hoping to get more books or information through a living teacher. For
several years all his attempts were fruitless; though study,
discussion, and practice of the new life were continued. In 1782, he
moved to Seoul to live, and in 1783, to his joy, his friend Senghuni,
son of the third ambassador to Peking, proceeded thither through
Shing-king (Liao Tung), with a message to the bishop, Alexander de
Gorla, a Portuguese Franciscan.
Senghuni himself became a docile pupil, and was, with the consent of
his father, baptized. With the hope that he would become the first
stone of the church in Chō-sen, he was named Peter. [14] He pledged
himself to suffer all torments rather than abandon his faith, to have
but one wife, to renounce worldly vanities, and finally to send his
foreign friends tidings every year.
Safely passing the sentinels at Ai-chiu, he reached Seoul. Stonewall,
eagerly receiving his share, gave himself for a time up to fresh
reading and meditation, and then began to preach. Some of his friends
in the capital, both nobles and commoners, embraced the new doctrines
with cheering promptness and were baptized.
It is interesting to note the choice of baptismal names. As Stonewall
had been the forerunner, he was named John the Baptist. Another called
himself Francis Xavier, intending to make this saint his protector and
patron. Other names of these primitive confessors are Ambrose, Paul,
Louis, Thomas, Augustine, and later, among the women, Agatha, Marie,
Madeleine, Barbe, etc. The adoption of these foreign names excited
bitter feelings among the patriotic, and became a cause of intense
hatred against the Christians, who were stigmatized as
“foreigner-Coreans.”
A counterblast soon followed. The first, and as they were destined to
be the last and most bitter enemies were the literati, who saw at once
that the new faith sapped at the base their national beliefs and their
most cherished customs. In the contest of discussion which followed,
Senghuni came off victor. The pagan champions retired from the conflict
uttering memorable and prophetic words, with a final question, that
became a by-word to Americans nearly a century later: “This [Christian]
doctrine is magnificent, it is true, but it will bring sorrow to those
who profess it. What are you going to do about it?”
Among the converts were the lecturer Kwem and his brother, both of whom
propagated the faith in their district of Yang-kun, thirty miles east
of Seoul, now justly called “the cradle of the faith.” One of their
converted students from the Nai-po returned home to labor in the new
cause, and from first to last, in the history of Roman Christianity in
Corea, Nai-po has ever been a nursery of fervent confessors and
illustrious martyrs. A second convert of the Kwem brothers laid the
foundations of the faith in Chulla. At the capital, a learned
interpreter, on becoming a believer, multiplied with his own facile pen
copies of the books brought from Peking; and it is believed translated
from the Chinese the “Explanation of the Gospels of the Sabbaths and
Feasts”—the first Christian book in the Corean language.
Thus from small beginnings, but rapidly, were the Christian ideas
spread, but soon the arm of the law and the power of the pen were
invoked to crush out the exotic faith. The first victim, Thomas Kim,
was tried on the charge of destroying his ancestral tablets, tortured,
and sent into exile, in which he soon after died. The scholar now took
up weapons, and in April, 1784, the king’s preceptor fulminated the
first public document officially directed against Christianity. In it
all parents and relatives were entreated to break off all relations
with the Christians. The names of the leaders were published; and the
example of Kim was cited. Forthwith began a violent pressure of
entreaty and menace upon the believers to renounce their faith. Instead
of peace, the sword was brought into the household. Then began an
exhibition alike of glorious confession and shameful apostasy, but
though even Stonewall lapsed, the work went on in Nai-po, and in 1787,
[15] persecution slackened.
Meanwhile, in order to cement more closely their bonds, the leaders
formed a hierarchy after the model which Peter had seen in Peking, and
to which their liturgical books so often referred. Francis Xavier was
made bishop and others were chosen as priests. Separating to their
various posts, they baptized, confessed, confirmed, and distributed the
sacred elements in communion, all of which infused a new glow of faith
among the converts. They robed themselves in rich Chinese silk, and
erected platform confessionals. For ordinary faults confessed by the
kneeling penitents alms were ordered, but for graver derelictions the
priests administered one or two smart blows on the legs—a mild
imitation of the national punishment, which so suggests Western methods
of nursery discipline.
In perfect good faith and harmony, this curious hierarchy, so strange
and even comical to a believer in the so-called “apostolical
succession”—continued for two years; but in 1789, certain passages in
their books suggested doubts as to the validity of their ministry.
After earnest thought, and even at the risk of public ridicule, and of
troubling the consciences of the faithful, they resigned their offices
and took their places among the laity. A letter of inquiry was written,
and sent in 1790 by the convert Paul to Peking. Surprised and overjoyed
at the news from Corea, the fathers baptized and confirmed Paul,
explained to him the Roman dogma of validity of ordination, and gave
him a letter written on silk, to be concealed in his clothes, directed
to Peter and Francis Xavier. His godfather Pansi, being an artist,
painted Paul’s portrait in oil, which was sent on to Paris.
The Christians at Seoul graciously submitted to the Episcopal rebuke
and explanation, giving them the right only to baptize, yet they
yearned to receive the sacraments. Inflamed by the accounts of Paul,
who pictured before them the ritual splendors, in the Peking cathedral,
of altars, lights, vestments, solemn masses, music, processions, and
all that enchants the eye and fires the imagination in the Roman form
of Christianity, they indited another letter to the bishop, beseeching
that an ordained priest should be sent them. This letter, carried by
Paul, who left with the special embassy sent to congratulate the
renowned emperor Kien-lung, which left Seoul September 17, 1790,
contained a whole catechism of vexed questions of discipline and faith
which had begun to disturb the little church.
While in Peking, Paul’s companion was baptized, receiving the name of
John the Baptist. The fathers gave them a chalice, a missal, a
consecrated stone, some altar ornaments, and everything necessary for
the celebration of the eucharist, with a recipe for making wine out of
grapes, in order that all might be ready on the arrival of a priest
among them. Paul and John the Baptist, after the return journey of a
thousand miles through Shing-king, arrived safely in Seoul. All were
filled with joy at the idea of having a priest sent them, but the
episcopal decision against the worship of ancestors proved to many a
stone of stumbling and a cause of apostasy. Hitherto, in simple
ignorance and good faith, they had honored their ancestral shades and
burnt incense at their shrines. Henceforth, all participation in such
rites was impossible. After the authoritative declaration from Peking,
that the worship of God and the worship of ancestors were contrary and
impossible, no Corean could be a Christian while he burned incense
before the tablets.
This tenet of the bishop was in the eyes of the Corean public a blow at
the framework of society, the base of the family, and the foundation of
the state. From this time forward, many of the feeble adherents began
to fall away. In the conflict of filial and religious duty, many a soul
was torn with remorse. In frequent instances the earnest believer who,
for conscience sake, despoiled the family oratory and piling the
ancestral tablets in his garden set them on fire, saw his aged parents
sink with sorrow to the grave. For this crime Paul and Jacques Kim were
put upon public trial, at which, for the first time, a clear and
systematic presentation of Christian doctrine and the Roman cultus was
elicited. The case, after condemnation of the prisoners, was submitted
to the king, who was prevailed upon by the premier to approve the
finding of the local tribunal. On December 8, 1791, the two Christians,
after publicly refusing to recant, and reading aloud the sentence
inscribed upon the board to be nailed over their pillory, were
decapitated, while invoking the names of Jesus and Mary. Their ages
were thirty-three and forty-one.
Thus was shed the first blood for Corean Christianity—the first drops
of the shower to come, and the seed of a mighty church. The headless
trunks, frozen to a stony rigidity which kept even the blood fresh and
red, lay unburied on the ground for nine days, until devout men carried
them to burial. A number of handkerchiefs dipped in their blood and
preserved kept long alive the memory of these first martyrs of bloody
persecution. The Nai-po now became a hunting-ground for the minions of
the magistrates, who sought out all who professed themselves Christians
and threw them in prison. There the tortures, peculiarly Corean, were
set to work to cause apostasy. The victims were beaten with rods and
paddles on the flesh and shin-bones, or whipped till the flesh hung in
bloody rags. In many cases their bones were disjointed until the limbs
dangled limp and useless. One man, Francis Xavier, after prolonged
agonies was exiled to Quelpart, and on being removed to another place,
died on the way. Peter, 61 years old, after wearying his torturers with
his endurance, was tied round with a cord, laid on the icy ground at
night, while pails of water were poured over him, which freezing as it
fell, covered his body with a shroud of ice. In this Dantean tomb, the
old martyr, calling on the name of Jesus, was left to welcome death,
which came to him at the second cock-crow on the morning of January 29,
1793.
In the ten years following the baptism of Peter at Peking, in spite of
persecution and apostasy, it is estimated that there were four thousand
Christians in Corea. [16]
CHAPTER XL.
PERSECUTION AND MARTYRDOM—1801–1834.
The first attempt of a foreign missionary to enter the hermit kingdom
from the west was made in February, 1791. Jean dos Remedios, a
Portuguese priest from Macao, offered himself, was accepted, and left
Peking for the Border Gate with some Chinese guides. After a twenty
days’ journey in midwinter, he arrived on the frontier, and there
awaited the precarious chances of recognition, according to certain
signs agreed upon. For ten days he scanned the faces of the noisy
crowd, hoping every moment to light upon friends, but in vain. The
Christians, kept at home by the violence of the persecution, feared to
venture to the border. The fair closed, the embassy crossed the Yalu
River, while the foreigner and his Chinese guides returned to Peking.
There the disappointed priest soon after died.
About the same time, the Bishop of Peking addressed a letter to the
Pope detailing the origin, development, and condition of the new-born
church in Corea.
Hearing no word from the Corean Christians during the next two years,
it was determined to send succor. For this perilous mission, a young
Chinese priest named Jacques Tsiu, twenty-four years old, of good
bodily strength and pronounced piety, whose visage closely resembled a
Corean’s, was selected. Fortified with extraordinary ecclesiastical
powers, he left Peking in February, 1794, and in twenty days arrived on
the neutral ground. There he met the Christians, who urged him to wait
nearly a year, on account of the vigilance of the sentinels. This he
did among his fellow Christians in Shing-king, and on the night of
December 23, 1794, crossed the Yalu, reached Seoul in safety, and at
once began his labors. All went on well till June, when, through a
treacherous visitor, the official spies were put upon his track. In
spite of his removal to another place, three Christians—two who had
guided him to Seoul, and one an interpreter, who in sublime
self-sacrifice tried to pass himself off as the Chinaman—were seized
and tortured. With arms and legs dislocated, and knees crushed, they
refused to betray their brother in the faith, and were put to death in
prison, June 18. The three headless and battered trunks were flung in
the Han River, which for the first, but not for the last time was
streaked with martyr blood.
Meanwhile, the Chinese priest was at first hidden for many days under a
wood-pile by a Christian lady, who, having gained over her
mother-in-law, sheltered him in her house, where, protected by the law
which forbids a noble’s dwelling to be invaded, he remained three
years. In September, 1796, he wrote a letter in Latin to the Bishop of
Peking, and the native Christians writing in Chinese, the copies on
silk were sewed into the garments of two believers, who, having bought
positions as servants in the embassy, arrived in Peking, January 28,
1797. Among other things Jacques proposed that the King of Portugal
should send an embassy to the King of Chō-sen to obtain a treaty of
friendship, and allow the residence of physicians, astronomers, and
scientific men in Corea.
Though no Portuguese envoy was sent out to treat with the court of
Seoul, [17] a foreign vessel appeared in the autumn of this same year,
off the eastern coast, floating the British flag. It was the sloop of
war Providence, carrying sixteen guns, commanded by Captain W. R.
Broughton, who cast anchor in Yung-hing Bay, October 4th, and touched
at Fusan. [18] One of the natives who visited the ship was suspected by
the government and arrested; though the English visitors were ignorant
of the existence of Christians in Corea, and the local magistrates were
equally uninformed as to the difference in religion and nationality
between Britons and Portuguese.
The four political parties into which the Corean nobility was at this
time divided, as described in Chapter XXV., were ranged into two
general groups, the Si-pai and the Piek-pai, “the government” and “the
opposition.” The Si-pai were devoted to the king, and ready to second
his views, the Piek-pai were more attached to their special views. The
king, Cheng-chong, who had ruled since 1776, was opposed to persecution
of the Christians, and had done much to restrain the bitterness of
partisans. The Si-pai included the Nam-in, or “Southern” wing, in which
were the Christian nobles, while all their enemies belonged to the
Piek-pai. So long as the king lived, the sword of persecution slept in
its scabbard, but in 1800 [19] the king died, and was succeeded by his
son, Sunchō, a boy still under the care of his grandmother. This lady
at once assumed the conduct of national affairs, [20] and no sooner
were the five months of public mourning decently over, than the queen
regent dismissed the ministers then in office, and installed three
others of the No-ron group, all of whom were bitter enemies of the
Christians. A decree of general persecution was issued a few days
after, in the name of the king. Two converts of noble rank were at once
arrested, and during 1801, the police were busy in haling to prison
believers of every rank, age, and sex. Alexander Wang, who had written
a book in his native language on “The Principal Articles of the
Christian Religion,” and had begun another on systematic theology, was
arrested. From the reading of these works, the magistrates imagined the
essence of Christianity was in hatred of one’s parents and the king,
and the destruction of the human race. [21] The Church Calendar was
also seized.
The Chinese priest was outlawed by the government, in a public
proclamation. On reading this, the brave man left the house of the
noble lady in which he had been sheltered, and refusing to endanger
longer the lives of his friends, voluntarily surrendered himself, and
received the death-stroke, May 31, 1801, at the age of thirty-two. His
hostess, Colombe, thrown in prison herself, while awaiting death wrote
out his life and works on the silk skirt of her dress. At her execution
the noble lady begged that she might not be stripped of her clothes, as
were other malefactors, but die in her robes. Her request was granted,
and with the grace of the English Lady Jane Grey, she laid her head on
the block. Four other women, formerly attendants in the palace, and an
artist, who for painting Christian subjects was condemned, were
beheaded by the official butchers, who made the “Little Western Gate”
of Seoul—where a Christian church may yet be built—a Golgotha. The
policy of the government was shown in making away with the Christians
of rank and education, who might be able to direct affairs in the
absence of the foreign priests, and in letting the poor and humble go
free.
From a letter written on silk in sympathetic ink to the Bishop of
Peking by Alexander Wang, and, with the aid of treachery, deciphered by
the magistrates, they suspected a general conspiracy of the Christians;
for in his letter this Corean proposed an appeal to the Christian
nations of Europe to send sixty or seventy thousand soldiers to conquer
Corea! [22] The bearer of this letter was immediately beheaded, and his
body cut into six pieces; while the visitor to Captain Broughton’s ship
in 1799, for having said that “one such ship as that could easily
destroy one hundred Corean vessels of war,” was put to the torture and
condemned. Alexander Wang, who had witnessed a good confession, before
the king, a year before, and bore on his wrist the cord of crimson silk
showing that he had touched the royal person, was likewise decapitated.
It now devolved upon the king of Chō-sen to explain to his suzerain the
execution of a Chinese subject. In a letter full of Confucian
orthodoxy, he declares that Chō-sen from the time of Ki Tsze, had
admitted no other dogmas than those taught by the sages of China—“all
other doctrine is strange to the Little Kingdom.” He describes the
Christians as “the monstrous, barbarous, and infamous” “sect of
brigands” “who live like brutes and birds of the vilest sort,” and who
in their plot, “have interlaced themselves as a serpent and knotted
themselves together like a cord.” The plan to conquer “the Little
Kingdom at the corner of the earth” by myriads of men and vessels from
Europe is detailed, with an apology for the execution of Jacques, not
as a Chinese subject, but as chief conspirator. Dallet suggests that,
in answer to this letter, the Dragon Monarch read the king a tart
lecture, and hinted that a rich stream of silver would soothe his
ruffled scales. “China had not been China had she lost so fair an
occasion to fleece her cowering vassal.”
A fresh edict, made up of the usual fixed ammunition of Corean
rhetoric, was fulminated against “the evil sect,” January 25, 1802. The
result was to advertise the outlawed faith in every corner of the
realm. Nevertheless, the condition of the Christians scattered in the
mountains and northern forests, or suffering poverty, hunger, and cold
at home, was deplorable, under the stress of political as well as
religious hatred.
The first exchange of Muscovite and Corean courtesies took place in
1808, when several of the commissioners from Seoul were in Peking. [23]
Presents were mutually given, which in both cases were products of the
then widely separated countries, which were destined within fifty years
to be next-door neighbors.
Out of the modern catacombs of Roman Christianity, the Corean converts
addressed two letters, dated December 9 and 18, 1811, to the Pope—“the
Very High, Very Great Father, Chief of the whole Church”—in which they
invited help, not only of a spiritual nature, but aid in ships and
envoys to treat with their king. They were willing even to leave their
native land and colonize the islands in the sea, for the sake of
worship and conscience. Signed with fictitious names, copied on silk,
and sewn in the clothing of the messenger, they reached Peking and
Rome, but the bishop of neither city could afford succor. His Holiness
was then a prisoner at Fontainebleau, and the Roman propaganda was
nearly at a standstill. With a goodly supply of medals and crosses, the
messenger returned, and the church in Corea enjoyed peace, and new
converts were made until 1815, when a non-political persecution broke
out for a while in Kang-wen and Kiung-sang.
In 1817, the king and court were terrified by the appearance off the
west coast of the British [24] vessels Alceste and Lyra. They suspected
that the good captain and jolly surgeon, who have given us such
fascinating narratives of their cruise, were in active connection with
“the evil sect;” but beyond some surveys, purchases of beef, and
interviews with local magistrates, the foreigners departed without
further designs against the throne.
In 1823 several of the Christians, encouraged by hopes held out by the
Bishop of Peking, went to the Border Gate to meet a foreign priest, but
to their dismay found none. In 1826, [25] they were troubled by a
report that the shō-gun of Japan had requested their king to return six
Japanese adherents of the interdicted “Jesus sect,” who had fled the
empire in a boat. Shortly after, in Chulla, through a quarrel
instigated by a drunken potter, a convert, which led to information
given in spite, a severe persecution broke out, lasting three months.
The year 1832 was noted for its rainfall and inundations. To propitiate
Heaven’s favor the king recalled many exiles, among whom were
Christians. In this year also the British ship, Lord Amherst, was sent
out by the East India Company on a voyage of commercial exploration,
and to open, if possible, new markets for the fabrics of England and
India. On board was a Prussian gentleman, the Rev. Charles Gutzlaff,
under the patronage of the Netherlands Missionary Society, though
travelling at his own cost. Reaching the coast of Chulla, July 17th, he
remained one month. Being a good Chinese scholar, and well equipped
with medical knowledge, he landed on several of the islands and on the
mainland, he distributed presents of books, buttons, and medicines,
planted potatoes and taught their cultivation. Through an officer he
sent the king presents of cut glass, calicoes, and woollen goods, with
a copy of the Bible and some Protestant Christian tracts. These, after
some days of negotiation, were refused. A few of the more intelligent
natives risked their heads, and accepted various gifts, among which
were Chinese translations of European works on geography and
mathematics. Mr. Gutzlaff could discover no trace of Christianity [26]
or the converts, though he made diligent inquiry. The lying magistrates
denied all knowledge of even the existence of the Christian faith.
Deeply impressed with their poverty, dirt, love of drink, and
degradation, the Protestant, after being nearly a month among the
Coreans, left their shores, fully impressed with their need of soap and
bibles.
The year 1834 closed the first half century of Corean Christianity.
In this chapter, the moral weakness of Roman Catholic methods of
evangelization in Corea, and elsewhere in Asia, has been revealed. It
must be remembered that the Corean converts were taught to believe not
only in the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Pope, but also in the
righteousness of his claim to temporal power as the Vicar of Heaven.
Untaught in the Scriptures of the New Testament, and doubtless ignorant
of the words of Jesus—“My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom
were of this world, then would my servants fight”—the Coreans suspected
no blasphemy in the papal claim. Seeing the Pope’s political power
upheld by the powerful European nations then under Bourbon rule, the
Corean Christians, following the ethics of their teachers, played the
part of traitors to their country; they not only deceived the
magistrates, and violated their country’s laws, but, as the letter of
Alexander Wang shows, actually invited armed invasion. Hence from the
first Christianity was associated in patriotic minds with treason and
robbery. The French missionary as the forerunner of the French soldier
and invader, the priest as the pilot of the gunboat, were not mere
imaginings, but, as the subsequent narrative shows, strict logic and
actual fact. It is the narrative of friends, not foes, that, later,
shows us a bishop acting as spy and pilot on a French man-of-war, a
priest as guide to a buccaneering raid; and, after the story of papal
Christianity, the inevitable “French expedition.”
CHAPTER XLI.
THE ENTRANCE OF THE FRENCH MISSIONARIES—1835–1845.
The French Revolution, and the wars of Napoleon following, which
distracted all Europe for a period of over twenty years, completely
disorganized the missionary operations of the Holy See and French Roman
Catholic Church. On the restoration of the Bourbons, and the
strengthening of the papal throne by foreign bayonets, the stream of
religious activity flowed anew into its old channels, and with an added
volume. Missionary zeal in the church was kindled afresh, and the
prayers of the Christians in the far East were heard at the court of
St. Peter. It was resolved to found a mission in Corea, directly
attached to the Holy See, but to be under the care of the Society of
Foreign Missions of Paris.
Barthelemy Brugiere, then a missionary at Bangkok, Siam, offered as a
volunteer, and in 1832 was nominated apostolic Vicar of Corea. He
reached Shing-king, but was seized with sudden illness, and died
October 20, 1835. Pierre Philibert Maubant, his host, stepped into the
place of his fallen comrade, and with five Corean Christians left
Fung-Wang Chang, crossed the neutral strip, and the Yalu River on the
ice. Dodging the sentinels at Ai-chiu, he entered Corea as a thread
enters the needle’s eye. They crawled through a water-drain in the
wall, and despite the barking of a dog, got into the city. Resting
several hours, they slid out again through another drain, reaching the
country and friends beyond. Two days’ journey on horses brought them to
Seoul, from which Maubant, the first Frenchman who had penetrated the
hermit kingdom, or who, in Corean phrase, had committed pem-kiong
(violation of the frontier), wrote to his friends in Paris.
Maubant’s first duty was to order back a Chinese priest who refused to
learn Corean, or to obey any but the Bishop of Peking. With the
couriers who escorted the refractory Chinaman to the frontier, went
three young men to study at the college in Macao. At the Border Gate
they met Jacques Honore Chastan a young French priest, who, on the dark
night of January 17, 1837, passed the custom-house of Ai-chiu disguised
as a Corean widower in mourning, and joined Maubant in Seoul. Nearly
one year later, December 19, 1838, Laurent Marie-Joseph Imbert, a
bishop, ran the gauntlet of wilderness, ice, and guards, and took up
his residence under the shadow of the king’s palace.
Visits, masses, and preaching now went on vigorously. The Christians at
the end of 1837 numbered 6,000, and in 1838, 9,000. Up to January 16,
1839, the old regent being averse from persecution, the work went on
unharmed, but on that day, the court party in favor of extirpating
Christianity, having gained the upper hand, hounded on the police in
the king’s name. The visitation of every group of five houses in all
the eight provinces was ordered. Hundreds of suspects were at once
seized and brought to trial. In June, before the death of the old
regent, the uncle of the young king (Hen-chong, 1834–1849) and the
implacable enemy of the Christians obtained control of power, and at an
extraordinary council of the ministers, held July 7, 1839, a new decree
was issued in the regent’s name. The persecution now broke out with
redoubled violence. In a few days, three native lay leaders were
beheaded, and a score of women and children suffered death. To stay the
further shedding of blood, Bishop Imbert, who had escaped to an island,
came out of his hiding-place, and on August 10th delivered himself up
and ordered Maubant and Chastan to do the same. The three willing
martyrs met in chains before the same tribunal. During three days they
were put to trial and torture, thence transferred to the Kum-pu, or
prison for state criminals of rank. They were again tried, beaten with
sixty-six strokes of the paddle, and condemned to die under the sword,
September 21, 1839.
On that day, the inspector and one hundred soldiers took their place on
the execution ground, not near the city gate, but close to the river. A
pole fixed in the earth bore a flag inscribed with the death-sentence.
Pinioned and stripped of their upper clothing, a stick was passed
between the elbows and backs of the prisoners, and an arrow, feather
end up, run through the flesh of each ear. Their faces were first wet
with water and then powdered with chalk. Three executioners then
marched round, brandishing their staves, while the crowd raised a yell
of insult and mockery. A dozen soldiers, sword in hand, now began
prancing around the kneeling victims, engaging in mock combat, but
delivering their blows at the victims. Only when weary of their sport,
the human butchers relieved the agony of their victims by the
decapitating blow. The heads were presented to the inspector on a
board, and the corpses, after public exposure during three days, were
buried in the sand by the river banks.
On the day after the burial, three Christians attempted to remove the
bodies, but the government spies lying in wait caught them. As of old
in Rome, when the primitive Christians crawled stealthily at night
through the arches of the Coliseum, into the arena, and groping about
in the sand for the bones of Ignatius left after the lion’s feast, bore
them to honored sepulture, so these Corean Christians with equal faith
and valor again approached the bloody sand by the Han River. Twenty
days after the first attempt, a party of seven or eight men succeeded
in bearing away the bodies of the martyrs to Noku, about eight miles
north of Seoul.
Thus died the first European missionaries who entered “the forbidden
land.” As in the old fable of the lion’s den, the footprints all
pointed one way.
With the foreign leaders there perished no less than one hundred and
thirty of their converts, seventy by decapitation, and the others by
strangulation, torture, or the result of their wounds. [27] In
November, 1839, a new edict in the vernacular was posted up all over
the country. Six bitter years passed before the Christians again had a
foreign pastor.
Great events now began to ripen in China. The opium war of 1840–42
broke out. The “Western Barbarians” held the chief cities of the China
coast from Hong-Kong to Shanghae, and the military weakness of the
colossal empire was demonstrated. The French, though having nothing to
do with this first quarrel of China with Europe, were on the alert for
any advantage to be gained in the far East. In 1841, Louis Philippe
sent out the war vessels Erigone and Favorite, to occupy if possible
some island to the south of Japan, which would be valuable for
strategic and commercial purposes, and to make treaties of trade and
friendship with Japan, and especially with Corea.
The Erigone cast anchor at Macao, September 7, 1841, and Captain Cecile
awaited events. Moving north in February, 1842, with Andrew Kim the
Corean student, as interpreter, on the Erigone, and Thomas Tsoi, his
companion, on the Favorite, the French captains, hearing of the sudden
conclusion of the war, gave up the idea of opening Corea.
The two Coreans, with two French priests, engaged a Chinese junk, and
landed on the coast of Shing-king, October 25, 1842. On December 23d,
Kim set out for the Border Gate, and within two leagues of it met the
outward-bound embassy. Each of the three hundred persons had his
passport at his girdle. Stopping to see them file past, he saluted one
who was a Christian, and had in his belt letters from Maubant and
Chastan, written before their execution, and from the natives. Unable
to go back with Andrew to Ai-chiu, as every name on the embassy’s list
was registered, the man went on to Peking. Andrew Kim, by mingling
among the drovers and huge cattle returning from the fair, ran the
blockade at Ai-chiu; but on the next day, having walked all night, he
applied for lodgings at an inn for shelter, and was recognized as a
stranger. Fearful of being arrested as a border-ruffian from the
neutral strip, he took to his heels, recrossed the Yalu, and after
resting at Fung-Wang Chang, rejoined his friends at Mukden.
On December 31, 1843, Jean Joseph Ferreol was consecrated Bishop of
Corea, and resolved to cross the frontier, not at Ai-chiu, but at
Hun-chun, on the Tumen. Andrew Kim exploring the way, after a month’s
journey through ice and snow, mountains and forests, reached Hun-chun,
February 25, 1845. The native Christians, having been duly instructed,
had arrived at Kion-wen a month before. For recognition, Andrew was to
hold a blue kerchief in his hand and have a little red bag of tea at
his girdle. At the fair which opened at Kion-wen on the 28th, the
Christians met. The result of their conference was that Ai-chiu was
declared safer even than Kion-wen.
Since 1839, the government had tripled its vigilance, and doubled the
guards on the frontier. No one could pass the gate at Ai-chiu who had
not a passport stamped with the chief inspector’s seal, bestowed only
after the closest scrutiny and persistent cross-questioning. On it was
written the name and place of birth and residence of the holder, and
after return from China or the fair it must be given up. The result of
these stringent regulations was to drive the missionaries to find a
path seaward. In December, 1844, of seven converts from Seoul,
attempting to get to the Border Gate, to meet Ferreol, only three were
able to pass Ai-chiu. The other four, who had the wig, hair pins, and
mourning costume of a widower for Ferreol, were unable to satisfy their
questioners, and so returned. At the Border Gate, Ferreol, after seeing
the caravan pass, ordered Andrew Kim to enter alone, while he returned
and sailed soon after to Macao. Andrew, with the aid of his three
friends, who met him at a lonely spot at some distance from Ai-chiu,
reached Seoul, January 8, 1845.
As soon as resources and opportunity would permit, Andrew collected a
crew of eleven fellow-believers, only four of whom had ever seen the
sea, and none of whom knew their destination, and equipped with but a
single compass, put to sea in a rude fishing-boat, April 24, 1845.
Despite the storms and baffling winds, this uncouth mass of firewood,
which the Chinese sailors jeeringly dubbed “the Shoe,” reached Shanghae
in June. Andrew Kim, never before at sea except as a passenger, had
brought this uncalked, deckless and unseaworthy scow across the entire
breadth of the Yellow Sea.
After the ordeal of the mandarin’s questions, [28] and visits and
kindly hospitality from the British naval officers and consul, he
reached his French friends at the Roman Catholic mission.
The beacon fires were now blazing on Quelpart, and from headland to
headland on the mainland, telegraphing the news of “foreign ships” to
Seoul. From June 25th until the end of July, Captain Edward Belcher,
[29] of the British ship Samarang, was engaged in surveying off
Quelpart and the south coast. Even after the ship left for Nagasaki,
the magistrates of the coast were ordered to maintain strict watch for
all seafarers from strange countries. This made the return of Andrew
Kim doubly dangerous.
Bishop Ferreol came up from Macao to Shanghae, and on Sunday, August
17th, Andrew Kim was ordained to the priesthood. On September 1st, with
Ferreol and Marie Antoine Nicholas Daveluy, another French priest, he
set sail in “the Shoe,” now christened the “Raphael,” and turned toward
the land of martyrdom. It was like Greatheart approaching Giant
Despair’s Castle.
The voyage was safely, though tediously, made past Quelpart, and
through the labyrinth of islands off Chulla. On October 12th, the
Frenchmen, donning the garb of native noblemen in mourning, and
baffling the sentinels, landed at night in an obscure place on the
coast. Soon after this Daveluy was learning the language among some
Christian villagers, who cultivated tobacco in a wild part of the
country. The bishop went to Seoul as the safest place to hide and work
in, while the farmer-sailors, after seven months’ absence, returned to
their hoes and their native fields.
CHAPTER XLII.
THE WALLS OF ISOLATION SAPPED.
While the three priests were prosecuting their perilous labors, Thomas
Tsoi, the Corean student from Macao with Maistre, a new missionary,
were on their way through Manchuria to Hun-chun. Arriving after a
seventeen days’ march, they were seized by Manchiu officers,
reprimanded, and sent back to Mukden.
Andrew Kim, by order of Bishop Ferreol, went to Whang-hai by water, to
examine into the feasibility of making that province a gateway of
entrance. The sea was full of Chinese junks, the herring fishery being
at its height. Watch-towers dotted the hills, and the beach was
patrolled by soldiers to prevent communication with shore. Andrew,
coming ostensibly to buy a cargo of fish, was enabled to sail among the
islands, to locate the rocks and sandspits, and to make a chart of the
coast. Deeming the route practicable, he hailed a Chinese junk, and
after conference, confided to the captain the mail-bag of the mission,
which contained also the charts and two maps of Corea. Unfortunately
these documents were seized by the spies, and Andrew Kim, delayed while
the cargo of fish was drying, was arrested on the suspicion of being a
Chinaman. He was sent to Seoul, and while in prison heard of the French
ships which were at that moment vainly trying to find the mouth of the
Han River and the channel to the capital. Meanwhile, from his
hiding-place, Ferreol wrote to Captain Cecile, who commanded the fleet
of three war-vessels.
The object of this visit was to hold a conference with the king’s
ministers, and demand satisfaction for the murder of Imbert Chastan and
Maubant in 1839. After some coast surveys made, and the despatch of a
threatening letter, the ships withdrew. Ferreol’s note arrived too
late, and Andrew Kim’s fate was sealed.
While in prison, Andrew was employed in coloring, copying, and
translating two English maps of the world, one of which was for the
king, and composing a summary of geography. In a letter in Latin to
Ferreol, dated August 26th, he narrated his capture and trial. On
September 16th, he was led out to trial. The sentence-flag bore the
inscription: “Put to death for communicating with the western
barbarians,” and the full programme of cruelty was carried out. Four
women and four men were put to death in the persecution which followed.
Maistre and Thomas Tsoi went to Macao and there found the French
frigates La Gloire and La Victorieuse, ready to sail north for an
answer to Captain Cecile’s letter. Gladly welcomed by Captain Pierre,
they went aboard July 12th. On August 10th, while under sail in a group
of islands off Chulla, in latitude 35° 45′ and longitude 124° 8′, in
water which the English charts marked at twelve fathoms deep, both
vessels grounded simultaneously. The high tides for which this coast is
noted falling rapidly, both vessels became total wrecks. The largest of
the La Gloire’s boats was at once sent to Shanghae for assistance, and
the six hundred men made their camp at Kokun Island. Kindly treated and
furnished with provisions as they were, the Frenchmen during their stay
were rigidly secluded, and at night cordons of boats with lanterns
guarded against all communication with the mainland. Thomas Tsoi acted
as dumb interpreter, with pencil, in Chinese, and though hearing every
word of the Corean magistrates was not recognized. Though meeting
fellow Christians, he was unable to get inland, and Ferreol’s
messengers to the sea-shore arrived after an English ship from Shanghae
had taken the crews away.
The Corean government, fearing [30] further visits of the outside
barbarians, sent an answer to Admiral Cecile, directing it to Captain
Pierre at Macao, by way of Peking. [31] They explained why they treated
Frenchmen shipwrecked kindly; but sent Frenchmen disguised to
execution. [32] When Admiral Cecile reached Paris in 1848, one of the
periodical French revolutions had broken out in Paris, and a war at the
ends of the earth was out of the question. The French government
neglected to send a vessel to take away the effects saved from the
wreck. The Coreans promptly put the cannon to use, and from them, as
models, manufactured others for the forts built to resist “the Pepins”
in 1866, and the Americans in 1871.
Once more Maistre and Thomas Tsoi essayed to enter the guarded
peninsula, by sailing early in 1848 in a Chinese junk from Macao to
Merin Island off Whang-hai, but no Christians met them. By way of
Shanghae, they then went into Shing-king, and in December to the Border
Gate, meeting couriers from Bishop Ferreol. On a fiercely cold, windy,
and dark night, which drove the soldiers indoors to the more congenial
pleasure of the long pipe, cards, and cup on the oven-warmed floors,
Thomas Tsoi got safely through Ai-chiu, and in a few days was in Seoul,
and later in Chulla. The work of propagation now took a fresh start. A
number of religious works composed or translated into the vulgar tongue
were printed in pamphlet form from a native printing press, and widely
circulated. In 1850, the Christians numbered eleven thousand, and five
young men were studying for the priesthood. Regular mails, sewn into
the thick cotton coats of men in the embassy, were sent to and brought
from China. A French whaler having grounded off the coast, the French
consul at Shanghae, with two Englishmen, came to reclaim the vessel’s
effects, and meeting three young men sent by the ever-alert Thomas
Tsoi, took them back to Shanghae, the third remaining to meet his
comrades on their return with fresh missionaries to come. After still
another failure to enter Corea, Maistre set foot in Chulla-dō, by way
of Kokun Island, even while the fire-signals were blazing on the
headlands on account of the presence of Russian ships. [33]
Ferreol, worn out with his labors, after lying paralytic for many
months, died February 3, 1853; but in March, 1854, Janson, making a
second attempt, entered Corea, having crossed the Yellow Sea in a junk,
which immediately took back three native students for Macao. Janson
died in Seoul, of cerebral fever, June 18, 1854.
In these years, 1853 and 1854, Commodore Perry and the American
squadron were in the waters of the far East, driving the wedge of
civilization into Japan, and sapping her walls of seclusion. The
American flag, however, was not yet seen in Corean waters, though the
court of Seoul were kept informed of Perry’s movements.
A fresh reinforcement of missionaries to storm the citadel of paganism,
Bishop Simeon, François Berneux, with two young priests, Michel
Alexandre Petitnicholas and Charles Antoine Pourthie, set sail from
Shanghae in a junk, and, after many adventures, arrived at Seoul via
Whang-hai, while Feron (of later buccaneering fame) followed on a
Corean smuggling vessel, standing unexpectedly before his bishop in the
capital, March 31, 1857. A synod of all the missionaries was now held,
at which Berneux consecrated Daveluy as his fellow bishop. Maistre died
December 20th. The faith was now spread to Quelpart by a native of that
island, who, having been shipwrecked on the coast of China, was carried
by an English ship to Hong-Kong, where he met a Corean student from
Macao and was converted. The Roman Catholic population of Corea in 1857
was reckoned at 16,500.
Communication with the native Christians living near Nagasaki, and then
under the harrow of persecution, took place. The cholera imported from
Japan swept away over 400,000 victims in Corea. Thus does half the
world not know how the other half lives. How many Americans ever heard
of this stroke of pestilence in the hermit nation?
In 1860, war with China broke out, the French and English forces took
the Peiho forts, entered Peking, sacked the summer palace of the Son of
Heaven, a few thousand European troops destroying the military prestige
of the Chinese colossus. The Chinese emperor fled into Shing-king,
toward Corea. The news produced a lively effect in Chō-sen, especially
at court. [34]
The utter loss of Chinese prestige struck terror into all hearts. For
six centuries, China, the Tai-kuk (Great Empire), had been, in Corean
eyes, the synonym and symbol of invincible power, and “the Son of
Heaven, who commands ten thousand chariots,” the one able to move all
the earth. Copies of the treaty made between China and the allies,
granting freedom of trade and religion, were soon read in Corea,
causing intense alarm.
But the after-clap of news, that turned the first storm of excitement
into a tempest of rage and fear, was the treaty with Russia. General
Ignatieff, the brilliant and vigorous diplomatist then but twenty-eight
years old and fresh on the soil of Cathay, obtained, in 1860, after the
allied plenipotentiaries had gone home, the signature of Prince Kung to
the cession of the whole Ussuri province. The tread of the Great Bear
had been so steadily silent, that before either Great Britain or
Chō-sen knew it, his foot had been planted ten degrees nearer the
temperate zone. A rich and fertile region, well watered by the Amoor
and Sungari Rivers, bordered by the Pacific, with a coast full of
harbors, and comprising an area as large as France, was thus ceded to
Russia. The Manchiu rulers of China had actually surrendered their
ancestral homeland to the wily Muscovites. The boundaries of Siberia
now touched the Tumen. The Russian bear jostled the Corean tiger.
With France on the right, Russia on the left, China humbled, and Japan
opened to the western world, what wonder that the rulers in Seoul
trembled?
The results to Corean Christianity were that, in less than a decade,
thousands of natives had fled their country and were settled in the
Russian villages.
At the capital all official business was suspended, and many families
of rank fled to the mountains. The nobles or officials who could not
quit their posts sent off their wives and children. All this turned to
the temporary advantage of the missionaries. In many instances, people
of rank humbly sought the good favor and protection of the Christians.
Medals, crosses, and books of religion were bought in quantities. Some
even publicly wore them on their dress, hoping for safety when the
dreaded invasion should come. The government now proceeded to raise
war-funds, levying chiefly on the rich merchants, who were threatened
with torture and death in case of refusal. A conscription of
able-bodied men was ordered, and bombs, called “French pieces,” and
small-bore cannon were manufactured. In a foundry in the capital heavy
guns were cast after the model of those left by the wreck of the La
Gloire. The Kang-wa forts were built and garrisoned. In the midst of
these war preparations, the missionary body was reinforced by the
arrival of four of their countrymen, who, by way of Merin Island, set
foot on the soil of their martyrdom October, 1861. Their names were
Landre, Joanno, Ridel, and Calais. This year the number of Christians
reached 18,000.
Indirect attempts to insert the crowbars of diplomacy in the chinks of
Corea’s wall of seclusion were made about this time by France and
England, and by Russia at another point. Japan was in each case the
fulcrum. On account of the petty trade between Tsushima and Fusan, Earl
Russell wished to have Great Britain included as a co-trader with the
peninsula. The Russians the same year occupied a station on Tsu Island,
commanding the countries on either side; but under protest from Yedo,
backed by British men-of-war, abandoned their purpose. In 1862, while
the members of the Japanese embassy from the Tycoon were in Paris, the
government of Napoleon III. requested their influence in the opening of
Corea to French trade and residence. At this time, however, the
Japanese had their hands full of their own troubles at home, nor had
the court at Seoul sent either envoys or presents since 1832. They
should have done so in 1852, at the accession of the new shō-gun, but
not relishing the humiliation of coming only to Tsushima, and knowing
the weakened state of their former conquerors, they were now ready to
defy them.
One new missionary and two returned native students entered in March,
1863. The Ni dynasty, founded in 1392, came to an end on January 15,
1864, by the King Chul-chong, who had no child, dying before he had
nominated an heir. This was the signal for fresh palace intrigues, and
excitement among the nobles and political parties. The three widows of
the kings who had reigned since 1831 were still living. The oldest of
these, Queen Chō, at once seized the royal seal and emblems of
authority, which high-handed move made her the mistress of the
situation. Craftily putting aside her nephew Chō Sung, she nominated
for the throne a lad then but twelve years old, and son of Ni Kung, one
of the royal princes. This latter person was supposed to be indifferent
to politics, but no sooner was his son made the sovereign, than his
slumbering ambition woke to lion-like vigor. This man, to use a Corean
phrase, had “a heart of stone, and bowels of iron.” He seemed to know
no scruple, pity, or fear. Possessing himself of the seal and royal
emblems, he was made Tai-wen Kun (Lord of the Great Court—a rare title
given to a noble when his son is made king) and became actual regent.
This Corean mayor of the palace held the reins of government during the
next nine years, ruling with power like that of an absolute despot. He
was a rabid hater of Christianity, foreigners, and progress.
In spite of the new current of hostility that set steadily in, the
Christians began to be bold even to defiance. In Kiung-sang a funeral
procession carrying two hundred lanterns, bore aloft a huge cross, and
chanted responsive prayers. In the capital, the converts paraded the
signs of the Romish cult. A theological training school was established
in the mountains, four new missionaries entered the kingdom through
Nai-po, 1976 baptisms were made during the year, and, with much
literary work accomplished, the printing-press was kept busy.
The year 1866 is phenomenal in Corean history. It seemed as if the
governments and outlaws alike, of many nations, had conspired to pierce
or breach the walls of isolation at many points. Russians, Frenchmen,
Englishmen, Americans, Germans, authorized and unauthorized, landed to
trade, rob, kill, or, what was equally obnoxious to the regent and his
court, to make treaties.
In January the Russians, in a war-vessel, again appeared in Broughton’s
Bay, and demanded the right of trade. At the same time they stated that
some Russian troops were to pass the frontier of Ham-kiung to enforce
the demand. The usual stereotyped response was made, that Corea was a
vassal of China, and could not treat with any other nation without
permission of that Power, and that a special ambassador charged with
the matter would be immediately despatched to Peking, etc.
The advent of the double-headed eagle was the signal for lively feeling
and action among the Christians at Seoul. The long-cherished project of
appealing to England and France to make an alliance to secure liberty
of religion was revived. The impulsive converts now forwarded the
scheme, under the plea of patriotic defense against the Russians, with
all the innocent maladdress which characterizes men who are adults in
age but children in politics. In their exhilaration they already
dreamed of building a cathedral in Seoul of imposing proportions, and
finished in a style worthy alike of their religion and their country.
Three Christian nobles, headed by Thomas Kim, composed a letter
embodying their ideas of an anti-Russian Franco English alliance, and
had it presented to the regent, who blandly sent Thomas Kim to invite
the bishops, then absent to a conference in the capital. On his return
to Seoul, Kim was coldly received, and no further notice was taken of
him. The anti-Christian party, now in full power at court, clamored for
the enforcement of the old edict against the foreign religion, while a
letter from one of the Corean embassy in Peking, arriving late in
January, added fuel to the rising flame. It stated that the Chinese
were putting to death all the Christians found in the empire. That lie,
“as light as a feather” in its telling, was “as heavy as a mountain” in
Corea. Such an illustrious example must be followed. Vainly the regent
warned the court of the danger from Europe. The Russian ship, too, had
disappeared, and the French seemed afraid to take vengeance for the
massacre of 1839. The cry of “Death to all the Christians, death to the
western barbarians” now began to be heard. Forced by the party in
power, the regent signed the death-warrants of the bishops and priests,
promulgated anew the old laws of the realm against the Christians, and
proceeded “to make very free with the heads of his subjects.” The
minions of the magistrates sallied forth like bloodhounds unleashed.
Berneux was seized on February 23d, and brought to trial successively
before three tribunals, the last being the highest of the realm.
In his interview with the regent, who had formed a high idea of the
Frenchman, Berneux failed to address his Highness in the punctilious
form of words demanded by court etiquette. Forthwith the official made
up his mind that the Frenchman was a man of slight attainments, and of
no personal importance—so sensitive is the Corean mind in the matter of
etiquette. From the highest class prison, the bishop, after undergoing
horrible tortures with club, paddle, and pointed sticks thrust into his
flesh, was cast into a common dungeon, where, in a few days, he was
joined by three of his fellow missionaries with several converts,
faithful to their teachers even in the hour of death.
All suffered the fierce and savage beatings, and on March 8th were led
out to death. An immense crowd of jeering, laughing, curious people
followed the prisoners, who were tied by their hair to the chair so as
to force them to hold up their faces, that the crowd might see them.
Four hundred soldiers marched out with the doomed men to the sandy
plain near the river. The lengthened programme of brutal torture and
insult was duly carried out, after which the four heads were presented
for inspection.
One day afterward, two other French missionaries and their twelve
students for the priesthood were led captives into Seoul, marked with
the red cord and yellow caps betokening prisoners soon to die. With
like tortures, and the same shameful details of execution, they
suffered death on March 11th. On this day, also, Daveluy and two other
priests were seized, and on March 30th, Good Friday, decapitated,
together with two faithful natives. In the case of Daveluy, the
barbarity of the proceeding was increased by the sordid executioner,
who, after delivering one blow, and while the blood was spouting out
from the wound, left the victim to bargain with the official for the
sum due him for his work of blood.
In a little over a month all missionary operations had come to a
standstill. Scores of natives had been put to death; hundreds more were
in prison. Ridel, while hiding between two walls, wrote to Peking,
describing the state of affairs. Feron and Ridel met on May 8th,
travelling all night, and on June 15th they found that Calais was still
alive. Hearing that a foreign steam-vessel was cruising off the Nai-po,
Ridel sent a letter begging for help. This ship was the Rona, Captain
Morrison, belonging to a British firm in China, on its way back from
Niu-chwang, under the direction of Mr. Ernest Oppert. The native
Christians were unable to get on board the Rona; but when the same
Oppert visited Haimi in the Nai-po, some months later, in the steamer
Emperor, this letter was put in his hands. Meanwhile Ridel had reached
the sea-coast, and in spite of the vigilant patrols, put off in a boat
constructed without an ounce of iron, and manned by a crew of eleven
Christian fishermen. He reached Chifu July 7th. Going at once to
Tien-tsin, he informed the French Admiral Roze of the recent events in
Corea, and then returning to Chifu, waited till mid-August. Feron and
Calais, hearing of the presence of French ships in the Han River,
reached the coast, after great straits, to find them gone. They put to
sea, however, and got upon a Chinese smuggler, by which they reached
Chifu, October 26th—while the French expedition was in Corea. Not one
foreign priest now remained in the peninsula, and no Christian dared
openly confess his faith, while thousands were banished, imprisoned, or
put to death.
Thus after twenty years of nearly uninterrupted labors, the church was
again stripped of her pastors, and at the end of the eighty-two years
of Corean Christianity, the curtain fell in blood. Of four bishops and
nineteen priests, all except four were from France, and of these only
three remained alive. Fourteen were martyrs, and four fell victims to
the toils and dangers of their noble calling.
In the foregoing story of papal Christianity in Chō-sen, which we have
drawn from Dallet—a Roman Catholic writer—we have the spectacle of a
brave band of men, mostly secular priests educated in French seminaries
of learning, doing what they believed it was right to do. Setting the
laws of this pagan country at defiance, they, by means of dissimulation
and falsehood, entered the country in disguise as nobles in mourning.
Fully believing in the dogma of salvation by works, they were sublimely
diligent in carrying on their labors of conversion, ever in readiness
for that crown of martyrdom which each one coveted, and which so many
obtained; but the nobleness of their calling was disfigured by the foul
and abominable teaching that evil should be done in order that good
might come—a tenet that insults at once the New Testament and the best
casuistry of the Roman Catholic Church. According to the code of any
nation, their converts were traitors in inviting invasion; but if
worthy to be set down as Arnolds and Iscariots, then their teachers
have the greater blame in leading them astray. It is to be hoped that
the future Christian missionaries in Corea, whether of the Greek,
Roman, or Reformed branch, will teach Christianity with more of the
moral purity inculcated by its Founder.
CHAPTER XLIII.
THE FRENCH EXPEDITION.
The preliminaries of the French expedition to Corea in 1866 may be
gathered from the letters which passed between the French chargé
d’affairs at Peking and Prince Kung, the Chinese premier, as published
in the United States Diplomatic Correspondence, 1867–68. [35] The
pyrotechnic bombast of the Frenchman may be best understood by
remembering that he lived in the palmy days of Louis Napoleon and the
third empire. His violent language and behavior may be contrasted with
the calm demeanor and firm temper of the astute Chinaman, the greatest
of the diplomats of the Middle Kingdom.
“Unfortunately for the interests of his country, M. H. Bellonet had
carried into diplomacy the rude customs and unmeasured language of the
African Zouaves, in whose ranks he had served at one period of his
career.”
The best commentary upon this boast of an irate underling, dressed in
the brief authority of his superior, will be found in the events of the
expedition, notably in the reduction to ashes of the city of Kang-wa,
which rendered 10,000 people homeless, and in the repulse of the
reckless invaders even before Bellonet at Peking was settling the fate
of the king.
With Bishop Ridel as interpreter, and three of his converts as pilots,
three vessels were sent to explore the Han River. Equipped with charts
made by Captain James of the Emperor, who had examined the western
entrance one month before, the despatch-boat Déroulède leaving her
consorts in Prince Jerome Gulf, steamed up the river on September 21st,
as far as the narrows between Kang-wa and the mainland. The French
officers were charmed with the beauty of the autumnal scenery. On the
cultivated plain, checkered into a thousand squares of tiny
rice-fields, all well irrigated, the golden-tinted grain, now full
ripe, awaited the sickle and the sheaf-binder. Numerous villages dotted
the landscape, and to the northwest rose the green hills on which sat,
like a queen, the city of Kang-wa. A number of forts, as yet unmounted
with cannon, were already built. Others, in process of construction,
were rising on well-chosen sites commanding the river. No garrison or a
single soldier was as yet seen. The simple villagers, at first
frightened at the sight of a mighty black ship, moving up the river
against a strong current without sails or oars, collected in crowds
along the banks to see this fire-pulsing monster from the western
ocean.
On the 23d the Déroulède and Tardif, leaving the Primauguet at Boisée
(Woody) Island, moved up the Han River to the capital, the Corean
pilots at the bow, and Ridel with the men at the wheel. One or two
forts fired on the vessels as they steamed along, and in one place a
fleet of junks gathered to dispute their passage. A well-aimed shot
sunk two of the crazy craft, and a bombshell dropped among the
artillerists in the redoubt silenced it at once. The rocks were safely
avoided, and on the evening of the 25th, the two ships cast anchor, and
the flag of France floated in front of the Corean capital. The hills
environing the city and every point of view were white with gazing
thousands, who for the first time saw a vessel moving under steam.
The ships remained abreast of the city several days, the officers
taking soundings and measurements, computing heights and making plans.
M. Ridel went on shore in hopes of finding a Christian and hearing some
news, but none dared to approach him.
While the French remained in the river, not a bag of rice nor a fagot
of wood entered Seoul. Eight days of such terror, and a famine would
have raged in the city. Seven thousand houses were deserted by their
occupants.
Returning to Boisée Island, having surveyed the river, two converts
came on board. They informed Ridel of the burning of a “European” ship
[the General Sherman] at Ping-an, the renewal of the persecution, and
the order that Christians should be put to death without waiting for
instructions from Seoul. Ridel in vain urged Admiral Roze to remain
with his fleet, in order to intimidate the government. Sailing away,
the ships arrived at Chifu, October 3d.
Tai-wen kun, now thoroughly alarmed, began to stir up the country to
defense. The military forces in every province were called out. Every
scrap of iron was collected, and the forges and blacksmith shops were
busy day and night in making arms of every known kind; even the
farmer’s tools were altered into pikes and sabres. Loaded junks were
sunk in the channel of the Han to obstruct it Through the Japanese at
Fusan, and the daimiō of Tsushima, word was sent to the Tycoon of
Japan, informing him of his straits, and begging for assistance. The
Yedo government, being at that time in great straits between the
pressure of foreigners on one hand, and of the “mikado-reverencers” on
the other, could not then, had it been right to do so, afford any
military assistance against the French, with whom a treaty had been
made. Instead of this, two commissioners were appointed to go to Seoul,
and recommend that Chō-sen 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 shō-gunate was abolished, and
Corea was for the time utterly forgotten.
The object of the French expedition and the blockade of the Salée (Han)
River were duly announced from the French legation in China to the
Chinese and foreign representatives in Peking. Without waiting to hear
from his government at home, Bellonet despatched the fleet and made war
on his own responsibility. The squadron which sailed October 11th, to
distribute thrones and decapitate prime ministers, consisted of the
frigate Guerrière, the corvettes Laplace and Primauguet, the
despatch-vessels Déroulède and Kien-chan, and the gunboats Tardif and
Lebrethon, with 600 soldiers, including a detachment of 400 marines
from the camp at Yokohama.
One would have thought 600 men rather too small a force to root up
thrones with, seeing that the days of Cortez and Pizarro were past. The
Coreans were not like the Mexicans, who thought a horse and his rider
were one animal. They had smelt powder and fought tigers.
On October 13th the admiral cast anchor off Boisée Island. The next day
the gunboats steamed up the river, landing the marines in camp, a
little over half a mile from the city. On the 15th, before any attempt
was made to communicate with the government, a reconnoissance was made
in force, toward Kang-hoa (Kang-wa), during which a small fort,
mounting two guns, was captured.
Kang-wa was, to a modern eye, probably one of the best fortified cities
in the kingdom. It was surrounded by a crenelated wall, nearly fifteen
feet high! Behind this defense the native soldiery stood ready with
flails, arrows, matchlocks, and jingals.
The royal residence, for pleasure in summer, and refuge in war-time,
was beautifully situated on a wooded hill, from which a glorious view
of the island, sea, and mainland was visible. The fertile island itself
lay like a green emerald upon a greener sea. Crops of rice, barley,
tobacco, sorghum, maize, various root foods, Chinese cabbage,
chestnuts, persimmons, with here and there a great camellia tree just
entering into bloom, greeted the view of the invaders. Kang-wa was well
named “The Flower of the River.”
At eight o’clock on the morning of October 16th an attack was made in
force on the main gate. At the distance of one hundred yards, the
infantry charged on a run, to the cry of “Vive l’Empereur.” The hot
fire of the jingals checked them not a moment. Reaching the wall, they
set up the scaling ladders, and in a few moments hundreds of Frenchmen
were inside, shooting down the flying white-coats, or engaging in a
hand to hand encounter, though only a few natives were killed. The gate
was soon crushed in with axes, and the main body entered easily. Firing
was soon over, and the deserted city was in the victors’ hands. About
eighty bronze and iron cannon, mostly of very small calibre, over six
thousand matchlocks, and the official archives of the city were found
and made trophies of.
Kang-wa was the military headquarters for western Corea and the chief
place of gunpowder manufacture. Large magazines of food supplies had
been collected in it. Eighteen boxes of silver, containing ingots to
the value of nearly thirty eight thousand dollars, and a great many
books and manuscripts were found, besides spoil of many kinds from the
shops and houses. Immense stores of bows and arrows, iron sabres
without scabbards, helmets, and breastplates, beautifully wrought, but
very heavy and clumsy, were found.
The cannon had no carriages, but were fastened to logs or fixed
platforms. They were breech-loaders, in that the powder, fixed in an
iron cartridge, was introduced at the breech, while the ball seemed to
be put in simultaneously at the muzzle. These double-ended cannon
reminded one of a tortoise. A curious or rather comical thing about
these cannon was that many of them had several touch-holes in a row,
the cannonier firing them by applying his match rapidly along the line
of vents—an “accelerating gun,” of a rude kind. The Corean gunpowder is
said to burn so slowly that a charge has to be lighted at both ends—a
type of the national policy.
As the Coreans were fortifying Tong-chin with unusual care, the admiral
sent out, October 26th, a reconnoitering party of one hundred and
twenty men, who were landed on the mainland, opposite Kang-wa Island,
whence the high road runs direct to the capital. Here was a village,
with fortifications clustered around a great gate, having a pointed
stone arch surmounted by the figure of a tortoise and a pagoda. To
force this gate was to win the way to the capital.
As the marines were disembarking, the Coreans poured in a heavy fire,
which killed two and wounded twenty-five Frenchmen. Nevertheless the
place was stormed and seized, but as the Corean forces were gathering
in the vicinity, the marines returned to the ships to await
reinforcements.
Toward evening a party of Coreans defiled at the foot of the plain in
gallant array, evidently elated with supposed victory. Suddenly, as
they came within range, the French ships opened on them with shell,
which exploded among them.
Terrified at such unknown war missiles, they broke and fled to the
hill-tops, where, to their surprise, they were again enveloped in a
shower of iron. Finally they had to take shelter in the distant ravines
and the far plains, which at night were illumined by their bivouac
fires.
Weak men and nations, in fighting against stronger enemies, must, like
the weaker ones in the brute creation, resort to cunning. They try to
weary out what they cannot overcome. The Coreans, even before rifled
cannon and steamers, began to play the same old tricks practised in the
war with the Japanese in the sixteenth century. They made hundreds of
literal “men of straw,” and stuck them within range of the enemy’s
artillery, that the Frenchmen might vainly expend their powder and
iron. The keen-eyed Frenchmen, aided by their glasses, detected the
cheat, and wasted no shot on the mannikins.
Meanwhile the invaded nation was roused to a white heat of wrath. The
furnace of persecution and the forges of the armorers were alike heated
to their utmost. Earnest hands plied with rivalling diligence the
torture and the sledge. In the capital it was written on the gate-posts
of the palace that whoever should propose peace with the French should
be treated as a traitor and immediately executed.
On October 19th, Ni, the Corean general commanding, had sent the French
admiral a long letter stuffed with quotations from the Chinese
classics, the gist of which was that whoever from outside broke through
the frontiers of another kingdom was worthy of death—a sentiment well
worthy of a state of savagery.
The French admiral, with equal national bombast, but in direct and
clearest phrase, demanded the surrender of the three high ministers of
the court, else he would hold the Corean government responsible for the
miseries of the war.
The Coreans in camp were ceaselessly busy in drilling raw troops and
improving their marksmanship. Soldiers arrived from all quarters, and
among them was a regiment of eight hundred tiger-hunters from the
north, every man of whom was a dead shot either with bow or matchlock.
These men, who had faced the tiger and many of whom had felt his claws,
were not likely to fear even French “devils.” They garrisoned a
fortified monastery on the island which was situated in a valley in the
centre of a circle of hills which were crowned by a wall of uncemented
masonry. It could be approached only by one small foot-path in a deep
ravine. The entrance was a gateway of heavy hewn stone, arched in a
full semicircle, the gate being in one piece. The walls were mounted
with home-made artillery.
On the same day on which this information reached the admiral, the
natives attacked a French survey boat, whereupon he at once resolved to
capture the monastery. For this purpose he detached 160 men, without
artillery, who left at six o’clock in the morning of October 27th, with
their luncheon packed on horses. The invaders, with their heads turned
by too many easy victories, went in something like picnic order,
frequently stopping to rest and enjoy the autumnal scenery. On several
occasions they saw squads of men marching over the hills toward the
same destination, but this did not hurry the Frenchmen, though a native
informed them that the monastery, ordinarily inhabited only by a dozen
priests, was now garrisoned and full of soldiers.
At 11.30 they arrived near the fortress, when some one proposed lunch.
Others jauntily declared it would be very easy to capture “the pagoda,”
and then dine in the hall of Buddha himself; this advice was not,
however, followed. Having arranged three parties, they advanced to
within three hundred yards of the gate. All within was as silent as
death. Suddenly a sheet of flame burst from the whole length of the
wall, though not a black head nor a white coat was visible. In a minute
the French columns were shattered and broken, and not a man was on his
feet. The soldiers, retreating in a hail of lead, found refuge behind
rocks, sheaves of rice, piles of straw, and in the huts near by. There
the officers rallied their men lest the garrison should make a sally.
The wounded were then borne to the rear. They numbered thirty-two. Only
eighty fighting men were left, and these soon became conscious of being
weak and very hungry, for they had been cruelly tantalized by seeing
the lunch-horse kick up his heels at the first fire, and trot over to
the Coreans. They learned that one of the slips ’twixt the cup and the
lip might be caused by a horse in Chō-sen. Perhaps some native poet
improvised a poem contrasting the patriotic nag with the steed of
Kanko, which led a hungry army home.
It being madness or annihilation for eighty Frenchmen to attempt to
storm a stone fortress, garrisoned by five or ten times their number of
enemies, and guarded with artillery, retreat was resolved on. The
wounded were hastily cared for and the mournful march began. The
stronger men carried their severely injured comrades on their shoulders
with brotherly kindness. The unwounded who were free formed the
rear-guard. Three times the little band had to face about and fire with
effect at the Coreans, who thrice charged their foes with heavy loss to
themselves. They then mounted the hills, and with savage yells
celebrated their victory over the western barbarians. It was not till
night, hungry and tired, that reinforcements were met a half league
from camp. They had been sent out by the admiral, to whom had come
presentiment of failure.
There was gloom in the camp that night and at headquarters. The near
sky and the horizon, notched by the hills, seemed to glare with unusual
luridness, betokening the joy and the deadly purpose of the invaded
people.
The next morning, to the surprise of all, and the anger of many, orders
were given to embark. The work on the fortifications begun around the
camp was left off. The troops in Kang-wa set fire to the city, which,
in a few hours, was a level heap of ashes. The departure of the
invaders was so precipitate that the patriots to this day gloat over it
as a disgraceful retreat.
A huge bronze bell, from one of the temples in Kang-wa, which had been
transported half way to the camp, was abandoned. The Coreans recaptured
this, regarding it as a special trophy of victory. The French embarked
at night, and at six o’clock next morning dropped down to the anchorage
at Boisée Island. On the way, every fort on the island seemed to be
manned and popping away at the ships, but hurting only the paint and
rigging. To their great disgust, the men repulsed two days before,
discovered the walls of the monastery from deck, and that the distance
was only a mile and a half from the river side. There was considerable
silent swearing among the officers, who believed it could be easily
stormed and taken even then. Orders must be obeyed, however, and in
rage and shame they silently gazed on the grim walls. The return of the
expedition was a great surprise to the fleet at Boisée Island. On his
return to China, the admiral found, to his mortification, that his
government did not approve of the headlong venture of Bellonet. [36]
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 unknown
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 Chō-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. “It is for the sake of these Christians,” said the official
proclamation, “that the barbarians have come just here. It is on
account of these only that the waters of our river have been denied by
western ships. It behooves that their blood should wash out the stain.”
Upon the mind of the regent and court at Seoul, 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 dwarf of yesterday had become a giant in a day.
In spite of foreign invaders and war’s alarms, one peaceful event
during this same year, and shortly after the French fleet had gone
away, sent a ripple of pleasure over the surface of Corean society. The
young king, now but fourteen years old, who had been duly betrothed to
Min, [37] a daughter of one of the noble families, was duly married.
Popular report credits the young queen with abilities not inferior to
those of her royal husband.
According to custom, the Chinese emperor sent an ambassador, one
Koei-ling, a mandarin of high rank, to bear the imperial
congratulations and investiture of the queen. This merry Chinaman,
cultivated, lively, poetic in mood, and susceptible to nature’s
beauties, wrote an account of his journey between the two capitals. His
charming impressions of travel give us glimpses of peaceful life in the
land of Morning Calm, and afford a delightful contrast to the grim
visage of war, with which events in Corea during the last decade have
unhappily made us too familiar.
CHAPTER XLIV.
AMERICAN RELATIONS WITH COREA.
America became a commercial rival to Chō-sen as early as 1757, when the
products of Connecticut and Massachusetts lay side by side with Corean
imports in the markets of Peking and Canton. Ginseng, the most precious
drug in the Chinese pharmacopœia, had been for ages brought from
Manchuria and the neighboring peninsula, where, on the mountains, the
oldest and richest roots are found.
The Dutch traders, at once noticing the insatiable demand for the famed
remedy, sought all over the world for a supply. The sweetish and
mucilaginous root, though considered worthless by Europeans, was then
occasionally bringing its weight in gold, and usually seven times its
weight in silver, at Peking, and the merchants in the annual embassy
from Seoul were reaping a rich harvest. Besides selling the younger and
less valuable crop in its natural condition, they had factories in
which the two-legged roots—which to the Asiatic imagination suggested
the figure of the human body they were meant to refresh—were so
manipulated as to take on the appearance of age, thus enhancing their
price in the market.
Suddenly the Corean market was broken. Stimulated by the Dutch
merchants at Albany, the Indians of Massachusetts had found the fleshy
root growing abundantly on the hills around Stockbridge in
Massachusetts. Taking it to Albany, they exchanged it for hardware,
trinkets, and rum. While the Dutch domines were scandalized at the
drunken revels of the “Yankee” Indians, who equalled the Mohawks in
their inebriation, good Jonathan Edwards at Stockbridge was grieving
over the waywardness of his dusky flock, because they had gone wild
over ginseng-hunting.
The Hollanders, shipping the bundled roots on their galliots down the
Hudson, and thence to Amsterdam and London, sold them to the British
East India Company at a profit of five hundred per cent. Landed at
Canton, and thence carried to Peking, American ginseng broke the
market, forced the price to a shockingly low figure, and dealt a heavy
blow to the Corean monopoly.
Henceforth a steady stream of ginseng—now found in limitless quantities
in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys—poured into China. Though far
inferior to the best article, it (Aralia quinquefolia) is sufficiently
like it in taste and real or imaginary qualities to rival the root of
Chō-sen, which is not of the very highest grade.
Less than a generation had passed from the time that the western end of
Massachusetts had any influence on Corea or China, before there was
brought from the far East an herb that influenced the colony at her
other end, far otherwise than commercially. Massachusetts had sent
ginseng to Canton, China now sent tea to Massachusetts. The herb from
Amoy was pitched into the sea by men dressed and painted like the
Indians, and the Revolution followed.
The war for independence over, Captain John Greene, in the ship Empress
of China, sailed from New York, February 22, 1784. Major Samuel Shaw,
the supercargo, without government aid or recognition, established
American trade with China, living at Canton during part of the year
1786 and the whole of 1787 and 1788. Having been appointed consul by
President Washington in 1789, while on a visit home, Major Shaw
returned to China in an entirely new ship, the Massachusetts, built,
navigated, and owned by American citizens. At Canton he held the office
of consul certainly until the year 1790, and presumably until his death
in 1794. This first consul of the United States in China received his
commission from Congress, on condition that he should “not be entitled
to receive any salary, fees, or emoluments whatever.”
Animated by the spirit of independence, and a laudable ambition, the
resolute citizen of the New World declared that “the Americans must
have tea, and they seek the most lucrative market for their precious
root ginseng.” [38]
It was ginseng and tea—an exchange of the materials for drink, a barter
of tonics—that brought the Americans and Chinese, and finally the
Americans and Coreans together.
Cotton was the next American raw material exported to China, beginning
in 1791. In 1842 the loaded ships sailed direct from Alabama to Canton,
on the expansion of trade after the Opium War.
The idea now began to dawn upon some minds that it was high time that
Japan and Corea should be opened to American commerce.
The first public man who gave this idea official expression was the
Honorable Zadoc Pratt, then member of the House of Representatives from
the Eleventh (now the Fifteenth) Congressional District of New York. As
chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, he introduced in Congress,
February 12, 1845, a proposition for the extension of American commerce
by the despatch of a mission to Japan and Corea as follows:
“It is hereby recommended that immediate measures be taken for
effecting commercial arrangements with the empire of Japan and the
kingdom of Corea,” etc. (Congressional Globe, vol. xiv., p. 294).
The Mexican war was then already looming as a near possibility, and
under its shadow, the wisdom of sending even a part of our little navy
was doubted, and Mr. Pratt’s bill failed to pass.
None of the American commanders, Glyn, Biddle, John Rodgers, or even
Perry, seem to have ventured into Corean waters, and Commodore Perry
has scarcely mentioned the adjacent kingdom in the narrative of the
treaty expedition which he wrote, and his pastor, the Rev. Francis L.
Hawks, edited. In truth, the sealed country was at that time almost as
little known as that of Corea or Coreæ, which Josephus mentions, or
that province of India which bears the same name.
The commerce which sprang up, not only between our country and China
and Japan, but also that carried on in American vessels between
Shanghae, Chifu, Tien-tsin, and Niu-chwang in North China, and the
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.
When it did begin to rain it poured. Within one year the Corean
government having three American cases to deal with, gave a startling
illustration of its policy—with the distressed, kindness; with the
robber, powder and iron; with the invader, death and annihilation.
On June 24, 1866, the American schooner Surprise was wrecked off the
coast (of Whang-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 Captain McCaslin and his men with their Chinese cook,
after being first well catechised by the local magistrate, and secondly
by a commissioner sent from Seoul, were kindly treated and well fed,
and provided with clothing, medicines, and tobacco. By orders of
Tai-wen Kun, 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 Niu-chwang and to the
United States consul. A gold watch was voted by Congress to the Rev.
Père Gillie for his kindness to these men while in Mukden.
From a passage in one of the letters of the Corean Government, we
gather that the crew of still another American ship were hospitably
treated after shipwreck, but of the circumstances we are ignorant. Of
the General Sherman affair more is known.
The General Sherman was an American schooner, owned by a Mr. Preston,
who was making a voyage for health. She was consigned to Messrs.
Meadows & Co., a British firm in Tien-tsin, and reached that port July,
1866. After delivery of her cargo, an arrangement was made by the firm
and owner to load her with goods likely to be saleable in Corea, such
as cotton cloth, glass, tin-plate, etc., and despatch her there on an
experimental voyage in the hope of thus opening the country to
commerce.
Leaving Tien-tsin July 29th, the vessel touched at Chifu, and took on
board Mr. Hogarth, a young Englishman, and a Chinese shroff, [39]
familiar with Corean money. The complement of the vessel was now five
white foreigners, and nineteen Malay and Chinese sailors. The owner,
Preston, the master, Page, and the mate, Wilson, were Americans. The
Rev. Mr. Thomas, who had learned Corean from refugees at Chifu, and had
made a trip to Whang-hai on a Chinese junk, went on board as a
passenger to improve his knowledge of the language. [40]
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-an,
wherein more than one dynasty of Chō-sen lay buried, were of solid
gold; and it was broadly hinted that the expedition had something to do
with these.
The schooner, whether merchant or invader, leaving Chifu, took a
west-northwest direction, and made for the mouth of the Ta Tong River.
There they met the Chinese captain of a Chifu junk, who agreed to pilot
them up the river. He continued on the General Sherman during four
tides, or two days. Then leaving her, he returned to the river’s mouth,
and sailed back to Chifu, where he was met and questioned by the firm
of Meadows & Co.
No further direct intelligence was ever received from the unfortunate
party.
The time chosen for this “experimental trading voyage” was strangely
inopportune. The whole country was excited over the expected invasion
of the French, and to a Corean—especially in the north, where not one
in ten thousand had ever seen a white foreigner—any man dressed in
foreign clothes would be taken for a Frenchman, as were even the
Japanese crew of the gunboat Unyo Kuan in 1875. An armed vessel would
certainly be taken for a French ship, and made the object of patriotic
vengeance.
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 wood
work for its iron, and took the cannon for models.
During this same month of August, 1866, the Jewish merchant Ernest
Oppert, in the steamer Emperor, entered the Han River, and had secret
interviews with some of the native Christians, who wrote to him in
Latin. Communications were also held with the governor of Kang-wa, and
valuable charts were made by Captain James. One month later, in
September, the French war-vessels made their appearance.
The U. S. steamship Wachusett, despatched by Admiral Rowan to inquire
into the Sherman affair, reached Chifu January 14, 1867, and is said to
have taken on board the Chinese pilot of the General Sherman, and the
Rev. Mr. Corbett, an American missionary, to act as interpreter.
Leaving Chifu January 21st, they cast anchor, January 23d, at the mouth
of the large inlet opposite Sir James Hall group, which indents
Whang-hai province. This estuary they erroneously supposed to be the Ta
Tong River leading to Ping-an city, whereas they were half a degree too
far south, as the chart made by themselves shows.
A letter was despatched, through the official of Cow Island, near the
anchorage, to the prefect of the large city nearest the place of the
Sherman affair, demanding that the murderers be produced on the deck of
the Wachusett. The city of Ping-an was about seventy-five miles
distant. The letter probably went to Hai-chiu, the capital of the
province. Five days elapsed before the answer arrived, during which the
surveying boats were busy. Many natives were met and spoken to, who all
told one story, that the Sherman’s crew were murdered by the people,
and not by official instigation. [41]
On the 29th, an officer from one of the villages of the district
appeared, “whose presence inspired the greatest dread among the
people.” An interview was held, during which Commander Shufeldt
possessed his soul in patience.
To the polished American’s eye, the Corean’s manner was haughty and
imperious. He was utterly beyond the reach of reason and of argument.
In his person he seemed “the perfect type of a cruel and vindictive
savage.” The Corean’s impressions of the American, not being in print,
are unknown.
It is unnecessary to give the details of the fruitless interview. The
American could get neither information nor satisfaction; the gist of
the Corean 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.
In 1867, Dr. S. Wells Williams, Secretary of the Legation of the United
States at Peking, succeeded in obtaining an interview with a member of
the Corean embassy, who told him that after the General Sherman got
aground, she careened over, as the tide receded, and her crew landed to
guard or float her. The natives gathered around them, and before long
an altercation took place between the two parties, which soon led to
blows and bloodshed. A general attack began upon the foreigners, in
which every man was killed by the mob. About twenty of the natives lost
their lives. Dr. Williams’ comment is, “The evidence goes to uphold the
presumption that they invoked their sad fate by some rash or violent
act toward the natives.” Dr. Williams also met a Chinese pilot, Yu
Wautai, who reported that in 1867 he had seen the hull of a foreign
vessel lying on the south bank of the river, about ten miles up from
the sea. The hull was full of water. A Corean from Sparrow Island had
told him that the murder of the Sherman’s crew was entirely the work of
the people and farmers, and not of the magistrates or soldiery.
Still determined to learn something of the fate of the Sherman’s crew,
since reports were current that two or more of them were still alive
and in prison, Admiral Rowan, in May, 1867, despatched another vessel,
which this time got into the right river. Commander Febiger, in the U.
S. steamship Shenandoah, besides surveying the “Ping Yang Inlet,”
learned this version of the affair:
A foreign vessel arrived in the river two years before. The local
officials went on board and addressed the two foreign officers of the
ship in respectful language. The latter grossly insulted the native
dignitaries, i.e., “they turned round and went to sleep.”
A man on board, whom they spoke of as “Tony, [42] a Frenchman,” used
violent and very impolite language toward them. The Coreans treated
their visitors kindly, but warned them of their danger, and the
unlawfulness of penetrating into, or trading in the country.
Nevertheless, the foreigners went up the river to Ping-an city, where
they seized the “adjutant-general’s” ship, put him in chains, and
proceeded to rob the junks and their crews. The people of the city
aroused to wrath, attacked the foreign ship with fire-arms and cannon;
they set adrift fire-rafts, and even made a hand-to-hand fight with
pikes, knives, and swords. The foreigners fought desperately, but the
Coreans overpowered them. Finally, the ship, having caught fire, blew
up with a terrific report.
This story was not of course believed by the American officers, but
even the best wishers and friends of the Ping-an adventurers cannot
stifle suspicion of either cruelty or insult to the natives. Knowing
the character of certain members of the party, and remembering the
kindness shown to the crew of the Surprise, few of the unprejudiced
will believe that the General Sherman’s crew were murdered without
cause.
CHAPTER XLV.
A BODY-SNATCHING EXPEDITION.
Early in May, 1867, the foreign settlement at Shanghae was thrown into
excitement by the report of the return of an unsuccessful piratical
expedition from Corea. The ennui of Eurasian port life was turned into
a lively glow of excitement. Conversation at the clubs and tea-tables,
which had wilted down to local gossip, Wade’s policy, paper hunts, and
the races, now turned upon the politics and geography, methods of royal
sepulture, mortuary architecture, antiquities, customs, and costumes in
the mysterious peninsula. The pleasures of wheelbarrow rides, and
visits to the bubbling springs, now palled before the pending trial at
the United States consular court.
An American citizen was charged with making an “unlawful and scandalous
expedition” to Corea, and of violently attempting to land in a country
with which the United States had no treaty relations. It was further
stated that he had gone to exhume the bones of a defunct king in order
to hold them for sale or ransom. In plain English, it was said to be a
piratical and body-snatching descent upon the grave-yards of Chō-sen,
to dig up royal remains, not for the purpose of dissection, nor in the
interests of science or of archæology, but for the sake of money, which
money was to be extorted from the regent and court of Seoul.
The idea, of course, awoke merriment as well as interest. One may well
understand why Professor Marsh should make periodical descents upon the
bone-yards of Red Cloud’s territory, and exhibit his triumphs—skeletons
of toothed birds and of geological horses as small as Corean ponies—in
a museum under glass cases, well mounted with shining brass springs and
iron joints. Even a school-boy can without laughing think of Dr.
Schliemann rooting among the tombs of Mycenæ, and Di Cesnola sifting
the dust of Kurium for its golden treasures. Even the night picture of
resurrectionists, emptying graves in a Scotch kirk-yard for subjects to
sell at a pound sterling apiece, has few elements of humor about it.
But to conceive of civilized “Christians,” or Israelites, chartering a
steamer to exhume and steal the carcase and mouldering bones of a
heathen king, to hold them in pawn to raise money on them, created more
laughter than frowns or tears. It was thought that the sign under which
the ship sailed, instead of being the flag of the North German
Confederation, should have been the three golden balls, such as hang
above a pawnbroker’s windows.
The person on trial was formerly an interpreter at the United States
consulate, and, having learned Chinese from childhood, was able to
speak the language fluently, and thus converse, by means of tongue or
pencil, with the many Coreans who know the standard of communication in
Eastern Asia either by sound or sight. It was he also who furnished the
cash for the expedition, the commander-in-chief of which was one
Oppert, a North German subject; the guide was a French Jesuit priest
named Farout (evidently a fictitious name) who spoke Corean, having
been in the country as a missionary. These three were the leaders of
the expedition.
Before going, the American had told Consul Seward that his object was
to take a Corean embassy to Europe, to negotiate treaties, and to
explain to the governments of France and the United States the murder
of their subjects in Corea. Four Coreans, with the French missionary
Bishop Ridel, had been in Shanghae a short time before, April 24, 1867;
and the defendant declared that it was from these four persons, whom he
styled “commissioners,” that he got his information as to the desire of
the Corean government for treaties, etc. He also stated that this
knowledge was held only by the four Coreans, himself, and a Jewish
peddler, who had several times penetrated into Corea, and by whom the
Corean “commissioners,” had been brought to Shanghae. These
“commissioners,” he averred, had a new and correct version of the
General Sherman affair. According to their report, some of the crew had
become embroiled in a row growing out of the improper treatment of some
native women, and were arrested. The crew went to rescue them. They
succeeded, and took also two native officers on board for hostages.
This so enraged the people that they attacked the crew, killed eight at
once, and made prisoners of the others who were still alive.
Readers of our narrative will smile at discovering the poor fishermen
who brought their bishop across the Yellow Sea in their boat thus
transformed into “ambassadors.”
One thing seemed to be on the surface—that this modern Jason and his
argonauts had gone out to find a golden fleece, but came back shorn.
On the return of the expedition, Mr. Seward questioned the American
closely, sifted the matter, and finally, being satisfied that something
was wrong, put him on trial, eliciting the facts which seem to be the
following:
Oppert, who had been at the Naipo, and up the Han River in the Emperor
and Rona, secured a steamer named the China, of six hundred and eighty
tons, with a steam tender, the Greta, of sixty tons, and run the North
German flag up at the fore. The complement of the ship was eight
Europeans, twenty Malays from Manila, and about one hundred Chinamen,
these last were a motley crew of sailors, laborers, and coolies—the
riff-raff of humanity, such as swarm in every Chinese port. With
muskets in their hands—it is doubtful whether a dozen of them had ever
fired off a gun—they were to form the “forces” or military escort of
the expedition, which was to negotiate “treaties,” embark an embassy to
travel round the globe, and introduce the Hermit Nation to the world.
The “fleet” left Shanghae April 30, 1867, and steamed to Nagasaki; in
which Japanese port she remained two days, taking on board coal, water,
and ten cases of muskets. The prow was then headed for Chung-chong
province. They arrived in Prince Jerome Gulf at 10 P.M. on Friday, May
8th. The next day at 10 A.M. they moved farther in the river. In the
afternoon they succeeded in getting two small boats, or sampans, partly
by persuasion and pay, partly by force. The expedition was then
organized, Oppert commanding. The mate, engineer, and regular Chinese
manned the tender which was to tow the boats. The muskets were unpacked
and distributed on deck, and the coolies were armed, equipped, taught
the difference between the butt and muzzle of their weapons, and given
their orders. Four men carried spades or coal shovels to exhume the
bones and treasure.
The French priest who had been in Corea acted as guide and interpreter.
Shortly after midnight, and very early on Sunday morning, the steam
tender began to move up the river, stopping at a point about forty
miles from the sea. The armed crowd landed, and the march across the
open country to the tomb was begun. As they proceeded, the neighborhood
became alive with curious people, and the hills were white with people
gazing at the strange procession. A few natives being met on the way,
the French priest stopped to speak with them. The party rested for a
while at a temple, for the march was getting tiresome, having already
occupied several hours.
Reaching the burial-place [near Totta-san?], they found a raised mound
with a slab of stone on each side at the base. Beneath this tomb was
the supposed treasure. Was it bones or gold?
The four men with spades now began their work, and soon levelled the
mound. They had dug out a considerable quantity of earth, when their
shovels struck on a rocky slab, which seemed to be the lid of the tomb
proper, or the sarcophagus. This they could not move. All efforts to
budge or pry it up were vain. Having no crowbars they were, after much
useless labor, with perhaps not a little swearing, compelled to give up
their task.
On their return march, the exasperated Coreans, plucking up courage,
attempted to molest them, but the marauders, firing their guns in the
air, kept their assailants at a respectful distance. The party and
tender dropped down the river and rejoined the steamer at noon, the
weather being foggy.
Further proceedings of the expedition are known only in outline. The
steamer weighed anchor and left for Kang-wa Island. They put themselves
in communication with the local magistrate during three days. On the
third day a party landed from the ship, and while on shore were fired
upon. Two men were killed and one wounded.
The expedition remained in Corea ten days, returning to Shanghae after
two weeks’ absence.
In the foregoing trial it is most evident that many details were
concealed. The quantity of truth divulged was probably in proportion to
the whole amount, as the puffs of steam from a safety-valve are to the
volume in the boiler. The accused let out just enough to save them from
conviction and to secure their acquittal.
The defendant was discharged with the Scotch verdict “not proven.” Mr.
George F. Seward, however, wrote to the State Department at Washington
his opinion, that the expedition was “an attempt to take from their
tombs the remains of one or more sovereigns of Corea, for the purpose,
it would seem, of holding them to ransom.”
Whether any great amount of treasure is ever buried with the sovereigns
or grandees of Chō-sen is not known to us. Certain it is that the
national sentiment is that of horror against the disturbance or rifling
of sepulchres. Now they had before their eyes a fresh confirmation of
their suspicions that the chief purpose of foreign invaders was to rob
the dead and violate the most holy instincts of humanity. The national
mind now settled into the conviction that, beyond all doubt, foreigners
were barbarians and many of them thieves and robbers. With such eyes
were they ready to look upon the flag and ships of the United States
when they came in 1871.
Note.—Nearly every word of the above was written in December, 1877, the
information having been derived from the United States Diplomatic
Correspondence. At that time we suspected that “Farout” was the
fictitious name of Feron, the French Roman Catholic missionary, who had
escaped the persecutions of 1866. It seems that three countries and
three religions were represented in this body-snatching expedition,
which was of a truly international character.
In March, 1880, there was published in London and New York the English
translation of “Ein Verschlossenes Land,” a work printed in Germany. As
we read “A Forbidden Land: Voyages to the Corea,” it dawned upon us
that the author was none other than “the needy Hamburgh trader,” “the
Jewish peddler,” of the Consular Court trial of 1867. It was even so.
Coolly and without denial, the author tells us that the main object of
his last voyage was to “remove” some buried relics held in great
veneration by that “blood-thirsty tyrant,” the Tai-wen Kun, or regent.
The project was first suggested to him by the French priest, who, as
the author takes pains to tell us, was not a Jesuit, nor had ever
belonged to that order (p. 295), though he gives Feron’s proposition in
his own words (p. 299), the italics being ours:
“If the project I am going to lay before you (i.e., to rob the grave)
will at first sight appear to you strange and out of the common,
remember that a great aim can never be gained by small means, and that
we must look at this affair from another point of view than that which
may be taken by narrow-minded people.”
The details of the landing, march [to near Totta-san?], excavation, and
retreat are duly narrated, the blame of failure being laid upon one
unlucky wight who was “the only disreputable character we had with us!”
After leaving Prince Jerome Gulf, the China proceeded up the Han River
to Tricault Island (see map, page 379), “about twenty minutes’ steam
below Kang-wha.” There the leader received a note from the Taiouen-goon
(the Tai-wen Kun, or regent), the gist of which was, “Corea has no need
of foreign intruders.” While holding a parley near the wall of a town
on Tricault Island, “the only disreputable character” in the party
again got them into trouble. This black sheep was a German sailor, who,
hungering after fresh veal, had stolen a calf; an act which drew the
fire of the native soldiery on the city wall. The thief received a ball
in his arm, which compelled him to drop the calf and run, while one
Manilaman was shot dead. It is not known how far the statistics of a
Corean warfare diverge from those elsewhere, nor how many tons of lead
are required to kill one man, but owing to the incredibly bad aim of
the jingal shooters, the remainder of the party of twenty or more
escaped their deserts and reached the tender. The next morning the
expedition set out on the return to Shanghae.
After a review of this book (in The Nation of April 7, 1880), which the
author issued after his imprisonment, the following note appeared in
the same paper of April 21st:
OPPERT’S COREAN OUTRAGE.
To the Editor of The Nation:
Sir: The notice of Oppert’s book on Corea recalls some curious
incidents to my mind. The raid on the King’s tomb was one of the
most extraordinary affairs ever known. Its inception and failure
might have been concealed but for the Coreans, when they attacked
the ghouls, killing an unfortunate Manilaman. Hearing of this, the
Spanish consul applied to Mr. Seward (United States Consul-General
at Shanghae), who at once arrested Jenkins. I was one of the four
“associates” summoned to sit with the consul-general in the trial,
and well remember what a perfect burlesque it was. The Chinese, who
had told a plain and coherent story on preliminary examination,
were as dumb as oysters on the stand. When all had been called, the
defendant’s counsel said that he would rest his case on their
testimony. Conviction was impossible, but in the minds of those
informed on the subject, the wickedness of this buccaneering
expedition was remembered as surpassing even the absurdity of an
attempt to destroy a granite mausoleum with coal shovels. There is
a monstrous impertinence in Oppert’s publishing an account of a
piratical fiasco which is reported to have cost him a term of
imprisonment at home.
A. A. Hayes, Jr. New York, April 15, 1880.
CHAPTER XLVI.
“OUR LITTLE WAR WITH THE HEATHEN.”
The representations made to the Department of State at Washington by
Dr. S. Wells Williams, concerning the General Sherman, and by
Consul-General George F. Seward, in the matter of the China, affair,
directed the attention of the Government to the opening of Corea to
American commerce. The memorial of Mr. Seward, dated October 14, 1868,
reviewed the advantages to be gained and the obstacles in the way. The
need of protection to American seamen was pointed out, and as Japan had
been opened to international relations by American diplomacy, why
should not a smaller nation yield to persuasion? American merchants in
China having seconded Mr. Seward’s proposal, the State Department took
the matter into serious consideration, and, in 1870, resolved to
undertake the difficult enterprise.
The servants of the United States who were charged with this delicate
mission were, Mr. Frederick F. Low, Minister of the United States to
Peking, and Rear-Admiral John Rodgers, Commander-in-Chief of the
Asiatic squadron. Mr. Low was directed by Secretary Fish to gain all
possible knowledge from Peking, and then proceed on the admiral’s
flag-ship to the Corean capital. He was to make a treaty of commerce if
possible, but his chief aim was to secure provision for the protection
of shipwrecked mariners. He was to avoid a conflict of force, unless it
could not be avoided without dishonor. “The responsibility of war or
peace” was to be left with him and not with the admiral. [43]
There was at this time, all over the far East, a feeling of uncertainty
and alarm among foreigners, and many portentious signs seemed to
indicate a general uprising, both in China and Japan, against
foreigners. The example of Corea in expelling or beheading the French
priests acted as powerful leaven in the minds of the fanatical
foreigner-haters in the two countries adjoining. The
“mikado-reverencers,” who in Japan had overthrown the “Tycoon” and
abolished the dual system of government, made these objects only
secondary to the expulsion of all aliens. The cry of “honor the mikado”
was joined to the savage yell of the Jo-i (alien-haters), “expel the
barbarians.” In China the smothered feelings of murderous animosity
were almost ready to burst. The air was filled with alarms, even while
the American fleet was preparing [44] for Corea.
Rear-Admiral Rodgers, [45] who had taken command, and relieved Admiral
Rowan, August 20, 1869, began his preparations with vigor.
In a consultation held at Peking during November, 1870, between the
admiral, minister, and consul general, the time for the expedition was
fixed for the month of May, 1871. Mr. Seward then left for a visit to
India, and Mr. Low despatched, through the Tribunal of Rites at Peking,
a letter to the King of Corea. After vast circumlocution, it emerged
from the mazes of Chinese court etiquette, and by a special courier
reached the regent at Seoul. In this, however, the Chinese were doing a
great favor. No answer was received from Seoul before the expedition
sailed.
Meanwhile the German minister to Japan (now in Peking), Herr M. Von
Brandt, had landed from the Hertha at Fusan, and attempted to hold an
interview with the governor of Tong-nai. He was accompanied by the
Japanese representatives at Fusan, who politely forwarded his request.
A tart lecture to the mikado’s subject for his officiousness, and a
rebuff to the Kaiser’s envoy were the only results of his mission.
After sauntering about a little, Herr Von Brandt, who arrived June 1,
1878, left June 2d, and the era of commercial relations between the
Central European Empire [46] and Chō-sen was postponed.
During the year 1870, Bishop Ridel, who had gone back to France,
returned to China and prepared to rejoin his converts. Having
communicated with them, they awaited his coming with anxiety, and we
shall hear of them on board of the flag-ship Colorado.
Mr. Low, having gathered all possible information, public and private,
concerning “the semi-barbarous and hostile people” of “the unknown
country” which he expected to fail of entering, sailed from Shanghae,
May 8th, arriving at Nagasaki, May 12th. On the 13th he wrote to the
Secretary of State, Mr. Hamilton Fish. He declared that “Corea is more
of a sealed book than Japan was before Commodore Perry’s visit.”
Evidently he looked upon the pathway of the duty laid upon him as
unusually thorny. The rose if plucked at all would be held in smarting
fingers. While granting a faithful servant of the nation the virtue of
modesty, one cannot fail to read in his letter more of an expectation
to redress wrongs than to conciliate hostility.
The whole spirit of the expedition was not that reflected in the
despatches of the State Department, but rather that of the clubs and
dinner-tables of Shanghae. The minister went to Corea with his mind
made up, and everything he saw confirmed him in his fixed opinion. Of
the admiral, it is not unjust to say that the warrior predominated over
the peace-maker. He had an eye to the victories of war more than those,
not less renowned, of peace. The sword was certainly more congenial to
his nature than the pen.
The fleet made rendezvous at Nagasaki, in Kiushiu—that division of
Japan whence warlike expeditions to Chō-sen have sailed from the days
of Jingu to those of Taikō, and from Taikō to Rodgers. This time, as in
the seventh century, the landing was to be made not near the eastern,
but on the remote western, coast. The cry was, “On to Seoul.”
The squadron, consisting of the flag-ship Colorado, the corvettes
Alaska and Benicia, and the gun-boats Monocacy and Palos, sailed
gallantly out of the harbor on May 16th, and, making an easy run,
anchored off Ferrières Islands on the 19th, and, after a delay of fogs,
Isle Eugenie on the 23d.
In spite of the formidable appearance of our navy, the vessels were of
either an antiquated type or of too heavy a draught, their timbers too
rotten or not strong enough for shotted broadsides, and their armament
defective in breech-loading firearms, while the facilities for landing
a force were inadequate. The Palos and Monocacy were the only ships
fitted to go up the Han River. The others must remain at the mouth.
They were little more than transports. All the naval world in Chinese
waters wondered why so wide-awake and practical a people as the
Americans should be content with such old-fashioned ships, unworthy of
the gallant crews who manned them. However, the fleet and armament were
better than the Corean war-junks, or mud-forts armed with jingals. In
gallant sailorly recognition of his predecessor, yet with unconscious
omen of like failure, the brave Rodgers named the place of anchorage
Roze Roads. The French soundings were verified and the superb scenery
richly enjoyed. All navigators of the approaches to Seoul are alike
unanimous in showering unstinting praise upon their natural beauty.
Here for the first time the natives beheld the “flowery” flag of the
United States.
Next morning the Palos and four steam-launches were put under the
command of Captain Homer C. Blake, to examine the channel beyond Boisée
Island. Four days were peaceably spent in this service, a safe return
being made on the evening of the 28th. Meanwhile boat parties had
landed and been treated in a friendly manner by the people, and the
usual curiosity as to brass buttons, blue cloth, and glass bottles
displayed. The customary official paper without signature, of
interrogations as to who, whence, and why of the comers was displayed,
and the answers, “Americans,” “Friendly,” and “Interview” returned in
faultless Chinese. It was announced that the fleet would remain for
some time.
On the following day, May 30th, the fleet anchored between the Isles
Boisée and Guerrière. A stiff breeze had blown away the fogs and
revealed the verdure and the features of a landscape which struck all
with admiration for its luxuriant beauty. Approaching the squadron in a
junk, some natives made signs of friendship, and came on board without
hesitation. They bore a missive acknowledging the receipt of the
Americans’ letter, and announcing that three nobles had been appointed
by the regent for conference. These junk-men were merely messengers,
and made no pretence of being anything more. They were hospitably
treated, shown round the ship, and dined and wined until their good
nature broke out in broad grins and redolent visages. They stood for
their photographs on deck, and some fine pictures of them were
obtained. One of them, after being loaded with an armful of spoil in
the shape of a dozen or so of Bass’ pale ale bottles, minus their
corks, and a copy of Every Saturday, a Boston illustrated newspaper,
was told in the stereotyped photographer’s phrase to “assume a pleasant
expression of countenance, and look right at this point.” He obeyed so
well, and in the nick of time, that a wreath of smiles was the result.
“Our first Corean visitor” stands before us on the page.
Strange coincidence! Strange medley of the significant symbols of a
Christian land! The first thing given to the Corean was alcohol, beer,
and wine. In the picture, plainly appearing, are the empty pale ale
bottles, with their trade-mark, the red triangle—“the entering wedge of
civilization.” But held behind the hands clasping the bottles is a copy
of Every Saturday, on the front page of which is a picture of Charles
Sumner, the champion of humanity, and of the principle that “nations
must act as individuals,” with like moral responsibility!
Promptly on May 31st, a delegation of eight officers, of the third and
fifth rank, came on board evidently with intent to see the minister and
admiral, to learn all they could, and to gain time. They had little or
no authority and no credentials, but they were sociable, friendly, and
in good humor.
“Mr. Low would not lower himself,” nor would Admiral Rodgers see them.
They were received by the secretary, Mr. Drew. They were absolutely
non-committal on all points and to all questions asked, and naturally
so, since they had no authority whatever [47] to say “yes” or “no” to
any proposition of the Americans.
A golden opportunity was here lost. The Corean envoys were informed
that soundings would be taken in the river, and the shores would be
surveyed. It was hoped that no molestation would be offered, and,
further, that twenty-four hours would elapse before the boats began
work.
“To all this they (the Coreans) made no reply which could indicate
dissent.” [Certainly not! They had no power to nod their heads, or say
either “yes” or “no.”] “So, believing that we might continue our
surveys while further diplomatic negotiations were pending, an
expedition was sent to examine and survey the Salée [Han] River.” [48]
The survey fleet consisted of the Monocacy, Palos, the only ships fit
for the purpose, and four steam-launches, each of the latter having a
howitzer mounted in the bow. Captain H. C. Blake, the commander, was on
board the Palos. The old hero understood the situation only too well.
As he started to obey orders he remarked: “In ten minutes we shall have
a row.”
Exactly at noon of June 2d, the four steam-launches proceeded in line
abreast up the river, the Palos and Monocacy following. The tide was
running up, and neither of the large vessels could be kept moving at a
rate slow enough to allow the survey work to be done well, so that this
part of their work is of little value.
Yet everything seemed quiet and peaceful; the bluffs and high banks
along the water were densely covered with green woods, with now
meadows, now a thatched-roof village, anon a rice-field in the
foreground. Occasionally people could be seen in their white dresses
along the banks, but not a sign of hostility or war until, on reaching
the lower end of Kang-wa Island, a line of forts and fluttering flags
suddenly become visible. In a few minutes more long lines of
white-garbed soldiery were seen, and through a glass an interpreter
read on one of the yellow flags the Chinese characters meaning “General
Commanding.” In the embrasures were a few pieces of artillery of
32-pound calibre, and some smaller pieces lashed together by fives, or
nailed to logs in a row. On the opposite point of the river was a line
of smaller earthworks, freshly thrown up, armed only with jingals.
Around the bend in the river was “a whirlpool as bad as Hell Gate,”
full of eddies and ledges, with the channel only three hundred feet
wide. The fort (Du Condè) was situated right on this elbow. Hundreds of
mats and screens were ranged within and on the works, masking the
loaded guns. As the boats passed nearer, glimpses into the fort became
possible, by which it was seen that the cannon “lay nearly as thick
together as gun to gun and gun behind gun on the floor of an arsenal.”
(See map, page 415.)
For a moment the silence was ominous—oppressive. The hearts of the men
beat violently, their teeth were set, and calm defiance waited in the
face of certain death. The rapid current bore them on right into the
face of the frowning muzzles. It seemed impossible to escape. Were the
Coreans going to fire? If so, why not now? Immediately? Now is their
opportunity. The vessels are abreast the forts.
The Corean commander was one moment too late. From the parapet under
the great flag a signal gun was fired. In an instant mats and screens
were alive with the red fire of eighty pieces of artillery. Then a hail
of shot from all the cannon, guns, and jingals rained around the boats.
Forts, batteries, and walls were hidden for a moment in smoke. The
water was rasped and torn as though a hailstorm was passing over it.
Many of the men in the boats were wet to the skin by the splashing of
the water over them. Old veterans of the civil war had never seen so
much fire, lead, iron, and smoke of bad powder concentrated in such
small space and time. “Old Blake,” who had had two ships shot under him
by the Confederates, declared he could remember nothing so sharp as
this.
The fire was promptly returned by the steam-launch howitzers. The Palos
and Monocacy, which had forged ahead, turned back, and “Old Blake came
round the point a-flying, and let drive all the guns of the Palos at
them. The consequence was that they kicked so hard as to tear the bolts
out of the side of the ship and render the bulwarks useless during the
remainder of the fight.” The Monocacy also anchored near the point, and
sent her ten-inch shells into the fort. During her movements, she
struck a rock and began to leak badly. After hammering at the forts
until everything in them was silenced, the squadron returned down the
river, sending their explosive compliments into the forts and redoubts
as they passed. All were quiet and deserted, however, but the
commander’s flag was still flying unharmed and neglected. Strange to
say, out of the entire fleet only one of our men was wounded and none
was killed; nor did any of the ships or boats receive any damage from
the batteries. Two hundred guns had been fired on the Corean side. The
signal coming too late, the immovability of their rude guns, the
badness of the powder, and the poor aim of the unskilled gunners, were
the causes of such an incredibly small damage. It was like the
bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861, or like those battles which
statistics reveal to us, in which it requires a ton of lead to kill a
man.
However, it was determined by the chief representatives of the civil
and naval powers to resent the insult offered to our “flag” in the
“unprovoked” attack on our vessels, “should no apology or satisfactory
explanation be offered for the hostile action of the Corean
government.”
Ten days were now allowed to pass before further action was taken. They
were ten days of inaction, except preparation for further fight and
some correspondence with the local magistrate. What a pity these ten
days had not been spent before, and not after, June 2d! Some civilians,
not to say Christians, might also be of the opinion that ample revenge
had already been taken, enough blood spilled, the “honor” of the flag
fully “vindicated,” a delicate diplomatic mission of “peace” spoiled
beyond further damage, and that further vengeance was folly, and more
blood spilled, murder. But not so thought the powers that be.
The chastising expedition consisted of the Monocacy, Palos, four
steam-launches, and twenty boats, conveying a landing force of six
hundred and fifty-one men, of whom one hundred and five were marines.
The Benicia, Alaska, and Colorado remained at anchor. The total force
detailed for the work of punishing the Coreans was seven hundred and
fifty-nine men. These were arranged in ten companies of infantry, with
seven pieces of artillery. The Monocacy had, in addition to her regular
armament, two of the Colorado’s nine-inch guns. Captain Homer C. Blake,
who was put in charge of the expedition, remained on the Palos.
The squadron proceeded up the river at 10 o’clock, on the morning of
the 10th of June, two steam-launches moving in advance of the Monocacy.
The boats were in tow of the Palos, which moved at 10.30. The day was
bright, clear, and warm. A short distance above the isle Primauguet a
junk was seen approaching, the Coreans waving a white flag and holding
a letter from one of the ministers of the court. One of the
steam-launches met the junk, and the letter was received. It was
translated by Mr. Drew, but as it contained nothing which, in the
American eyes, seemed like an apology, the squadron moved on. At 1
o’clock the Monocacy arrived within range of the first fort and opened
with her guns, which partly demolished the walls and emptied it in a
few seconds.
The landing party, after a two minutes’ pull at the oars, reached the
shore, and disembarked about eight hundred yards below the fort. The
landing-place was a mud-flat, in which the men sunk to their knees in
the tough slime, losing gaiters, shoes, and even tearing off the legs
of their trousers in their efforts to advance. The howitzers sank to
their axles in the heavy ooze.
Once on firm land, the infantry formed, the marines deploying as
skirmishers. Unarmed refugees from the villages were not harmed, and
the first fort was quietly entered. The work of demolition was begun by
firing everything combustible and rolling the guns into the river. Day
being far spent when this was finished, the whole force went into camp
and bivouacked, taking every precaution against surprise. Four
companies of infantry were first detailed to drag the howitzers out of
the mud, a task which resembled the wrenching of an armature off a
twenty-horse power magnet.
Our men lay down to sleep under the stars. All was quiet that Saturday
night, except the chatting round the camp-fires and the croaking of the
Corean frogs, as the men cleaned themselves and prepared for their
Sunday work. Toward midnight a body of white-coats approached, set up a
tremendous howling, and began a dropping fire on our main pickets. As
they moved about in the darkness, they looked like ghosts. When the
long roll was sounded, our men sprang to their arms and fell in like
old veterans. A few shells were scattered among the ghostly howlers,
and all was quiet again. The marines occupied a strong position half a
mile from the main body, a rice-field dividing them, with only a narrow
foot-path in the centre. They slept with their arms at their side, and,
divided into three reliefs, kept watch.
While at the anchorage off Boisée Island that evening, twelve native
Christians, approaching noiselessly in the dark, made signs of a desire
to communicate. They had come in a junk from some point on the coast to
inquire after their pastor, Ridel, and two other French missionaries
whom they expected. To their great distress, the Americans could give
them no information. Fearing lest the government might know, from the
build of their craft, from what part of the country they came, and
punish them for communicating with the foreigners, they burned their
boat and returned home.
Next day was Sunday. The reveille was sounded in the camps, breakfast
eaten, and blankets rolled up. Company C and the pioneers were sent
into the fort to complete its destruction, by burning up the rice,
dried fish, and huts still standing.
The march began at 7 A.M. The sun rolled up in a cloudless sky and the
weather was very warm. It was a rough road, if, indeed, it could be
called such, being but a bridle-path over hills and valleys, and
through rice fields. Whole companies were required to drag the
howitzers up the hills and through the narrow defiles. The marines led
the advance. The next line of fortifications, the “middle fort,” was
soon entered. The guns were found loaded, as they had been deserted as
soon as the fort was made a target by the Monocacy, every one of whose
shots told. The work of dismantling was here thoroughly done. The sixty
brass pieces of artillery, all of them insignificant breech-loaders of
two-inch bore, were tumbled into the river, and the fort appropriately
named “Fort Monocacy.”
The difficult march was resumed under a blazing sun and in steaming
heat. A succession of steep hills lay before them. Sappers and miners,
with picks, shovels, and axes, went ahead levelling and widening the
road, cutting bushes and filling hollows. The guns had to be hauled up
and lowered down the steep places by means of ropes. Large masses of
white coats and black heads hovered on their flanks, evidently
purposing to get in the rear. Their numbers were increasing. The danger
was imminent. The fort must be taken soon or never.
A detachment of five howitzers and three companies were detailed to
guard the flanks and rear under Lieutenant-Commander Wheeler. The main
body then moved forward to storm the fort (citadel). This move of our
forces checkmated the enemy and made victory sure, redeeming a critical
moment and turning danger into safety.
Hardly were the guns in position, when the Coreans, massing their
forces, charged the hill in the very teeth of the howitzers’ fire. Our
men calmly took sure aim, and by steadily firing at long range, so
shattered the ranks of the attacking force that they broke and fled,
leaving a clear field. The fort was now doomed. The splendid practice
of our howitzers effectually prevented any large body of the enemy from
getting into action, and made certain the capture of the citadel.
Meanwhile the Monocacy, moving up the river and abreast of the land
force, poured a steady fire of shell through the walls and into the
fort, while the howitzers of the rear-guard on the hill behind,
reversing their muzzles, fired upon the garrison over the heads of our
men in the ravine. The infantry and marines having rested awhile after
their forced march, during which several had been overcome by heat and
sunstroke, now formed for a charge.
The citadel to be assaulted was the key to the whole line of
fortifications. It crowned the apex of a conical hill one hundred and
fifty feet high, measuring from the bottom of the ravine. It mounted,
with the redoubt below, one hundred and forty-three guns. The sides of
the hill were very steep, the walls of the fort joining it almost
without a break. Up this steep incline our men were to rush in the face
of the garrison’s fire. Could the white-coats depress the jingals at a
sufficiently low angle, they must annihilate the blue-jackets. Should
our men reach the walls, they could easily enter through the breaches
made by the Monocacy’s shells. As usual, slowness, and the national
habit of being behind time, saved our men and lost the day for Corea.
A terrible reception awaited the Americans. Every man inside was bound
to die at his post, for this fort being the key to all the others, was
held by the tiger-hunters, who, if they flinched before the enemy, were
to be put to death by their own people.
All being ready, our men rose up with a yell and rushed for the
redoubt, officers in front. A storm of jingal balls rained over their
heads, but their dash up the hill was so rapid that the garrison could
not depress their pieces or load fast enough. Their powder burned too
slowly to hurt the swift Yankees. Goaded to despair the tiger-hunters
“chanted their war-dirge in a blood-chilling cadence which nothing can
duplicate.” They mounted the parapet, fighting with furious courage.
They cast stones at our men. They met them with spear and sword. With
hands emptied of weapons, they picked up dust and threw in the
invaders’ eyes to blind them. Expecting no quarter and no relief, they
contested the ground inch by inch and fought only to die. Scores were
shot and tumbled into the river. Most of the wounded were drowned, and
some cut their own throats as they rushed into the water.
Lieutenant McKee was the first to mount the parapet and leap inside the
fort. For a moment, and only a moment, he stood alone fighting against
overwhelming odds. A bullet struck him in the groin, a Corean brave
rushed forward, and, with a terrible lunge, thrust him in the thigh,
and then turned upon Lieutenant-Commander Schley, who had leaped over
the parapet. The spear passed harmlessly between the arm and body of
the American as a carbine bullet laid the Corean dead.
The fort was now full of officers and men, and a hand to hand fight
between the blue and white began to strew the ground with corpses.
Corean sword crossed Yankee cutlass, and clubbed carbine brained the
native whose spear it dashed aside. The garrison fought to the last
man. Within the walls those shot and bayoneted numbered nearly one
hundred. Not one unwounded prisoner was taken. The huge yellow cotton
flag, which floated from a very short staff in the centre, was hauled
down by Captain McLane Tilton and two marines. Meanwhile a desperate
fight went on outside the fort. During the charge, some of the Coreans
retreated from the fort, a movement which caught the eye of Master
McLean. Hastily collecting a party of his men, he moved to the left on
the double quick to cut off the fugitives. He was just in time. The
fugitives, forty or fifty in all, after firing, attempted to rush past
him. They were driven back in diminished numbers. Hemmed in between the
captured fort and their enemy, McLean charged them with his handful of
men. Hiding behind some rocks, they fought with desperation until they
were all killed, only two or three being made prisoners. Another party
attempting to escape were nearly annihilated by Cassel’s battery, which
sent canister into their flying backs, mowing them down in swaths.
Moving at full speed, many were shot like rabbits, falling heels over
head. At the same time Captain Tilton passed to the right of the fort
and caught another party retreating along the crest of the hill joining
the two forts, and, with a steady carbine fire, thinned their numbers.
At 12.45 the stars and stripes floated over all the forts. A
photographer came ashore and on his camera fixed the horrible picture
of blood.
The scene after the battle smoke cleared away, and our men sat down to
rest, was of a kind to thoroughly satisfy those “who look on war as a
pastime.” It was one from which humanity loves to avert her gaze. Two
hundred and forty-three corpses in their white garments lay in and
around the citadel. Many of them were clothed in thick cotton armor,
wadded to nine thicknesses, which now smouldered away. A sickening
stench of roasted flesh filled the air, which, during the day and
night, became intolerable. Some of the wounded, fearing their captors
worse than their torture, slowly burned to death; choosing rather to
suffer living cremation than to save their lives as captives. Our men,
as they dragged the smoking corpses into the burial trench, found one
man who could endure the torture no longer. Making signs of life, he
was soon stripped of his clothes, but died soon after of his wounds and
burns. Only twenty prisoners, all wounded, were taken alive. At least a
hundred corpses floated or sunk in the river, which ran here and there
in crimson streaks. At this one place probably as many as three hundred
and fifty Corean patriots gave up their lives for their country.
On the American side, the gallant McKee, who fell as his father fell in
Mexico, at the head of his men, the first inside the stormed works, was
mortally wounded, and died soon after. One landsman of the Colorado and
one marine of the Benicia were killed. Five men were severely, and five
slightly, wounded.
The other two forts below the citadel being open to the rear from the
main work were easily entered, no regular resistance being offered. The
results of the forty-eight hours on shore, eighteen of which were spent
in the field, were the capture of five forts—probably the strongest in
the kingdom—fifty flags, four hundred and eighty-one pieces of
artillery, chiefly jingals, and a large number of matchlocks. Of the
artillery eleven pieces were 32,– fourteen were 24,– two were 20,– and
the remaining four hundred and fifty-four were 2- and 4-pounders. The
work of destruction was carried on and made as thorough as fire, axe,
and shovel could make it. A victory was won, of which the American navy
may feel proud. Zeal, patience, discipline, and bravery characterized
men and officers in all the movements.
The wounded were moved to the Monocacy. The forts were occupied all
Sunday night, and early on Monday morning the whole force was
re-embarked in perfect order, in spite of the furious tide, rising
twenty feet. The fleet moved down the stream with the captured colors
at the mast-heads and towing the boats laden with the trophies of
victory. Reaching the anchorage at half past ten o’clock, they were
greeted with such ringing cheers of their comrades left behind as made
the woodlands echo again.
Later in the day, Dennis Hendrin (or Hanrahan) and Seth Allen, the two
men slain in the fight, were buried on Boisée Island, and the first
American graves rose on Corean soil. At 5.45 P.M. McKee breathed his
last. [49]
Yet the odds of battle were dreadful—three graves against heaps upon
heaps of unburied slain. Well might the pagan ask: “What did Heaven
mean by it?”
The native wounded were kindly cared for, and their broken bones
mended, by the fleet surgeon, Dr. Mayo. Admiral Rodgers, in a letter to
the native authorities, offered to return his prisoners. The reply was
in substance: “Do as you please with them.” The prisoners were
therefore set ashore and allowed to dispose of themselves.
Admiral Rodgers having obeyed to the farthest limit the orders given
him, and all hope of making a treaty being over, two of the ships,
withal needing to refit, the fleet sailed from the anchorage off Isle
Boisée the day before the fourth of July, arriving in Chifu on the
morning of July 5th, after thirty-five days’ stay in Corean waters. He
arrived in time to hear of the Tientsin massacre, which had taken place
June 20th. “Our little war with the heathen,” as the New York Herald
styled it, attracted slight notice in the United States. A few columns
of news and comment from the metropolitan press, a page or two of
woodcuts in an illustrated newspaper, the ringing of a chime of jests
on going up Salt River (Salée), and the usual transmission of official
documents, summed up the transient impression on the American public.
In China the expedition was looked upon as a failure and a defeat. The
popular Corean idea was, that the Americans had come to avenge the
death of pirates and robbers, and, after several battles, had been so
surely defeated that they dare not attempt the task of chastisement
again. To the Tai-wen Kun the whole matter was cause for personal
glorification. The tiger-hunters and the conservative party at court
believed that they had successfully defied both France and America, and
driven off their forces with loss. When a Scotch missionary in
Shing-king reasoned with a Corean concerning the power of foreigners
and their superiority in war, the listener’s reply, delivered with
angry toss of the head and a snap of the fingers, was: “What care we
for your foreign inventions? Even our boys laugh at all your weapons.”
CHAPTER XLVII.
THE PORTS OPENED TO JAPANESE COMMERCE.
The walls of Corean isolation, so long intact, had been sapped by the
entrance of Christianity and the French missionaries, and now began to
crumble. With the Russians on the north, and the sea no longer a
barrier, the Japanese began to press upon the east, while China broke
through and abolished the neutrality of the western border. The fires
of civilization began to smoke out the hermit.
The revolutions of 1868 in Japan, culminating after a century of
interior preparation, abolished the dual system and feudalism, and
restored the mikado to supreme power. The capital was removed to Tōkiō,
and the office of Foreign Affairs—a sub-bureau—was raised to a
department of the Imperial administration. One of the first things
attended to was to invite the Corean government to resume ancient
friendship and vassalage.
This summons, coming from a source unrecognized for eight centuries,
and to a regent swollen with pride at his victory over the French and
his success in extirpating the Christian religion, and irritated at
Japan for adopting western principles of progress and cutting free from
Chinese influence and tradition, was spurned with defiance. An insolent
and even scurrilous letter was returned to the mikado’s government,
which stung to rage the military classes of Japan, who began to form a
“war-party,” which was headed by Saigo of Satsuma. Waiting only for the
return of the embassy from Europe, and for the word to take up the gage
of battle, they nourished their wrath to keep it warm.
It was not so to be. New factors had entered the Corean problem since
Taiko’s time. European states were now concerned in Asiatic politics.
Russia was too near, China too hostile, and Japan too poor; she was
even then paying ten per cent. interest to London bankers on the
Shimonoséki Indemnity loan. Financial ruin, and a collision with China
might result, if war were declared. In October, 1873, the cabinet
vetoed the scheme, and Saigo, the leader of the war party, resigned and
returned to Satsuma, to nourish schemes for the overthrow of the
ministry and the humiliation of Corea. “The eagle, even though
starving, refuses to eat grain;” nor would anything less than Corean
blood satisfy the Japanese veterans.
In 1873, the young king of Corea attained his majority. His father,
Tai-wen Kun, by the act of the king backed by Queen Chō, was relieved
of office, and his bloody and cruel lease of power came to an end. The
young sovereign proved himself a man of mental vigor and independent
judgment, not merely trusting to his ministers, but opening important
documents in person. He has been ably seconded by his wife Min, through
whose influence Tai-wen Kun was shorn of influence, nobles of
progressive spirit were reinstated to office, and friendship with Japan
encouraged. In this year, 1873, an heir to the throne was born of the
queen; another royal child, the offspring of a concubine, having been
born in 1869.
The neutral belt of land long inhabited by deer and tiger, or traversed
by occasional parties of ginseng-hunters, had within the last few
decades been overspread with squatters, and infested by Manchiu
brigands and Corean outlaws. The depredations of these border ruffians
both across the Yalu, and on the Chinese settlements—like the raids of
the wild Indians on our Texas frontier—had become intolerable to both
countries. In 1875, Li Hung Chang, sending a force of picked Chinese
troops, supported by a gunboat on the Yalu, broke up the nest of
robbers, and imbibed a taste both for Corean politics and for
rectifying the frontiers of Shing-king. He proceeded at once to make
said frontier “scientific” by allowing the surveyor and plowman to
enter the no longer debatable land. In 1877, the governor of Shing-king
proposing, the Peking Government shifted the eastern frontier of the
empire twenty leagues nearer the rising sun, on the plea that “the
width of the tract left uncultivated was of less moment than the
efficiency of border regulations.” By this act the borders of China and
Corea touched, and were written in Yalu water. The last vestige of
insulation was removed, and the shocks of change now became more
frequent and alarming. By contact with the living world, comatose Corea
was to be galvanized into new life.
Nevertheless the hostile spirit of the official classes, who tyrannize
the little country, was shown in the refusal to receive envoys of the
mikado because they were dressed in European clothes, in petty
regulations highly irritating to the Japanese at Fusan, and by the
overt act of violence which we shall now narrate.
Since 1868 the Japanese navy, modelled after the British, and
consisting of American and European iron-clads and war vessels, has
been manned by crews uniformed in foreign style. On September 19, 1875,
some sailors of the Unyo Kuan, which had been cruising off the mouth of
the Han River, landing near Kang-wa for water, were fired on by Corean
soldiers, under the idea that they were Americans or Frenchmen. On the
21st the Japanese, numbering thirty-six men, and armed with breech
loaders, stormed the fort. Most of the garrison were shot or drowned,
the fort dismantled, and the spoil carried to the ships. Occupying the
works two days, the Japanese returned to Nagasaki on the 23d.
The news of “the Kokwa [Kang-wa] affair” brought the wavering minds of
both the peace and the war party of Japan to a decision. Arinori Mori
was despatched to Peking to find out the exact relation of China to
Corea, and secure her neutrality. Kuroda Kiyotaku was sent with a fleet
to the Han River, to make, if possible, a treaty of friendship and open
ports of trade. By the rival parties, the one was regarded as the
bearer of the olive branch, the other of arrows and lightning. With
Kuroda went Inouyé Bunda of the State Department, and Kin Rinshiō, the
Corean liberal.
General Kuroda sailed January 6, 1876, amid salvos of the artillery of
newspaper criticism predicting failure, with two men-of-war, three
transports, and three companies of marines, or less than eight hundred
men in all, and touching at Fusan, anchored within sight of Seoul,
February 6th. About the same time, a courier from Peking arrived in the
capital, bearing the Imperial recommendation that a treaty be made with
the Japanese. The temper of the young king had been manifested long
before this by his rebuking the district magistrate of Kang-wa for
allowing soldiers to fire on peaceably disposed people, and ordering
the offender to degradation and exile. Arinori Mori, in Peking, had
received the written disclaimer of China’s responsibility over “the
outpost state,” by which stroke of policy the Middle Kingdom freed
herself from all possible claims of indemnity from France, the United
States, and Japan. The way for a treaty was now smoothed, and the new
difficulties were merely questions of form. Nevertheless, while Kuroda
was unheard from, the Japanese war preparations went vigorously on.
Kuroda, making Commodore Perry’s tactics his own, disposed his fleet in
the most imposing array, made his transports look like men-of-war, by
painting port-holes on them, kept up an incredible amount of fuss,
movement, and bustle, and on the 10th landed a dazzling array of
marines, sailors, and officers in full uniform, who paraded two miles
to the treaty-house, on Kang-wa Island, where two high commissioners
from Seoul, Ji Shinken and In Jiahō, aged respectively sixty-five and
fifty, awaited him.
One day was devoted to ceremony, and three to negotiation. A written
apology for the Kang-wa affair was offered by the Coreans, and the
details of the treaty settled, the chief difficulties being the titles
to be used. [50] Ten days for consultation at the capital were then
asked for and granted, at the end of which time, the two commissioners
returned, declaring the impossibility of obtaining the royal signature.
The Japanese at once embarked on their ships in disgust. They returned
only after satisfactory assurances; and on February 27th the treaty, in
which Chō-sen was recognized as an independent nation, was signed and
attested. The Japanese then made presents, mostly of western
manufacture, and after being feasted, returned March 1st. Mr. Inouyé
Bunda then proceeded to Europe, visiting, on his way, the Centennial
Exposition at Philadelphia, at which also, it is said, were one or more
Corean visitors.
The first Corean Embassy, which since the twelfth century had been
accredited to the mikado’s court, sailed in May, 1876, from Fusan in a
Japanese steamer, landing at Yokohama May 29th, at 8 A.M. Two
Neptune-like braves with the symbols of power—huge iron tridents—led
the procession, in which was a band of twenty performers on metal
horns, conch-shells, flutes, whistles, cymbals, and drums.
Effeminate-looking pages bore the treaty documents. The chief envoy
rode on a platform covered with tiger-skins, and resting on the
shoulders of eight men, while a servant bore the umbrella of state over
his head, and four minor officers walked at his side. The remainder of
the suite rode in jin-riki-shas, and the Japanese military and civil
escort completed the display. They breakfasted at the town hall, and by
railroad and steam-cars reached Tōkiō. At the station, the contrast
between the old and the new was startling. The Japanese stood “with all
the outward signs of the Civilization that is coming in.” “On the other
side, were all the representatives of the Barbarism that is going out.”
On the following day, the Coreans visited the Foreign Office, and on
June 1st, the envoy, though of inferior rank, had audience of the
mikado. For three weeks the Japanese amused, enlightened, and startled
their guests by showing them their war ships, arsenals, artillery,
torpedoes, schools, buildings, factories, and offices equipped with
steam and electricity—the ripened fruit of the seed planted by Perry in
1854. All attempts of foreigners to hold any communication with them,
were firmly rejected by the Coreans, who started homeward June 28th.
The official diary, or report by the ambassador of this visit to Japan,
was afterward published in Seoul. It is a colorless narrative carefully
bleached of all views and opinions, evidently satisfying the scrutiny
even of enemies at court.
During the autumn of this year, 1876, and later on, in following years,
the British war-vessels, Sylvia and Swinger, were engaged in surveying
portions of the coast of Kiung-sang province. Captain H. C. Saint John,
who commanded the Sylvia, and had touched near Fusan in 1855—long
enough to see a native bastinadoed simply for selling a chicken to a
foreigner—now found more hospitable treatment. His adventures are
narrated in his chatty book, “The Wild Coasts of Nipon.” An English
vessel, the Barbara Taylor, having been wrecked on Corean shores, an
attaché of the British Legation in Tōkiō was sent to Fusan to thank the
authorities for their kind treatment of the crew.
The Japanese found it was not wise to hasten in taking advantage of
their new liberties granted by treaty. Near Fusan, are thousands of
graves of natives killed in the invasion of 1592–97, over which the
Coreans hold an annual memorial celebration. Hitherto the Japanese had
been rigorously kept within their guarded enclosure. Going out to
witness the celebration, they were met with a shower of stones, and
found the road blockaded. After a small riot in which many words and
missiles were exchanged, matters were righted, but the temper of the
people showed that, as in old Japan, it would be long before ignorant
hermits, and not over-gentle foreigners could live quietly together.
Saigo, of Satsuma, dissatisfied with the peaceful results of Kuroda’s
mission, and the “brain victory” over the Coreans, organized, during
1877, “The Satsuma Rebellion,” to crush which cost Japan twenty
thousand lives, $50,000,000, and seven months of mighty effort, the
story of which has been so well told in the lamented A. H. Mounsey’s
perspicuous monograph. Yet out of this struggle, with which Corea
manifested no sympathy, the nation emerged with old elements of
disturbance eliminated, and with a broader outlook to the future. A
more vigorous policy with Chō-sen was at once inaugurated.
Under the new treaty, Fusan (Corean, Pu-san) soon became a bustling
place of trade, with a population of two thousand, many of whom,
however, were poor people from Tsushima. Among the public buildings
were those of the Consulate, Chamber of Commerce, Bank, Mitsu Bishi
(Three Diamonds) Steamship Company, and a hospital, under care of Dr.
Yano, in which, up to 1882, four thousand Coreans and many Japanese
have been treated. A Japanese and Corean newspaper, Chō-sen Shimpo,
restaurants, places of amusements of various grades of morality, and a
variety of establishments for turning wits and industry into money,
have been established. The decayed gentry of Japan, starting in
business with the capital obtained by commuting their hereditary
pensions, found it difficult to compete with the trained merchants of
Tōkiō and Ozaka. Great trouble from the lock of a gold and silver
currency has been experienced, as only the copper and iron sapeks, or
‘cash,’ are in circulation. In Corean political economy to let gold go
out of the country is to sell the kingdom; and so many rogues have
attempted the sale of brass or gilt nuggets that an assaying office at
the consulate has been provided. The government of Tōkiō has urged upon
that of Seoul the adoption of a circulating medium based on the
precious metals; and, perhaps, Corean coins may yet be struck at the
superb mint at Ozaka. While gold in dust and nuggets has been exported
for centuries, rumor credits the vaults at Seoul with being full of
Japanese gold koban, the mountains to be well packed with auriferous
quartz, and the rivers to run with golden sands.
Among the callers, with diplomatic powers, from the outside world in
1881, each eager and ambitious to be the first in wresting the coveted
prize of a treaty, were two British captains of men-of-war, who arrived
on May 21st and 28th; a French naval officer, June 16th, who sailed
away after a rebuff June 18th; while at Gensan, June 7th, the British
man-of-war, Pegasus, came, and saw, but did not conquer.
After six years of mutual contact at Fusan, the Coreans, though finding
the Japanese as troublesome as the latter discovered foreigners to be
after their own ports were opened, have, with much experience learned,
settled down to endure them, for the sake of a trade which undoubtedly
enriches the country. The Coreans buy cotton goods, tin-plate, glass,
dyes, tools, and machinery, clocks, watches, petroleum, flour,
lacquer-work, iron, hollow-ware, and foreign knick-knacks. A good sign
of a desire for personal improvement is a demand for bath-tubs. Soap
will probably come next.
The exports are gold dust, silver, ox hides and bones, beche-de-mer,
fish, rice, raw silk, fans, cotton, and bamboo paper, ginseng, furs of
many kinds, tobacco, shells for inlaying, dried fish, timber, beans and
peas, hemp, jute, various plants yielding paper-stock, peony-bark,
gall-nuts, varnishes and oils, and a variety of other vegetable
substances having a universal commercial value.
Even Riu Kiu has seen the benefits of trade, and five merchants from
what is now the Okinawa ken of the mikado’s empire—formerly the Loo
Choo island kingdom—came to Tōkiō in February, 1882, to form a company
with a view to establishing an agency in Fusan, and exchanging Corean
products for Riu Kiu sugar, grain, and fish.
Gensan (Corean, Won-san) was opened May 1, 1880. In a fertile region,
traversed by two high roads, with the fur country near, and a
magnificent harbor in front, the prospects of trade are good. The
Japanese concession, on which are some imposing public buildings,
includes about forty-two acres. An exposition of Japanese, European,
and American goods was established which was visited by 25,000 people,
its object being to open the eyes and pockets of the natives, who
seemed, to the Tōkiō merchants, taller, stouter, and better looking
than those of Fusan. One twenty-sixth of the goods sold was Japanese,
the rest, mostly cotton goods and ‘notions,’ were American and
European. The busy season of trade is in autumn and early winter. For
the first three months the settlers were less troubled by tigers than
by continual rumors of the approach of a band of a thousand
“foreigner-haters,” who were sworn to annihilate the aliens on the
sacred soil of Chō-sen. The bloodthirsty braves, however, postponed the
execution of their purpose. The Japanese merchants, so far from finding
the Coreans innocently verdant, soon came in contact with monopolies,
rings, guilds, and tricks of trade that showed a surprising knowledge
of business. Official intermeddling completed their woe, and loud and
long were the complaints of the mikado’s subjects. Yet profits were
fair, and the first anniversary of the opening of the port was
celebrated in grand style. Besides dinners and day fireworks, the
police played the ancient national game of polo, to the great amusement
of the Coreans. Among the foreign visitors in May, 1881, was Doctor
Frank Cowan, an American gentleman, and surgeon on the Japanese steamer
Tsuruga Maru, who made a short journey in the vicinity among the
good-natured natives. Besides spying out the land, and returning well
laden with trophies, he records, in a letter to the State Department at
Washington, this prophecy: “Next to the countries on the golden rim of
the Pacific, ... to disturb the monetary equilibrium of the world, will
be Corea.” “The geological structure is not incompatible with the
theory that the whole region [east coast] is productive of the precious
metal.”
To regulate some points of the treaty, and if possible postpone the
opening of the new port of In-chiŭn (Japanese, Nin-sen) a second
embassy was despatched to Japan, which arrived at Yokohama, August 11,
1880. The procession of tall and portly men dressed in green, red, and
pink garments of coarse cloth, with Chinese shoes, and hats of mighty
diameter, moved through the streets amid the rather free remarks of the
spectators, who commented in no complimentary language on the general
air of dinginess which these Rip Van Winkles of the orient presented.
The Coreans remained in Tōkiō until September 8th. Perfect courtesy was
everywhere shown them, as they visited schools and factories, and
studied Japan’s modern enginery of war and peace. The general attitude
of the Tōkiō press and populace was that of condescending familiarity,
of generous hospitality mildly flavored with contempt, and tempered by
a very uncertain hope that these people might develop into good
pupils—and customers.
Chō-sen did not lack attentions from the outside world—Russia, England,
France, Italy, and the United States—during the year 1880. Whether
missionaries of the Holy Synod of Russia attempted to cross the Tumen,
we do not know; but in the spring of 1880, a Muscovite vessel appeared
off one of the ports of Ham-Kiung, to open commercial relations. The
offer was politely declined. The Italian war-vessel Vettor Pisani,
having on board H. R. H. the Duke of Genoa, arrived off Fusan, August
1, 1880, at 1 P.M.—a few hours after the Corean embassy had left for
Japan. One survivor of the Italian ship, Bianca Portia, wrecked near
Quelpart in 1879, had been kindly treated by the Corean authorities and
sent to Nagasaki. The duke, through the Japanese consul, forwarded a
letter of thanks to the governor of Tong-nai, who, however, returned
the missive, though with a courteous answer. After seven days, the
Vettor Pisani sailed northward, and avoiding Gensan and the Japanese
consul, anchored off Port Lazareff, where, during his six days’ stay,
he was visited by the local magistrate, to whom he committed a letter
of application for trade. Some native cards of silk-worm’s eggs were
also secured to test their value for Italy. After a three days’ visit
to Gensan the ship sailed away, the Italian believing that negotiations
with the Coreans would succeed better without Japanese aid, and
congratulating himself upon having been more successful than the
previous attempts by the British, and especially by the French (Captain
Fourmier, of the Lynx) and American (Commodore Shufeldt) diplomatic
agents, whose letters were returned unread.
The Government of the United States had not forgotten Corea, and Japan
had signified her willingness to assist in opening the hermit nation to
American commerce. On April 8, 1878, Senator Sargent, of California,
offered a resolution that President Hayes “appoint a commissioner to
represent this country in an effort to arrange, by peaceful means and
with the aid of the friendly offices of Japan, a treaty of peace and
commerce between the United States and the Kingdom of Corea.” The bill
passed to a second reading, but, the Senate adjourning, no action was
taken. In 1879, the U. S. steamship Ticonderoga, under Commodore R. W.
Shufeldt, was sent on a cruise around the world in the interests of
American commerce, and to make, if possible, a treaty with Corea.
Entering the harbor of Fusan, May 14, 1880, Commodore Shufeldt begged
the Japanese consul, who visited the ship, to forward his papers to
Seoul. The consul complied, but, unfortunately, neither the
interpreters nor the governor of Tong-nai—preferring present pay and
comfort to possible future benefit—would have anything to do with such
dangerous business. Japanese rumor asserts that the Coreans seeing the
letter addressed on the outside to “the King of Corea,” declined to
receive it, partly because their sovereign was “not King of Korai” but
“King of Chō-sen.” Under the circumstances, the American could do
nothing more than withdraw, which he did amid the usual salute from a
Corean fort near by. A second visit being equally fruitless, the
Ticonderoga again turned her stern toward “the last outstanding and
irreconcilable scoffer among nations at western alliances,” and her
prow homeward.
The Corean embassy, failing in their attempts to have the Japanese go
slowly, Hanabusa, the mikado’s envoy at Seoul, now vigorously urged the
opening of the third port, and, after much discussion, In-chiŭn, [51]
twenty-five miles from Seoul, was selected; in December, 1880, Hanabusa
and his suite, crossing the frozen rivers, went thither, and selected
the ground for the Japanese concession.
The old questions upon which political parties in the hermit nation had
formed themselves, now sank out of sight, and the new element of
excitement was the all-absorbing question of breaking the seals of
national seclusion. The “Civilization Party,” or the Progressionists,
were opposed to the Exclusionists, Port-closers, and Foreigner-haters.
Heading the former or liberal party were the young king and queen, Bin
Kenko, Bin Shoshoko, Ri Saiwo, and other high dignitaries, besides Kin
Giokin and Jo Kohan, former envoys to Japan. The leader of the
Conservatives was the Tai-wen-kun, father of the king and late regent.
The neutrals clustered around Kin Koshiu.
Physically speaking, the Coreans see the sun rise over Japan and set
over China, but morally, and in rhetoric, their sun of prosperity has
ever risen and set in China. Some proposed to buy all machinery, arms,
and government material in China, and imitate her plans and policy, and
conform to the advice of her statesmen. The other side urged the
adoption of Japanese methods and materials. The pro-Chinese gentry
imitated the Peking mandarins in details of dress, household
decoration, and culture; while all their books conveying Western
science must be read from Chinese translations. The pro-Japanese
Coreans had their houses furnished with Japanese articles, they read
and studied Japanese literature and translations of European books, and
when out of Corea the most radical among them wore coats and
pantaloons. The long and hot disputes between the adherents of both
parties seriously hampered the government, while precipitating a
revolution in the national policy; for serious debate in a despotic
country is a sign of awakening life.
About this time, early in 1881, a remarkable document, composed by
Kwo-in-ken, adviser to the Chinese Minister to Japan, had a lively
effect upon the court of Seoul. It was entitled “Policy for Corea.” It
described the neighbors of Chō-sen, and pointed out her proper attitude
to each of them. From Russia, devoted as she is to a policy of
perpetual aggrandizement at the expense of other countries, and
consumed by lust for land, Corea is in imminent danger. China, on the
contrary, is Corea’s natural ally and friend, ever ready with aid in
men and money; both countries need each other, and their union should
be as close as lips and teeth. For historical and geographical reasons,
Corea and Japan should also be one in friendship, and thus guard
against “Russia the ravenous.” The next point treated is the necessity
of an alliance between Corea and the United States, because the
Americans are the natural friends of Asiatic nations. Pointing out the
many advantages of securing the friendship of the Americans, and making
a treaty with them first, the memorialist urges the Coreans to seize
the golden opportunity at once.
About the same time, Li Hung Chang, China’s liberal statesman, wrote a
letter to a Corean gentleman, in which the advice to seek the
friendship of China and the United States was strongly expressed, and a
treaty with the Americans urged as a matter of national safety. Many,
though not all, of the members of the embassies to Japan returned full
of enthusiasm for Western civilization. It soon became evident that the
king and many of his advisers were willing to make treaties. In Peking,
the members of the embassy, before the winter of 1881 was over, began
diplomatic flirtations with the American Legation. At that time,
however, neither Minister J. B. Angell, in Peking, nor John A. Bingham,
in Tōkiō, had any authority to make a treaty with Corea. While the way
was thus made ready, the representations of Messrs. Bingham and Angell
to the State Department at Washington impressed upon our Government the
necessity of having a diplomatic agent near at hand to take advantage
of the next opportunity. Hitherto the only avenue of entrance seemed
through the Japanese good offices; but the apparent willingness of
Coreans in Peking, the experience of the Italians in the Vettor Pisani
at Fusan and Port Lazareff, the advice of Chinese statesmen to Corea to
have faith in the United States, and to open her ports to American
commerce, convinced the American minister at Peking that China, rather
than Japan, would furnish the better base of diplomatic operations for
breaking down the Corean repulsive policy.
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.
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 [52] 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.”
CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE YEAR OF THE TREATIES.
The year 1882 opened ominously. A fire broke out in the royal palace in
Seoul, on January 27th, in which two buildings, nearly completed for
the heir apparent, were burned down. The fire was at first believed to
have political significance, and the tension of the public mind was not
relaxed until it was shown that the fire was the result of pure
accident.
The spirit of progress made advance, but discussion reached fever-heat
in deciding whether the favor of Japan or China should be most sought,
and which foreign nation, the United States, France, or England, should
be admitted first to treaty rights. Bin, opposed to the arbitrary
spirit of the Japanese, edged his argument by proposing an alliance
with foreigners in order to checkmate the designs of Japan.
An event not unlooked for increased the power of the progressionists.
One Kozaikai urged the plea of expulsion of foreigners in such
intemperate language that he was accused of reproaching the sovereign.
At the same time, a conspiracy against the life of the king, involving
forty persons, was discovered, and the sword and torture came into
play. Kozaikai was put to death, many of the conspirators were exiled,
and the ringleaders were sentenced to be broken alive on the wheel, the
revolutions of which tore off hands and feet in succession. Six of
those doomed to death were spared, through the intercession of a
minister, and one, the king’s cousin, who delivered himself up, was
pardoned by his sovereign on the ground of the prisoner’s insanity. The
Progressionists had now the upper hand, and early in the spring Giō
Inchiu and Riōsen left on a mission to Tientsin, to acquaint the
Americans and Chinese with the information that the Corean government
was ready to make treaties, and that the proper officer would be at
In-chiŭn to sign the compact and complete the negotiations.
Meanwhile the reforms in military affairs were begun with energy.
Japanese officers, at the head of whom was Lieutenant Horimoto, drilled
picked men in Seoul, with creditable success, in spite of their
unwieldy hats and costume, and the jeers of the anti-foreign people, in
public as well as in private. Substantial proof of the adoption of
Japan’s military system was shown in an order sent to Tōkiō for a few
hundred Snider rifles with equipments—the weapon of the British
army—and one for twenty thousand of the rifles made at the Japanese
arsenal in Tōkiō, which, combining the merits of the best-known
military fire-arm, contained improvements invented and patented by
Colonel Murata, of the mikado’s army. Two Corean notables later again
visited Japan in April of this year, and were annoyed to find a report
spread abroad in Nagasaki that they had come to raise a money loan.
Nevertheless, they proceeded to Kiōto and Tōkiō. Some of their suite
went into the printing-offices and silk-worm breeding establishments to
learn these arts, while type, presses, and printing material were
ordered for use at home.
Affairs had so shaped themselves that even to outsiders it became
evident that the Corean apple was ripe even to falling. By March 4th it
was known at the American Legation in Peking that “Barkis was willin’,”
while to the Japanese envoy then in Tōkiō it became certain that,
unless he made all haste to In-chiŭn, the American commodore would have
his treaty signed and be off without even waiting for a call. Hastily
bidding his friends good-by, he left in the Japanese steamer, Iwaki
Kuan, and arrived in the harbor just one hour before the American
corvette Swatara arrived with Commodore Shufeldt on board. With the
Swatara were three Chinese men-of-war, one of them an iron-clad.
The American diplomatic agent, Commodore R. W. Shufeldt, having spent
nearly a year in China, surmounting difficulties that few will know of
until the full history of the American treaty with Corea is written,
arrived in the Swatara off Chimulpo, May 7th. Accompanied by three
officers, Commodore Shufeldt went six miles into the interior to the
office of the Corean magistrate to formulate the treaty. Though
surrounded every moment by curious crowds, no disrespect was shown in
any way. Two days afterward, the treaty document was signed on a point
of land in a temporary pavilion opposite the ship. Thus, in the most
modest manner the negotiations were concluded, and a treaty with the
United States was, after repeated failures, secured by the gallant
officer who, by this act of successful diplomacy, closed a long and
brilliant professional career. [53]
Both on the American and Corean side the results had been brought about
only after severe toil. The Corean nobleman Bin, a cousin of the queen,
had so labored in Seoul night and day to commit the government to the
policy of making treaties with the Americans, that, when the messengers
had been despatched with the order for Commodore Shufeldt to appear in
Imperatrice Gulf, he fell ill, and was unable to appear at In-chiŭn.
The American envoy was so worn out with anxiety and toil by his efforts
to have Corea opened under Chinese auspices, that on landing at San
Francisco, he retired to the naval hospital at Mare’s Island to recover
his exhausted strength.
Four days after the signing of the American and Chinese treaties, the
Corean capital was full of mirth and gayety, on account of a wedding in
the royal family. The crown prince, a lad of nine years old, was wedded
to the daughter of Jun, a nobleman of high rank, who had postponed a
visit to Japan until the nuptials were accomplished. A brilliant
procession in the streets of Seoul marked the event, and for a moment
the excitement concerning foreigners was forgotten. None foresaw the
bloody ending of this honeymoon so happily begun.
The British minister at Tōkiō, Sir Harry Parkes, who had left no stone
unturned to secure a personal interview with the ambassador in 1876,
and, since that time, British trade with Corea, was still on the alert.
He at once ordered Admiral Willes to proceed to In-chiŭn. Leaving his
large fleet in Japanese waters, Admiral Willes left Nagasaki in the
Vigilant, May 27th, while Mr. William G. Aston, the accomplished
linguist and Corean scholar, received orders to follow. The Admiral’s
business was soon despatched, a treaty was made, and his return to
Yokohama was accomplished June 14th, the U. S. steamship Ashuelot
saluting him on his arrival. The French and Germans were the next to
improve the long-awaited opportunity. The German admiral left Japan in
the man-of-war Stosch, on May 31st, while a vessel of the French navy
entered the port of In-chiŭn June 5th. There had thus appeared in this
sequestered nook of creation, within a few days, two American, three
British, one French, one Japanese, and five Chinese armed vessels. All
of them, except the French, had left by June 8th, to the great relief
of the country folks and old men and women, many of whom, with the
children, had fled to the hills when the big guns began to waste their
powder in salutes, to the detriment of the thatched roofs of the
houses.
China lost no time in taking advantage of the position secured her by
treaty. No vexatious delays of ratification troubled her. Everything
had been arranged beforehand with the Coreans, so that, on the return
of the vessels from In-chiŭn, officers were despatched to Shanghae to
sail for Gensan and Fusan, and select land for public buildings.
During the present year the Japanese legation in Seoul has numbered
about forty persons, including secretaries, interpreters, military
officers, policemen, students, and servants. Notwithstanding their
precarious situation, amid the turbulent elements at work around them,
they seemed to enjoy the spectacle before their eyes of a repetition of
the history of their own country after Perry’s arrival in 1853. The
young men of the legation visited the historic sites near the capital,
enjoyed the mountain and river scenery, and studied the Corean language
and literature. At first the common people believed that their visitors
sucked the blood of the children lured away by them; and so carefully
guarded their little ones. By and by, however, as more liberty was
afforded them, the occasional pelting with vegetables and pebbles
became less frequent, and even the women would talk with them.
The light-hearted Japanese seemed to suspect no imminent danger,
although the old fanatic and tyrant Tai-wen Kun was still alive and
plotting. To insure perfect secrecy for his plans, it is said that he
employed two or three mutes to wait on him, and act as his messengers.
He was the centre of all the elements hostile to innovation, and being
a man of unusual ability, was possessed of immense influence. The
populace of Seoul and of the country had been taught to believe that
“the Japanese were inebriated with the manners of Christian nations,
and were enchanted by the Western devils, and that as a Europeanized
country of the devil was being created in their immediate neighborhood,
they must expel the barbarians.” Every means had been used to inflame
the people against foreigners. Stone monuments had been set up on the
high roads and market-places which bore this inscription—“The Western
barbarians will come to invade our soil, there are but two alternatives
for Chō-sen; to go to war, or to maintain peace. To submit peacefully
means to sell the country; therefore we Coreans must resort to arms.”
Many thousands of these inscribed stones had been set up, and an edict
had been issued, commanding the ink-makers to inscribe their sticks of
ink with this inflammatory declaration. When nobles of high rank would
advocate progresssive views, Tai-wen Kun would sneeringly dare them to
remove these anti-foreign monuments.
During the nine years of his nominal retirement from office, from 1873
to 1882, this bigoted Confucianist, who refused to know anything of the
outer world, bided his time and waited his opportunity, which came
during the summer of the present year. Just when the populace was most
excited over the near presence of the Americans and other foreigners at
In-chiŭn, the usual rainfall was withheld, the wells dried up, and in
the consequent drouth, the rice crop was threatened with total failure.
The diviners, sorcerers, and anti-foreign party took advantage of the
situation to play on the fears of the superstitious people. The
spirits, displeased at the intrusion of the Western devils, were angry
and were cursing the land. At the same time the soldiery of the capital
were disaffected, as some say on account of arrearages of wages, or as
others aver, because the old warriors of the bow and arrow hated the
Japanese method of drilling as a foreign innovation insulting to the
gods. A more probable reason is that on account of the failure of the
rice-harvest, the soldiers’ rations were cut down, and they were
deprived of this choice cereal for food. Among the first Corean
officers killed was the superintendent of the rice storehouses, which
were pillaged by the hungry mob.
On July 23d, while the king was out in the open air praying for rain, a
mob of sympathizers with Tai-wen Kun attempted to seize his person. The
king escaped to the castle. According to one account, some
mischief-maker then started the report in the city that the Japanese
had attacked the royal castle, and had seized the king and queen, and
that the prime minister with the palace-guards in vainly endeavoring to
beat back the assailants, had been defeated; and that every Corean
should take up arms. Forthwith the mob rushed with frantic violence
upon the legation, murdering the Japanese policemen and students whom
they met in the streets and the Japanese military instructors in the
barracks. Not satisfied with this, the rioters, numbering 4,000 men,
attacked and destroyed the houses of the ministers favoring foreign
intercourse. Before quiet was restored, the queen, Min, the heir
apparent and his wife, the chief ministers of the government, Min Thai
Ho and Min Yong Ik, were, as was supposed, murdered; but all these
emerged alive. Many of the Mins and seven Japanese were killed.
The Japanese, by their own account, had suspected no danger until the
day of the riot, when they noticed great excitement among the people,
and that crowds were assembling and rushing to and fro. They sent out a
policeman to inquire into the nature of the disturbance, and at two
o’clock P.M. they learned from a native that the mob would attack the
legation. Word was also sent to the Japanese by the Corean officer in
charge of the drill-ground where the troops were trained by Lieutenant
Horimoto, saying that the troops drilled in Japanese tactics had been
attacked, and the legation would next be in danger. Hanabusa and his
suite then arranged a plan of defence. While thus engaged, a Corean
employed at the legation informed them that the mob had destroyed the
houses of the two ministers Bin, and were attacking three Japanese
students. Three policemen well armed then left to succor the students,
but nothing was heard from either policemen or students again. A Corean
officer now appeared and warned the Japanese to escape to the hill back
of the legation; and being requested by Hanabusa to ask the government
for soldiers, he left on this errand. At 5.50 P.M. the mob reached the
legation, and raising a united yell, fired volleys of bullets, arrows,
and big stones at the legation, but dared not enter the gate to face
the revolvers of the policemen. In hurling stones the ruffians showed
remarkable skill. The mob set on fire a house, near by, and in the
rising wind—then boding a coming storm—two out-houses of the legation
were burned, the police shooting down the incendiaries when they could
see them. It was now about ten o’clock, and the ruffians having thrown
up barricades to hem in their victims and to shield their cowardly
carcases while shooting, the Japanese fired the remaining buildings,
and armed only with swords and pistols, formed themselves into a
circle, charged the mob, and cut their way through to the house of the
chief magistrate, which they found empty. Finding no one in the
official residence, they marched to the southern gate of the royal
castle. Instead of opening it, the soldiers on the wall above pelted
them with stones.
Hanabusa now resolved to cross the river with his party and make his
way to In-chiŭn. Turning their backs on the flames, they arrived at the
river and, on the ferryman refusing to convey them across, they seized
the boat and crossed safely to the other side. It was now past midnight
and the rain began to fall heavily, and with occasional thunderstorms
continued to pour down all night. The refugees plunged on through the
darkness, often losing their way, but next day at ten o’clock, they
procured some raw barley to eat, and through the pelting rain pushed
on, reaching In-chiŭn at 3 P.M. The governor received them kindly and
supplied food and dry clothing. The Japanese officers slept in the
official residence, and the servants, police, and others in a
guard-house about fifteen yards distant. The governor posted his own
sentinels to watch so that the Japanese could get some rest. In a few
minutes the tired men were sleeping the sleep of exhaustion.
About five o’clock, Hanabusa and his officers were suddenly awakened by
the shouting of a mob outside; and in a moment more a Japanese entered
covered with blood, and with a drawn sword in his hand with which he
had cut his way. The mob had attacked them while they were asleep, and
the soldiers of the local garrison were joining the rioters, firing
from behind fences. All the Japanese now hurried on their clothes, and
charging a body of about forty soldiers, armed with swords and spears,
who were blocking the gateway, made for Chi-mul-po seaport, having lost
three killed and two missing.
Meeting two Japanese on horseback from the port, who reported that the
road was free from ambuscades, they put the wounded man on one horse,
and by another despatched one of their number to hasten forward and
have a boat ready. They reached Chi-mul-po, the port, about seven
o’clock, and immediately crossed over to Roze Island for safety. About
midnight, having procured a junk, they put to sea, toward Nanyo Bay,
where they knew the British gunboat Flying Fish was then on survey.
Encountering a southerly wind, they made little or no progress, and on
the 26th a dense fog set in; but at 11.30 A.M., it cleared up and the
welcome sight of a three-masted vessel greeted their eyes. Hoisting the
flag of Japan, they saw their signal answered, and soon the party of
twenty-six half-naked, hungry, and cold refugees were on board the
ship, where kindest treatment awaited them. That night at ten o’clock
the Flying Fish sailed for Nagasaki. On August 3d a religious service
in memory of their slain comrades was held by the survivors, at
Shimonoséki. “The deep silence was only broken by the sobbing of the
audience, overcome by deep sympathy for the murdered men.” On the 8th
Hanabusa had an audience with the mikado in Tōkiō.
Without hesitation, the Japanese government ordered the army to
assemble at Shimonoséki and Tsushima, with naval forces to co-operate.
Hanabusa and his suite were sent back, escorted by a military force. He
re-entered Seoul, August 16th, and was received with courtesy. A fleet
of Chinese war-vessels with a force of four thousand troops was also at
hand. Apparently everything was under the control of Tai-wen Kun, who
professed to be friendly to foreigners, and to ascribe the recent riot
to a sudden uprising of the unpaid soldiery, which the government had
not force at hand to suppress. Two Corean officers coming on board the
Flying Fish, August 10th, informed Captain Hoskyn that the soldiery,
dissatisfied with the unfair treatment of their superiors, had incited
the peasantry to rebellion; that by orders of Tai-wen Kun, who bitterly
regretted the recent outrages, the dead Japanese had been honorably
buried; that the old regent while usurping the royal power, had
professed a total change of views and was in favor of a progressive
policy.
At his audience with the king, August 20th, Hanabusa presented the
demands of his government. These were nominally agreed to, but several
days passing without satisfactory action, Hanabusa having exhausted
remonstrance and argument, left Seoul August 25th and returned to his
ship. This unexpected move—a menace of war—brought the usurper to
terms. On receipt of Tai-wen Kun’s apologies, the Japanese envoy
returned to the capital August 30th and full agreement was given to the
demands of Japan, at which time it would appear, Tai-wen Kun, forcibly
kidnapped by the envoy of China, had begun his travels into the country
of Confucius.
The following telegram to the New York Tribune of October 2d,
summarizes the news from Yokohama up to September 13th:
The Corean Government pledged itself to the following conditions:
To arrest the insurgents within twenty days and inflict due
punishment upon them, Japanese delegates to be present at the
trial; to bury properly the bodies of those murdered and pay 50,000
yen (dollars) to their families; to pay Japan 500,000 yen as
indemnity for expenditure, etc., in five yearly instalments; to
allow Japanese troops in Seoul for the protection of the legation,
and to provide proper accommodations for them; to send an apology
by a special embassy to Japan; to extend gradually privileges to
the Japanese residents and traders; to afford proper conveniences
for travel throughout Corea for the Japanese Government officials.
While this was going on the Chinese envoy, who had remained
inactive with his escort until August 25th, suddenly called up the
full body of his troops, about three or four thousand, to the
capital. What degree of pressure he may have exercised is not yet
known, but it is certain that the chief rebel and assassin, the
Tai-wen Kun, was taken on board a Chinese ship and carried to
Tien-tsin. It is alleged that his departure was by no means
voluntary, and that some physical effort was required to get him
ashore on arriving at his destination. Whatever was the object of
this proceeding, it must have been dictated by Li Hung Chang, the
Chinese Viceroy at Tien-tsin, who seems to have quite abandoned his
demeanor of calm stolidity during these active Corean transactions.
It is declared by one Chinese party that the only purpose was to
rescue the Tai-wen Kun from the dangers that threatened him, and by
another that the intent was still to maintain the theory of
sovereign control over Corea’s rulers, which Li Hung Chang has been
straining for throughout.
During the recent prospect of trouble with Corea, the Japanese
Government received offers of military service from twenty thousand
volunteers, and of money gifts to the value of 200,000 yen.
At this stage of affairs, when Corea ceases to be a “hermit nation,”
and stands in the glare of the world’s attention, we bring our
imperfect story to a close. The pivot of the future history of Eastern
Asia is Corea. On her soil will be decided the problem of supremacy, by
the jealous rivals China, Japan, and Russia. The sudden assumption of
self-imposed tutelary duties by China proves her lively interest in the
little country, which has been called both “her right arm of defense,”
and “her gloved hand”—the one to force back the ravenous Muscovite, the
other to warn off the ambitious Japanese. Whether the Middle Kingdom
has deliberately chosen the Land of Morning Calm to affront and
humiliate “the neighbor-disturbing nation,” that twice humbled her
pride in the fairest islands of the sea—Formosa and Riu Kiu—the events
of the not distant future will soon determine. Whether the hoary empire
shall come in collision with the young northern giant, and the dragon
and the bear tear each other in the slime of war in Corean valleys, may
be a question the solution of which is not far off. We trust that amid
all dangers, the integrity of the little kingdom may be preserved; but
whatever be the issue upon the map of the world, let us hope that
paganism, bigotry, and superstition in Corea, and in all Asia, may
disappear; and that in their places, the religion of Jesus, science,
education, and human brotherhood may find an abiding dwelling-place.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE ECONOMIC CONDITION OF COREA.
For nearly a quarter of a century Corea, the once hermit nation, has
been opened to intercourse with the world, and the student has had
facilities for understanding the country and people and realizing what
are the social and political problems of humanity in the peninsula.
As in most old Asiatic states, so in Corea, there is an almost total
absence of an intelligent middle class, which in the West is the
characteristic of progressive nations. In the Land of Morning Radiance
there is a governing minority consisting of about one-tenth of the
whole population. These, the Yangban (civil and military), living in
ancient privilege and prerogative and virtually paying no taxes or
tolls, prey upon the common people. The great bulk, that is,
nine-tenths of the population, is agricultural and is gathered in
hamlets and villages.
The typical Corean tills the soil, in which occupation, after ages of
unprogressive routine, he has come to his present mental status. There
is not even a distinct manufacturing class in Corea, for nearly all
industry is still in the cottage. The few articles needed by the
laborer for the floor, the wall, and the kitchen are made by the farmer
during his winter hours, and his women-folk weave and make up the
clothing. The average carpenter, blacksmith, and stone mason is simply
a laborer on the land with added skill in a special line. Even the
fisherman cultivates the soil. The village schoolmaster is a son of the
farmer of the better class. There are groups of
population-office-holders and their retainers and hangers-on,
shopkeepers and traders, butchers, porters, miners, junk-sailors, and
innkeepers, sorcerers, gamblers, and fortune-tellers, but, all told,
the number of men who do not live on the soil form but a decimal
fraction in the national household.
For these compelling reasons the problems of internal government relate
almost wholly to the woe or weal of the tillers of the soil. During the
summer of six months the average Corean stands bare-legged in the mud,
planting or cultivating grain. His wife and children, especially his
daughters, help him in the raising of rice, barley, wheat, and beans,
and in the harvesting and securing of the final products. During the
four cold months of the year he is at work gathering fuel or making
mats, sandals, screens, or thatch. During the first and seventh moons
he enjoys an easy time, doing little or nothing, and these two months
are like holiday. The average income of a Corean farmer is about thirty
dollars a year. The average house in Corea consists only of mud, straw,
twine, and wood, above a foundation of earth faced with stone and worth
but a few dollars. The price of waste land is from one to five dollars
an acre, and of cultivated fertile soil from ten to sixty dollars an
acre. The lots are poorly marked and boundary quarrels are incessant.
The Corean farmer knows little about scientific irrigation or variety
in fertilizers, dried grass being his chief manure. The mountains are
greatly denuded of their forests, and alternate droughts and floods
work awful disasters. With a naturally good soil and fine climate,
agriculture is yet in a backward condition. It is said that the
Japanese in the sixteenth century taught the Coreans the cultivation of
rice, millions of bushels of which, under stimulus from the same
source, they are now able to export annually. In recent years the
Japanese have attempted to secure control of the waste lands of Corea
so as to develop them, not only for the production of cereals,
vegetable wax, paper fibre, and stuff for weaving, but also for cotton
to supply the demands of the Osaka mills. Their demands, pressed too
severely in July, 1904, were the cause of vigorous native protest in
great public meetings.
The Corean rustic is, as a rule, illiterate. Probably only about four
out of ten males of the farming class can read either Chinese or
Corean, but counting in the women it is estimated that about
eighty-five per cent of the people can neither read nor write, though
the percentage varies greatly with the locality. As a general thing,
there is more acquaintance with books and writing in the southern than
in the northern provinces. It is pitiful to find in the Budget for 1904
that but $27,718 are appropriated for schools outside of Seoul, the
latter receiving $135,074, of which the sum of $44,220 goes to foreign
teachers in the English, French, German, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese
language schools. Although since 1895 the old civil-service
examinations have been abolished and there has been a Department of
Education, it has thus far had little influence upon the country at
large. In the central office in 1904, out of $28,617 appropriated,
$19,857 went for salaries and office expenses, $6,500 being for
text-book printing.
The Corean farmer is simple in his dress, food, and habits. He does not
journey far from home. Although the high-roads are lively with
travellers, one sees not the farmer but the literati, the traders, and
the porters. Few country folks ever visit the large cities, and in
regions near the capital few have seen Seoul. Custom is the eternal law
to the rustic, who is patient, bearing extortion until flesh and blood
can stand it no longer, when he rises in revolt against his oppressor.
Yet it is against the bad man, not the system itself, that he protests.
After the obnoxious officer has been recalled or driven away and
temporary relief is obtained, the Corean farmer settles down into a
good tax-paying subject as of yore, and unless something like the Tong
Hak movement stirs him, his wheel of life quickly slips again into the
rut of routine. As long as he can get enough to eat he is content. When
oppression and robbery are joined to Nature’s niggardliness, he and his
comrades are transformed into a howling mob of starving malcontents,
ready for bloody vengeance.
The son of the soil is superstitious to the last degree. He lives in
constant terror of the demons and spirits that overpopulate earth, air,
and water, for he is without the protection that the certainties of
science or the strength of pure religion furnishes. No unifying,
uplifting, and inspiring knowledge of one God is his. His thatched hut
or mud-floored hovel is a museum of fetiches. Often he will give the
best fruits of the fields to what seems to an alien a mass of straw or
rags. The sorceress thrives like a fat parasite on the farmer, getting
well paid for her songs, dances, incantations, and presence at the
feasts. Yet the Corean enjoys the religious festivals. He is at least
just to himself, while professing generosity to the spirits. He honors
the gods but ultimately puts the well-cooked offerings far from
them—even into his own interior; for above all things, the worshipper
is orthodox in his belief in a well-filled stomach.
With such a people, both Confucianism and Buddhism become the grossest
of superstitions. The Corean’s face is toward the past. He invokes and
worships the dead, and to him the graveyard contains more than the
future can bring him. Besides the extortions of the nobles, officials,
and other parasitic or predatory classes, the expense of offerings to
his dead ancestors amounts to many millions of dollars a year, far
exceeding in their total the national revenue. In Seoul alone there are
three thousand sorceresses, each earning at least $7.50 a month. The
farmer is poor, but he is hospitable and liberal. He has untold
reverence for learning and for rank, he loves flowers and beautiful
scenery, but he is stupid in the presence of an innovation. His area of
vision is bounded by the hills within the circle of which he was born.
His chief recreation is in going to market, for, generally speaking,
there are few shops in the peninsula, but there is a market every five
or six days, where the natives exchange their products and their
opinions. According to the state of weather conditions, the native is
happy or suffers, a large harvest making all smile, a scant crop
causing famine and hunger and the outbreak of banditti and rapine.
Besides buying and selling, huckstering and gossiping, there are at the
markets plenty of fighting and drunkenness as diversions. Going out for
wool the farmer frequently comes home shorn, but he has had his fun, or
rather a variation of deadly monotony. Furthermore, he is fond of a
joke and loves to chaff his fellows.
As the country itself is governed out of the graveyard, and sovereign,
court, and people are driven by imaginary demons and spirits, so the
farmers, both as individuals, as families, and as clans, guard
jealously and in fear the ancestral mounds with superstitious
reverence. Hence one large element of village excitement is in
quarrelling and fighting over graves. About fifty per cent of the cases
brought before the country magistrates are said to be connected with
these grave fights. These bitter struggles involve whole clans and
result in bloodshed and loss of life. Even the dead are not allowed to
rest in peace. The digging up of corpses and the tumbling of them
beyond the limits in dispute is a common occurrence. This ghoulish
activity is varied by an occasional abduction of widows or by other
infractions of the law. Another large element of anxiety to the farmer
is the protection of the water supply for his rice-swamp. The damming
of the stream above or the draining off of the water below may ruin his
crop. The breaking of the mud boundaries, and the stealing of water
from a neighbor’s field is mirrored in proverbs and folk-lore. It is
sufficiently habitual to furnish a plentiful supply of pretexts for
quarrels and fighting.
There are four classes of agriculturists. The lowest tiller of the soil
is a serf, owning no land, working by the day or contract, and
virtually bound to the glebe. The men of the next class, though owning
no lands, work the farms of others on shares. These farm-hands and
farm-tenants make up the great mass of the Corean people. They live in
thatched mud huts, with enough plain food to keep them alive and often
fat, but with scanty change of garments and few or no comforts of life.
They are occupied during the working months from daybreak to twilight
in unremitting toil. The third class consists of the small owners with
possessions worth from five hundred to five thousand dollars and
numbering three per cent of the farming population. In the fourth or
highest class are the landed proprietors, the aristocracy of the land,
the richest member being worth as much as four or five million dollars,
with an annual income of at least a quarter of a million. Insignificant
in numbers, they are mighty in power, for it is these great landowners
who rule the realm, and most of them live in Seoul.
To the great mass of the people in Corea there is no motive for much
industry beyond danger of starvation, and but little incentive to
enterprise. Under old normal conditions now being slowly ameliorated,
the official, the yangban, and the landed aristocracy, in a word, the
predatory classes, seize upon the common man’s earnings and
accumulations, so that it seems to him useless and even foolish to work
for more than enough to support life, while as for the “civilization
nonsense,” does it not mean more taxation? On the 13th of November,
1902, the announcement was made of the increase in land tax from $10
per measure of ground to $16 per measure. So argues the average man in
Corea, the land long ruled by real oppressors and imaginary demons.
The researches of scholars have also revealed the actual economic
conditions of the nation in the days of hermitage. Old Corea was not,
as in feudal Japan, straitened in its production of food. In the island
empire only about one-twelfth of the soil was or could be cultivated.
Hence Japan was rigidly limited in her food-producing area, so that the
population, besides being kept down through such natural checks as
famine, pestilence, storm and flood, was further diminished to fit the
food supply by such artificial means as sumptuary laws, licensed
prostitution, infanticide, cruel punishments, and frequent
decapitation. In Corea, also, where the fertile earth, though formed to
be inhabited and abundant in area of plain and valley, was neither
properly replenished nor subdued, many checks upon population existed.
Local famines were frequent and often long continued, and neither
religion nor the means of transportation furnished the means of saving
life to any large amount. Artificial checks on too rapid multiplication
of humanity operated powerfully. The lesser care and kindness given to
female children resulted in a heavy death-rate as compared with that of
the boys, the cruel punishments and frequent torture and decapitation
and the lack of incentive to industry all wrought together to make both
the land and the human life on it of comparatively slight value.
The whole situation was changed when Corea ceased to be a hermit land
and began to be fertilized by foreign commerce and ideas. Confronted by
new methods of trade, science, and religion, the thinking native was
summoned to thought and action. Into the Corean mind, long held in
bondage by Confucianism, which degrades woman and narrows man’s
intellect, the universal religion entered to compel the Corean man to
think of other lands and people besides his own, to search his own
heart, to attempt to make himself and his neighbors better, and to take
a new outlook on the universe. The new doctrines delivered believers
from the paralyzing thrall of demons and evil spirits, from ancestor
worship, and from the sceptre held by the hand rising out of the grave.
Into the Corea clamped as in iron bands by false economic notions
entered the spirit of free competition. Into a land that knew no such
thing as a foreign market the railway brings an eager purchaser to the
farmer’s door, and by carrying his goods to the seaports it enables him
to give to and receive manifold benefits from the world at large.
Already, through the energy of the canny islanders from the east, the
crops in Corea have quadrupled, though under native mismanagement this
does not necessarily mean immediate benefit to the man on the soil, but
rather to the official class, or to the landholder in the capital. It
has been computed that the production of sixty million bushels of grain
have thus been developed in Corea through the Japanese demand. Between
the feverish enterprise of the Japanese on the one side and the
tireless thrift of the Chinese on the other, “the good old days” of
primitive routine are gone forever. Corea has 4,500,000 acres under
cultivation, or about eight and a half per cent of her 82,000 square
miles of area, so that 3,500,000 available acres await the plough. From
her arable soil six millions more of population might easily find
subsistence, and nearly ten millions of dollars of crops could be
raised. The peninsula needs in every great valley the railway, which
“quadruples the value of every foot of land within twenty miles of its
line.” The line from Fusan to Seoul has already raised the value of
town property in elect places hundreds of per cent and measurably all
along between the terminals. This railway was begun in August, 1901,
but though the work slackened for lack of capital, by December 1, 1903,
thirty-one miles at either end had been built. The outbreak of the war
with Russia revealed its military value and promise was at once given
that by Japanese Government aid it would be completed with its
thirty-one tunnels and 20,500 feet of bridges by the end of 1904. This
Fusan-Seoul railway, 287 miles long, will traverse four provinces in
the richest part of Corea, wherein are seven-tenths of all the houses
and five-sevenths of all the cultivated area in the empire. Here also
are the sites of the great fairs held six times monthly, the
thirty-nine stations of the road being located at or near these places
of trade, the total business of which amounts to over sixty-five per
cent of the internal trade of the empire.
The Corean social and political system, sufficiently weak in hermit
days, has shown itself unable to withstand the repeated shock of attack
by eager and covetous foreigners, nor will it ever be able, even in a
measure, to defend itself against the fierce and unrelenting greed of
the strong nations intrenched upon its soil, except by complete
reorganization. Both the outward forms and the inward spirit must
change if the Coreans are to preserve their national identity. The
nation has been the bone of contention between jealous and greedy
rivals. One foreign government by crafty diplomacy secures the right of
cutting timber valued at millions of dollars, another gets mining
concessions, others propose this or that industry or supposed line of
production which depleted the treasury. The impoverished kingdom has
not only wasted many millions of treasure in foolish enterprises, but
is deprived of its natural assets in timber, metals, fisheries, and
industries.
The problem of bringing Corea into harmony with her modern environment
is only in some features like that of Japan, for there have been
wanting in the peninsula what was so effective in Japan’s case. In the
island empire, the long previous preparation by means of the
infiltration of Western ideas during two centuries of communication
with Europe through the Dutch merchants, the researches of her own
scholars furnishing inspiration from their national history, the
exercise during many generations of true patriotism and self-sacrifice
for the public good prepared the island nation to cope with new
conditions and situations. In the clash with the West, Japan came out
victor. Corea has no samurai. She lacks what Japan has always had—a
cultured body of men, superbly trained in both mind and body, the
soldier and scholar in one, who held to a high ideal of loyalty,
patriotism, and sacrifice for country. The island samurai enjoying the
same prerogative and privilege as the Corean yangban (civil and
military) not only abolished feudalism, but after giving up their
hereditary pensions and privileges, joined the productive classes,
while at the same time the Japanese merchants and mechanics were raised
in the social scale, the pariahs given citizenship, and then all lines
of promotion opened to all in the army, navy, schools, courts, and
civil service. The fertilizing streams of foreign commerce, the
inspiration that comes from brotherhood with other nations, and above
all, the power brought to Nippon through the noble labors and object
lessons of the Christian missionaries, enabled the Japanese to take
equal place in the world with the nations of the West. Corea, on the
contrary, by still allowing the existence of predatory classes—nobles,
officials, and great landowners—by denying her people education, by
being given to superstition from palace to hut and from sovereign to
serf, remains still in weakness and poverty. What Corea above all
needs, is that the lazy yangban cut their long finger-nails and get to
work.
Yet dark as is the situation, it is not without hope. Slowly and
painfully the Coreans are learning that no nation is born in a day.
Under the training of Christian teachers, a generation with new motives
to action and new mental horizons, and fed with food to sustain the
spirit, is coming on. Christianity is, with a remnant at least, making
headway against the vices so common to this mild-mannered nation—skill
in lying, stealing, gambling, drunkenness, and the social evil.
For ages and until Japan humbled China in 1894, Corea was so thoroughly
and in all things the vassal and pupil of the Middle Kingdom, from
which most of the elements of her civilization had been borrowed, that
in the tributary kingdom there could be no patriotism in its highest
sense, nor could political parties and cliques have any reason for
existence except as they were concerned with aims that ended in
selfishness. With the people in general, there was only anxiety to pay
taxes, win the favor of the local magistrate, and escape the clutches
of the law. With masters and rulers, there was ever pitiful fear of the
great country China, and, under Confucianism, a desire to keep things
as they were, mixed with impotent dread of change. Of pure love of
country, of willingness to make sacrifices for their native land—that
is almost a new thought as yet nourished by a few far-seeing patriots.
In the evolution of the Corean, social and psychic, his present ethical
stage is not beyond that of the group, clan, or neighborhood. It has
not yet reached the individual. The majority of the people have that
kind of patriotism which means the instinctive desire to preserve
national identity. The one thing which they now fear, being in the
vortex of the great storm of war and in the centre of the economic
typhoon of the twentieth century, is national extinction. Even to-day
the Coreans feel that they would rather live without the new things of
civilization, such as railways, education, public hygiene, or even of
righteous government, than be subject to an alien Power. History to the
peninsular gives no uncertain sound as to what foreign intervention has
always meant, that is, more oppression and even rapine. Seeing what has
happened in half a lifetime, through the coming of the alien to Corea,
the native does not want civilization at the hands of foreigners,
though it may be that he will have to take it. Possibly through
education and a new outlook upon the universe he will be glad to get
it, even struggling for it until by assimilation it becomes his own. In
ancient history and the old days of the separation of nations, there
were many civilizations and varying standards. In these latter days of
the world’s brotherhood there is but one standard of civilization, and
but one body of international law, which all must obey. The nation or
kingdom that will not serve and obey this standard will pass out of
history and perish. The signs that Corea realizes this truth and that
her best men are seeking fraternity with their fellows for help and
uplift are not wanting. Naturally they turn to the great republic,
which since its beginning has steadfastly followed the policy of
healing, helping, teaching, and uplifting the Asiatic nations.
Corea sent a delegate to the International Postal Union, which met in
Washington, and in 1896 a postal system with stamps of four kinds was
established, and under French auspices has been working in excellent
condition. The stamps, as well as the national flag and documents,
coins and other expressions of what is essentially representative of
the Coreans as a nation, illustrate their repertoire of symbolism. The
flag in blue, red, black, and white contains the two great emblems of
the primitive Chinese philosophy and theory of the universe. Through
these, the Corean sees all things visible and invisible produced as the
results of their endless working and counteraction in combination and
dissolution. The forces of heaven and earth, light and darkness, the
positive and the negative, the male and the female, the in and the yo,
are represented as two germs or commas in constant embrace or movement.
This figure occupies the centre of the field and in each corner are the
broken lines of the Pal Kwai, or eight diagrams of primitive Chinese
tradition concerning the origin of language and writing. On the stamps
we read the Chinese characters Tai han and Corea. Like China, old
Japan, Russia, Turkey and other church nations, which unite more or
less closely Church and State and are governed, in spite of all outward
development and manifestations, by primitive or mediæval notions, Corea
is a “Tei Koku,” or “divinely governed” realm, and so makes profession
in Chinese characters, as does even modern Japan, though furnished with
a Constitution and Diet. Besides these Chinese ideographs, we read in
English, “Imperial Corean Post,” and in the en-mun or native script, a
sentence to the same effect. The national flower is the plum blossom,
and is figured with its leaves on either side of the stem. The value or
denomination of the stamp is given below both in English with Roman
letters, and in Corean or en-mun. The date-mark made by the ink-stamp
shows in the French spelling of the name of the country and capital the
international character of the postal system. The national colors, as
judged by the hangings in the royal palace, are yellow, red, and green.
Imitating other things imperial in adjoining or Western nations, the
Government at Seoul established a Bureau of Decorations. These baubles,
being liberally distributed, have helped handsomely to deplete the
treasury of the little empire, most of whose people live in a state of
semi-starvation or righteous discontent. The Emperor himself and his
generals and ministers have had their breasts liberally adorned with
various marks of the regard of the rulers of Japan, Great Britain,
Russia, France, and Belgium, while between August 5, 1900, and December
20, 1902, the Corean Government had bestowed forty-two decorations,
requiring a liberal outlay of bullion and artistic workmanship. To the
Emperor of Japan, Queen Victoria, the Czar of Russia, the Kaiser of the
German Empire, the President of the French Republic, the King of Italy,
the King of the Belgians, the Emperor of Austria, and the Crown Prince
of Japan, the Great Decoration of the Golden Measure was awarded. This
contains the emblem in the centre of the flag. No Americans have been
thus officially adorned, but the Great Decoration of the Golden Measure
was offered to President McKinley, only to be declined; he having,
happily for the American people, nothing to offer in return. The Great
Decoration of the Plum Blossom has been given to Prince Kwacho of Japan
and the Russian Prince Cyril, while the other decorations, containing
the Pal Kwai of the eight mystic diagrams and the plum blossom or the
national flower, in several grades or classes, have been offered to
various servants or guests of the Government. Along with this
brilliancy on foreign coat breasts, it is suggestive to read in the
imperial budget for 1904 that of $19,560 appropriated to the bureau of
decorations, the amount expended on bullion, medals, etc., was $7,431,
and for salaries $10,130. Another interesting item, illuminating
economic methods in Seoul, is that of $10,453 appropriated for the
Mining Bureau. Of this amount the sum of $8,173 was spent for salaries
and travelling, all the rest, except one item marked “miscellaneous
$744,” being for office expenses. In the Ceremonial Bureau $19,000 were
used on salaries and office expenses out of a total of $21,508. Similar
titbits of economic information are frequent under the heads of the
Board of Generals (who supervise an army supposed to be five thousand
strong) and that of Imperial Sacrifices, and others, explain very
clearly the condition of a country in which there is no clear line of
demarcation between the palace and the Government or administration,
while eloquent in suggestions as to the reason why the larger part of
Corea remains in a state of more or less chronic insurrection.
The budget for 1904 shows a total revenue of $14,214,573 made up of the
following items: land tax, $9,703,591; house tax, $460,295; taxes on
salt, fish, etc., $210,000; poll tax, $850,000; miscellaneous taxes,
$200,000; arrears from 1903, $2,790,687.
The items of disbursement are as follows: Imperial privy purse,
$1,013,359; imperial sacrifices, $186,641; household department,
$327,541; war department, $5,180,614; finance department, $42,741,999;
communications, $637,648; incidentals and extras, $1,843,503. Other
items, of which the police bureau, $406,925, and the foreign
department, $287,367, and educational, $205,673, are the more
important, are pension bureau, board of generals, the cabinet
government records, bureau of decorations, law department, department
of agriculture, privy council, and special palace guard. It is pleasant
to note that there is a surplus of $275, but the amount given for
education and expended under the head of agriculture seems pitiful. The
large items of the budget deal almost wholly with the salaries of
native officials. One interesting and redeeming item among the “extras”
is that “for helping shipwrecked men, $5,000.”
The greatest immediate need of Corea is a uniform and stable currency.
Added to ancient evils was the action of Japan in adopting the gold
standard in 1899, which threw all things commercial in Corea into dire
confusion. On the 15th of December, 1901, the coinage law was
published, by which Corea adopted the gold standard; but this law was
never put into effect. The Japanese have frequently endeavored by
various means to secure a standard currency.
Under the stimulus and pressure of foreign trade, Corea has now at
least nine ports open to the residence and business of foreigners
besides the three or four inland places of traffic. Wonsan (Gensan),
Fusan, and Chemulpo were opened by the treaties of 1876 and 1882, and
have thriving settlements. The ginseng crop exported from these places
is usually bought by Japanese, whose usual practice is that, for
example, of May, 1902, when of the fifty thousand catties, ten thousand
catties were burnt at Chemulpo, in order to keep up the price. On the
1st of October, 1898, Chinnampo and Mokpo were added to the list of
open ports. The former lies on the northern shore of Ping-an inlet,
twenty miles from the sea and forty miles from Ping-an city. It is now
a thriving town with well laid-out streets. As the river leading to
Ping-an is for ten miles or so below the city not navigable even by
very small sea-going steamers, it can never be “a port” in the ordinary
sense, but the returns of its trade are tabulated with those of
Chinnampo, its outlet. Wiju (Ai-chiu) and Anju are almost the only
other ports of value in the province of Ping-an. Anju is the landing
stage of the American Mining Company for its mining materials and
explosives.
Yongampo is in north latitude 38° 52′ and east longitude 126° 04′. When
it was opened in 1898, Russians and Japanese took up land so eagerly
that a collision seemed imminent. Later it came very near being made a
Russian fortress as “Port Nicholas.” Mokpo, in the southwestern part of
Chullado, is the natural maritime outlet of “the Garden of Corea.” Soon
after it was made port of entry and trade, the wisdom shown in its
selection was justified, for its growth has been healthy and rapid.
From this point, in the autumn of 1902, a Boston gentleman went into
the interior for a hunting trip of two months, during which time he
killed three large tigers, besides deer and wild boar.
On May 1, 1899, Kunsan, Masampo, and Songchin were thrown open to
foreign trade and residence. Kunsan is on the west coast, and like
Mokpo, long famous for its abundant export of rice paid as revenue. It
lies at the mouth of the river dividing the two rich and warm provinces
of Chulla and Chung Chong, about half-way between Chemulpo and Mokpo,
whence the rice, wheat, beans, hides, grasscloth, paper, manufactured
articles in bamboo, fans, screens, mats, and marine products of many
kinds are exported. Masampo, a few miles to the southwest of Fusan, in
north latitude 35° 09′ and east longitude 128° 40′, has one of the
finest harbors in the world, which, when well fortified, might command
the entrance to the Sea of Japan. In the negotiations between Japan and
Russia, in 1903, this spot was jealously coveted by both Powers as the
prize of the future, as the party possessing it might make it a
Dardanelles, closing the sea between the island empire and the
continent and making this body of water a Euxine. Russia tried to bind
Japan not to fortify this or any other place on the east coast of
Corea. Japanese, Russians, Chinese, and Coreans soon flocked to this
favored port and have made business lively. Songchin, once the seat of
an old stronghold, in the large northeastern province of Ham Kiung,
bordering on Russia, which has no long navigable rivers, as in the
south, lies about 120 miles from Wonsan and sends most of its products
thither. It has a poor harbor in a foggy region, but fertile soil, fat
cattle, and mineral riches are within reach. The Customs Reports for
1903 show a growing trade of $328,891. Eleven other landing stages
bring up the total value of trade in Ham Kiung province to $1,676,714.
In 1902 the total imports were nearly balanced by the exports from all
Corea. Cotton is becoming an important item of sale abroad. Gold in
1902 was exported to the amount of $2,532,053. The total value of
foreign trade has doubled during the past decade. So far the steamer
tonnage is, like the general foreign trade, over three-fourths
Japanese. Most emphatically and luminously does the modern economic as
well as political history of the peninsula prove that the best
interests of Japan and Corea are closely interwoven. Mutual benefit
follows unity and friendship, reciprocal injury results from
estrangement.
All these open ports are the gateways of a commerce that must steadily
and healthfully increase, and which under stable and just government
would rapidly enlarge. So long as there is uncertainty as to the
political status of the Land of Morning Calm, the chief importance of
the maritime gateways into the country will be strategic and military,
rather than commercial. A permanent settlement of the political
question, in debate ever since the modern renascence of Japan, ought to
act on the development of the natural resources of Corea as the warm
spring rains act upon soil long chilled and fallow under winter’s
frost. Few regions, whether we consider its geographical location for
commerce, the fertility of its soil, its animal wealth, the richness of
its mineral deposits, or the abundance of its treasures in the sea, are
more highly favored than Corea. When man, society, and government in
the peninsula answer Nature’s challenge and match the opportunity, the
world will find that history’s storehouse of surprises has not been
empty. Toward the development of the kind of man needed, the Christian
missionaries are, above all other teachers and forces, working, and
with every sign of promise.
CHAPTER L.
INTERNAL POLITICS: CHINESE AND JAPANESE.
The preponderating influence of China was the mainspring in the
intricate machinery of old Corean politics, though within the two
clearly defined parties in Seoul there are also factional and family
differences. “From 1834 to 1864 the royal clan was shorn of much of its
power, all offices were in the hands of the Kim clan, whose head, Kim
Pyong-gi, was virtually ruler of the land for the years ending that
epoch.” The Kims hoped to continue the lease of their power, but the
Tai-wen Kun humbled this clan and exalted his own, meanwhile doing much
for the common people and compelling the yangban to bear a share of the
burdens of government in paying a house tax. In his whole course toward
these predatory gentry, he was “a blundering anticipator” of the great
reforms of 1894. He began the suppression of the Tong-haks. He was a
great builder of public edifices, not only in Seoul, but in the
provinces. He protected the country against the foreigner. He meant
well in his ignorance, but he knew nothing of the world at large. His
first lease of power came to an end in 1873.
The first Corean noblemen, Kim and Pom, left their homes in 1875 to
travel in lands beyond China. They went to Japan, and coming back,
boldly told the King what they had seen and advocated the adoption of
Western civilization. They tried to win over the powerful Min clan and
the Queen to a liberal policy, but this to the Regent, Tai-wen Kun,
meant nothing else than Christianity and radical reform, which involved
popular education. That is exactly the sort of reform that every
Confucian mandarin in any country of Asia hates most heartily, because
he sees in the general enlightenment of the people the end of the power
of the literati. The bold and crafty statesman, who, as Prince Parent,
held his son the King as his puppet and had already shed the blood of
thousands of native Christians, nearly succeeded in putting the two
young champions of Western civilization to death. When the American
treaty negotiations were impending, the Min clansmen held aloof until
China, as represented by Li Hung Chang, gave the nod. Then they showed
so much energy in the matter as to seem to foreigners the party of
progress. This roused the wrath of the Regent, who determined to crush
the Min clan and to nullify the treaty. We have seen how, in July,
1882, by a masterly appeal to local bigotry and superstition, he
directed the soldiers’ riot into a revolt against the pro-Chinese clan.
After destroying, as he imagined, their leading men and the Queen, he
seized the government himself, enjoying for a few days full lease of
power.
When the news of the usurpation reached China and Japan, a fleet with
soldiers was despatched from each country. The Chinese force landed
first, marched to Seoul, built forts to command the river against the
Japanese, and established their camp inside the walls. By this move
China held a new lien on her “vassal state.” The Chinese general made
his formal call on the Tai-wen Kun, and when this lord of the land
returned the courtesy, he was seized and deported to China. Meanwhile
the Queen, for whom a palace maid had suffered vicarious death,
together with some of her chief helpers and advisers, re-entered the
palace October 9, 1882. The star of the Min clan was again in the
ascendant.
Thus the results of the Regent’s smart trickery were not pleasant for
the Coreans, for now they had both the Chinese and the Japanese
soldiers encamped in the capital and on the ground where nearly three
hundred years before they had met in battle. By good discipline on both
sides, collision between the soldiers was avoided, but the Government
at once made provision to replace the foreign soldiery by native
troops. Four battalions of Corean infantry were organized and put under
Chinese drill masters, introduced by the Min leaders. Fourteen young
men, mostly members of Progressive families, were sent to Tokio to
study in the military school.
The treaty negotiated by Commodore Shufeldt was promptly ratified by
the United States Senate, and on February 26th President Chester A.
Arthur sent in the name of General Lucius H. Foote as Minister to
Corea. Reaching Chemulpo May 13th in the U.S.Ss. Monocacy, the formal
ratifications of the treaty were exchanged in the capital May 19th. The
same cannon, and served by some of the same sailors that in 1871 had
shelled the Han forts, [54] peacefully saluted the new national flag,
emblazoned with the proofs of Corea’s intellectual servitude to Chinese
philosophy and fantastic traditions. Keeping clear of the native
factions, Mr. Foote dealt as directly as possible with the sovereign.
He made an earnest plea for the toleration of religion, a promise to
proclaim which was secured from the King.
The Corean Government responded to the American courtesy by despatching
a special mission, consisting of eleven persons headed by Min Yong Ik,
which arrived in San Francisco September 2d. President Arthur being
then in New York, these quaintly apparelled Oriental strangers were
given audience in the parlor of the Fifth Avenue Hotel. After three
months’ stay in the eastern cities, one part of the embassy, headed by
Han Yong Sik, returned home by way of San Francisco. A few days later,
on the U.S.Ss. Trenton (afterward lost at Samoa) with Ensign G. C.
Foulke (afterward of the Doshisha University, Kioto) and Lieutenant J.
G. Bernadou, U.S.N. (afterward distinguished in the Spanish-American
War of 1898, on the U.S.Ss. Winslow), as naval attachés to the American
legation in Seoul, Min Yong Ik and two other Coreans returned home by
way of Europe and the Suez Canal.
On November 27th, at the Victoria Hotel in the city of New York, I had
the pleasure of spending an agreeable evening with the three Corean
gentlemen, Min Yong Ik, So Kuang Pom, and Pien Su, the two latter being
able to talk Japanese. [55] Though many of my questions were answered
and a number of subjects discussed, nothing could be learned of Corean
Christianity, or of the relics or reminders of Hendrik Hamel and his
Dutchmen. [56] Before leaving, Min Yong Ik, like a true Corean
gentleman, brought out a large package of choicest ginseng roots,
without which no well-to-do native of the Land of Morning Calm would
think of travelling abroad. He presented me with several choice
specimens of the man-shaped drug, each wrapped up in its own “arms” and
“legs.”
On the same evening in Seoul, November 27th, a banquet was spread in
the English-language-school building to celebrate the signing on the
day before of two treaties, one with Great Britain and the other with
the German Empire, the negotiator of the English treaty being Sir Harry
Parkes. [57] The music was furnished by the band of the German
man-of-war Leipsic. Seoul now began to be the residence of foreigners
from Christendom, nine of whom were already in the city.
New Year’s Day, January 20, 1884, dawned brightly. The little children
who during the summer are “dressed in a hair ribbon,” made the streets
brilliant with their bright clothes of many colors, and the sky was gay
with kites. In the royal palace audience was given to the envoys of
China, Japan, and the United States. On February 28th the electric
submarine cable between Nagasaki and Fusan was completed and messages
from the once hermit nation were sent into the outside world. Han Yong
Sik was appointed postmaster with power to organize a national postal
system, stamps for which were engraved in Tokio. From this Japanese
base of supplies many novelties from the Western world poured in, and
the body politic, long insulated from other nations, thrilled with new
currents of life. Treaties were made with Russia and Italy, June 25th
and 26th. Later on, telegraph lines connecting Seoul with Peking and
with Fusan were completed. The year following the arrival home of the
first Coreans who had gone round the world was a year of progress, such
as Corea had never known before or has known since.
Through the advice of Ensign Foulke, several reformatory measures,
political and industrial, were promulgated. The most ardent member of
the reform party, Pak Yong Hio, being made mayor of Seoul, immediately
set to work at sanitary and municipal improvement. Some progress was
made in dress improvement. A model farm, for which California live
stock had been ordered, was sown by American seeds liberally given in
Washington. Edison electric lights, American rifles and Gatling guns, a
powder mill, a mint, a printing office for the dissemination of useful
literature for the people, together with Japanese artisans to establish
or improve properties, paper factories, and other industries, not
excepting the fisheries and whale hunting, gave indications of the new
path of national progress upon which Corea had entered. Altogether the
early days of 1884 were as a morning of bright promise, for public
opinion, so far as it existed, that is, among the nobles and gentry,
seemed to be entirely in favor of progress. The most hopeful felt that
the Corean Government, having begun lo relay the foundations of the
kingdom, would persevere and possibly even excel Japan.
On the other hand, with the tide of Confucian bigotry rising and the
Conservatives encouraged by Chinese reactionaries on the soil, how
could there be any real advance? Yuan, the Chinese commissioner, living
at the barracks in front of the palace, was ceaselessly active in the
interests of his own Government, which meant active support of the
Conservative party and opposition to reform. Over against enlightened
liberalism, several incidents stood out in dark contrast, showing the
inherent barbarism, the low state of Corean humanity, and the slight
value set on human life. When the Chinese soldiery arrived, they seized
ten of the rioters of 1882, court-martialled them, tied their limbs to
bullocks, and tore them to pieces. Even after these men in office had
returned from civilization they had eight more men, suspected of
complicity with the Regent, executed by poison. Furthermore, the Kwang
Wang temple was built, devoted to the interests of three thousand or
more sorcerers and exorcists in Seoul, who enjoyed the direct patronage
of the Queen, and sucked the vitals of the nation, making respectable
government impossible.
The innovations effected by the Progressives, who thought that they had
the King and Queen in full sympathy with them, led them to hope that
they would be able soon to reorganize the Government, to differentiate
the Court from the Administration, and to make Corea a modern state.
But according to the measure of their success, so also was the
suspicion and hostility of the Conservatives. Min Yong Ik while abroad
might be a Liberal, an individual with personal convictions and
opinions, but once back in the bosom of his family and under pressure
of his clan, he lost interest in reform. The Progressive leaders began
to look upon him as a traitor to their cause. He took his stand with
the Conservatives and it was soon evident that the Queen was
withdrawing her sympathy and support from the Liberals, whose hopes
seemed about to be dashed to the ground. These men therefore turned
more and more to the Japanese and to their methods and spirit. They saw
the revenues for the promised industries and enterprise diverted to
warlike enterprises. It looked as if Corea, as tributary vassal, was to
help China against France in the Tonkin complication. Added to the
fears of the Liberals was the local irritation caused by the insolent
behavior of the ill-disciplined native troops who had been recruited
almost wholly from the peddlers and hucksters of the country fairs. The
peddler’s guilds in Corea hold a truly feudal relation to the
Government, often preparing the roads and escorting officials on their
journeys, acting as detectives, and forming militia according to the
occasion. Some astonishing proofs of their power and discipline,
especially in mountain regions, were given by Min Yong Ik to Lieutenant
Foulke. Instead of their being independent, as they had hoped for under
the American treaty, it seemed to the progressive men that the Chinese
were more than ever ruling their country, and that the Mins were their
tools.
It was about October 25th that the Liberals, feeling that their heads
were likely to remain on their shoulders only so long as it pleased
their enemies to bring no charge against them, declared to their
American friend that “for the sake of Corea, about ten of the prominent
Conservatives would have to be killed.” They proposed to play the same
old Asiatic game of first seizing the person of the sovereign and then
in his name proclaiming their own measures and reforms. The
preliminaries would be a fire and a riot. Then, in the confusion, the
man with a programme, knowing just what to do, would direct affairs.
They believed that the Powers would condone and approve their action,
make new and more favorable treaties, and loan money for national
improvement. Though the Conservatives had at their call a rabble of
rapacious militia eager to try their new tools of war upon their
hereditary enemies, the Japanese, the Liberals knew full well the
sterling qualities of the little body of Japanese infantry then in the
capital, most of whom were from northern Japan and many of them deer
hunters and dead shots with the rifle. There were fifteen hundred
Chinese soldiers still in camp, under Yuan Shi Kai, then the lieutenant
and later the successor of Li Hung Chang, but the Progressive plotters
in their craft expected to secure the employment of the two hundred or
more Japanese soldiers for their own purposes. The moment for action
seemed to be propitious for early December. A Japanese man-of-war was
expected to arrive in Chemulpo on the 5th or 6th of that month. China,
pressed by France, had withdrawn half her troops. Japan with a view to
strengthening her influence in Corea had, a few days before, remitted
$400,000 of the indemnity exacted for the riot of 1882. The golden
moment to strike off forever the chains of political slavery to China
was approaching. The date was set for the 7th of December.
When, however, news arrived that the Japanese gunboat had broken down
and was delayed and it was known that the Conservatives had got some
intimation of what was coming, it was decided to start the fire, the
riot, the coup d’état a few days earlier. On the night of the 4th of
December, Han Yong Sik, the Postmaster-General, gave a dinner at the
new post-office, situated in the very heart of the city. The guests
were three Chinese, Yuan, Chin, and Wang, two Americans, General Foote
and his secretary, Mr. Scudder, the British Consul-General, W. G.
Aston, the German Foreign Adviser, Von Möllendorf, and a dozen or more
Corean high officers, both Conservatives and Progressives, Han Yong
Sik, Kim Ok Kiun, Min Yong Ik, Pak Yong Hio, and So Kwang Pom. Others
also were present. The Japanese minister was absent on the plea of
ill-health.
It was noticed that Kim Ok Kiun rose and left the table several times,
going out into the courtyard, but nothing was thought of this action.
The guests sat down at six. At seven a fire broke out, a house just in
front of the post-office being in flames. Min Yong Ik, who had charge
of the city fire-brigade, rose from the table, and calling on his
servants to follow him, passed out. As he did so, a man dressed in
Japanese clothes leaped out of the shadow of the gateway and struck at
him fiercely with a sword. Min Yong Ik fell heavily, but though wounded
in head and body he recovered through the skilful surgery of Dr. Horace
N. Allen. The assassin escaped, and the Corean guests, instead of
leaving by the door, got away over the back wall. Hastening immediately
to the old palace, the leaders of the conspiracy reached the royal
presence, announced that the Chinese were coming to seize the King’s
person and that he must hasten to a place of safety. Reaching the small
gate leading into the Kiong-u Palace, Kim Ok Kiun requested the King to
send to the Japanese minister for a body-guard, but his Majesty
refused. Thereupon So Kwang Pom drew out a piece of foreign note-paper
and a pencil and wrote in Chinese the words “Let the Japanese minister
come and give me his help.” [58] This was despatched by a servant.
When the little company reached the Kiong-u Palace, the King was
saluted by the Japanese minister and his interpreter, the twelve
students who had been in Japan, and two hundred soldiers under Captain
Murakami drawn up in line, who by some magic were all waiting there.
Here then was the new Government, king, army, and counsellors. Word was
sent to three of the Corean Liberals to come and receive office under
the reconstructed authority. With amazing promptness they were present
within half an hour. The programme had thus far been carried out with
the precision of actors on a well-regulated theatrical stage. The
“summoning tablet” was sent early in the morning by royal messenger to
six of the Conservative leaders. Going to the palace in the expectation
of losing their lives, they first sent word to the Chinese Yuan,
warning him of the state of affairs and asking his help. As soon as
they had passed inside the palace gates their heads were chopped off.
The royal eunuch was put to death in spite of the entreaties and
remonstrances of the King himself. While the Japanese surrounded the
gates of the palace, Kim Ok Kiun gave passes to those who were to be
allowed to go in and out. In the reconstructed Government Yo Cha Wun
and Han Yong Sik were prime ministers, Pak Yong Hio was made
General-in-Chief, So Kwang Pom Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kim Ok Kiun
Minister of Finance, and Su Ja Pil Lieutenant-General. The young men
who had studied in Tokio were also given official positions. All these
proceedings simply illustrate the Corean method of the Opposition’s
moving a vote of censure of the Government.
The Chinese “resident” Yuan took no immediate action, but the next
morning, December 5th, great surging crowds of Coreans begged that he
would interfere, because they said the Japanese were holding the King
as a prisoner in his palace. Yuan sent a messenger to the Japanese
minister, inquiring why he had surrounded the King with soldiers and
killed the ministers, demanding that he immediately evacuate the
palace. After three hours had passed, and no answer coming, Yuan moved
with his Chinese troops and the Corean military, making a force of four
or five thousand men, toward the old palace. He found the entrance
strongly guarded with the Japanese. The battle which ensued lasted from
about 3 to 4 P.M., several score of the combatants being killed. As
darkness drew near, the Japanese made their way to the northeastern
part of the palace grounds, whence the King escaped from them with a
few of the Progressive leaders and the party of students. The Corean
soldiers carried the King to the north temple, where he was saved, but
Han Yong Sik and seven of the students were hacked to pieces by the
mob. About 8 P.M. Captain Murakami led off his soldiers and making a
masterly retreat reached the Japanese legation after forty-eight hours
of absence. Pak Yong Hio, Kim Ok Kiun, So Kwang Pom, Su Ja Pil, and a
half dozen or so of the military students accompanied the Japanese.
All day long on December 6th, with the cry of “Death to the Japanese,”
the Corean militia and the ruffians were let loose on a wild revelry of
outrage, butchery, and incendiarism. The nine white foreigners in
Seoul, of whom three were ladies, together with twenty-two Japanese who
had escaped bullets, stones, and knives, found refuge in the American
legation, which was put in a state of defence by Lieutenant Bernadou.
The twenty soldiers left behind in the Japanese legation, aided by a
hundred or more of their fellow refugee countrymen, defended the walled
enclosure from the mob. On the afternoon of the 7th, provisions being
exhausted, the Japanese with admirable coolness, discipline, and
success began the march to Chemulpo. The women, children, and refugees
were put inside of a hollow square formed by the soldiers, the legation
buildings were fired, and despite hostile soldiers, Chinese and Corean
with rifles and cannon, and armed men firing from roof and wall, they
unbarred the city gates and with their wounded crossed the river.
Reaching Chemulpo on the 8th, they were fed by the sailors on the
Japanese man-of-war, which had happily arrived. A Japanese steamer
carried the news to Nagasaki.
The short-lived Liberal Government came to an end after forty-eight
hours’ existence. The conspirators fled to Japan, whence most of them
reached America. A month later Count Inouye, with a guard of six
hundred troops, took up his quarters outside the west gate in Seoul and
negotiations were opened. On January 9th a convention was signed by
which the Corean Government agreed to pay an indemnity of six hundred
thousand yen, and Herr Von Möllendorf and Su Sang Yu were sent to Japan
to arrange terms for the renewal of friendly relations. The Coreans, to
show their regret, chopped up and distributed around the streets the
flesh and bones of eleven human beings supposed to have been active in
the killing of defenceless Japanese in Seoul. At Tientsin, May 7, 1885,
the Marquis Ito and Li Hung Chang signed a convention, by which it was
agreed that the troops of both countries should be withdrawn and that
neither government should land a military force in Corea without
notifying the other. Early in the spring the Japanese legation was
built at Corean expense in Occidental style, this being the first of
the many foreign edifices which now adorn Seoul. The Chinese and
Japanese troops embarked for their respective countries at Chemulpo on
the 21st of May. On October 5, 1885, the Tai-wen Kun, fresh and rosy
after his sojourn in Tientsin, re-entered Seoul. He was escorted by
Chinese warriors and many thousands of Coreans. Most of his immediate
followers being dead or in exile, his name was not often mentioned
during the decade of years following. He lived in comparative seclusion
until the outbreak of the Chino-Japanese war.
The Progressives of 1884 were in too much of a hurry. They had tried to
hatch the egg of reform by warming it in the fire. The affair of
December, in its origin an anti-Chinese uprising of Radicals, became at
its end an anti-Japanese demonstration in which about three hundred
lives were lost. Yet as if to show that revolutions never go backward,
this bloody business pushed open the gateway through which science and
Christianity entered to hasten the exit of barbarism. Dr. Horace N.
Allen, an American missionary physician, had arrived in Seoul in
September, 1884. When called on the night of December 4th to minister
to the Min Yong Ik, he found the native doctors stopping up the sword
wounds with wax. Dr. Allen, by treating the injured man in scientific
fashion, saved his life. The superiority of Western methods having been
demonstrated, the wounded Chinese soldiers and Coreans, with their
shattered bones and torn flesh, over which they had plastered the
reeking hides cut from living dogs, or had utilized other appliances of
helpless ignorance, came to him in crowds. Unable to attend to all
these sufferers, application was made for a hospital. The Government at
once set apart the dwelling occupied by Han Yong Sik and, naming it the
House of Civilized Virtue, established April 10, 1885, a hospital.
Following this event, American missionaries arrived in increasing
numbers. The Government engaged three American young men, Messrs. D. A.
Bunker, G. W. Gilmore, and H. B. Hurlbert, as teachers, who with
thirty-five sons of noble families as their pupils opened a school
September 23, 1885. Missionaries with unquenchable patience began the
instruction of a people much better acquainted with malevolent demons
than with beneficent beings or with one living and true God, whose only
idea of sin is that it is a civil offence, and whose language has no
word for the love of a superior to an inferior. In apathetic faces they
were to light the fire of a new hope. To become a Christian in Corea
means a complete revolution in a man’s life, especially in that of a
yangban, who has the intellectual power of a man with only the actual
knowledge of a child. Nevertheless, with orphanages, Sunday-schools,
Christian women’s work in the home, organized Christian churches,
hospitals, schools for boys and girls, and a printing establishment,
most of the forms of active Christianity were soon visible in Corea,
the country which, in 1904, with its tens of thousands of believers, is
the most hopeful of missionary fields.
A treaty with France, negotiated in the summer of 1886 and ratified May
30, 1887, enabled the French Roman Catholic missionaries to come forth
into open day. They at once made preparations for the erection of a
cathedral, which, when completed and dedicated, May 29, 1897, was the
tallest and most imposing edifice in the capital. It is 202 feet long
and from 60 to 90 feet wide, and cost $60,000. The French minister
endeavored to secure the same magisterial rights for the bishops and
priests in Corea which have been long enjoyed by prelates of the Roman
form of Christianity in China. Although at first the Government
resisted, yet these claims have been virtually validated, and France
acts in Corea, as elsewhere in Asia, as the protector of Roman
Catholics. Much disquiet and local disorder in various parts of the
country, especially in Quelparte and the provinces of Whang Hai, may be
traced to popular notions and the procedure of the priests based on
this peculiarity of French foreign policy.
Corea soon found that diplomacy could not be one-sided. Having dealings
with foreign nations, it was not sufficient that Western governments
should have their representatives in Seoul, while there were no Corean
legations or consulates abroad. An episode arising from international
jealousies soon caused this desire to take tangible form, despite
active opposition from China. On April 14, 1885, the British
Government, in view of eventualities with Russia, ordered the temporary
occupation of Port Hamilton in the Nan How group of islands, about
thirty-five miles from the northeastern end of Quelparte. Corea at once
protested against this seizure of territory, and, in spite of all
offers of gold for purchase, and all diplomatic pressure, she secured,
after voluminous correspondence and the assurance that Russia would not
occupy any part of Corea, the evacuation of Port Hamilton by the
British. The flag of the double cross was hauled down February 27,
1887. At once the Government at Seoul prepared to send embassies to
Japan, Europe, and the United States to establish permanent legations.
This plan was of course opposed by Yuan Shi Kai, the Chinese
“resident,” as he called himself, in an active, impudent, and
villainous manner, he acting at the beck of his chief, Li Hung Chang.
The right to make a treaty carries with it the right of a legation
abroad, and the American minister, the Honorable Hugh N. Densmore, by
order of the Government of the United States, invited the embassy to
take passage in the U.S.Ss. Omaha, which was done. With his secretary,
Dr. H. N. Allen, Pak Chung Wang, envoy plenipotentiary, arrived in
Washington and had audience of President Cleveland in January, 1888. A
minister of equal rank went also to Europe and another to Japan. The
Chinese “resident” then planned, by transferring his headquarters three
miles from Seoul, to get all other foreigners removed from Seoul in
order to have more power, but the scheme was frustrated in good season.
The road out of fetichism, superstition, and ignorance into light and
civilization was not an easy one and had many a drawback. Until schools
dispel ignorance, and the certainties of science dominate the minds of
the natives terrorized by superstition, Corea, long intoxicated with
sorcery, will suffer from continual attacks of the delirium tremens of
paganism. Even the importation of condensed milk acted on the diseased
imagination of the people to develop the disease. In 1888 what is known
as the “baby war” agitated the people. The report was spread abroad
that Americans and Europeans were stealing children and boiling them in
kettles for food, and that foreigners caught women and cut off their
breasts. The absence of cows led the Coreans to believe that the
condensed milk, so much used among them, came wholly from a human
source. For a time there was imminent danger of an uprising, but a
proclamation from the King couched in strong language calmed the
excitement, which gradually died away. The local revolts against unjust
taxation and dishonest officials occurred with the usual regularity of
such events in Corea.
Provision was made for a stable revenue in a system which was organized
under Herr Von Möllendorf on an independent Corean basis, but after his
dismissal in July, 1885, the customs service was put under the
management of Sir Robert Hart, and an entirely new staff of men was
sent from China. Mr. H. N. Merrill was made chief commissioner and the
three open ports were given in charge of men directly from the Chinese
customs staff, one of the most able and valuable among whom was Dr.
McLeavy Brown. Financially promising as this movement seemed and has
proved, it gave China her great prestige and furnished the strongest
lever for carrying out her ambitious plans in the peninsula, which some
Coreans suspected of going even so far as to dethrone the King and to
set up a new heir—a plot which Min Yong Ik exposed. Yuan, the Chinese
resident, made himself practically a Chinese mayor of the palace. In
ostentatious display of gorgeous costume, palanquin and retinue, as he
vibrated between the royal residence and the Chinese legation, he and
his procession formed one of the notable sights of the Corean capital.
In a word, Li Hung Chang’s policy, working in conjunction with the Mins
at court, headed by the Queen, resulted in a vigorous and undisputed
reassertion of Chinese control, so that in the emergency which was soon
to arise, the Peking Government felt perfectly safe in speaking of
Corea as “our tributary state.” Apparently the influence of Japan had
become a cipher, while that of the United States had dwindled into a
merely academic theory of Corean independence. Potentially Japan was
insulted and defied by her old rival and modern enemy. To make her grip
on Corea sure, China massed her forces on the frontier, bought large
quantities of Nagasaki coal for her steel-clad fleet at Port Arthur,
and with her German-drilled army and great fortresses on the
promontories guarding the sea-gates to the capital, she seemed herself
defiantly ready to maintain her prestige regained in the peninsula
which she called her “tributary state.”
Thus stood, or rather, thus crouched, in the early days of 1894, the
pigmy, Corea, between the continental colossus on the one hand and the
insular athlete on the other. To add to troubles imported from abroad,
the long-standing intestine disturbances again broke out and the Tong
Hak rebellion culminated in civil war, at the local causes of which we
may now glance. This uprising of sectarians became not the cause, but
the occasion of the clash between China and Japan, which ended in the
destruction of China’s claim of suzerainty over Corea, and the
independence of the peninsular state.
CHAPTER LI.
THE WAR OF 1894: COREA AN EMPIRE.
In Asia and in semi-civilized states, as in the old European world,
each sovereignty is a church nation. Religion and the state are one.
China, Corea, and Japan, in their normal oriental condition, are all
acute illustrations of the evils of the union of church and state. Like
Turkey and Russia, they are persecuting nations, allowing no freedom of
conscience to the subject. Any attempt to think differently from the
orthodox and established cult, or philosophy, is sure to call down
persecution, torture, and death. Modern Japan, by ceasing to be
oriental and adopting freedom of conscience, has simplified the
relations between ruler and ruled. China still persecutes in bigotry,
and during the course of her history has shed more blood in the name of
religion and government than probably the mediæval states of Europe.
[59] In all Asiatic countries in which religious despotism still
flourishes, practical Christianity, especially that form of it which is
founded on the Bible in the vernacular, is the great disturbing force,
even as it is the hope of the future. It comes at once into collision
with the theory of the union of Church and State. Giving the common man
a new outlook on the universe makes him exactly the kind of man that
despots and men of privilege and prerogative most bitterly fear, hate,
and oppose. Of this truth Corea is a striking illustration.
The religious history of the people in the Corean peninsula is first
that of fetichism and shamanism, then of Buddhism, which brought in
culture and made a nation, giving also to the land its permanent
monuments, its art, manners, and most of its folk-lore and general
traditions. In the intellectual clash which, in every country in
eastern Asia, has at one time or another taken place between
Confucianism and Buddhism, Buddhism remained victorious. Running a
splendid career for over a thousand years, it finally reached
corruption through wealth, worldliness, and political ambition. Yet
intrenched in office and revenue, it held its own until overthrown with
the dynasty in 1392, when Confucianism, after a long struggle, became
the state church system. Buddhism, left to stagnation and decay, and as
the religion of the peasants, remained in a frightfully corrupt form,
while the scholars and thinking men were almost wholly devoted to
Confucianism. As this system of Chinese ethics lends itself most
admirably to despotism and the continuance in power of the privileged
classes over the masses, so also under stereotyped Confucianism,
Corea’s type of civilization, as we see it to-day, seems to mean for
the nation at large only a general degradation as compared with the
splendor of the mediæval Buddhist age. Allied with Chinese bigotry of
race and ignorance of the world, Corean Confucianism degenerated still
further into the savagery of conceit, of which the Tai-wen Kun seemed
an incarnation, and made Chō-sen, as a body politic, a country eaten up
with parasites—one-tenth of the population living on the other
nine-tenths. In the persecution of the Christian converts to that form
of Christianity which entered in 1777, Corean Confucianism showed
itself as barbarous and as devilish as the Spanish Inquisition, or
anything else in history which masks man’s lower nature under the garb
of noble pretexts. Nevertheless, the very patience of the Christians
under their tortures, the zeal and consecration of both the natives and
their foreign priests, so impressed a Corean scholar named Choi, that
in 1859 he set himself to ponder the question whether, after all,
Christianity, though foreign, were not the true religion.
After severe sickness and a revelation, as he believed, from the Lord
of Heaven, Choi felt himself called to found a new religion. He
proceeded to do so after the time-honored manner most fashionable in
China, Corea, and Japan, where originality is not too common, that is,
make an eclectic system. From the ethics of Confucius and the
philosophy of his commentators, from the writings of Lao-tsze and his
interpreters, and from the Buddhist sutras and their accretions, he
composed a book entitled the Great Holy Scripture and wrote out the
brief prayer which his followers still daily repeat. As Christianity
was a Western sect, he gave to his new religion the name of Tong Hak,
Eastern Doctrine or Culture. Many, perhaps most, of his followers laid
their emphasis in the new religion upon the idea of maintaining
Orientalism as against Occidentalism. Beginning in the town of Kion
Chiu, forty-five miles north of Fusan, the movement spread quickly into
the provinces of Chung Chong and Chullado. Entering the sphere of
politics, it gave the downtrodden peasants hope and new life, in the
midst of the awful night of ever-increasing official corruption and
oppression. It was about this time that the tenure of office by the
provincial governors was changed from three years to one year. This
move, made in the interests of the official class, vastly increased the
burdens laid upon the people, since the political spoilsman, who
usually bought his office, having now less time wherein to recoup and
fill his own chest, became threefold more grasping than before.
The influence of Christianity is very manifest in the history of the
Tong Haks and in the literary, dogmatic, and devotional manifestations
of their leader. Within six years, under the fierce initiative of the
Tai-wen Kun, Choi and his disciples were officially charged with being
“foreigner Coreans” and followers of the Lord of Heaven, that is, Roman
Catholic Christians. Choi was tried, tortured, and beheaded, and his
doctrines were outlawed. As with the Boxer and other common delusions
among the ignorant, the Tong Haks believed that “by the influence of
their god they could dance the sword dance and ascend into the air.”
The sect kept on spreading year after year, its animus blending with
that spirit of revolution and resistance to intolerable official
oppression then rampant in the southern provinces, the two movements
melted into each other and became one.
Early in 1893, before the palace gate at Seoul, there was a wonderful
sight. With pathetic ceremonies and long and patient waiting, fifty of
Choi’s followers presented a petition that their founder be
rehabilitated and their sect be tolerated even as the Christians were.
They intimated that if they were kept under ban they would drive all
aliens out of the country. Their prayer for toleration was refused, and
they were driven away by the palace guards. In the springtime the Tong
Haks led a great uprising of the peasantry in the southern provinces.
The soldiers sent to Seoul to put down the insurrection were scattered
like chaff before the wind. The insurgents occupied the chief city of
Chullado and the danger seemed to threaten the whole kingdom. The
Corean general, Hong, notified the Court of his inability to cope with
the situation. Then the pro-Chinese faction in Seoul, instigated by
Yuan, applied to Peking asking for military aid to put down the Tong
Hak rebels. According to the Li-Ito convention of May 7, 1885, neither
China or Japan could send soldiers into Corea without first notifying
the other Power.
Meanwhile Kim Ok Kiun was in Japan. Though the Government at Seoul
repeatedly demanded his extradition and both in Corea and Japan
assassins continually plotted to kill him, he received the same asylum
and protection which, under the laws of civilization, the Government in
Tokio gave to all foreigners. Finally, in 1894 Kim Ok Kiun was lured to
Shanghai by a false telegram and a forged bank-draft. On his arrival at
the hotel he was promptly murdered. His assassin was rewarded with
honor, fame, and money from Seoul, and in China looked on as a hero.
With indecent haste, but following its ancient barbarous traditions,
the Chinese Government made itself the express company which carried
the victim’s body in a man-of-war to Corea, where it was cut to pieces
and the head and limbs exposed on the public highway. This action of
China raised a storm of popular wrath in Japan, while about the same
time, China, first on June 7th forwarding her troops into Corea, in
violation of the treaty of 1885, sent a defiant insult to the Tokio
Government. Following this action, a despatch was sent to the Japanese
legation in Peking, in which were the words which we italicize: “It is
in harmony with our constant practice to protect our tributary states
by sending our troops to assist them.... General Weh has been ordered
to proceed to Zenra ... to restore the peace of our tributary state.”
Thus by force of arms China defied Western diplomacy, and, trampling on
the treaties, asserted her ancient claims of suzerainty over Corea as
her vassal state.
The reply of the Tokio Government was the announcement, on June 12,
1894, of the despatch of a body of the Mikado’s troops under strict
discipline to Chō-sen. On June 17th China was invited to co-operate
with Japan in financial and administrative reforms in Corea, in order
to preserve the peace of the Far East. China curtly refusing this
request, demanded the immediate return to Japan of her soldiers, at the
same time ordering her Tartar forces in Manchuria to cross that ancient
Rubicon of Eastern Asia—the Yalu River. Chartering the British ship Kow
Shing, she put on board eleven hundred soldiers with ammunition and
artillery to reinforce the Chinese camp at Asan in the northwest of
Chung Chong province. The reply from Tokio was, that, pending an
amicable settlement of the questions in dispute, any further despatch
of Chinese troops into Corea would mean war.
As soon as it was known in Tokio that the Tartar forces had been
mobilized and that the Kow Shing was being loaded, the Japanese fleet
sailed and orders were given to the troops, railways, and steamers to
be ready for the embarking of an army. Within twelve days a Japanese
army corps was landed at Chemulpo, marched to Seoul, the Han River
bridged by pontoons in twenty minutes, and the military cordon around
Seoul completed. On the 20th of July Yuan fled the Corean capital,
leaving his nationals to shift for themselves. On the 23d Mr. Hoshi
Toru, envoy of the Mikado, with a military guard entered the palace and
demanded of the King an answer to the question of Corea’s independence
and willingness to stand by her treaty with Japan. The royal answer was
in the affirmative. The King called in the Tai-wen Kun to allay his
fears and aid him in the formation of a new cabinet, to which he
invited, for the most part, the Liberals exiled in 1884. Prince Pak
Yong Hio, who had been declared an arch-traitor and his house razed to
the ground, was again received into royal favor.
On July 25th the Japanese cruiser Naniwa, under Captain, now Admiral,
Togo, met the Kow Shing. After four hours of parley and refusal to
surrender, the transport was sunk by the guns of the Naniwa. On July
29th and 30th the Japanese met the Chinese forces at Asan, routed them
and occupied their stronghold. The declarations of war between the
emperors of China and Japan, the old rival Sons of Heaven, were
published to the world on the same day, August 1, 1894. The former was
full of arrogance and ignorance, the latter was clear in phrase and
temperate in tone. The Chinese lady then on the throne called on her
soldiers to “root the pigmies out of their lair.” With the conceit and
stupidity of the giant, China went to war against the intelligent and
splendidly armed Jack of the islands. In results it was an affair of
Goliath and David over again. Ancient and overweening orthodoxy met
culture and intelligence in the field and on the wave, to be confronted
by what was despised as too small to do harm. At bottom the
Chino-Japanese war meant the right of a nation to change its
civilization. Japan, already a signatory to the Geneva Convention and
her officers trained in the ways of civilization, even though her
people were dubbed heathen by some semi-enlightened folks of the West,
went to war in Christian style. The Japanese had a superb Red Cross
organization, a corps of surgeons, and a body of fifteen hundred
trained nurses, while their hospitals were equipped according to
scientific ideas. With each army corps and fleet went a lawyer versed
in international law, to see that nothing should be done against the
laws of nations. The literary fruits of these precautions and this
loyalty to the high standards of civilization are seen in Mr.
Takahashi’s masterly work “International Law During the Chino-Japanese
War,” and in Mr. Ariga’s “La guerre Sino-Japonaise au point de vue du
droit internationale.” The Chinese had not yet (or before the year
1904) recognized the laws of civilization and had scarcely the
beginning of hospital corps, hospitals, or surgeons. It was not
wonderful, therefore, that her wounded usually crawled away to die like
dogs, or that her ignorant soldiers frequently fired upon those
bringing succor to the wounded. The official organization of the
Chinese was honeycombed with corruption, but with their thirty thousand
drilled troops and fleet, including battle-ships, of which the Japanese
had none, they expected easy victory. Occupying Ping-an, they built
between fifty and sixty forts. At sea their fleets were busy in
convoying transports full of soldiers to the mouth of the Yalu River to
prevent the Japanese from advancing beyond Corea and in the hope of
overwhelming them at one onset. On the site of their previous victory
three centuries before, they expected to rout the Japanese and then to
drive them southward and out of Corea.
The Japanese, centuries ago, learned the difference between bulk and
brain, and are but slightly overawed in the presence of mere weight or
size. They knew that the military reputation of China only existed on
paper, and their excellent system of jiu-jitsu had taught them how to
turn an enemy’s strength against himself. Her soldiers had grown up in
the new era of ideas which had come to fruit under Christian
civilization. Borrowing these ideas and forces and combining them with
their own resources and informing them with their own genius, they gave
the world a surprise. They had long grieved in spirit over their
non-recognition by the world at large of their peaceful ambitions and
of the principles that lie at the basis of their civilization. They
mourned that war and bloodshed were necessary to impress the world and
secure respect. Within six months they humbled China and compelled her
to sue for peace.
In three divisions, up from the south, eastward from the mouth of the
Ta Tong River, and westward from Gensan, the three columns of the
Japanese army marched and met at Ping-an (Ping Yang). After two days’
fighting, September 15th and 16th, the Chinese hosts were routed. The
next day, at sea, off the mouth of the Yalu River, the Chinese fleet,
in the first great battle of modern steel ships, was disabled and was
never afterward able to resume the offensive. Before October 1st Corea
was entirely cleared of Chinese. On the continent of Asia, chiefly in
Manchuria, they held an area larger than their own empire. Port Arthur
fell on November 21st, and the great fortress of Wei-hai-wei was
surrendered January 31, 1895.
Then Russia unmasked. Calling to her aid France and Germany, this
triple alliance compelled Japan to give up all claims upon the
continent and to be content with an indemnity and the island of
Formosa. Had the Japanese possessed a fleet of battle-ships, they would
have refused this insolent demand and declared war on Russia. As it
was, the treaty of Shimonoséki, between Li Hung Chang and Ito and
Mutsu, was signed. The Japanese spent the indemnity money on a new navy
and proceeded to gird themselves for their next war with another giant,
and to show again the difference between bulk and brain.
Corea suffered surprisingly little from the presence of two great
armies on her soil. Her people were paid liberally for labor and
materials which they so grudgingly furnished to the Japanese, who were
not, in this instance, sufferers on account of their own excess of
politeness, while the Chinese troops were within her borders too short
a time to be a very heavy tax. Only around Ping-an was there much
public or private suffering.
In Seoul, the Mikado’s envoy, as early as August, began to insist upon
a programme of reforms, which, had they been carried out, would have
amounted virtually to a new constitution.
In the reconstruction of the administration of the seven departments,
that of Public Works was broadened to include Agriculture and Commerce,
and in place of the Department of Ceremonies there was created one of
Education co-ordinate with the others. A mighty programme of reforms,
twenty-three in number, was prepared, but enough to make up several
social tornadoes, some of which were possible, while others seemed too
radical and absurd on their faces. A new mint began to issue coins in
European form.
The second son of the King was sent to Tokio to bear the thanks of the
nation and Government for having secured the independence of Chō-sen.
The Corean sovereign, on January 8, 1895, with tremendous
picturesqueness of procession, pomp, and circumstance, proceeded to the
temple of his ancestors and with imposing ceremonies solemnly adjured
all vassalage and dependence upon China. The official name of the new
empire is Dai Han or Ta Han, that is, the Great Han, single and
sovereign, as contrasted with the three (San Han) of ancient history.
With this royal act vanished from history the strangest anomaly in
diplomacy, and one of the last of the dual sovereignties in Asia.
Furthermore, from this time forth, the whole tissue and complexion of
Corean politics altered. The native scholars began to seek a new
intellectual climate and the culture of the West. Scores of students
were sent abroad and many foreigners were employed, as in the new Japan
of 1868.
When, however, Count Inouye, one of the purest and best statesmen in
Japan, in co-operation with the Reform Committee of the Corean
Government began his labors, the old chronic difficulties at once
presented themselves and in legions. There seemed to be no real
patriotism in the country. Rare indeed was the native of ability who
was not hopelessly inoculated with the vices of the old clans and noble
families, whose only idea of the relation between government and office
holders was that of the udder and the sucking pig. Plots and jealousies
continually hampered reform. The real problem was to separate the
functions of the Court from those of the Government, which in Corea, as
in China, had never been fully done. In Japan the holding of office by
females in the palace had been abolished. In the palace at Seoul their
influence could secretly nullify public business. The question of
succession to the throne without Court intrigue through the influence
of the Queen and the mob of palace underlings, and the reconstruction
of the military system and that of civil and criminal law were grappled
with. Over one hundred young men were sent to Japan to study. On June
20, 1895, a royal ordinance was issued dividing the kingdom into
thirteen prefectures, five of the large provinces being divided into
two parts, with 151 districts and 339 magistracies. A cabinet, with
nine boards of administration, was organized, and a judiciary system
for the entire country formed, a postal system inaugurated, and the
army, consisting of 5,000 men, was put under the instruction of
Japanese and American officers. For all these enterprises, money was of
the first necessity. Attempts, therefore, were made to reform the
revenue, making taxes payable in money instead of in kind, while lands
illegally seized were restored to their rightful owners.
All seemed to promise well, notwithstanding that many of the old-style
gentry, who saw in the change a lessening of their income, still
opposed what they called the “civilization nonsense.” The Chinese
merchants gradually returned after the war and resumed business.
Foreign trade in 1895 amounted to nearly thirteen million dollars.
Commercial prosperity seemed to be general and increasing. A fitful
insurrection of the Tong Haks, in the summer of 1895, was completely
subdued by Japanese troops. All was proceeding auspiciously until Count
Inouye left Corea for a visit home. The Queen, who feared that her
father-in-law, the Regent, might make a bad use of the Japanese troops,
was anxious. Count Inouye assured her that the Mikado’s Government
“would not fail to protect the royal house of Corea.” Thus allaying her
well-grounded suspicions, Count Inouye left Seoul about September 15th.
There were still living in the peninsula the two ablest characters, man
and woman, in modern Corean history; the Queen, bound to overcome, and
nullify by her craft and the power of the Min clan, the reforms begun
by the Japanese, and the old Regent, who was bent on getting his son’s
wife out of the way, by fire, sword, poison, or dynamite. Nominally
about seventeen thousand useless persons in Government employ and pay
had been discharged, and the Queen’s palace attendants reduced from
hundreds to a dozen. But after Inouye had gone away, these parasites
gradually returned at her invitation, until the palace was crowded
again as of old with her women, eunuchs, servants, and underlings of
all sorts, while her clansfolk prepared for another of those plots so
characteristic of unregenerated Corea. At the signs of danger, Prince
Pak Yong Hio, minister of Home Affairs, fled the capital. It looked to
the Japanese as if all their work and influence were to come to
nothing. They had been foiled by a woman.
The Tokio Government had appointed as its envoy, in place of Count
Inouye, a military officer named Miura, who, like the French Zouave de
Bellonet, of whom we have read before, brought to his work in Seoul the
habits of the camp and the methods of the soldier, rather than the
patience, tact, and civil abilities of his immediate predecessor. About
this time there were in Seoul many Japanese, of all grades of
character, especially soshi, political bullies or “heelers” from Tokio,
angry at the Queen, who, as they professed to believe, was the friend
of Russia. These men gathered many other spirits like unto themselves
from among the native soldiers who had been discharged through the
Queen’s influence. Soon both the native and the foreign worthies
concluded, with the Tai-wen Kun, that for the good of Corea the Queen
would have to be killed. On the early morning of October 8th the
Japanese troops were conveniently and purposely posted so as to make
possible the entrance into the palace of a motley band of ruffians,
some sixty in number. Seizing the Queen in her own apartments, they
murdered her, dragged her corpse into one of the areas outside, poured
petroleum over the rice straw mats and clothing and set the heap on
fire. Thus perished one of the ablest women in Corean annals. A new
Government was quickly formed under the instigation of the Tai-wen Kun.
A radical programme of reforms was published, new officers were
appointed at home and envoys sent abroad. With horrible mockery of
history and justice, this “rebel cabinet”—as the King later stigmatized
it in public documents—pretended that the Queen was alive and forthwith
conducted an absurd travesty of publicly trying some native accused of
her murder. In the name of his Majesty a proclamation was forged
degrading the Queen to the level of a servant. All this was done by
men, some of whom, it seems impossible to doubt, were implicated in the
palace slaughter. When on November 27th some ultra-patriotic Coreans,
opposed to the Japanese and the policy of the Tai-wen Kun, made an
effort to drive out their new rulers by an attack on the palace and
failed, the chief participants, as well as those alleged on trumped-up
charges to have been in the affair of October 8th, were executed
December 8th. Meanwhile there were anti-Japanese riots in many parts of
the country.
On hearing of the strange use of the Mikado’s soldiery in Seoul, the
Japanese Government promptly recalled Miura and arrested forty-seven
persons supposed to have taken part in the assault on the palace in
Seoul. Nevertheless, in the court at Hiroshima, technical evidence
against them was lacking and the whole band of this new I-ro-ha of
modern Japanese heroism was discharged free of blame, or at least
without the stigma of condemnation. It is probable that the whole
affair of October 8th was connived at by a reckless diplomatic
blunderer, to the regret and mortification of the Mikado’s ministers
and the national sentiment of Japan. In any event, it proved the
death-blow, for a time at least, of Japanese prestige in Corea. In
December the troops of Japan evacuated the country.
This was almost the last appearance in public of “Yi Ha-eung, Prince of
Heung Song,” the Tai-wen Kun, or Prince Parent. He emerged fitfully on
one occasion before the police authorities to secure the release of one
of his retainers, and then retired to his estate in Kiodang. He died
peacefully, on the 22d of February, 1898, and was buried with due
ceremonies. His mausoleum, made according to all the proprieties of
Corean taste and mortuary art, makes an attractive sight on the
landscape of Corea. On August 18, 1900, Corea being now an empire, he
was by imperial decree raised to the rank of Wang, or King. He will
ever be remembered by the Coreans as one of the most powerful
personalities in the modern history of their nation. According to
traditional usage, Corean princes cannot hold office, and for that
reason many of them decline the title, in order to avoid the poverty
which acceptance of it brings, and get Government appointments to
office with salary. The Tai-wen Kun, born in Seoul, January 22, 1811,
made good use of his opportunity, which came both with his title and
his office. Besides doing a great many bad things, to the injury of his
country, he made some great improvements. He was, according to his
lights, a statesman and a patriot, and he foresaw to some extent the
designs of Russia. In methods he never rose above the atmosphere of the
environment within which he had been educated. In person he was five
feet six inches in height, but looked a leader of men. He was the
great-grandson of one king, the nephew of another, and the father of a
third. “He became the leader of the small remnant of the imperial clan
left, and really preserved it from extinction.” [60]
The passing away of these two eminent characters, Queen Min and Tai-wen
Kun, marked the end of an era.
CHAPTER LII.
JAPAN AND RUSSIA IN CONFLICT.
From the night of the murder of his consort until his escape, four
months later, to the Russian legation, the sovereign of Corea was to
all intents and purposes a prisoner in his own palace. Unable to trust
anybody and feeling in constant danger, he sought the American
missionaries for food, for companionship, and even for protection. [61]
To him the new Government consisted of his jailers. The Corean people,
sympathizing with their King, hated the Japanese all the more, for they
felt that their sovereign was a virtual prisoner in the hands of the
Tai-wen Kun and the pro-Japanese conspirators. Under these
circumstances, he determined to break the palace jail. On the morning
of February 11, 1896, according to a plan elaborated by the women and
arranged with the Russians, he entered one of the ordinary box chairs
in which female servants are carried. A few minutes later, pale and
trembling, the King of Corea knocked at the north gate of the legation
of Russia and was promptly admitted. It has been insisted that “no
Russian had been to the palace or near it, nor had any Russian been to
any of the public offices,” yet by some curious coincidence the Russian
legation guards had been increased on the evening of the 10th by nearly
one hundred men from the Czar’s men-of-war at Chemulpo. Furthermore,
the Russians welcomed not only the King but later also the Crown Prince
and the Queen Dowager.
His Majesty was scarcely within the walls of his new shelter before he
issued an edict against his “rebel cabinet,” ordering his soldiers to
“cut off their heads at once and bring them,” but in the afternoon
another edict decreed that the six traitors should be degraded and
delivered to the courts for trial. This royal order was the signal for
another outburst of riot, savagery, and bloodshed. The Corean prime
minister and the Minister of Agriculture were killed and their corpses
mutilated and dragged round the streets. The prisons were emptied and
the innocent and guilty alike released. Sixty-six Japanese, mostly
workmen on the telegraphs, were murdered and the line partially
destroyed.
The pro-Japanese party, beginning with the bloody morning of October 8,
1895, when Queen Min was murdered, had been in power during four
months, during which time a tremendous blow was dealt to the prestige
of Japan in Corea. For eleven months the King transacted the national
business in the Russian legation buildings, going only occasionally to
the palace to give audiences to the foreign envoys. One of these from
the Mikado presented a claim of indemnity for $146,000 for his subjects
slain during the riot.
The flight of Corea’s sovereign was like that pictured in the proverb
“from the frying pan into the fire.” In fierce reality, it was escape
from bloody to inky tyranny, from an iron to a silken chain; but in
both cases it was humiliation and slavery. While the guest of the
Russians, the King paid well his bill as tenant by signing a concession
to his hosts, permitting them to cut timber “in the Yalu valley.” The
Russian Government liberally interpreted this document, according to
the vast scale of Muscovite geography, as meaning the whole basin
drained by the Yalu and its tributaries, that is, a region half as
large as Corea. The Russians thus obtained for a year’s rent of part of
their legation buildings a lien on Corean property valued at fifty
millions of dollars.
Revolutions do not go backward, and the general proceeding of the
Government was along the line of progress. The external reforms are
particularly noticeable in the capital, in which Corean officers
trained in Washington have greatly improved the streets, the methods of
cleaning and the drainage. The police and soldiery were uniformed and
disciplined, and preparations made for a national census. The
untrustworthy “census” of Seoul showed a population of 144,626 in
27,527 houses, and in the suburbs 75,189 in 18,093 houses, or a total
of 219,815, and of houses 45,350, in which district are 36 Buddhist
temples with 442 priests and 204 nuns. The original width of the
streets, as laid out in 1392, of 55 feet, has been regained over many
miles of the city thoroughfares. Foreign trade steadily increased.
American capital and energy helped to make what was once one of the
filthiest and most unprogressive cities of the Far East a clean and
attractive place, bright with electric lights and railway and modern
water-works. A railroad was built from the seaport to the capital and
opened for traffic September 1, 1899. The steel bridge, made at
Chattanooga, Tenn., spanning the Han River is nearly a mile long. The
electroliers give light to the palace and to part of the city of Seoul.
The trolley line, besides traversing the city, runs to the mausoleum of
the Queen, which has been built in superb style. There her scant
remains, escorted by a vast procession characterized in all its
features by the old barbaric grandeur of Corea, were laid with
appropriate ceremonies.
In the spring of 1896 the Independence Club, with a membership of over
2,000, was formed. It was composed entirely of natives actively
interested in social and material development as well as in the
independence of Corea. On October 21st the cornerstone of Independence
Arch was laid on a site but a few yards distant from the old Chinese
Gate under which the ambassadors of China had for centuries received
the vassalage of the Corean sovereign. It is a structure in stone,
alike of architectural beauty and of political significance. The
subsequent history of this club and of the general movement, in which
the publication of a daily newspaper in both English and native script,
The Korean Independent, were prominent features, is not a happy one. It
showed clearly that independence or freedom must be something more than
a word, in order to bring forth the fruits seen in America or among the
nations that have most cultivated liberty, safeguarded by law. In this
Seoul movement the seed may have been good, but good and well prepared
soil did not exist. Rock, brambles, and the beaten road of bad
precedent, in which Corea is so rich, received the sower’s hopes. The
movement ended in sedition or evaporated. Nevertheless, it was vastly
better than the Seoul mobs that so often dictated imperial policy to
the ministers of the Government. As late as May, 1902, the former
members of the Independence Club were being arrested and executed. More
promising in ultimate results was the celebration on September 2d of
the forty-fifth birthday of the King by a great gathering of Corean
Christians in the pavilion near the old Chinese Gate.
After a stay of one year and nine days, the King left his Russian
quarters and took up his residence in the new palace of Kyeng-wun,
built in 1896 in the western part of the city, where are gathered the
foreign legations and residences, some of them very handsome and
substantial.
Corea, being now free and independent, between the two great empires of
Japan and China, and Corean conceit of national history and antiquity,
real or supposed, being never at any time lacking, it was thoroughly
appropriate and financially very profitable for the yangban and palace
officials to take measures to proclaim the once “little outpost state”
an “empire,” and their sovereign an “emperor.” Besides suffering from
imperialism in an acute form, the Corean office-holders knew well the
significance of this nominally political act, in relation to their own
fortunes; for in the assumption of the King of Corea of the title of
Emperor, $100,000 was taken out of the treasury to celebrate the event,
most of which, as a matter of course, went into the pockets of the
King’s faithful servants. His Majesty protested in vain against the
proceedings, but finally yielded gracefully. At 3 A.M. on October 12,
1896, with great pomp and state, before the altars of the Spirits of
the Land, the King assumed the title of Emperor of Ta Han, or the Great
Han—in distinction from the ancient San Han. “The King is dead, long
live the Emperor.”
This, too, was the time of Russia’s political dominance, when a Russian
military commission of fourteen were drilling the Corean military and
when the Minister of Foreign Affairs at Seoul and the Russian envoy,
Mr. Speyer, signed an agreement, November 5th, by which Dr. McLeavy
Brown, the Englishman in charge of the national finances—able,
faithful, and unterrified—should be ousted and a Russian, Mr. Kuril
Alexieff, put in his place. Mr. Brown’s contract not having expired, he
refused to vacate his post, and a large British and Japanese fleet
having appeared off Chemulpo, he was able to maintain his ground. The
three countries, Russia, Great Britain, and Japan, made an agreement
that Mr. Brown should remain in office and that a Russian and a
Japanese commissioner of customs should share in the collection of
foreign duties at the ports. On December 23, 1897, a telegram was
received from the Czar of Russia recognizing the Emperor of Corea,
whereat the imperial party in Seoul was greatly elated. This whole
incident illustrates the rather theatrical methods of Russian diplomacy
in Corea during the past twenty years, showing how entirely her
interests were military and strategic, but not commercial, she having
usually scarcely a score, and never at any time a hundred, of subjects
in the empire commercially engaged, and only a few fishermen who are
whale hunters on the coast. One Baron Guntzburg was busy as a promoter
of Russian interests, and the wife of the Russian minister was not
inactive in social affairs and even as an influencer of political
action.
It was not long before there were signs of a popular reaction against
Russia. On January 22, 1898, an attempt was made to assassinate Kim,
the native Russian interpreter. By March 10th this feeling had taken
form in a great anti-Russian demonstration, which ended in the
apparently total though not real withdrawal of Russian influence in the
peninsula. The military commission soon after departed and the
Russo-Corean Bank was closed. After much excitement, Russia and Japan,
on April 25th, agreed on a modus vivendi, both recognizing the
sovereignty of Corea and engaging to refrain from direct interference
in her internal affairs. No military or financial adviser was to be
nominated without mutual agreement, and Russia bound herself not to
impede the commercial relations between Japan and Corea. It was evident
(probably in large measure on account of Russia’s new interests in
Manchuria) that she considered Corea for the present beyond her sphere
of influence. No serious revival of the claims of Russia to any part of
Corea were made again openly until 1903. When the correspondence
between Tokio and St. Petersburg, leading to the war of 1904, opened,
the ambitions of Russia were seen to be serious and all-embracing.
The first year of the Corean empire was completed after the celebration
of the King’s birthday with unusual demonstrations of loyalty. The
founder’s day (that of Ki-tsze, or Ki-ja, whose tomb and temple are at
Ping-an and which suffered during the war of 1894) and the 506th
anniversary of the establishment of the dynasty, as well as the
celebration of the coronation, were honored with unusual
demonstrations, including the illumination of the capital. This year
was noted for a revival of Confucianism among the yangban, Buddhism
having already enjoyed a “recrudescence”—both systems being galvanized
into a similitude of life by the powerful induction, and evidences,
both in leaven and bloom, of the new faith. On the whole, the year 1898
was characterized by an intense conservative reaction in the Government
and by an absence of important diplomatic or political events, except
the chronic local rebellions in the provinces and the plots of rivals
and partisans in the capital. Notwithstanding that the solar calendar
had been adopted in 1895, and had been officially observed, the people
still celebrate New Year’s Day with a fortnight of oldtime rejoicings,
merrymakings, and customs according to the lunar calendar.
The year 1899 was one of comparative quiet in the capital and
provinces. During the Boxer agitation in China, there was danger of
eruptions across the border which were duly guarded against, and a
Russian escort of fifty soldiers to the refugee Danish missionaries
from China was given free passage. Corea virtually joined the allies
marching to Peking, by giving aid and comfort in the form of a thousand
bags of cleaned rice, two thousand bags of flour, and several hundred
cases of cigarettes.
In August, 1899, the written constitution of the kingdom was issued,
the nine articles of which declare the absolute power of the King. It
cannot be said that either the Coreans, the foreign diplomatic corps,
or the world at large took this giving of a constitution as a very
serious matter. To the special “imperial” envoy despatched from Seoul
to Tokio, Japan flatly refused to promise the complete neutrality of
Corea. Nevertheless, Corean subjects are expected to bow down and
worship (either in the old English sense of the term or with more
profound significance) the picture of the Emperor as in other pagan or
semi-civilized countries. A memorial tablet and pagoda “to commemorate
the virtues of his Majesty” was begun—on a day significant in the
West—April 1, 1902. These will be in the main street at the junction of
Palace Street in Seoul.
It was noted as a great event in the history of a country that has
never given very serious attention to its high-roads, that Dr. W. B.
Magill, an American missionary, drove a horse and carriage from Gensan
to Seoul. A system of lighthouses was decided upon October 31, 1901.
The fiftieth anniversary of the Emperor’s birthday was celebrated
December 7th, silver commemorative medals being given to each guest at
the palace. A Corean band of musicians, trained by Mr. Franz Eckhart, a
German, who arrived in the country February 19, 1901, played two pieces
of foreign music very creditably to themselves and their instructor. On
July 1, 1902, the Corean national hymn, an adaptation by Franz Eckhart,
was published. This German musician had already made a good record in
Japan.
On May 30, 1902, the Emperor entered the Society of the Hall of Aged
Men, having completed the first year of the sixth decade of his life
(51 years), the foreign representatives being entertained at breakfast.
Prominent among these, in influence and ability, was the American
minister, Dr. Horace Newton Allen, born in Delaware, Ohio, in 1868, and
resident in Corea since the summer of 1884, when he introduced modern
methods of healing and surgery. He accompanied the first legation of
Chō-sen in Washington. There he was appointed secretary to the American
legation in Seoul, and since 1890 has been the chief guardian of
American interests in Corea, being made minister in July, 1896. During
the time of the Boxer insurrection in China, when the movement
threatened to spread into Corea, he was especially alert in
precautionary measures of safety. Previous to the outbreak of the
Russo-Japanese war, he secured the presence of a guard of American
marines in Seoul by which American rights, personal and commercial,
were thoroughly secured.
Events during the year 1903 showed a steady movement toward an
inevitable end and pointed to the impending crisis between Russia and
Japan. The situation in Seoul was dominated by Yi Yong Ik and Yi Keun
Tak, who were in close communication with Port Arthur and the Russian
authorities at that place. Their high-handed financial and other
schemes, in opposition to the Japanese efforts at securing a stable
currency, came to naught after severe pecuniary loss to natives and
foreigners and the serious disturbance of trade. The Russians, on April
11, 1901, had secured a twenty-year extension of timber cutting and
prosecuted vigorously their advances in the north. They now refused to
allow the Corean Government any supervision over their work of denuding
the forests in the Yalu valley. In May one of the Czar’s gunboats
anchored in the harbor of Yongampo, which the Russians called Port
Nicholas, and soon after began what were believed to be fortifications.
A guard of twenty-six Russian marines reinforced the legation in Seoul,
shortly after the violation by Russia of her pledge to evacuate
Manchuria. A serious riot in November between Nipponese and Muscovite
soldiers at Chemulpo foreshadowed the impending clash on a large scale
in 1904. During December Russia’s influence at Seoul blocked all
attempts of the foreign representatives to have Wiju (Ai-chiu) opened
as a port of trade.
At this stage in the nation’s history, the once white-coated hermits
who had hitherto lived under their own top-knots, and often under hats
that were as big as a haycock, began numerously to go abroad as
students. Scores of them have been in America and Europe and hundreds
in Japan. In December, 1902, a party of nearly one hundred emigrants,
men, women, and children, started for Hawaii. All of these were
admitted, except eight who were sent back because of contagious eye
disease. Other incidents showed healthful movement in a long-stagnant
mass of population. Light and vision are coming to a people blind to
nearly everything modern.
Of all the moral and reformatory forces at work, that of active
Christianity leads. The missionary pioneers, Allen, Underwood,
Scranton, Appenzeller, Heron, Gale, Jones, Hulbert, and others,
mastered the language and opened the treasures of native literature and
history. Already the list of aids to the vernacular and of their
writings descriptive of country and people is a very respectable one.
These works, the fruit of earnest toil, contrast superbly in the
quality of truthfulness with the sketchy and ephemeral writings of
tourists and hasty travellers. With other scholars and civil servants
of various governments, they sustain the editor in furnishing the
richly freighted pages of the Korea Review, and have formed the Korea
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, from which already several
creditable volumes of “Transactions” have appeared to delight the
serious student, who values perspective and tone in his mind-pictures
of this once hermit nation.
Already the representatives of the Christian brotherhoods of
English-speaking peoples have their row of graves in which sleep
heroes, veterans, and some who “fell at the first fire.” Beginning in
1884, their prospective celebration of a double decennial, in
September, 1904, was postponed under the clouds of war. Besides healing
and helping, translating the Scriptures, and teaching the great
uplifting truths which centre around the idea of one living and true
God, gathering thousands of souls into churches and furnishing Gospel
nurture, they have taught the natives the grand lesson of self-support
and self-propagation through a first-hand knowledge of the Bible. War,
persecution, and manifold trials have tested and proved the quality of
the converts, who in sincerity and power to stand in the midst of
temptations are perhaps second to none in any field.
It was evident at the opening of the year 1904 that Japanese armies
were once again to tread the soil of Corea, this time the war being not
between China and Japan, but between Japan and Russia. Against the
Colossus of the North and Russian rapacity, the Island Empire had a
long list of grievances. As far back as 1861 a Russian man-of-war had,
not without shedding the blood of its defenders, landed marines on the
Island of Tsushima. There they had planted seed and begun the formation
of a settlement looking to permanent occupation. In those days of
hermitage, weakness, and fear, nothing could be done by the Japanese
authorities at Yedo; but Katsu Awa, the Shogun’s most far-seeing
statesman, called the attention of the British minister at Peking to
this invasion, and a British naval force was sent to compel the
Russians to retire. A few years later Russia took possession of
Saghalien, after the usual preliminary of “joint occupation,”
compelling the Japanese to be satisfied with the Kurile Islands below
50° 56′ of north latitude. This was in the year 1875, but long before
that, Japanese statesmen, especially Okubo, had penetrated the designs
of Russia. The formation, out of feudal elements, of her national army
in 1871 and the first of this character since the twelfth century, was
largely with a view of defending Japan against Russian and other
aggressions. On the return of the Japanese embassy from its trip round
the world in 1873, Okubo, Kido, and others opposed the Corean war
project (as we have seen in Chapter XLVII), because a war with Corea
then meant playing into Russia’s hands. Something of the popular fear
of Russia over the Japanese nation, which hung like an advancing black
cloud, was seen in the attack by a fanatical policeman on the Crown
Prince, now the Czar of Russia, during his visit to Japan in 1891, but
the Government in Tokio, even in the person of the Mikado, besides
making ample apology, scrupulously maintained propriety in all dealings
with Russia, at home and in Corea, living on terms of perfect
friendship. It was therefore a stunning disappointment, though a not
wholly unexpected procedure, when Russia, in 1895, summoning to her aid
the French and Germans, deprived the Japanese of the fruits of their
victories in the war with China, by compelling the islanders to
relinquish all territory on the mainland of Asia, and to be content
with Formosa and an indemnity. Exhausted as they were by the war with
China, yet had the Japanese been possessed of five battle-ships, they
would have declared war upon Russia as an abominable intermeddler and
aggressor. The force of circumstances required them to swallow their
humiliation, but as the Japanese, any more than certain Christian
nations, never forgive an injury, they began immediately to gird
themselves for the coming and inevitable struggle with the Power that
seemed bent upon their destruction. When the Boxer uprising in 1899
called forth the military energies of eight nations, the Japanese
Government at first held back, lest its motives in being too forward
might be questioned. When finally urged to lead the van of the allied
armies of rescue, Japan sent 21,000 of her ablest and best equipped
soldiers into the campaign. Their experiences on the march to Peking
were invaluable to the Japanese, for through becoming comrades with the
mujiks in the camps and on the battle-field, they learned that they had
nothing to fear from such foes when arrayed against them in anything
like an equality of numbers in war. The Japanese officer found himself
a modern man in the presence of his equals, who were men steeped in
mediæval methods of thought.
Steadily enlarging their navy and perfecting in every detail arms,
ammunition, field equipment, army hygiene, and the physical development
of their soldiers, the Japanese determined to stand for their rights,
even though this might seem like Jack challenging the giant. No longer
hermits on an island, which, having but a small fraction of arable
fertile soil, could not feed its inhabitants, so that population had to
remain stationary, the Japanese had become a nation of traders and
manufacturers, with an annual increase of population of over 500,000 a
year, with a total population of fifty millions, and with a foreign
trade that had increased 543 per cent since 1890, with a total export
trade consisting of 84.6 per cent of manufactured articles. With nearly
thirty thousand Japanese subjects in Corea, most of them married and
with homes, and with 10,000 of their people in Manchuria, they took an
interest in the affairs of Corea and Manchuria which was not like that
of the Russians, chiefly military and strategic, but which, on the
contrary, was commercial and vital. During the Boxer troubles, Russia
sent a large army into Manchuria and finally took possession of the
whole of that portion of the Chinese Empire. She promised solemnly to
all the governments interested, to vacate the country on the 9th of
October, 1903.
The world knows how this promise was broken. The correspondence between
Tokio and St. Petersburg reveals the exasperating delays of the Russian
Government, and its intention not only to remain permanently in
Manchuria but to prevent if possible Japan from having anything to do
with the matter. Russia even desired “recognition by Japan that
Manchuria is outside her sphere of special interest” and requested a
mutual engagement to establish “a neutral zone on the Corea-Manchuria
frontier, extending fifty kilometers each side into which neutral zone
neither of the contracting parties shall introduce troops without the
consent of the other,” and “the engagement on the part of Japan not to
undertake on the coast of Corea any military works capable of menacing
the freedom of navigation in the straits of Corea.”
In a word, what Japan claimed is, that “Japan has a perfect right to
demand that the independence and territorial integrity of China shall
be respected and the rights and interests of Japan in that region shall
be formally guaranteed.”
After innumerable delays and the situation growing more serious every
day, the Russians continually reinforcing their naval and military
forces in the far East, Mr. Kurino, the Mikado’s minister to St.
Petersburg, having waited for an answer since the 13th of January,
called on Count Lamsdorff at 8 P.M. February 4th for a definite reply,
which was not forthcoming. Finding that in all probability there would
be no changes in Russia’s claims of control over Manchuria and her
demand for “a buffer region between confines of direct influence and
action of the two countries in the far East,” being out of the
question, the Japanese legation was on the 10th of February withdrawn
from St. Petersburg and war began.
The Russians were already on Corean soil with three hundred Cossacks
guarding their timber cutters on the left bank of the Yalu River. Since
June, 1903, they had reinforced their army with 40,000 men and their
navy with 26 vessels, ranging from battle-ship to torpedo boat, thus
adding 83,000 tons to their sea power. Five days before, the Russian
commander at Vladivostok had notified the Japanese commercial agent
that a state of siege might be declared at any moment. With steam up,
decks cleared for action, and search-lights in use for night work, the
Russian seamen instantly replied to the fire and torpedoes of Admiral
Togo’s attack. The Japanese thus anticipated a naval raid from the
Russians, which was afterwards successfully carried out from
Vladivostok. To the Czar’s advisers in Europe actual war may have come
as a surprise. It did not come thus to his servants in the far East.
Nevertheless, within three days after the rupture of peaceful relations
the Russian war ships Variag and Koreetz had been sunk outside of the
harbor of Chemulpo by the guns of Admiral Uriu and an army landed to
begin its march northward. At Port Arthur three battle-ships and four
cruisers had been sunk or damaged by Admiral Togo’s torpedoes. The
first idea of the Japanese was to eliminate the sea power of Russia
from the scene of the seat of war. Landing her armies in Corea, at
Chemulpo, the march was made without serious opposition, until near
Wiju, the Mikado’s hosts once more stood on the banks of the Yalu, the
Rubicon of eastern Asia, confronting the forces of the White Czar.
Meanwhile, a new protocol between Japan and Corea was signed, in March,
1904, in which the stronger Power bound itself to reform the weaker
country without annexing it and to protect it without impairing its
sovereignty. Corea pledged herself, as distinctly under Japan’s
protection, to repose confidence in and to accept advice from the
Japanese Government, and to make no agreement with a third Power which
might seem to contravene the principles of the protocol. This document
made Japan the champion of Corean independence, and is in spirit and
letter the antipodes of Russia’s action in Manchuria.
The new model army in Asia, and the most modern of all armies, was in
its fitness of body and mind to cope with the problems of war in the
twentieth century, the creation of the public schools of Japan. These
soldiers, both veterans and youth, set a new standard of resourceful
valor, celerity of movement, temperance in living, ability to endure
hunger and hardship, and of self-abnegation in the presence of death.
To a Japanese patriot, life, apart from duty, has no value. On the 1st
of May, this “public school army,” under Kuroki, having crossed the
Yalu under fire, won a brilliant victory, capturing many guns and
prisoners. They had met European troops and beaten them in fair fight.
Then began the Japanese march through the old Border Gate and Feng-Wang
Chang or Phœnix Castle, and over the mountain range dividing the Yalu
from the Liao valley. The fortified passes were one after the other
carried in victorious assault, and in the early days of September both
Russian and Japanese main armies were marshalled before Liao Yang city,
southwest of the ruins of the ancient Corean stronghold, for one of the
great decisive battles of modern times and perhaps of human history.
During this time other armies were landed in Manchuria and by May 15th
Oku was in possession of the railway leading to Port Arthur. Dalny was
occupied May 26th, and later Yinkow and Niu Chwang came under the sun
banner. On August 25th Field-Marshal Oyama took command of all the
Japanese forces and the armies of Kuroki, Nodzu, and Oku.
After the great pitched battle in the early days of September, the
Mikado’s flag floated over Liao Yang, and Kuropatkin fell back on
Mukden, in masterly retreat.
From Port Arthur, girdled by a wall of fire and under a rain of shells,
the Czar’s battle-ships and cruisers made desperate efforts to escape,
only to be sunk, driven back, or, torn and riven, to seek shelter in
the ports of China, and elsewhere, their presence giving rise to
perplexing questions in international diplomacy.
As we close again, in the autumn of A.D. 1904, our story of the once
“hermit nation,” the Japanese, confronted with the practical
difficulties of assuming a real protectorate over Corea, while
nominally but sincerely striving to maintain her independence, are
still determined to control the peninsula as a vital possession. One
hundred miles of the Seoul-Fusal railway are in operation. The sound of
the blasting night and day in the deep rock-cuts near Seoul announce
their purpose to finish speedily a highway of steel to the Chinese
frontier. The real purpose of the war is the integrity of China, upon
which depends the safety of Japan, perhaps even the political salvation
of Asia.
CHAPTER LIII.
COREA A JAPANESE PROTECTORATE.
Having been responsible for two great foreign wars fought by Japan, it
was natural that at the end of each campaign the position of Corea
among nations should be notably altered. The war with the Middle
Kingdom blew to pieces the Chinese doctrine of universal sovereignty,
besides making the once vassal state independent. In name, at least,
Corea was made an empire. The war with Russia annihilated the dogma so
long held in Europe, that Asiatic nations exist for conquest and
spoliation, with the corollary that “the break-up of China” was
imminent. Japanese success in the war of 1894–95 was a vindication of
the American doctrine as expounded by men from the United States during
a century, and formulated by John Hay—“China for the Chinese.”
Had Corea been a state fitted, by the power of unselfish patriotism and
love of industry among her leaders, to survive amid modern political
and economic conditions, Japan’s triumph over Russia would have made
her all the stronger. Her independence would have been assured, had the
virtue of her own sons responded to the opportunity.
On the contrary, the history of Corea since 1866, as outlined on these
pages, reveals the fatal weakness of the ruling class in Corea. Instead
of giving themselves to patriotic sacrifice and personal industry, the
yang-ban, or men of privilege, have made their capital a hot-bed of
intrigue and Corea the storm centre of the Far East. Instead of
developing their own strength and the nation’s resources, they have
plied the arts of cunning and the crafts of the weak. Yet modern
civilization, rich in powerful governments, has no place for the weak.
Least of all is self-chosen weakness allowable.
Being neither skilful merchants like the Chinese, nor brave warriors
like the Japanese, the Corean noblemen—on whom lies the burden of
responsibility—might at least have imitated the good example of their
island neighbors. In Japan the outstanding event of modern times was
the renunciation, in 1871, by 400,000 knights or gentry, of their
hereditary pensions paid out of the public treasury. [62] After this
sacrifice, made in the interests of true patriotism, they put off their
swords and silk petticoats, got to work, paid taxes, and began to earn
an honest living. Even China has broken with her unsocial past and
conceit of perfection, and has entered upon the path of modern
civilization.
The Corean yang-ban abused their independence by intrigue. They failed
to discern that the petty arts of the plotter endangered their
existence as a nation. After her second great war, Japan saw clearly
that to allow her neighbor state, wherein there was no sharp
distinction between the Court and the Government, to remain, as of old,
the hot-bed of intrigue, would jeopard her own existence. She therefore
did for Corea what Great Britain has done for Egypt, the United States
for Cuba, and the French for Annam. Corea is now numbered among
protectorates.
When our narrative closed in September, 1904, the Japanese were
building a trunk line of railroad, nearly six hundred miles long, which
should traverse the whole peninsula from Fusan to Wiju (Ai-chiu, pp.
181, 364). Port Arthur had not surrendered. The real goal of the
Japanese armies, the city of Mukden, containing the mausoleums of the
Manchiu dynasty now ruling in Peking, “the possession of which would
put the heart of China in the palm of Japan’s hand,” was yet unreached.
Yet those who in the early seventies had helped to train the boys who
made the public-school army of Japan, had no fear of its ultimate
triumph.[62]
On the 3d of January, 1905, Port Arthur was formally surrendered, and
its evacuation completed January 7th. The main Japanese army fronting
Mukden was quickly reënforced by Nogi’s division on the left, or west,
and by Kawamura’s army, out of Corea, on the right, or east. The great
campaign of hard fighting, destined to last nearly a month, opened amid
a snow-storm on the 23d of February. By the 28th the fighting was
general along the whole front of nearly one hundred miles. On the 10th
of March Oku’s columns entered, by the southern gate, the city of
Mukden. The Russians lost nearly thirty thousand in dead and over forty
thousand prisoners. The Japanese pursuit northward lasted until April
14th.
On the 27th and 28th of March “the battle of The Sea of Japan” took
place, in which the Russian armada of thirty-eight modern ships of war
was, “by the grace of Heaven and the help of the gods,” annihilated.
By invitation of President Roosevelt, the envoys of the two warring
nations, de Witte and Rosen for Russia, and Komura and Takahira for
Japan (both of the latter the writer’s former pupils in Tokio), met at
Portsmouth, N. H.; whence, in the thirties, had sailed Captain Edmund
Roberts, commissioned by President Jackson, and the first American
diplomatist in the Far East. The Japanese won a signal diplomatic
victory, securing the main points of their contention.
The peace treaty which was signed recognized in the first article
Japan’s predominant position in Corea, political, military, economic,
as well as her right to supervise that country’s affairs and to protect
it, Russia agreeing not to obstruct Japan’s proceedings in any respect.
One of the first and worst results for Corea was the immediate entrance
within her borders of a horde of low-class, insolent Japanese
adventurers, who, by their cruelties and spoliations of natives, nearly
neutralized the well-meant plans of good men in Tokio.
Following up the results of the decisive war, the Mikado sent his
highly honored servant, Baron Komura, to Peking to arrange matters
amicably with China, and then turned his attention to Corea. The
protocol of March, 1904 (p. 495), had been quickly followed by the
abolition of the Peddlers’ Guild (so long used by pro-Russian
intriguers) and by the visit of Marquis Ito, who bore a reassuring
message of fraternity and good-will. Mr. I. Megata, one of the most
experienced and skilful officers of the Treasury Department in Tokio,
was sent to Seoul as financial adviser, and Mr. Durham Dwight Stevens,
an American gentleman, who united ability and tact to long and varied
experience in diplomacy in the Far East, accepted the post of assistant
at the Corean Foreign Office. These gentlemen, like all their
predecessors, encountered insuperable difficulties in dealing with a
government that was nominally carried on at the Council Board, but in
reality directed from the harem or by clan factions in secret intrigue.
Occupied so seriously with other matters, few attempts were made at
first by the Japanese Government in the interest of real reforms that
could benefit the Corean people. Meanwhile, it must be repeated, tens
of thousands of the Mikado’s subjects, many of them of the most
truculent temper and disreputable character, crowded into the
peninsula, committing acts of rapine and brutality which neutralized
many of the best measures of wise statesmen. When the proposition,
approved of in Tokio, was made that all uncultivated land in the
peninsula should be open to Japanese occupation and enterprise, and the
water rights and supply be shared by these aliens, the Corean people,
as a body, made systematic protest. All the circumstances considered,
this sudden act of virtual spoliation was a colossal blunder. In the
eyes of the Coreans it was not only “stealing water from another man’s
field”—so terrible a crime in lands of rice culture, where irrigation
is a vital necessity—but the theft of the very soil itself. At once a
storm of opposition arose that swept the peninsula from end to end. The
Corean Emperor was besieged with petitions to resist the Japanese
demands. A society called Po-an, for the preservation of safety and
peace, was formed, which met in Seoul in excited discussion, and began
the propagation of what seemed to the Japanese authorities a campaign
of sedition. The meetings of the Po-an were broken up by the police,
and the Japanese garrison of Seoul was augmented to six thousand men.
Though other Corean societies were formed, the excitement died out, the
Japanese not pushing their scheme, the Corean noblemen showing little
or no real patriotism, and the people little power of persistent unity.
On October 13, 1904, General Hasegawa took control of the military
situation.
Yet it is the simple truth to state that while the Japanese soldier,
superb in discipline and noble in human qualities, is respected by the
Corean, the low Japanese, who so often proves himself a rascal, is
feared and despised. It is unfortunate that these disreputable
characters were so long under such slight control from Tokio. On the
other hand, notwithstanding that Japan, in the treaty of 1904, had
guaranteed the independence of Corea, yet the Government in Seoul,
choked by palace cliques, languished in chronic feebleness. Unable to
keep order at home, to pay its legation bills abroad, or to separate
itself from that “Forbidden Interior” of mystery in the boudoir
inhabited by a mob of women, eunuchs and hangers-on, which curses
China, Corea, and so long cursed old Japan in both Yedo and Kioto, what
guarantee was there for the peace of Asia and the world? For the
preservation of this, the Mikado’s Government was responsible, while
every complication in Corea involved Japan also.
After long deliberation, the statesmen in Tokio agreed that the surest
exit out of the labyrinthine difficulty was to take charge of Corea’s
foreign relations and place a controller-general at the capital, with
subordinates at the chief cities and seaports, leaving internal affairs
to be directed from Seoul. The Mikado despatched Marquis Ito—“patient,
able, and authoritative”—to Seoul.
On the 17th of November, 1905, the Corean Emperor’s minister, Pak Che
Soon, and the Mikado’s representative, Hayashi, signed a treaty, of
which the following is the official translation into English:
The Governments of Japan and Corea, desiring to strengthen the
principle of solidarity which unites the two Empires, have with
that object in view agreed upon and concluded the following
stipulations to serve until the moment arrives when it is
recognized that Corea has attained national strength:—
Article I. The Government of Japan, through the Department of
Foreign Affairs at Tokio, will hereafter have control and direction
of the external relations and affairs of Corea, and the diplomatic
and consular representatives of Japan will have the charge of the
subjects and interests of Corea in foreign countries.
Art. II. The Government of Japan undertake to see to the execution
of the treaties actually existing between Corea and other Powers,
and the Government of Corea engage not to conclude hereafter any
act or engagement having an international character, except through
the medium of the Government of Japan.
Art III. The Government of Japan shall be represented at the Court
of His Majesty the Emperor of Corea by a Resident General, who
shall reside at Seoul, primarily for the purpose of taking charge
of and directing matters relating to diplomatic affairs. He shall
have the right of private and personal audience of His Majesty the
Emperor of Corea. The Japanese Government shall also have the right
to station Residents at the several open ports and such other
places in Corea as they may deem necessary. Such Residents shall,
under the direction of the Resident General, exercise the powers
and functions hitherto appertaining to Japanese Consuls in Corea,
and shall perform such duties as may be necessary in order to carry
into full effect the provisions of this agreement.
Art. IV. The stipulations of all treaties and agreements existing
between Japan and Corea not inconsistent with the provisions of
this agreement shall continue in force.
Art. V. The Government of Japan undertake to maintain the welfare
and dignity of the Imperial House of Corea.
In faith whereof the undersigned, duly authorized by the
Governments, have signed this agreement and affixed their seals.
[Signed] Hyashi Gonsuke,
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary.
[Signed] Pak Che Soon,
Minister for Foreign Affairs.
November 17, 1905.
Whatever may be the real history of the transfer thus made or the means
taken to secure the document, it is certain that the governments of
Europe and America were very prompt in withdrawing their legations from
Seoul and in acknowledging Japan’s supremacy. In Washington the minds
of the President and Secretary of State were quickly made up, because
of the local eccentricities of Corean envoys, unable to pay their
grocery bills, and despite the representations of more than one private
emissary. On the accession of Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency by
the election of the people and his change of diplomatic assistants,
Minister Horace N. Allen, long our able representative in Seoul, was
succeeded, in 1905, by Mr. Edwin Vernon Morgan, who had had experience
in Samoa, Corea, Russia, and China. He being appointed to another
position, the American legation in Seoul ceased, while the
consul-general and consuls were retained as before.
Meanwhile, under the energetic action of the Resident General Ito, real
reforms were inaugurated and disorderly Japanese characters arrested
and either sent out of the country or made to give pledges for good
behavior. The whole prospect of things brightened.
At a banquet given in his honor by his countrymen in Seoul, April 8,
1906, the Marquis Ito spoke as follows:
“According to what His Corean Majesty has repeatedly condescended to
say to me, I may be permitted to believe that I have the honor to enjoy
his confidence and trust in no small measure. He has on more than one
occasion been pleased to assure me that he wished to rely upon my loyal
services for the regeneration of the Corean Administration. His Majesty
has also given orders to his Ministers to carry out this work of
regeneration under my direction and guidance. As for the Corean
Ministers, they have assured me of their determination to do their
utmost to this end; they say that an opportunity like the present will
not occur again, and, as a matter of fact, they are now actively
engaged in the work of regeneration.”
Apparently these words were as honestly applauded by the Corean
Emperor’s servants as they were believed to be true by the speaker
himself. In mutual confidence, Corean military officers were duly
appointed, and both General Hasegawa and the Marquis Ito left with them
for Japan, to witness the grand review of the returning victorious
Japanese armies from Manchuria, which was held in Tokio April 30th.
The opportunity for intrigue and conspiracy created by the absence of
the two great men was too tempting to be lost by the factions of the
boudoir and its inmates. The Corean Conservative and Progressive
parties kept warring among themselves, hatching plots in which even the
emperor’s privy councillors, palace eunuchs, and officers of the
Imperial household were active. Two lines of policy looking to domestic
and foreign disturbance were mapped out by the conspirators. One
utilized the distress and almost chronic troubles in the southwestern
provinces, the other was based on the hope of Russian intervention. The
plot was planned by yang-ban in the palace itself.
In Chung Chong Do (p. 194) a Min and in Chulla Do (p. 199) a Choi
nobleman led the insurrections. Antiquated muskets, matchlocks, swords,
and spears were laid in store against the Japanese. In Kang-wen Do (p.
208), also, troubles were reported. Four police (out of the 350 then in
all Corea) were sent from the Residency in Seoul, but they were killed
or driven away. The Corean provincial troops being supine, two
companies of Japanese infantry were sent to the city. Attacking in
daylight in order to spare the peaceful non-combatants, the soldiers
blew up the gates with dynamite. After some street fighting the city
was in the hands of the military, 69 Coreans being killed and 145 made
prisoners. It was hoped that this affair would end further
insurrection.
But in a land so long governed by the sorcerer, where the means of
communication are slight and the people lack education and mental
initiative, news travels slowly. Choi, in the more southern city, held
out. Murderous attacks on Japanese settlers and fishermen continued.
The Wi-pion party, representing inveterate conservatism, sided with the
insurgents, while the Il Ching-hoi, or Liberal Progressive, set to work
to unearth evidence and expose the Conservative plotters. Giving
information at the Residency in Seoul, five high officers, Kim, Choi,
Min, Hong, etc., of the Corean Court or Government, including a eunuch,
were arrested. The twofold plan, first, to make the world believe that
the whole Corean people was opposed to the Japanese protectorate, and
second, to enlist Russian cooperation, was exposed. One immediate
result of forcing the Japanese military hand was the quick surrender of
Choi to Corean soldiers in Chulla Do. In his camp was found
authorization from Seoul, sealed with the vermilion seal of the palace,
to raise troops. Thus collapsed the plot for internal disturbance. [63]
The prospect of drawing Russia again into hostilities which might free
Corea from the Japanese yoke shows the weak spot in the Russo-Chinese
negotiations of Ignatieff in 1860 (p. 371). In the delimitation of
frontiers then made, a strip of country containing nearly 3,000 square
miles, called Han-do, or Island Circuit, between the Tumen and its
affluent, the Hai-lan River, which, beginning about seventy-five miles
from the sea, flows nearly parallel, was left as neutral territory to
be uninhabited. This region is shown on the maps (pp. 210, 365), and
though the Chinese characters describe an island, it is interfluvial
only. In reality the land, being very fertile, did in course of time
attract many settlers, both Chinese and Corean. When Russia began to
assert her strenuous policy in the Far East, she demanded that this
neutral strip should be cleared of Coreans, or that all settlers in
this region between the rivers should be enrolled as Chinese subjects.
The Japanese War coming on in 1904, nothing further was done. Since
Russia, by the Portsmouth treaty, controls the railways of Kirin, she
may by holding this region control the trade routes to the seaboard.
Here then was the bait to make the Russian bear bite. One of the Kims,
an anti-Japanese ultra-conservative, secured a commission from the
Corean Emperor appointing him virtually governor of this Hai-lan
region. At Vladivostok, through the infamous pro-Russian Li Yong Ik and
M. Pavloff, the late envoy of the Czar in Corea, the Court of St.
Petersburg was to be sounded on the possibility of gaining control of
this strategic territory.
If it be asked, what ground of hope Kim Hseung-mun had of success, it
must be remembered that while all other foreign consuls in Corea, under
the new order of things, had received their exequaturs, or
authorizations, from the Emperor of Japan, the new Russian
Consul-General, M. Plancon, claimed that he should be recognized by the
Corean and not the Japanese emperor, thus ignoring Corea’s denunciation
of her old treaty with China and the convention of November 17, 1905.
The Russian envoy, for a little while or until he withdrew his
contention, consciously or unconsciously, gave encouragement to the
Corean conspirator, Kim. This whole plot to embroil Russia and Japan
was frustrated, getting no further than the palace, while the surrender
of Choi in Chulla Do was made sure by the arrest, on the night of June
8th, of the chief conspirators as they were leaving the palace. The
Liberals had turned state’s evidence.
Without impeaching the Corean Emperor, the Japanese Government removed
his evil advisers and resolved to persevere in using what authority he
still possesses for the good of the Corean people—as their protectors
see it.
That policy requires the public finance of Corea to be known in ledgers
and budgets, with strict accountability for every dollar; the purging
of the palace, and the thorough differentiation of Court and
Government, and of the “boudoir” from the council table; the creation
of a public school system; the building of a railway from Ping An to
Gen san; a coinage and stable monetary system; the reform of prison
methods and the judiciary; the reclamation of the vast quantities of
waste land; the encouragement of all moral forces; the development of
trade, commerce, and industry; and last, but not least, the severe
handling of unprincipled and truculent Japanese; or, in general, a
policy of righteousness and conciliation that must overcome the
traditional hatred between the Coreans and the Japanese. To make the
yang-ban get to work and earn their own living will be the great
blessing to this long-oppressed land. If Japan can satisfy the
enlightened judgment of the world that Corea is exploited for the good
primarily of the Coreans and not the Japanese, humanity will approve
and rejoice. The accomplished author of “The Passing of Korea,” which
contains the severest arraignment of the Japanese thus far made, passes
this verdict on the situation:
“The Koreans have awakened to the fact that this, which should have
been their first consideration many years ago, is now their last
resort, and they are clamoring for education.... Korea can gain nothing
by holding back and offering to the plans of Japan a sulky resistance.
They are face to face with a definite condition, and theories as to the
morality of the forces which brought about the condition are wholly
academic.”
CHAPTER LIV.
CHŌ-SEN: A PROVINCE OF JAPAN.
Chō-sen is the official name of the country described in this volume
and now a province of Japan, as declared in the Act of Annexation of
August, 1910. Thus its oldest name, now to be better known to the
world, is also its newest. Since 1392 the natives have known no other.
The Chinese characters for Chō-sen, or Morning Calm, were stamped on
the first and earlier editions of this book. The Japanese name of the
capital is Kéijo.
By the Russo-Japanese war, Corea was saved from being a Russian
province and the king and court given the supreme occasion of reform,
which, if carried out, would mean new national life. Corea would have
remained a sovereign state, had the chief ruler and the governing
classes risen to their opportunity.
It was not to be. With despotism in the palace and a lettered class
bound in cast-iron traditions, but profoundly ignorant of the world and
the century, there lay beneath an oppressed populace, steeped in
superstition, for which the Government did nothing. Lacking an
intelligent middle class between, reform in Corea, except from without,
was perhaps morally impossible.
Old Corea, an unreformed Oriental state, with all the features
inseparably associated with such a society, was thus described by Lord
Curzon in 1894:
“A royal figure-head, enveloped in the mystery of the palace and the
harem, surrounded by concentric rings of eunuchs, Ministers of State,
officials and retainers, and rendered almost intangible by the
predominant atmosphere of intrigue; a hierarchy of office-holders and
office-seekers, who are leeches in the thinnest disguise; a feeble and
insignificant army, an impecunious exchequer, a debased currency, and
an impoverished people—these are the invariable symptoms of the
fast-vanishing régime of the older and unredeemed Oriental type. Add to
these the first swarming of the flock of foreign practitioners who
scent the enfeebled constitution from afar and from the four winds of
Heaven come pressing their pharmacopœia of loans, concessions, banks,
mints, factories, and all the recognized machinery for filling Western
purses at the expense of Eastern pockets, and you have a fair picture
of Korea as she stands after ten years of emergence from her long
seclusion and enjoyment of the intercourse of the nations.”
Corea as represented by the yang-ban, or ruling class, numbering with
their families 200,000 souls, was dragged suddenly out into the world’s
light and confronted with vital problems. Without that long interior
intellectual preparation which enabled Japan in the nick of time to
meet her new duties, the Coreans were neither able nor willing to
grapple with the colossal tasks awaiting them. Yet this was no fault of
the plain people, for it is to their credit that they welcomed
foreigners. Except a morbid curiosity as to alien persons and ways,
they have ever shown kindness, and politeness so far as they knew it.
With amazing promptness the spiritually hungry and thirsty masses have
responded with grateful appreciation to what their foreign teachers
brought them. One secret of their readiness and docility lies in the
fact that they were glad to be delivered from the oppression of rulers,
whose one idea of government meant the grinding of the people for
private benefit.
After the treaty of November 17, 1905, by which a Resident-General from
Japan was established in Seoul, and which took control of the foreign
relations and affairs of the little kingdom, it was found that few of
those who could have effected national reform gave any indication of
their desire to do so. In 1907 a fresh agreement was made, “with the
object of speedily providing for the wealth of Corea and of promoting
its welfare,” and the Japanese Government spent millions of dollars in
schemes of practical advantage to the Coreans. When, after four years,
it was found that the age-old abuses continued, and reform by natives
seemed impossible, the formal annexation of Corea was consummated on
August 29, 1910. The full text of the treaty, in eight articles, with
preamble, etc., and English translation, is printed in the Journal of
International Law (Revue de Droit International) for December, 1910,
published in Tokio.
The Amalgamation Convention provides: [64]
“(1) The Emperor of Corea shall concede to the Emperor of Japan the
Corean sovereignty, together with all territorial rights.
“(2) The Sovereign Imperial Household is to be treated as a
quasi-Imperial Family of Japan, continuing to have the annual allowance
of 1,500,000 yen, while members of the Imperial Family and meritorious
persons of the country are to be created peers, or endowed with certain
grants.
“(3) The name Corea shall be changed into ‘Chō-sen.’
“(4) The Corean Cabinet being abolished, the Residency-General shall be
changed into a government of Governor-General, while as to the
administrative business and customs tariff, there will be no change for
the present.”
The cost to Japan of the amalgamation is estimated at yen, 30,000,000,
or $15,000,000. Seventy-five Coreans of distinguished families were
created peers of Japan, and the monetary grants in yen were conferred
as follows: to a baron, 50,000; to a viscount, 100,000; to a count,
150,000; and to a marquis, 200,000. As with the kugé, or court nobles,
to prevent waste, the principal is retained in the Imperial Treasury,
and the interest promptly paid at frequent intervals. Provision has
been made for other meritorious persons, and the military conscription
will not be put in force for ten years yet. Meanwhile, besides
thousands of Corean students in Tokio, delegations of leading men and
women of Chō-sen have visited and travelled in Japan.
It has always been a sore spot with the Coreans that the United States
refused to intervene, though in the first article of the treaty of May
22, 1882, promise was made that “if other Powers deal unjustly or
oppressively with either Government, the other will exert their good
offices, on being informed of the case, to bring about an amicable
arrangement, thus showing their friendly feeling.” Yet apart from the
settled policy of non-intervention in the affairs of foreign nations,
the United States was but one of several nations that, with a
significant promptness and unanimity, gladly called home their
legations and handed over the control of Corea to Japan.
There is nothing mysterious to the student in the loss of Corea’s
sovereignty and her absorption in the Japanese Empire. A survey of her
history and a view of the world’s movement since 1866 shows inexorably
the law of cause and effect. It was the weakness of Corea to be not
only shut off from the world, but in her hermitage so to exaggerate
antiquity and its importance as to leave the nation helpless in the
modern clash of civilizations, when Orient and Occident are meeting to
merge into one world society. The first infirmity of the Coreans of
insular mind arises from long contact with the history and literature
of the Chinese. Stimulating to the intellect, this has paralyzed mental
initiative and swamped originality. The Corean imagined that China’s
was the beginning and end of all wisdom. Added to this was the delusion
that a knowledge of letters was in itself sufficient to preserve both
society and national sovereignty.
Old Japan suffered frightfully, but not fatally, from the same disease.
In Corea’s case, this insanity of literary pride was exaggerated into a
crime when, after 1392, the popular religion was ruthlessly destroyed,
the people robbed of their teachers, and the country given over to
superstition and ignorance by a Government which Lieutenant Foulk, in
1883, after prolonged tours within the country and study of the details
of administration, declared was but armed robbery.
There was no political or social unity in the Corean peninsula until
the tenth century. The chief force in welding together the various
tribes and peoples into the astonishing unity and similarity now
visible among the people and villages from Quelpart to the Ever White
Mountain was Buddhism. The missionaries of this faith, coming from
Thibet and China, gave the peninsulars art, architecture, literature,
folk-lore, a noble path of morals for guidance in this life, vast
consolations for the future, and pretty much everything that means
culture, refinement, and civilization. In very early days, before
Mikadoism in Japan was formulated into a militant dogma, the islanders
and the peninsulars, the Japanese and the Coreans, were virtually one
and the same people, and in about the same stage of civilization. In
the reaction of nature upon man and of man upon nature, during ten
centuries, the two peoples were differentiated, and the two
languages—almost exactly the same in structure, thus proving their
common origin—developed their vocabulary and local pronunciation. The
two nations, according to their ethnic mixtures, heredity and
environment, grew further and further apart. Nevertheless, to-day,
after a millennium of separation, the underlying elements are so much
greater than the surface differences that the prospects of an
amalgamation of the two peoples are decidedly promising.
In the main, the history of Corea is like its landscape. Her political
annals, as thus far studied, seem like monotonous undergrowth among
which loom indistinct figure-heads. As bare as her desolated coast or
denuded mountains, the scene in historic perspective reminds one of the
peninsula’s lava beds, her square leagues of disintegrated granite, or
her waste lands, out of which rise sculptured rocks, and whence emerge
the Miryeks, or stone colossi, amid ruins surrounded with forests. To a
native scholar his nation’s chronicles are not without a rugged
grandeur of their own, besides a rich coloring that recalls the
rock-scenery of Corea when looked at in the sunlight.
To the alien student, Buddhism looms as the chief civilizer and the
mother of popular culture. It is certain that during its thousand years
of growth and prosperity in the peninsula the people were as one flock
led by one shepherd. They were trained in what was at least beautiful
and human. Corea’s debt to Buddhism is unspeakable. Even to-day, in the
land so often invaded, desolated, peeled, and scraped by Tartar,
Chinese, and Japanese marauders, and raided by men from countries
called Christian, almost everything that remains to touch the
imagination, whether in architecture, rock sculpture, stone colossus,
pagoda, in art, and even in literature, apart from erudition, is of
Buddhist origin.
When, after A.D. 1392, the popular faith was banned, its temples,
schools, monasteries, and works of art destroyed or doomed to decay,
its priesthood socially outlawed and oppressed even to beggary, the
people were left to ignorance and superstition and were as sheep
without shepherds. They became the prey alike of the ruling classes and
of sorcerers and fortune-tellers, who, though densely ignorant, lived
by their wits and wickedness. Parasitic spoilers of all sorts, from the
palace to the hovel, thrived, while the people, the foundation of the
state, existed on life’s narrowest margins. Confucianism, as made into
a state ritual since 1392, and as interpreted and developed by the
yang-ban, or educated and office-holding classes, meant neglect of the
land, the grinding of the people’s faces, the permanent destruction of
popular wealth and comfort, the paralysis of the motives to industry,
and the creation of a standing army of inquisitors, office-seekers, and
office-holders, and their satellites and hangers-on, with headquarters
in Seoul. In place of the spiritual bread of Buddhism, the new régime
offered a stone. In government, instead of the egg for nourishment,
they proffered a scorpion—even chronic extortion. A great gulf was
fixed socially between the men to whom education meant the stifling of
original thought, a ban on mental initiative and the oppression of the
people. Monopoly of office and privilege, as held by one class, meant
systematic robbery of the populace, the Government itself being an
engine of oppression by which fewer than one-quarter million yang-ban
subsisted upon eleven million of the common folk.
When reform was called for which meant public benefit, apart from
private rapine or individual advantage, manual as well as clerkly
labor, continuous and unselfish toil with only slight pecuniary reward,
the average high-class native proved a total failure. Despite the
purging from the palace of several hundred women, and over a thousand
male persons who drew salaries, the remainder within, or parasitic to
royalty, proved worthless for the remaking of the nation.
Ever under the spell of the Chinese characters, saturated with the
ideas of Confucianism run to seed, having only one ideal of
life—selfish advantage and the subordination of the lower
classes—devoted to their sensual enjoyments, their long pipes, and
their liquor, to checker-playing, gossip, and elaborate idleness, the
yang-ban during five centuries did nothing to develop the soil or the
resources of the country. On the contrary, the office-holding class
systematically hindered the development of wealth, or even thrift, by
extortion, unjust taxes, and dishonest manipulation of imposts, which
were paid in kind instead of in coin, by exactions or forced loans
never repaid—usually under the menace and reality of beating, torture,
and imprisonment. One innovation under the Japanese rule, which made
taxes payable in cash and not in kind, wrought infinite blessing to the
people and carried consternation to the army of extortioners.
In the modern world-life, Japan and Corea are as necessary to each
other as are man and woman. It soon became evident to the Tokio
Government, after every step, that some stronger remedy than advice
would be necessary to heal the age-old and deep-seated Corean disease
that seemed as incurable as leprosy. Hence the measures of 1907, which
put into the hands of the Mikado’s Resident-General still greater
powers.
To this work of reforming Corea, Nippon gave her ablest son, one who,
both in feudal and constitutional Japan, had dedicated his life to
promoting the evolution of the modern man. The statesmanship of Ito was
that of a lover of humanity, who might well, after long and
multifarious labors, have taken the rest which he craved and which his
physical condition demanded. Nevertheless, with his unique experience
and amazing abilities, he applied himself with unremitting toil to lead
the once hermit nation into the twentieth century. According to Ito’s
motto, “The secret of statesmanship consists in securing the
contentment of the people.” He was all the better fitted for his
colossal task by having known so well the late feudal Nippon with its
political diseases. Neglect of the people and of the soil, official
falsehood, and class oppression were characteristic of both countries.
Ito took all the more encouragement because life in Chō-sen was but the
mirror of that in old Japan. Having fought belated feudalism and
grappled with the new problems of a modern state in Asia, none was
better equipped than he for the task of making a progressive nation out
of a people whose mental eyes were set even further back in their heads
than those of the Chinese.
For while China boasts of Confucius, Corea penetrates further into the
primitive. She hails as the founder of her social order, Kija (Ki-Tsze,
or Kishi, pp. 11–15), the distant ancestor of the Chinese sage. On this
nursery fairy tale of the nation—since the peninsulars knew nothing of
writing until, long after the Christian era, they obtained the Chinese
ideographs—every Corean for a thousand years or more has been brought
up. The early mythology and legend of the peninsulars are about as
trustworthy as those of the neighboring islanders, whose conceit of
antiquity was once fully as great and whose official and orthodox
chronology was fixed and published so long ago as A.D. 1872!
This myth of Kija, as the actual founder of civilization east of the
Yalu, took its literary form only in the eighth century, when the
Coreans had become saturated with Chinese ideas. Then the peninsulars,
made acquainted with Chinese historiography, and having but one model
before them, faithfully followed it (as did the Japanese also), the
Coreans surpassing even the greater nation in pride of antiquity and in
the glorification of heroes, who loom up in vaster proportions
according as the unrecorded centuries multiply and recede into the
past. Historical science has already begun to change this perspective
of antiquity as surely as hospitals have furnished object-lessons in
the law of cause and effect. Corean gods and demons, more numerous even
than old Japan’s mythical menagerie and pantheon, are being steadily
banished to the realms of fairy-land. [65]
Ito, scorning delights and living laborious days, continued the labors,
but vastly enlarged the plans of his predecessors. First of all, having
deported hundreds of the bad subjects of the Mikado and curbed the
rapacity and brutality of his own countrymen, he applied himself
unceasingly to healing the wounds of war, to indemnifying the unjustly
impoverished natives, and to giving Corea what she never had—or, if
possessed of, had allowed to lapse during the five hundred years of the
dynasty that had destroyed the people’s religion and had done nothing
for national development. A system of good roads, honest coinage and
currency, courts and justice, popular education, afforestation of the
mountains, improvement of the soil through scientific agriculture and
reclamation of waste land, preventive hygiene, honest taxation and
collection now exists. Ito cleansed the palace, separating the
functions of Court and Government, lessening by fifty per cent. the
number of persons paid from the public treasury, both male and female,
removing as far as possible the king and his advisers from the great
mob of sorcerers, fortune-tellers, geomancers, and others who prey upon
the Corean people. The deposition of the incompetent emperor and the
installation of his son in power were followed by the education of the
crown prince in Tokio.
The difficulties in the way of reform were appalling. The principal
obstacles existed in the two classes of which Corean society is
composed—oppressors and oppressed. The yang-ban, or privileged men,
with more or less scholarship of a Chinese kind, seemed to have no
conception of patriotism apart from pelf. Their chief trait was
political vampirism. On the other hand, the supine attitude of the
common people, accustomed for centuries to systematic oppression, was
discouraging. To them even decent government, that is, the kind which
could be tolerated to the point of rebellion, meant the grace of their
masters and rule without robbery. One of the striking features of
nearly every Corean town or city is seen in the long rows of tablets in
stone or iron that celebrate the merits of “good,” that is, fairly
decent, governors. A collection of all the local instruments of
torture, stacked in one museum, would be impressive and furnish fuel
for a vast conflagration.
In education, progress was hampered by the general prevalence of
fanaticism on the subject of “race suicide” and in the absurd measures
taken for its prevention—measures that largely tend to hinder the end
in view. In Corea the marriage and birth rate may possibly be in excess
of that of any country in the world, while, almost as matter of course,
and as a scientific corollary, the same may be said of the death rate,
which, owing to superstition, ignorance, and dirt, is appalling. Corea,
despite shining white clothes, is not a land of bath-tubs. In the
schools, nearly all the boys were found to be married, and to girls
older than themselves. These over-mature youths, of antediluvian frame
of mind, too often seem to have eyes set too far back in their heads,
which fix their gaze on duties appropriate to the time of Confucius
rather than of the twentieth century.
We have glanced at this subject before. Yet even to-day, with all the
advantages afforded them, there is danger. Expecting, like their
fathers before them, to be verse-makers, to quote from the ancient
Chinese, to be literary, and to hold office, because of a knowledge of
the characters, the young Corean yang-ban are indifferent to useful
progress and scorn manual labor. Having already lost nearly everything,
they will, unless radically changed in mind, lose all. The one hope of
Chō-sen is the raising up in a generation, now under new influences, of
a new type of humanity. The Christian schools and churches are
supplying this need.
Indeed, the fall of yang-banism and the extinction of Corea’s
sovereignty means Buddhism’s opportunity. It will be both logical and
natural that one of the first effects of Christian missions will be, as
in Japan, to quicken the spirit and improve the form and power of the
older religion. Nor ought missionaries fear its vigorous competition,
should it become potent for the abolition of demon-worship and the
moral uplift of the masses otherwise neglected, especially in
out-of-the-way places.
Unfortunately, Corea of mediæval mind, like barbarous Japan of not so
many years ago, sought a remedy for supposed wrongs in assassination.
Rashly unintelligent, sword and bullet were resorted to in order to
stop the car of progress. Quick to misjudge and impatient to wait for
results, the assassin selected as his first victims his country’s best
friends. The weak and disappointed tried suicide as a remedy and
deterrent. The insurgents in the so-called Righteous Army, too often
were robbers of their own people. In the name of patriotism they
attempted redress, seeking to turn back “modern civilization which
rides on a powder cart.” The list of Coreans who in cowardice or
discouragement died by their own hands, who were slaughtered by their
own compatriots, who fell beneath the bullets or the swords of rebels
in civil strife, or who were mown down by the resistless fire of the
Japanese infantry, is sadly great. [66]
The Mikado’s soldiers were perhaps frequently unable to distinguish
between the deserving and the undeserving. Their actions are not
absolutely free from criticism. Yet with unrestrained frankness the
statistics of the military operations are given in the Annual Reports
on Reforms and Progress in Korea, in 1907, 1908–9, and 1909–10. From
July, 1907, when the riots broke out in Seoul, on account of the
disbanding of the Corean army, to the end of 1908, there were of
Japanese soldiers 179 killed and 277 wounded, besides 67 Japanese
residents killed in 1907 and 16 in 1908. Of Corean insurgents, 14,566
were “killed.” Besides positive military measures, the Corean Emperor’s
rescripts urging those in arms to submit quietly were effective, and
the total of those who surrendered and were pardoned to December 13,
1907, was 8,728. During the fiscal year 1909 the Japanese lost 38 men,
but the number of insurgents killed (3,001), wounded, captured, or
surrendered was 6,131. Those in arms who yielded or asked pardon were
given employment in road-making and other useful occupations. By 1911,
most of the activity of native insurgent bands had degenerated into the
work of mere banditti. Military movements on a large scale were not
required, and much of the desolation of villages was repaired with
better hope of more comfortable existence. Frightful as is this frank
showing, it is doubtful whether more lives were lost in the suppression
of rebellion, from 1907 to 1911, than in the nearly chronic anarchy
that prevailed in the southern provinces during the previous decade and
a half.
The Annual Reports above referred to show by text, pictures, and
statistics, not only the purpose and results of the Japanese
Government, but also the fearful cost of restoring order, a cost of
life and treasure aggravated both by natives who have not scrupled to
use the torch, the mulct, and the assassin’s weapon on their own native
soil, and by foreigners who, in the name of liberty, abused the freedom
of the press and kept the useless and dangerous embers of sedition in a
flame. Not satisfied with murder at home, Coreans have made the United
States, already the happy hunting ground of the Black Hand and the
lyncher, the arena of their cowardly exploits.
After Mr. Durham White Stevens, an American of long experience in the
Far East, and Diplomatic Adviser to the Corean Government, had been
shot and killed in San Francisco by a Corean, the most shining mark was
Corea’s best friend, Ito. Made a prince and rewarded with every mark of
honor possible to a subject by the Emperor of Japan, this man who, in
unquailing discharge of his duty, had already braved the Japanese
feudal sword wielded by cowards in Choshiu, and the infuriated Tokio
mob in constitutional Japan, and who seemed immune from the assassins
of which old Japan raised such a luxuriant crop, fell in Manchuria at
the Harbin railway station, on October 26, 1909, before the bullets of
the petty revenger, who shot from behind. Amid the grief and the honor
of the whole world, on November 4, 1909, Ito was given a State funeral
such as has been bestowed upon few subjects of Japan. Ito shed his
blood in the cause of peace. Whether these assassinations hastened the
absorption of Corea by Japan, and the blotting out of a sovereignty
unknown to the world until Japan, by peaceful diplomacy, conferred it
in 1876, is not known. The Emperor at once appointed General Viscount
Terauchi, then Minister of War, and already famous for his brilliant
military record and notable organizing abilities, to be the successor
of Ito in Corea. The record for energetic action, consummate tact, and
ceaseless toil already made by Terauchi places his name very near that
of Ito as a modern civilizer and lover of the victories of peace even
more than those of war.
Despite all the instances of individual wrong, private injustices, and
public mistakes made by the Japanese in Corea, and in view of the
severe criticisms of Terauchi by such leading Japanese newspapers as
the Kokumin and Kochi, it is nevertheless manifest that the policy of
the Tokio Government is antipodally the reverse of that of Hidéyoshi.
Instead of the Ear-tomb, and the scooping of Corea clean of her
artists, artisans, potters, and art treasures, there rise to-day the
school, the hospital, and the temples of justice and finance. Plans are
being perfected for the development of the soil and of the wealth of
the nation, in the interest of the people, while to the missionary and
alien philanthropist is given all encouragement. A new land survey is
in operation for the equalization of taxes. Light-houses have reduced
the dangers of a foggy and treacherous coast. Harbor works are in
course of construction; well-made common roads are decreasing the
difficulty of transport; while these and the highways of steel
continually increase the value of the arable lands and of town lots.
Rivers, even the wide Yalu and Han, are spanned by bridges. Many a
place, historic because of war, is now famous for its commercial and
industrial development. Piracy gives way before policemen in steam
launches, and chronic brigandage is dying out. In all that relates
directly to humanity, the reform of the judiciary methods of justice,
prison procedure, the codification of laws, etc., the progress is
marvellous. At the head of the judicial department is a Christian,
Judge Watanabé, and many men of this faith, Japanese and Corean, fill
other high offices. Special schools, of medicine, surgery, nursing,
scientific agriculture, forestry, live-stock improvement and manual
training, are preparing young men and women to raise the standard of
human life in Chō-sen and to reclaim the sixty-six per cent. of the
arable land in the peninsula which has lain waste.
The absorption of Corea by Japan has given the astonishingly successful
Christian missionary work a new environment, and one for the better,
despite the manifest dangers of misunderstanding arising temporarily
from the political situation and the eager readiness of a few Japanese
press correspondents to misrepresent. With full religious liberty, and
under the protection of a firm, orderly, and impartial government, the
great work of raising up the new type of man and woman in Chō-sen, now
one of the most promising of mission fields, proceeds. In the Christian
household, numbering roughly about 200,000, we discern the best promise
for Chō-sen’s future. Into his new world of hope and cheer, the native,
when enlightened and converted, brings the richest inheritances of the
national culture, the best results of his training, and the most
winning traits of his character. This is strikingly shown in the
general eagerness to read and study the Holy Scriptures, in the
wonderful powers of memory, and in the committing of large portions of
the Bible, which is now accessible in the vernacular. The native’s
generosity, good-nature, power of self-support, mutual desire and
practice of helpfulness, patience, and power to endure persecution of
any and all sorts fit him admirably for Christian service.
Christianity has come to Corea to reveal the national treasures that
are enduring. For centuries the beautiful phonetic alphabet, en-mun,
and syllabary Nido (p. 47), lay neglected and scorned by the learned.
Yet this was but one of many elements of potency for good that lay
unused like barren rocks. At the smiting of the missionaries’ hand of
faith gushed forth the waters of life and healing. The new messages of
hope and salvation came to the people not only in their own tongue, but
in their own script. Christian teachers, after long years of
discouragement, have made, through the patience of hope, of love and
sympathy, a real conquest of the Corean heart. The faces of men and
women are lighted up with a new glow of interest in life here and
hereafter as they find both body and soul ministered to by their
friends from afar. With this spiritual invitation and challenge to
enter into the promised land fully accepted by the Coreans, it is not
too wild a dream to imagine even the strong conqueror conquered by the
weaker. Samson’s experience and his riddle may be the Corean’s. Chō-sen
may yet be to Nippon what Palestine was to Greece and Rome. Bereft of
political sovereignty, from the land of the Hebrews went forth that
salvation which “is of the Jews” to conquer Europe and the world.
Already, by closer contact of the humbler classes of the two nations on
Corean soil, the paganism of rustic Japan—hitherto almost untouched by
the gospel—begins to disintegrate and ferment because of the leaven
brought from Christian Chō-sen. This has the Corean left—and perhaps
more abundantly than ever before—“power to become” the spiritual
regenerator of Japan.
NOTES
[1] There are colossal stone images at Pe-chiu (Pha-jiu) in the capital
province, and at Un-jin in Chung-chong Dō. The former, discovered by
Lieutenant J. G. Bernadon, U.S.N., are in the midst of a fir-wood, and
are carved in half-figure out of bowlders in place, the heads and caps
projecting over the tops of the trees. One wears a square cap and the
other a round one, from which Mr. G. W. Aston conjectures that they
symbolize the male and female elements in nature (p. 329). At Un-jin in
Chung-chong Dō Mr. G. C. Foulke, U.S.N., saw, at a distance of fifteen
miles, what seemed to be a lighthouse. On approach, this half-length
human figure proved to be a pinnacle of white granite, sixty-four feet
high, cut into a representation of Buddha. Similar statues may perhaps
be discovered elsewhere. Coreans call such figures miryek (stone men,
as the Chinese characters given in the French-Corean dictionary read),
or miriok, from the Chinese Mi-lē, or Buddha. (In Japanese, the Buddha
to come is Miroku-butsu—a verbal coincidence.) Professor Terrien de
Lacouperie has written upon this theme with great learning. Besides the
lop-ears, forehead-mark, and traditional countenance seen in the
Buddhas of Chinese Asia, there is on the Un-jin figure a very high
double cap, on which are set two slabs of stone joined by a central
column, suggesting both the ceremonial cap of ancient Chinese ritual
and the Indian pagoda-like umbrella. These miriok stand in what was
once Hiaksai. In his “Life in Corea,” Mr. Carles gives a picture of the
one at Un-jin. Smaller ones exist near monasteries and temples.
[2] The story, told in full in the Heiké Monogatari, is given in
English in “Japanese Fairy World.”
[3] The Mikado’s Empire, Chapters XIII. and XIV.
[4] The Identity of the Great Conqueror, Genghis Khan, with the
Japanese Hero Yoshitsuné, by K. Suyematz of Japan. London, 1879.
[5] See Howorth’s History of the Mongols, London, 1876.
[6] Beginning at the most northern and eastern, and following the sea
line south around up to the northeast, they are:
Corean. Japanese. English.
1. Ham-kiung, or Kan-kiō dō. Perfect Mirror, or Complete View
Province.
2. Kang-wen, or Ko-gen dō. Bay Meadow Province.
3. Kiung-sang, or Kei-shō dō. Respectful Congratulation
Province.
4. Julla, or Zen-ra dō. Completed Network Province.
5. Chung-chong, or Chiu-sei dō. Serene Loyalty Province.
6. Kiung-kei, or Kei-ki dō. The Capital Circuit, or Home
Province.
7. Whang-hai, or Ko-kai dō. Yellow Sea Province.
8. Ping-an, or Hei-an dō Peace and Quiet Province.
In this table we have given the names in English which approximate the
sounds of the Chinese characters, with which names of the provinces are
written, and as they are heard to-day in Chō-sen. The modern Coreans
use the modern Chinese sounds of the characters, while the Japanese
cling to the ancient Chinese pronunciation of the same characters as
they received them through Hiaksai and Shinra, eleven or twelve
centuries ago. The old pure Corean sounds were Teru-ra tai for Zen-ra
dō, Tsiku-shaku tai for Chiu-sei dō, Keku-shaku tai for Kei-ki dō, etc.
[7] Their line of march, as shown in the Japanese histories, was to
Sen-ken, October 11th; to Kumu-san, where they experienced the first
frost; to Kumui, October 12th; to Chin-zon; to Funki; to Shaku-shiu; to
Koran; to Chin-zen. These are names of places in Chulla and
Chung-chong, expressed in the Japanese and old Corean pronunciation.
[8] Mr. Pierre L. Jouy, of the Smithsonian Institute, who in 1884 spent
six months in Corea in zoological collecting and research, says: “No
monkeys or alligators are found in Corea. I am at a loss to understand
how the alligator story originated.” Was the alleged animal the giant
salamander, or the aké? Japanese art and legend refer often to
alligators.
[9] Hun-chun is in Chinese Manchuria. The Russian possessions south of
Victoria Bay extend but a few miles from the mouth of the Tumen.
[10] See “The Meeting of the Star Lovers,” in Japanese Fairy World.
[11] This flag was presented by its captors to Commodore Homer C.
Blake, by whose courtesy the writer had the sketch made for the cut
given above.
[12] This word, pronounced in a slightly different way in Corean, is
the term which Dr. James Legge, in his “Religions of China,” and many
missionaries of Reformed Christianity, translate God (Jehovah, Theos),
but which the Roman Catholic missionaries are forbidden to use. Dr.
Legge holds that Shang Ti is the most ancient title of Deity in the
language of the Chinese, and was used by their ancestors when they held
to primitive monotheism. “In the ceremonies at the altars of heaven and
earth, they served God” (Confucius).
[13] Dr. D. Bethune McCartee, a well-known American scholar, writing on
Riu Kiu, says: “The art of spelling was invented neither by the Chinese
nor by the Japanese. Its introduction into both these countries (and,
as we are convinced, into Corea as well) was the result of the labors
of ... the early Buddhist missionaries. In all the three countries ...
the system of spelling is most undoubtedly of Sanskrit origin.”
[14] The equipment of this first native missionary propagandist of
Roman Christianity in Corea, deserves notice, as it brings out in sharp
contrast the differing methods of Roman and Reformed Christianity. The
convert brought back numerous tracts, didactic and polemic treatises,
catechisms and commentaries, prayer-books, lives of the saints, etc.,
etc. These were for the learned, and those able to master them. For the
simple, there was a goodly supply of crosses and crucifixes, images,
pictures, and various other objects to strike the eye. It is not stated
that the Bible, or any part of the Holy Scriptures, was sent for the
feeding of hungry souls.
[15] It was during the summer of this year, 1787, that La Perouse
sailed along the eastern coast of Chō-sen, discovered the straits which
bear his name, between Yezo and Saghalin, demonstrated that the Gulf of
Tartary divided Saghalin from the Asian mainland, and that Corea was
not sea-girt, and named Dagelet Island and its companion Boussole. He
had a copy of Hamel’s book with him. He noticed the signal-fires along
the coast, which from headland to headland, telegraphed to the capital
the news of the stranger with his “black ships.” Not as yet, however,
as afterward, did the government connect the appearance of European
vessels with the activity of the Christians within the realm, although
La Perouse sailed under the flag which ever afterward was indissolubly
associated in Corean minds with Christianity.
[16] This rapid spread of Christian ideas may be understood if we
consider, as Dallet points out, the customs of the people. In every
house there is the room open to the street, where everybody, friend or
stranger, known or unknown, may come and talk or hear the news and
discuss events. Nothing is kept secret, and being a nation of gossips
and loungers, the news of any event, or the expression of a fresh idea,
spreads like fire on the prairie. A doctrine so startlingly new, and
preached as it was by men already famous for their learning, would at
once excite the public curiosity, set all tongues running, and fire
many hearts. Though in most cases the new flame would soon die out,
leaving hardly enough ashes to mark a fire, yet the steady glow of
altered lives would not pale even before torture and death.
[17] “Some priests proposed to the late Queen of Portugal to send an
embassy hither [to Corea] with some gentlemen versed in mathematics,
that they might benefit the country both in a religious and scientific
way.... This plan never succeeded.” Gutzlaff, 1834. Voyages to China,
page 261.
[18] Captain Broughton was impressed with “the gorgeous Corean
dresses,” and the umbrella-hats, a yard in diameter. He asked for beef,
but they gave him only wood, and he was tantalized with the sight of
fat cattle grazing near by, which he was unable to get or purchase. He
cruised in the Sea of Japan and the Gulf of Tartary, naming several
places on the Corean coast. See p. 203.
[19] See page 226.
[20] Or, as the natives say, “she proceeded to pull down the blinds.”
This phrase, which is highly suggestive of American street slang,
refers to the curtain of bamboo which veils the sovereign of Chō-sen;
as in Old Japan the mikado was thus screened from the vulgar, and even
noble, gaze during state councils. Whoever, therefore, is “behind the
curtain,” is on the throne.
[21] This highly logical conclusion was reached by pondering upon the
doctrine of Romanism that celibacy is a more perfect state than
marriage; and that “the world,” which, with the flesh and the devil,
was to be regarded as one of the true believers’ enemies, could mean
only the king and country of Chō-sen. To this day, most of the pagans
accept the magistrates’ decision as a complete epitome of the gospel of
Christ.
[22] Dallet, vol. i., p. 205.
[23] Timkowski’s Travels of the Russian Mission through Mongolia to
China, and Residence in Peking, London, 1827.
[24] In 1793, the first British and the first European vessel entered
the Yellow Sea. It was the ship of the line Lion, on board of which was
Lord Macartney, the ambassador of King George III. to Peking, the first
English envoy to China. The ship did not visit or approach Corean
shores.
[25] This date is that given by Dallet, who perhaps refers to the
uprising in 1829 at Ozaka, of suspected believers in the “Jesus
doctrine,” when six men and one old woman were crucified by the
Japanese authorities. The leader of the so-called conspiracy fled to
sea with his companions.
[26] While off the island of Wen-san, according to Dallet, some of the
native Christians, attracted by the legend in Chinese characters on the
flag “The Religion of Jesus Christ,” came on board. “A Protestant
minister saluted them with the words which are sacramental among the
pagans, ‘May the spirits of the earth bless you!’ At these words the
neophytes, seeing that they had been deceived, and that a snare had
been laid for their good faith, retired in all haste without ever
returning the salute, and made no further visits to the ships.”
[27] By poetic justice, the chief instigators of this persecution came
each to a bad end. Of the court ministers, one, having provoked the
king’s jealousy, was obliged by royal order to poison himself at a
banquet, in December, 1845, and the other, falling into disgrace, was
sent to exile, in which he shortly died. The chief informer, who had
hoped for reward in high office, obtained only a minor position, with
little honor and less salary. He was afterward exiled, and in 1862,
having headed a local uprising, was put to death, his body was minced
up, and the fragments were exhibited through the provinces.
[28] So fearless and generous a soul as Andrew Kim, who could yet
follow the ethics and example of his teachers in repeatedly practising
deception and violating his country’s laws at Ai-chiu, scrupled not to
lie to the mandarin at Shanghae, and tell him that he and his crew had
been accidentally driven out to sea. As in the later case of the
robbery of the regent’s tomb, “the end justified the means.”
[29] The voyage of this officer, which added so much to science,
resulted in making Quelpart and Beaufort Islands, Port Hamilton, and
Mount Auckland as well known in geography as the names of Her Majesty’s
servants were known in British politics. The visitors were treated with
courtesy, and even their survey-marks, stakes, and whitewashed stones
were carefully set up when washed away by the storm, or disturbed by
cattle. The Coreans, however, drove their beeves well away from the
Englishmen, who longed for fresh meat.
[30] These were the first official relations of France with Corea; or,
as a native would say, between Tai-pep-kuk and Chō-sen; the expression
for France being Tai-pep, and for a Frenchman—curiously enough—Pepin.
[31] Inside the country, the frequent appearance of the foreign ships
was the subject of everyday talk, and the news in this nation of
gossips spread like a prairie fire, or a rolling avalanche. By the time
the stories reached the northern provinces whole fleets of French ships
lay off the coast. Their moral effect was something like that among the
blacks in the Southern States during the civil war, when the “Lincoln
gunboats” hove in sight. The people jestingly called the foreign
vessels “The authorities down the River.”
[32] For changing their name and garments, sleeping by day, going
abroad at night, associating with rebels, criminals and villains, and
entering the kingdom clandestinely, the missionaries were put to death;
and no comparison could be drawn to mitigate their sentence between
them and innocent shipwrecked men.
[33] Other nations besides France now began to learn something of the
twin hermits of the East, Chō-sen and Nippon. During 1852, the Russian
frigate Pallas sailed along the east coast up to the Tumen River,
making no landing, but keeping at a distance of from two to five miles
from the shore in order to avoid shoals and rocks. The object of the
Pallas was to trace and map the shore line. In 1855, the French
war-vessel Virginie continued the work begun by the Pallas, and at the
end of her voyage the whole coast from Fusan to the Tumen was known
with some accuracy, and mapped out with European names, at once
numerous and prophetic. The coast line of Tartary or Manchuria—at that
time a Chinese province—was also surveyed, mapped, and made ready for
the Czar’s use and that of his ambassador in 1860.
Pallas and Virginie! The names are suggestive of the maiden diplomatic
victory of General Ignatieff, of whom more anon.
[34] A noble of high rank presented to the council of ministers a
memorial, setting forth the dangers that then menaced Chō-sen, and
urging that extraordinary means be put forth to meet the emergencies.
He proposed that the national policy of armed neutrality should be
preserved, that the conquered emperor of China should not enter
Chō-sen, that the frontier should be strengthened against a possible
invasion of the border-ruffians inhabiting the neutral strip. Taking
advantage of the situation, these men, banding together with Chinese
adventurers and Corean refugees, might make a descent in force into the
kingdom. Finally, the supreme danger that filled all minds was the
threatened invasion of the French. He recommended that the castle of
Tong-nai, near Fusan, and the western strongholds of Nam-an, Pu-pion,
and In-chiŭn (the port opened in 1882), should be strongly garrisoned
and strengthened; and that a new citadel be built on the island of
Kang-wa, to command the river and the entrance to the capital. (See
map, page 190.)
[35] July 13, 1866.
M. de Bellonet to Prince Kung.
Sir: I grieve to bring officially to the knowledge of your Imperial
Highness a horrible outrage committed in the small kingdom of Corea,
which formerly assumed the bonds of vassalage to the Chinese empire,
but which this act of savage barbarity has forever separated from it.
In the course of the month of March last, the two French bishops who
were evangelizing Corea, and with them nine missionaries and seven
Corean priests, and a great multitude of Christians of both sexes and
of every age, were massacred by order of the sovereign of that country.
The government of His Majesty cannot permit so bloody an outrage to be
unpunished. The same day on which the king of Corea laid his hands upon
my unhappy countrymen was the last of his reign; he himself proclaimed
its end, which I, in turn, solemnly declare to-day. In a few days our
military forces are to march to the conquest of Corea, and the Emperor,
my august Sovereign, alone has now the right and the power to dispose,
according to his good pleasure, of the country and the vacant throne.
The Chinese government has declared to me many times that it has no
authority over Corea, and it refused on this pretext to apply the
treaties of Tien-tsin to that country, and give to our missionaries the
passports which we have asked from it. We have taken note of these
declarations, and we declare now that we do not recognize any authority
whatever of the Chinese government over the kingdom of Corea.
I have, etc.,
H. de Bellonet.
His Imperial Highness, Prince Kung.
Spurning with irritating, not to say insulting, language, the
suggestion of Prince Kung that Bellonet might do well to inquire into
the causes and merits of the execution of the missionaries, the
representative of France, November 11th, again addressed the Chinese
statesman. In this missive occurs the following: “As for the fate of
the former king of Corea, it is now subject to the decision of the
Emperor, my august Sovereign.”
Monsieur Bellonet’s method is one specimen of the manner in which the
envoys of European nations are accustomed to bully the governments of
Asiatic countries. In a long communication to Prince Kung, dated
November 11, 1866, Mr. Bellonet charges upon the Chinese government:
1st. Complicity with Corea. 2d. That the Corean embassy, during the
previous winter, had stated the project of the massacre, and had
received the tacit official authorization of the Chinese government.
3d. The direct approval of several high members of it. 4th. That the
recruiting and mobilization of Mauchiu troops, beyond the Great Wall,
was for the purpose of assisting Corea against the French. He writes,
in addition to the above, an amazing amount of nonsense, which shows of
what magnifying powers the human eye is capable when enlarged by
suspicion.
Among other tidbits of rodomontade, is this one—which is a truthful
picture of the France of Napoleon III.—“War for us is a pleasure which
the French passionately seek;” and this—“The people of Corea address us
as deliverers, ... we shall inaugurate the reign of order, justice, and
prosperity.”
[36] 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. It was the unanimous verdict of press
and people that the return of the French in sufficient force to Corea
in the spring was a measure of absolute safety to foreigners in the far
East. If not, since both British and American citizens were among the
crew of the General Sherman, murdered at Ping-an, the fleets of Great
Britain and the United States should proceed to Seoul. This, however,
was not done; the English let well enough alone, the French soon had
their hands full in attending to the Germans at home, and the Americans
went later only to follow Admiral Roze’s example. Meanwhile the
smothered embers of hostility to foreign influence steadily gathered
vigor, as the report spread like a gale through China that the hated
Frenchmen had been driven away by the Coreans. The fires at length
broke out in the Tien-tsin massacre, June 21, 1870. “It is believed by
many thoughtful observers in China that this frightful event gained its
first serious impetus from the unfortunate issue of Admiral Roze’s
campaign in Corea.”
[37] The Min or Ming family is largely Chinese in blood and origin,
and, besides being pre-eminent 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. Their retainers
constitute a large portion of the population of Seoul. Besides the
queen, the king on his mother’s side, the wife of the heir apparent,
and several of the highest officers of the government belong to the
house of Min. For centuries this family has practically governed the
kingdom. Their social and personal influence in Peking has always been
very great, while at home their relations to the treasury and the army
have been very close. The plot of 1882 was in effect an ineffectual
attempt to destroy their power. When China commanded, they approved of
the treaty with the United States.
[38] The Honorable Gideon Nye, of China, from whose article in “The Far
East” these facts are drawn concerning the first consul of the United
States to China, has effectually disproved the oft-quoted statement of
Sir John Davis in his “History of China,” that “It was in the year 1802
that the American flag was first hoisted at Canton.” Dr. William Speer
in his excellent book—fair to the Chinese as well as to foreigners—has
told the story of Jonathan Edwards and his troubles over ginseng and
the drink which his Indian pupils bought with it.
[39] These shroffs are experts in handling money. They can detect
counterfeits by the touch, and, with incredible celerity, can reckon
amounts to thousandths of a cent on the abacus. One or more of them are
found in nearly every one of the banks and hongs in Eurasian ports.
[40] Some weeks before, he had offered to penetrate the peninsula as
missionary and agent of the Scottish National Bible Society. The
Coreans who had accompanied Bishop Ridel to Chifu, and who had met Dr.
Williamson, volunteered to be his guides, and he had decided to go with
them. When the opportunity of going by the American vessel offered
itself, he changed his plan. Against the advice of his friends, who
suspected the character of the expedition, he joined the party.
[41] A broad streak of light was thrown upon at least one possible
cause of the Sherman tragedy, by the statement of the natives that
Chinese pirates frequently descend on the coast and kill and rob the
Coreans. During the previous year, several natives had been killed by
Chinese pirates near the Wachusett’s anchorage. As ten of the crew of
the Sherman were Canton Chinamen, it is probable that the very sight of
them on an armed vessel would inflame the Coreans to take their
long-waited for revenge.
[42] In 1884, Lieutenant J. B. Bernadon, U.S.N., made a journey from
Seoul to Ping-an, and, being able to speak Corean, learned the
following from native Christians. The Sherman, arriving during the
heavy midsummer rains, which make the river impassable to native boats,
was seen from the city walls and caused great excitement. When the
waters subsided the governor sent officers to inquire her mission.
Unfortunately, to gratify their curiosity, the common people set out
also in a large fleet of boats, which the Sherman’s crew mistook for a
hostile demonstration, and fired guns in the air to warn them off. Then
all the boats returned. When the river fell the Sherman grounded and
careened over, which being seen from the city walls a fleet of boats
set out with hostile intent and were fired upon. Officers and people,
now enraged, started fire-rafts, and soon the vessel, though with white
flag hoisted, was in flames. Of those who leaped in the river most were
drowned. Of those picked up one Tchoi-nan-un (Rev. Mr. Thomas), who was
able to talk Corean, explained the meaning of the white flag, and
begged to be surrendered to China. His prayer was in vain. In a few
days all the prisoners were led out and publicly executed.
[43] Mr. Low, who had served one term in Congress and as governor of
California from 1864 to 1868, had been chosen by President Grant to be
minister to China the year before, 1869, was new to his duties. He was
in the prime of life, being fifty-two years of age. All his despatches
show that Chō-sen was as unknown to him as Thibet or Anam, and from the
first he had scarcely one ray of hope in the success of the mission.
[44] Admiral Rodgers left New York, April 9, 1869, with the Colorado
and Alaska. The Benicia had left Portsmouth March 2d, and the Palos set
sail from Boston June 20th. These vessels, with the Monocacy and
Ashuelot, were to form the Asiatic squadron of Admiral Rodgers. Of our
vessels on the station during the previous year, two had returned home,
two had been sold, the rotten Idaho was moored at Yokohama as a
store-ship, and the Oneida, which had been sunk by the British
mail-steamer Bombay, lay with her uncoffined dead untouched and
neglected by the great Government of the United States. Admiral Rodgers
was so delayed by repairs to the Ashuelot, that finally, in order to
gain the benefit of the spring tides, had to sail without this vessel.
[45] Rear-Admiral John Rodgers, who commanded the fleet, was a veteran
in war, in naval science, and in polar research. He had served in the
Seminole and Mexican campaigns, and through the civil war on the
iron-clad monitors. He had visited the Pacific in 1853, when in command
of the John Hancock. He had cruised in the China seas and sailed
through Behring’s Straits. He, too, was in the prime of life, being at
this time fifty-eight years of age. His whole conduct of the expedition
displayed consummate skill, and marked him in this, as in his many
other enterprises, as “one of the foremost naval men of the age.” Yet
princes in naval science are not always princes in diplomacy.
[46] The first appearance of the flag of North Germany in Corean waters
was at the mast-head of the China, when plunder and dead men’s bones
were the objects sought. Its second appearance, on the Hertha
man-of-war, was in peace and honorable quest of friendly relations. Its
third appearance, in May, 1871—while, or shortly before, the American
fleet were in the Han River—was on the schooner Chusan, which was
wrecked on one of the islands of Sir James Hall group, the Chinese crew
only, it appears, being saved. On June 6th, a party of three foreigners
left Chifu in a junk to bring back salvage from the wreck. These men
were not heard from until July 6th, when the Chinese crew returned
without them. On the same day the British gunboat Ringdove, with the
consul of Chifu, left for the Hall group. It was found that the
foreigners had landed to bring away the crew of the Chusan, when the
Chinamen, pretending or thinking that they had been taken prisoners,
put off to sea without them. The consul found them in good health and
spirits, and the Ringdove brought away for them whatever was worth
saving from the Chusan. Again the Corean policy of kindness toward the
shipwrecked was illustrated. The two foreigners—a Scotchman and a
Maltese—had been well fed and kindly treated.
[47] These men simply acted as the catspaws for the monkey in the
capital to pull out as many hot chestnuts from the fire as possible. It
is part of Asiatic policy to send official men of low rank and no
authority to dally and prelude, and, if possible, hoodwink or worry out
foreigners. Their chief weapons are words; their main strength,
cunning. When these are foiled by kindness, and equal patience,
firmness, and address, the Asiatics yield, and send their men of first
rank to confer and treat. Perry knew this, so did Townsend Harris in
Japan; so have successful diplomats known it in China. Was it done in
the American expedition to Corea in 1871? Let us see.
These Coreans had no right to say either “yes” or “no” to any
proposition of the Americans. Had they committed themselves to anything
definite, degradation, crushed shin-bones, and perhaps death, might
have been their fate. The only thing for the Americans to do—who came
to ask a favor which the Coreans were obstinately bent on not
giving—was to feast them, treat them with all kindness, get them in
excellent good humor, send them back, and wait till accredited envoys
of high rank should arrive. In the light of the French failure, this
was the only course to pursue. There were even men of influence in the
American fleet who advised this policy of patience. As matter of fact,
such a course was urged by Captain H. S. Blake.
In such an emergency, patience, kindness, tact, the absence of any
burning idea of “wiping out insults to the flag,” and an antiseptic
condition toward fight were most needed—the higher qualities, of
resolution and self-conquest rather than valor. Even if it had been
possible to inflict ten times the damage which was afterward actually
inflicted, and win tenfold more “glory,” the rear-admiral must have
known that nature and his “instructions” were on the side of the
Coreans, and that the only end of the case must be a retreat from the
country. And the only possible interpretation the people could put upon
the visit of the great American fleet would be a savage thirst for
needless vengeance, a sordid greed of gain, and the justification of
robbers and invaders. In spite of all the slaughter of their
countrymen, they would read in the withdrawal of their armies, defeat,
and defeat only.
[48] These are the rear-admiral’s own words. Here was the mistake! From
what may be easily known of the Corean mind, it must have seemed to
them that the advance of such an armed force up the river, leading to
the capital—following exactly the precedent of the French—was nothing
more than a treacherous beginning of war in the face of assurances of
peace. To enter into their waters seemed to them an invasion of their
country. To do it after fair words spoken in friendship seemed basest
treachery. Had a Corean officer counselled peace in the face of the
advancing fleet, he would undoubtedly have been beheaded at once as a
traitor. There were men on the American side who saw this. Some spoke
out loud of it to others, but it was not “theirs to make reply.”
[49] In the chapel of the Naval Academy, at Annapolis, a tasteful mural
tablet, “Erected by his brother officers of the Asiatic squadron,” with
the naval emblems—sword, belt, anchor, and glory-wreath—in medallion,
and inscription on a shield beneath, keeps green the memory of an
unselfish patriot and a gallant officer.
[50] 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.
The commissioners from Seoul attempted to avoid the dilemma by having
the treaty drawn up in the names of the respective envoys only; this
the Japanese refused to do. A compromise was attempted by having the
titles of the Mikado of Japan, and the Hap-mun of Chō-sen inserted at
the beginning; and, in every necessary place thereafter, “the
government” of Dai Nippon (Great Japan), or of Dai Chō-sen (Great
Corea); this also failed. Finally, neither ruler was mentioned by name
or title, nor was reference made to either, and the curious document
was drawn up in the name of the respective “Governments.”
[51] This fu city, called by the Japanese Ninsen, or Nii-gawa, was well
known by the Japanese, as is shown on their maps of the sixteenth
century. The name means Two Rivers. The rise and fall of the tides here
is very great, sometimes amounting to a difference of twenty-nine feet;
and in winter the shore-water is frozen. Large vessels cannot anchor
within a mile of the shore. The port Chi-mul-po is at some distance
from the city.
[52] In this and the following chapter the names of Corean noblemen
have been given in their Japanese form, i.e., Bin for Min, etc., but in
the Supplementary Chapter according to Corean pronunciation.
[53] Commodore B. W. Shufeldt was born in Dutchess County, New York, in
1822, and entered the navy in 1839, serving ten years on foreign
stations and in the coast survey. One cruise to the west coast of
Africa interested him in the negro colony of Liberia, in which he has
ever since felt concern. From 1850 to 1860, our navy being in a
languishing state, he was engaged in the mercantile marine service, and
in organizing a transit route across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. In
1860 an article of his on the slave trade between the Island of Cuba
and the coast of Africa, drew the attention of the government to him,
and led to his appointment of Consul-General at Havana. The slave-trade
was soon effectually broken up, and through the trying period of the
first half of the civil war, he was occupied in his civil duties, at
one time going to Mexico on a confidential mission to President Juarez,
passing unrecognized through the French lines. He was on blockade duty
during the last two years of the civil war. In 1865 he went to China,
as flag-captain of the Hartford, and commanding the Wachusett visited
Corea. In 1870 he organized a party for the survey of the Isthmus of
Tehuantepec, his report being made the basis of Captain Eads’
ship-railway project. The official history of the semi-diplomatic
cruise of the Ticonderoga round the world (1878–1880) has been written,
but has not yet been published.
[54] On which tablets erected to the memory of the slain have been
erected by the Coreans. See the article, Kang-wha, by Rev. M. N.
Trollope, (Corean) Asiatic Society Transactions, Vol. II, Part I.
[55] At that time I was engaged in editing and annotating Hamel’s
Narrative, which is the first account in any European language of
Corea. Hamel and his party of Dutchmen were shipwrecked and spent
fourteen years in Corea (see pp. 167–76). I have examined and read
several copies in the original Dutch editions, printed in cheap
pamphlet form at Rotterdam in Holland in 1668, and now preserved in the
Royal Library at The Hague. The full narrative in English is given in
the book Corea Without and Within. Philadelphia, 1884. Mr. Percival
Lowell, the Secretary of the Corean Special Mission, returned with Han
Yong Sik, and as the guest of the king spent a winter in Seoul, the
literary fruit of which is the charming volume Chosen, the Land of
Morning Calm, in which the proper names are transliterated according to
Aston’s Manual of Corean Geographical and Other Proper Names Romanized.
Yokohama, 1883.
[56] Nevertheless, in 1886 there were unearthed in Seoul two Dutch
vases, as described in Mr. Scott’s paper in Vol. XXVIII, 1893–94, of
the Transactions of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society. The figures of Dutch farm-life told their own story, and the
well-worn rings of the handles bore evidence of constant use for years.
Mr. Scott suggests that the presence of these Dutchmen might perhaps
explain the anomaly often noticed in Corea—namely, blue eyes and fair
hair.
[57] See his biography by Lane-Poole and Dickens, 1894.
[58] See the forthcoming Korean History, by Homer B. Hulbert, in the
Korean Review (April, 1904, p. 180). This work is a complete survey of
the story of Chō-sen from prehistoric to recent times.
[59] See Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China, by J. J. de
Groot. Amsterdam, 1904.
[60] See in the Korean Repository for July, 1898, a sketch of his life
by Rev. G. H. Jones.
[61] See Fifteen Years Among the Topknots, by L. H. Underwood (1904).
[62] See “The Mikado’s Empire,” pp. 533–535, and p. 682, of the
eleventh edition, 1906, for the five points of prediction made at
Hartford, Conn., February 8, 1904.
[63] See the long letter in the London Times of August 8, 1906, from an
unimpeachable authority—the author of the Oriental Series, nearly forty
years in the Far East.
[64] The Japan Mail, August 27, 1910.
[65] See “The Unmannerly Tiger and Other Korean Fairy Tales,” by W. E.
Griffis, New York, 1911.
[66] See also “The Tragedy of Korea,” by H. A. McKenzie, London, 1908.
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