The King at the Russian Legation.... A Royal edict.... Massacre or
flight of cabinet ministers.... an excited city.... Japanese
consternation.... provincial uprisings.... party reorganization....
The Independence Club.... trial of Queen’s murderers.... Appointment
of Dr. Brown as adviser to Finance Department.... The
_Independent_.... The Waeber-Komura Convention.... material
reforms.... reaction.... The Independence Arch.... Seoul-Chemulpo
railway concession.... The new palace planned.... retrogressive
signs.... postal and other administrative reforms.
When the public awoke to the momentous fact, a thrill of excitement and,
generally, of approval went through the whole population of Seoul. The
city hummed with excited humanity. The streets swarmed with the crowds
bent upon watching the course of such stirring events.
Later in the day the King put forth an edict calling upon the soldiers
to rally to his support and urging them to bring the heads of the
traitors Cho Heui-yŭn, U Pöm-sŭn, Yi Tu-whang, Yi Pom-nă, Yi Chin-ho and
Kon Yong-jin. But later still this was toned down to read that these
individuals should be seized and turned over to the proper authorities
for trial.
The reason why the names of Kim Hong-jip, Chöng Pyŭng-Ha and others of
the former cabinet were not included was because they had already met
their fate. As soon as it became known in the palace that the King had
fled, these men saw that their lives were forfeited. O Yun-jung managed
to escape to the country but was set upon and killed by the people, Cho
Heui-Yŭn escaped, Yu Kil-jun was spirited away to Japan by the Japanese;
but Kim Hong-jip and Chöng Pyŭng-ha found no way of escape. Being seized
by the Korean soldiers, were immediately rushed by the crowd and killed.
Their bodies were hauled to Chong-no where they were stamped upon,
kicked, bitten and stoned by a half-crazed rabble for hours. A Japanese
who happened to be passing was set upon by the crowd and killed and
several foreigners drawn to the spot by curiosity were threatened.
The King was shocked when he heard of the summary execution of the two
ministers, whom he intended to give a fair trial. Two days later an
edict was promulgated by the King deploring the impoverished state of
the country and laying the blame upon himself; and concluded by
remitting all arrears of taxes due up to July 1894. The new cabinet
consisted of the following men Pak Chöng-yang, Yi Yun-yong, An Kyŭng-su,
Ko Yong-heui, Yun Chi-ho, Yun Yong-gu, Yi Wan-yong and Cho Pyŭng-jik.
To say that the Japanese were nonplussed by this _coup_ on the part of
the King would be to put it very mildly. All their efforts to
consolidate their power in Korea and to secure there some fruit of the
victory in the war just finished, had been worse than thrown away. The
King had thrown himself into the arms of Russia and the whole Korean
people were worked up to a white heat against Japan, comparable only
with the feelings elicited by the invasion of 1592. It was a very great
pity, for Japan was in a position to do for Korea infinitely more than
Russia would do. The interests of Korea and Japan were identical or at
least complementary and the mistake which Japan made in the latter half
of 1895 was one whose effects will require decades to efface.
When the King thus wrenched himself out of Japanese hands the Japanese
papers in Seoul bewailed the fact that the country was without a ruler,
and almost directly advised the people to put someone else on the
throne, and this without censure from the Japanese authorities. And it
is well known among Koreans that there was a strong faction among the
Koreans who were willing to attempt to put Yi Chun-yong, the grandson of
the Tă-wŭn-gun on the throne, had that ambitious young man been
possessed of the requisite amount of assurance. Fortunately such was not
the case and the country was saved from further upheaval.
But the Japanese authorities though thrown into consternation by this
radical movement of His Majesty did not give up hope of mending matters.
The Japanese Minister saw the King at the Russian Legation and urged
upon him every possible argument for returning to the palace. His
Majesty, however, being now wholly relieved from anxiety as to his
personal safety, enjoyed the respite too thoroughly to cut it short, and
so politely refused to change his place of residence. A large number of
Japanese in Seoul became convinced that Japan had hopelessly compromised
herself, and left the country, but the Japanese Government itself by no
act or word granted that her paramount influence in the peninsula was
impaired and with admirable _sang froid_ took up the new line of work
imposed upon her by the King’s peculiar action, meanwhile putting down
one more score against Russia, to be reckoned with later.
The country was suffering from the excitement caused by the news of the
Japanese diplomatic reverses, and the people in many districts rose in
revolt and declared that they would drive all the Japanese out of the
country. These efforts were however scattered and sporadic in their
nature and were successfully quelled by Korean Government troops sent
down to the various disaffected districts for this purpose.
Now that it was possible the King hastened to order a new investigation
of the circumstances attending the death of the Queen. It was feared
that this would result in a very sweeping arrest of Koreans and the
punishment of many people on mere suspicion, but these fears were
ill-founded. The trials were carried through under the eye of Mr.
Greathouse the adviser to the Law Department and a man of great legal
ability. Thirteen men were arrested and tried in open court without
torture and with every privilege of a fair trial. One man Yi Whi-wha was
condemned to death, four banished for life and five for lesser periods.
This dispassionate trial was not the least of the signs which pointed
toward a new and enlightened era in Korean political history.
Not only in the country but in Seoul as well the prestige of Japan had
suffered greatly by the events of the winter of 1895-96. After the
Japan-China war the Koreans were divided into two distinct factions, one
holding strongly with the Japanese and the other advocating a more
conservative policy, but gradually as the political situation began to
crystalize these two split into four, namely the Japanese faction, the
King’s faction, the Queen’s faction, and the Tă-wŭn-gun’s faction. This
is merely another way of saying that every strong political possibility
will have its own faction in such a land as this, according as each man
fancies that his champion will get supreme power and reward those who
have followed in his train. The number of men who follow the standard of
this or that party because of any altruistic or purely patriotic
consideration is so small as to be a negligeable quantity. When,
therefore, it appeared that Japan’s star was setting in Korea there was
a hasty shifting of political platforms and soon it appeared that there
were only two, one of which favored Russian influence and the other
conservative and very quiet, for the time being, until the extreme
pro-Russian enthusiasm should subside somewhat. Of course the
Tă-wŭn-gun’s had disappeared with the waning fortunes of the Japanese
and the Queen’s faction had gone over to the Russians. It was the
conservatives alone that held to their former position and desired no
foreign interferance whatever. But many of those who had favored the
Japanese joined the conservative party but unlike the “moss-back”
conservatives wanted to do something actively to counteract Russian
influence. They therefore worked to bring English and American influence
into greater prominence. In the heart of this movement was born the
“Independence Club.” It will be remembered that ever since the previous
year Dr. Philip Jaisohn had been acting as adviser to the Privy Council.
This council enjoyed considerable power at first but gradually fell to a
secondary place, but now that new conditions had sprung up the element
combatting the Russian influence took advantage of the presence of Dr.
Jaisohn and other Koreans who had been educated abroad. The Russians
seemed to look with complaisance upon this movement and in the Spring of
this year seem to have made no effort to prevent the appointment of J.
McLeavy Brown, L.L.D., as Adviser to the Finance Department, with large
powers; which seemed to bear out the belief that the Russian Minister
was sincere in his statement that Russia wished the King to be quite
untrammelled in the administration of his government. It is this
generous policy of Mr. Waeber that is believed to have caused his
transfer later to another post, to be replaced by A. de Speyer who
adopted a very different policy. However this may have been, things
began to take on a very hopeful aspect in Seoul. Needed reforms were
carried through; torture was abolished in the Seoul courts, a concession
was given to an American company to construct a railway between Seoul
and Chemulpo, Min Yong-whan was appointed special envoy to the
coronation of the Czar, work was begun on the American mining concession
granted the year before, various schools were founded, and the outlook
on the whole was very bright indeed. It looked as if a solution had been
found for the difficulties that afflicted the state and that an era of
comparatively enlightened government was opening.
For some time there had existed a more or less secret organization among
the Koreans, the single article of whose political creed was
Independence both from China and Japan, or in other words Korea for
Koreans. Now that the King had been relieved of Chinese suzerainty by
the Japanese and of Japanese restraint by himself, this little society
under the leadership of Dr. Philip Jaisohn blossomed out into what was
called _The Independence Club_. The name but partially described the
society, for while it advocated the complete independence of Korea it
still more insistently advocated a liberal government, in the shape of a
genuine constitutional monarchy in which the royal prerogative should be
largely curtailed and the element of paternalism eliminated. At first
the greater stress was laid upon the general principle of Korean
Independence and to this the King in the joy of his newly found freedom
heartily agreed. The royal sanction was given to the Independence Club
and it was launched upon a voyage which had no haven, but ended in total
shipwreck. This club, society was composed of young men many of whom
were doubtless aroused for the time being to something like patriotic
fervor but who had had no practical experience of the rocky road of
Korean politics or of the obstacles which would be encountered. The
cordiality of the King’s recognition blinded them to the fact that the
real object of their organization, namely the definition of the royal
prerogative, was one that must eventually arouse first the suspicion and
then the open hostility of His Majesty and would become the slogan of
all that army of self-seekers who saw no chance for self-aggrandisement
except in the immemorial spoils system. These young men were armed with
nothing but a laudable enthusiasm. They could command neither the aid of
the Korean army nor the advocacy of the older statesmen, all of whom
were either directly hostile to the movement or had learned caution
through connection with previous abortive attempts to stem the tide of
official corruption. The purpose of this club, so far as it knew its own
mind, was a laudable one in theory but the amount of persistency,
courage, tact and self-restraint necessary to carry the plan to a
successful issue was so immensely greater than they could possibly
guess, that, considering the youth and inexperience of the personnel of
the society, the attempt was doomed to failure. They never clearly
formulated a constructive plan by which to build upon the ruins of that
system which they were bent upon destroying. Even had they cleared the
way to such construction they could not have found a statesman in Korea
of recognized standing and prestige, to act as master-builder, whose
previous record would have made him acceptable to themselves or a fit
exponent of their principles.
On April 7th the first foreign newspaper was founded by Dr. Philip
Jaisohn. It was called _The Independent_ and was partly in the native
character. From the first it exerted a powerful influence among the
Koreans and was one of the main factors which led to the formation of
the Independence Club.
Both Japan and Russia were desirous of coming to an understanding as to
Korea and on May 14th there was published the Waeber-Komura Agreement
which was modified and ratified later under the name of the
Lobanoff-Yamata Agreement. According to the terms of this convention
both Powers guaranteed to respect the independence of Korea and not to
send soldiers into the country except by common consent.
The summer of 1896 saw great material improvements in Seoul. The work of
clearing out and widening the streets was vigorously pushed and although
much of the work was done superficially some permanent improvement was
effected, and the “squatters” along the main streets were cleaned out,
it is hoped for all time. In July the concession for building a railway
between Seoul and Wiju was given to a French syndicate. From subsequent
events it appears that there was no fixed determination on the part of
the French to push this great engineering work to a finish but merely to
preempt the ground and prevent others from doing it. Russian influence
doubtless accomplished this, and from that time there began to spring up
the idea that Korea would be divided into two spheres of influence, the
Japanese predominant in the south and the Russians in the north.
In spite of the favorable signs that appeared during the early months of
1896 and the hopes which were entertained that an era of genuine reform
had been entered upon, the coming of summer began to reveal the
hollowness of such hopes. The King himself was strongly conservative and
never looked with favor upon administrative changes which tended to
weaken his personal hold upon the finances of the country and he chafed
under the new order of things. In this he was encouraged by many of the
leading officials, who saw in the establishment of liberal institutions
the end of their opportunities for personal power and aggrandisement.
The old order of things appealed to them too strongly and it became
evident that the government was rapidly lapsing into its former
condition of arbitrary and partisan control. Open and violent opposition
to such harmless innovations as the wearing of foreign uniforms by the
students of Foreign Language Schools indicated too plainly the tendency
of the time and the Russian authorities did nothing to influence His
Majesty in the right direction. Judging from subsequent events it was
not Russia’s policy to see an enlightened administration in Seoul. The
political plans of that Power could be better advanced by a return to
the _status ante quo_. The act of the government in substituting an
Independence Arch in place of the former gate, outside the West Gate,
which commemorated Chinese suzerainty, was looked upon, and rightly, by
the more thoughtful as being merely a superficial demonstration which
was based upon no deeper desire than that of being free from all control
or restraint except such as personal inclination should dictate. The
current was setting toward a concentration of power rather than toward a
healthful distribution of it, and thus those who had hailed the vision
of a new and rejuvenated state were compelled to confess that it was but
a mirage.
Pressure was brought to bear upon the court to remove from the Russian
Legation, and it was high time that such a move be made. As a matter of
urgent necessity it was considered a not too great sacrifice of dignity
to go to the Legation but to make it a permanent residence was out of
the question. The King was determined however, not to go back to the
palace from which he had fled. It held too many gruesome memories. It
was decided to build the Myŭng-ye Palace in the midst of the Foreign
Quarter with Legations on three sides of it. The site selected was the
same as that which King Sŭn-jo used in 1593 when he returned from his
flight to the north before the armies of Hideyoshi. He had lived here
for some fourteen years while the Chang-dok Palace was building. The
present King however intended it as a permanent residence, and building
operations were begun on a large scale, but it was not until February of
the following year that His Majesty finally removed from the Russian
Legation to his new palace.
All during the latter half of 1896 the gulf between the Independence
party and the conservatives kept widening. The latter grew more and more
confident and the former more and more determined. Dr. Jaisohn in his
capacity of adviser to the Council of State was blunt and outspoken in
his advice to His Majesty and it was apparent that the latter listened
with growing impatience to suggestions which, however excellent in
themselves, found no response in his own inclinations. The Minister of
Education voiced the growing sentiment of the retrogressive faction in a
book called “The Warp and Woof of Confucianism” in which such extreme
statements were made that several of the Foreign Representatives felt
obliged to interfere and call him to account. A Chief of Police was
appointed who was violently anti-reform. The assassin of Kim Ok-kyun was
given an important position under the government. A man who had
attempted the life of Pak Yong-hyo was made Minister of Law, and on all
sides were heard contemptuous comments upon the “reform nonsense” of the
liberal faction. And yet in spite of this the momentum of the reform
movement though somewhat retarded had by no means been completely
stopped. The Summer and Autumn of this year 1896 saw the promulgation of
a large number of edicts of a salutary nature, relating to the more
systematic collection of the national revenues, the reorganization of
gubernatorial and prefectural systems, the definition of the powers and
privileges of provincial officials, the further regulation of the postal
system, the definition of the powers of the superintendents of trade in
the open ports, the abolition of illegal taxation and the establishment
of courts of law in the various provinces and in the open ports. As many
of these reforms survived the collapse of the liberal party they must be
set down as definite results which justify the existence of that party
and make its overthrow a matter of keen regret to those who have at
heart the best interests of the country.
All this time Russian interests had been cared for sedulously. The king
remained in close touch with the Legation and Col. Potiata and three
other Russian officers were put in charge of the Palace Guard, while Kim
Hong-nyuk, the erstwhile water-carrier, continued to absorb the good
things in the gift of His Majesty. And yet the Russians with all their
power did not attempt to obstruct the plans of the subjects of other
Powers in Korea. Mr. Stripling, a British subject, was made adviser to
the Police Department, a mining concession was granted to a German
syndicate; an American was put in charge of a Normal School, Dr. Brown
continued to direct the work of the Finance Department and the work on
the Seoul Chemulpo Railway was pushed vigorously by an American
syndicate. The Russians held in their hands the power to put a stop to
much of this, but they appeared to be satisfied with holding the power
without exercising it.