IMPENDING WAR--EXCITEMENT AT CHEMULPO
Having heard nothing at all of public events during my long inland
journey, and only a few rumors of unlocalized collisions between the
Tong-haks (rebels) and the Royal troops, the atmosphere of _canards_
at Wön-san was somewhat stimulating, though I had already been long
enough in Korea not to attach much importance to the stories with
which the air was thick. One day it was said that the Tong-haks had
gained great successes and had taken Gatling guns from the Royal
army, another that they had been crushed and their mysterious and
ubiquitous leader beheaded, while the latest rumor before my departure
was that they were marching in great force on Fusan. Judging from the
proclamation which they circulated, and which, while stating that they
rose against corrupt officials and traitorous advisers, professed
unswerving loyalty to the throne, it seemed credible that, if there
were a throb of patriotism anywhere in Korea, it was in the breasts of
these peasants. Their risings appeared to be free from excesses and
useless bloodshed, and they confined themselves to the attempt to carry
out their programme of reform. Some foreign sympathy was bestowed upon
them, because it was thought that the iniquities of misrule could go no
further, and that the time was ripe for an armed protest on a larger
scale than the ordinary peasant risings against intolerable exactions.
But at the very moment when these matters were being discussed in
Wön-san with not more than a languid interest, a formidable menace
to the established order of things was taking shape, destined in a
few days to cast the Tong-haks into the shade, and concentrate the
attention of the world on this insignificant peninsula.
Leaving Wön-san by steamer on 17th June, and arriving at Fusan on the
19th, I was not surprised to find a Japanese gunboat in the harbor, and
that 220 Japanese soldiers had been landed from the _Higo Maru_ that
morning and were quartered in the Buddhist temples on the hill, and
that the rebels had cut the telegraph wires between Fusan and Seoul.
Among the few Europeans at Fusan there was no uneasiness. The Japanese,
with their large mercantile colony there, have considerable interests
to safeguard, and nothing seemed more natural than the course they
took. A rumor that Japanese troops had been landed at Chemulpo was
quite disregarded.
On arriving at Chemulpo, however, early on the morning of the 21st,
a very exciting state of matters revealed itself. A large fleet,
six Japanese ships of war, the American flag ship, two French, one
Russian, and two Chinese, were lying in the outer harbor. The limited
accommodation of the inner harbor was taxed to its utmost capacity.
Japanese transports were landing troops, horses, and war material in
steam launches, junks were discharging rice and other stores for the
commissariat department, coolies were stacking it on the beach, and
the movement by sea and land was ceaseless. Visitors from the shore,
excited and agitated, brought a budget of astounding rumors, but
confessed to being mainly in the dark.
On landing, I found the deadly dull port transformed: the streets
resounded to the tread of Japanese troops in heavy marching order,
trains of mat and forage carts blocked the road. Every house in the
main street of the Japanese settlement was turned into a barrack and
crowded with troops, rifles and accoutrements gleamed in the balconies,
crowds of Koreans, limp and dazed, lounged in the streets or sat on
the knolls, gazing vacantly at the transformation of their port into a
foreign camp. Only two hours had passed since the first of the troops
landed, and when I visited the camp with a young Russian officer there
were 1,200 men under canvas in well-ventilated bell tents, holding 20
each, with matted floors and drainage trenches, and dinner was being
served in lacquer boxes. Stables had been run up, and the cavalry
and mountain guns were in the centre. The horses of the mountain
battery train, serviceable animals, fourteen hands high, were in
excellent condition, and were equipped with pack saddles of the latest
Indian pattern. They were removing shot and shell for Seoul from the
Japanese Consulate with 200 men and 100 horses, and it was done almost
soundlessly. The camp, with its neat streets, was orderly, trim, and
quiet. In the town sentries challenged passers-by. Every man looked
as if he knew his duty and meant to do it. There was no swagger. The
manikins, well armed and serviceably dressed, were obviously in Korea
for a purpose which they meant to accomplish.
What that purpose was, was well concealed under color of giving
efficient protection to Japanese subjects in Korea, who were said to be
imperilled by the successes of the Tong-haks.
The rebellion in southern Korea was exciting much alarm in the capital.
Such movements, though on a smaller scale, are annual spring events in
the peninsula, when in one or other of the provinces the peasantry,
driven to exasperation by official extortions, rise, and, with more or
less violence (occasionally fatal), drive out the offending mandarin.
Punishment rarely ensues. The King sends a new official, who squeezes
and extorts in his turn with more or less vigor, until, if he also
passes bearable limits, he is forcibly expelled, and things settle down
once more. This Tong-hak (“Oriental” or “National”) movement, though
lost sight of in presence of more important issues, was of greater
moment, as being organized on a broader basis, so as to include a
great number of adherents in Seoul and the other cities, and with such
definite and reasonable objects that at first I was inclined to call
its leaders “armed reformers” rather than “rebels.” At that time there
was no question as to the Royal authority.
The Tong-hak proclamation began by declaring in respectful language
loyal allegiance to the King, and went on to state the grievances in
very moderate terms. The Tong-haks asserted, and with undoubted truth,
that officials in Korea, for their own purposes, closed the eyes and
ears of the King to all news and reports of the wrongs inflicted on
his people. That ministers of State, governors, and magistrates were
all indifferent to the welfare of their country, and were bent only on
enriching themselves, and that there were no checks on their rapacity.
That examinations (the only avenues to official life) were nothing more
than scenes of bribery, barter, and sale, and were no longer tests
of fitness for civil appointment. That officials cared not for the
debt into which the country was fast sinking. That “they were proud,
vainglorious, adulterous, avaricious.” That many officials receiving
appointments in the country lived in Seoul. That “they flatter and fawn
in peace, and desert and betray in times of trouble.”
The necessity for reform was strongly urged. There were no expressions
of hostility to foreigners, and the manifesto did not appear to
take any account of them. The leader, whose individuality was never
definitely ascertained, was credited with ubiquity and supernatural
powers by the common people, as well as with the ability to speak
both Japanese and Chinese, and it was evident from his measures,
forethought, the disposition of his forces, and some touches of Western
strategic skill, that he had some acquaintance with the modern art of
war. His followers, armed at first with only old swords and halberds,
had come to possess rifles, taken from the official armories and the
defeated Royal troops. For in the midst of the thousand wild rumors
which were afloat, it appeared certain that the King sent several
hundred soldiers against the Tong-haks under a general who, on his
way to attack their camp, raised and armed 300 levies, who, in the
engagement which followed, joined the “rebels” and turned upon the
King’s troops, that 300 of the latter were killed, and that the general
was missing. This, following other successes, the deposition of several
important officials, and the rumored march on Seoul, had created great
alarm, and the King was supposed to be prepared for flight.
But the events of the two or three days before I landed at Chemulpo
threw the local disturbance into the shade, and it is only with the
object of showing with what an excellent pretext for interference the
Tong-haks had furnished the Japanese, that I recall this petty chapter
of what is now ancient history.
The questions vital to Korea and of paramount diplomatic importance
were, “What is the object of Japan? Is this an invasion? Is she here as
an enemy or a friend?” Six thousand troops provisioned for three months
had been landed. Fifteen of the _Nippon Yusen Kaisha’s_ steamers had
been withdrawn from their routes to act as transports, the Japanese
had occupied the Gap, a pass on the Seoul road, and Ma-pu, the river
port of the capital, and with guns, and in considerable force, had
established themselves on Nam Han, a wooded hill above Seoul, from
which position they commanded both the palace and capital. All these
movements were carried out with a suddenness, celerity, and freedom
from hitch which in their military aspects were worthy of the highest
praise.
To any student of Far Eastern politics it must have been apparent that
this skilful and extraordinary move on the part of Japan was not made
for the protection of her colonies in Chemulpo and Seoul, nor yet
against Korea. It has been said in various quarters, and believed,
that the Japanese ministry was shaky, and had to choose between its
own downfall and a foreign war. This is a complete sophism. There
can be no question that Japan had been planning such a movement for
years. She had made accurate maps of Korea, and had secured reports
of forage and provisions, measurements of the width of rivers and
the depth of fords, and had been buying up rice in Korea for three
months previously, while even as far as the Tibetan frontier, Japanese
officers in disguise had gauged the strength and weakness of China,
reporting on her armies on paper and, in fact, on her dummy guns, and
antique, honeycombed carronades, and knew better than the Chinese
themselves how many men each province could put into the field, how
drilled and how armed, and they were acquainted with the infinite
corruption and dishonesty, combined with a total lack of patriotism,
which nullified even such commissariat arrangements as existed on
paper, and rendered it absolutely impossible for China to send an army
efficiently into the field, far less sustain it during a campaign.
To all appearance Japan had completely outwitted China in Korea, and a
panic prevailed among the Chinese. Thirty ladies of the households of
the Chinese Resident and Consul embarked for China on the appearance
of the Japanese in Seoul, and 800 Chinamen left Chemulpo the day I
arrived, the consternation in the Chinese colony being so great that
even the market gardeners, who have a monopoly of a most thriving
trade, fled.
I never before saw the Chinaman otherwise than aggravatingly cool,
collected, and master of the situation, but on that June day he
lost his head, and, frenzied by race hatred and pecuniary loss, was
transformed into a shouting barbarian, not knowing what he would
be at. The Chinese inn where I spent the day was one centre of the
excitement, and each time that I came in from a walk or received a
European visitor, a number of the _employés_, usually most quiet and
reticent, huddled into my room with faces distorted by anxiety, asking
what I had heard, what was going to be, whether the Chinese army would
be there that night, whether the British fleet was coming to help them,
etc., and even my Chinese servant, a most excellent fellow, was beside
himself, muttering in English through clenched teeth, “I must kill,
kill, kill!”
Meanwhile the dwarf battalions, a miracle of rigid discipline and good
behavior, were steadily tramping to Seoul, where matters then and for
some time afterwards stood thus. The King was in his secluded palace,
and that which still posed as a Government had really collapsed. Mr.
Hillier, the English Consul-General, was in England on leave, and the
acting Consul-General, Mr. Gardner, C.M.G., had only been in Korea
for three months. The American Minister was a newer man still. The
French and German Consuls need hardly be taken into account, as they
had few, if any, interests to safeguard. Mr. Waeber, the able and
cautious diplomatist who had represented Russia for nine years, and
had the confidence of the whole foreign community, had been appointed
_chargé d’affaires_ at Peking, and had left Seoul in the previous week.
There remained, therefore, facing each other, Otori San, the Japanese
ambassador to Peking, who was in Korea on a temporary mission, and
Yuan, a military mandarin who had been for some years Chinese Resident
in Seoul, a man entrusted by the Chinese Emperor with large powers, who
was credited by foreigners with great force, tact, and ability, and who
was generally regarded as “the power behind the throne.”
I had frequently seen Otori San in the early months of the year, a
Japanese of average height, speaking English well, wearing European
dress as though born to it, and sporting white “shoulder-of-mutton”
whiskers. He lounged in drawing-rooms, making trivial remarks to
ladies, and was remarkable only for his insignificance. I believe
he made the same impression, or want of impression, at Peking. But
circumstances or stringent orders from Tokyo had transformed Mr. Otori.
Whether he had worn a mask previously I know not, but he showed himself
rough, vigorous, capable, a man of action, unscrupulous, and not only
clever enough to outwit Yuan in a difficult and hazardous game, but
everybody else.
In the afternoon of that memorable day at Chemulpo the Vice-Consul
called on me and warned me that I must leave Korea that night, and
the urgency and seriousness of his manner left me no doubt that he
was acting on information which he was not at liberty to divulge. I
had left my travelling gear at Wön-san in readiness for an autumn
journey, and was going to Seoul that night for a week to get my money
and civilized luggage before going for the summer to Japan. It was a
serious blow. Other Europeans advised me not to be “deported,” but it
is one of my travelling rules never to be a source of embarrassment
to British officials, and supposing the crisis to be an acute one, I
reluctantly yielded, and that night, with two English fellow-sufferers,
left Chemulpo in the Japanese steamer _Higo Maru_, bound for ports
in the Gulf of Pechili, which _cul-de-sac_ would have proved a
veritable “lion’s mouth” to her had hostilities been as imminent as
the Vice-Consul believed them to be. I had nothing but the clothing I
wore, a heavy tweed suit, and the mercury was 80°, and after paying my
passage to Chefoo, the first port of call, I had only four cents left.
It was four months before I obtained either my clothes or my money!