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.”