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.