The king insulted.... the “Mulberry Palace”.... plot against the Queen Dowager.... her indictment.... she is degraded.... inception of the Manchu power.... China summons Korea to her aid.... troops despatched.... first battle with the Manchus.... Korean treachery.... Koreans make friends with the Manchus.... the Manchu court.... a Manchu letter to the king.... its answer.... Manchu rejoinder.... message to Nanking.... Chinese refugees.... a Korean renegade.... the Queen intercedes for China.... Chinese victory.... Manchu cruelty.... offices sold.... plot against the king.... king dethroned.... Queen Dowager reinstated.... reforms.... a thorough cleaning out.

With the opening of the year 1615 the king further revealed his hatred of the deposed and degraded queen by publishing broadcast the statement that she had gone to the grave of his mother and there, by practicing sorcery against him, had tried to bring evil upon him. This also brought out a loud protest from all honest men, and banishment followed. Even the children on the street spoke insultingly of the tyrant saying that he was afraid of the imps at the Myung-ye Palace, but had let his mother stay there with them though he himself would not go near the place. The king feared everyone that was honest and upright even though they had nothing to say. His own cousin, Prince Neung-ch’ang, whose younger brother afterward became king, was a perfectly peaceable and harmless man, but the king feared him and could not rest satisfied until he had gotten his satellites to accuse him of sedition and had suffocated him in a heated chamber on Kyo-dong Island. About this time a monk, named Seung-ji; gained the confidence of the superstitious king and induced him to build the In-gyung Palace which is commonly known among foreigners as the “Mulberry Palace.” To do this, thousands of the houses of the common people were razed and heavy taxes were levied throughout the country; and yet there was not enough money. So the king began to sell the public offices. Some were paid for in gold, others in silver, others in iron, and still others in wood, stone or salt. The people derisively called it the O-hang, referring to the “Five Rules of Conduct” of the Confucian Code. The boys also made up a popular song which ran as follows, “Did you give gold, or silver, or wood for yours?” and they put the officials to shame by shouting it at them as they passed along the street.

Yi I-ch’um, the favorite, could not rest until he had carried out his master’s wish and had invented some way to destroy the degraded Queen. Finding no other way to accomplish this, he at last descended to the following trick. He instructed a man named Hu Kyun to write a letter to the imprisoned queen purporting to be from some party in the country, proposing a scheme for deposing the king. This letter was thrown over the wall of the queen’s enclosure and there found by the servants of the crafty plotter. The king was ready to believe anything against her and this letter fanned his hatred into flame. Yi I-ch’um followed it up by joining with scores of others in memorials urging the king to put to death the hated Queen Dowager. The Prime Minister, Keui Cha-hÖn, stood in the way, however, and it became necessary to banish him to the far north. In the eleventh moon the king finally decided to drive the woman from Seoul, and made all the officials give their opinion about it in writing. Nine hundred and thirty officials and a hundred and seventy of the king’s relatives advised to do so, but the aged Yi Hang-bok with eight others utterly refused their sanction of the iniquitous plan; and so these nine men, the last of those upright men who had stood about the late king, were sent into banishment.

The year thus closed in gloom and the new one opened with a memorial from the Prime Minister Ha Hyo-san enumerating ten charges against the Queen Dowager: (1) that she had had the officials do obeisance to the young prince although the successor to the throne had already been appointed; (2) when the king was dying she asked him to set aside Prince Kwang-ha in favor of the young prince; (3) she prevented, as long as possible, the king from handing over the scepter to Prince Kwang-ha; (4) she wrote the letters purporting to be from the dying king asking that the young prince be carefully nurtured; (5) she instigated her father to conspire against the king; (6) she sacrificed in the palace and prayed for the death of Prince Kwang-ha; (7) she prayed for the same at the grave of his mother; (8) she corresponded with outside parties with a view to raising an insurrection; (9) she sent to the Emperor asking to have Prince Kwang-a set aside, (10) she sent to Japan asking that an army be sent to overthrow the government.

The king feigned to be very loath to believe all these charges and to act upon them; he called heaven to witness that the very thought of it was terrible to him and averred that he would rather be banished to some distant shore than even to mention such a thing. But after a great deal of urging he was prevailed upon, and said he could no longer be deaf to the entreaties of his subjects and the welfare of the country. So he took away her title of Ta-bi and decreed that she should be called Su-gung “West Palace,” and that she should receive no part of the government revenue, that officials should no more do homage to her, that her marriage certificate be burned and that all her wedding garments be taken from her. He determined also that in the event of her death no one should assume mourning, that her name should be inscribed in no ancestral temple, and that she should be shut up in her own apartments and strictly guarded.

And now there appeared in the northwest a cloud which was destined to overspread the whole of Korea, and China as well. Norach‘i was chief of the Manchu tribes. He was from the wild tribe of KÖn-ju which, as we have seen, was broken up by a Korean military expedition. His grandfather’s name was Kyu-sang and his father’s name was Hapsiri. These had both been put to death by a Chinese general, A-t‘a, and to the unquenchable hatred caused by this must be ascribed the terrible reprisals the young Norach‘i made on China, where his descendants occupy the imperial throne to this day. At the time of his father’s death he had fled eastward beyond the reach of China’s arm but gradually gaining power he crept slowly westward again until he had a footing on the great Manchu plains. But he was not yet ready to carry out his plans against China, and when the Mongol, Hapuigeukosip, entered the great wall and overthrew the Chinese general Yu Pu, Norach‘i caught him and sent his head to Nanking. The Emperor was pleased at this and gave him the rank of “Dragon Tiger General.” Having thus disarmed suspicion, the hardy northman began gathering and training troops until there stood about him 10,000 skillful archers. Some years before this he had killed his younger brother for fear of complications and now in the year of the events of which we are writing he had overcome the three great Chinese generals Yi Yong-bang, Chang Seung-yun and Yang YÖ-gwi. The ruling dynasty of the Ming in China became well aware of the gravity of the situation and saw that it was necessary to square themselves for a desperate fight with the great Manchu leader.leader. The first act of the Emperor was to send a summons to the King of Korea ordering him to send generals and troops at once to join the Chinese forces against Norach‘i. The king responded by sending a man to find out the exact state of affairs, whether China was weak or strong and whether it would pay to help her in the coming struggle. This was paying China back in kind for her delay in sending aid when the Japanese invaded the peninsula, but Korea was thoroughly loyal to the Ming power. She may be criticised in many ways but there was never shown a deeper loyalty or devotion than Korea showed the Mings during the years of struggle against the Manchus, a devotion that always worked against her own selfish interests.

The Chinese general Yang Ho sent back to the king and said, “When we ask for aid do you merely send a spy to find out how matters stand? This war is as much in your interests as ours, so you had best send an army at once to form a junction with us in Liao-tung.” However little stomach the king had for the war this appeal was too strong to be set aside. Even this base king could not overlook the tremendous obligation under which Korea lay on account of aid rendered by China against the Japanese. He therefore appointed generals Kang Hong-rip and Kim KyÖng-su as first and second in command and under them three other generals, Chung Ho-su, Yi Chung-nam and Chung Eung-jung. These men were put in command of 20,000 troops drawn from the five provinces of P‘yung-an, Ham-gyung, Kyung-keui, Ch‘ung-ch‘ung and Chul-la, and they were ordered to the northern border. This was toward the close of the year, but before its end the Chinese sent a messenger to hurry forward the Korean troops, as it was intended to make a grand demonstration with the opening of the new year.

In the first month of 1619 the troops went forward to the seat of war. It was in the middle of winter and most of the soldiers were going from a comparatively warm climate into the rigors of a semi-arctic region. The Chinese Gen. Yang Ho was advancing upon the Manchu position by four different roads. The whole army rendezvoused at Sim-ha in Liao-tung not far from the Korean border town of Eui-ju. The combined forces were led by four generals, Yang Ho, Yu Chung, Kyo Il-geui and the Korean Kang Hong-rip. Meeting a smallÖÖ body of five hundred Manchu troops they drove them back into the hills with considerable slaughter, and fondly supposed that all the Manchus could be put to flight as easily. In this preliminary skirmish the Koreans took a leading part, and one general was killed and another was wounded in the hand. The next day the whole force advanced to a place called Pu-go. The right and left flanks of the army were composed of Chinese and the center was held by Gen. Kang Hong-rip with his Korean troops. Suddenly, almost without warning, ten thousand Manchu horsemen swept down upon the right flank. The impetuosity of the charge carried everything before it, and almost instantly the whole right wing was thrown into confusion and took to precipitate flight, in which both Gen. Yu Chung and Gen. Yang Ho were killed. Then the Manchu chief Kwi Yung-ga with 30,000 men came across the Ka-hap Pass and fell upon the left flank, and that too was routed in short order. The center under Gen. Kang had not yet been attacked and stood unmoved by, and not unlikely unconscious of, the terrible destruction being meted out to their allies to the right and left. Now, Gen. Kang had been instructed by the king to watch the turn of events and if the Chinese could not hold their own to go over to the Manchus and make friends with them. This indeed does not look much like loyalty to China, but it must be remembered that we are dealing now not with the Korean sentiment as a whole but with the wretch who occupied the throne at the moment, and who had no more real loyalty toward China than he had love for his own country.

Gen. Kang followed his instructions and sent to the Manchu leader and said, “We are not enemies. There is no cause for hostilities between us. We have been forced into this unpleasant position against our wills. As the Chinese showed us favors during the Japanese invasion we have had to make some show of interest in order to reciprocate the favor, but as things have turned out we should be glad to make friends with you.”

The Manchu chieftain was willing enough to come to this agreement and so the whole Korean contingent went over en masse to the Manchus. Gen. Yang was brought before Norach‘i to make his obeisance. That powerful man was seated upon a throne, clothed in yellow silk, and on either side were many young women with jewelled pendants in their ears. Gen. Kang was told to stand some distance away and bow, but he said that in his own country his rank was sufficiently high to warrant a nearer approach. So he was led nearer. He then made only a slight genuflection. This did not please the choleric Norach‘i and the general was compelled to make a proper obeisance. Gen. Kim KyÖng-su likewise went through this humiliating ceremony.

It appears that Gen. Kang had decided that it was to his interests to join himself permanently to the Manchus, for when soon after this Gen. Kim tried to despatch a letter to the king, giving a carefully detailed account of the Manchus and their strength, the letter was intercepted by Gen. Kang who gave it to Norach‘i and advised that Gen. Kim be killed. This was immediately done.

Three months later the Manchu chief sent a letter to the Korean king, couched in the following terms, “I have seven causes for hating the Ming dynasty and it is impossible for me to keep my hands off them. Now you and I are not enemies. To be sure you have injured us more or less in the past, but we will waive all that. It will be necessarynecessary for you however to break off all connection with China and stop aiding her in any way.” Gen. Kang also wrote at the same time saying, “The Manchus are training all their youth to war, and soon they will have the whole of Liao-tung.” When the king received these letters he referred them to the governor of P’yung-an Province to answer. The answer ran as follows, “For two hundred years both you and we have been the subjects of the Ming power and now that trouble has arisen between you and the authorities at Nanking it will be bad for you and us as well. China is like a parent to us and how can we refuse to aid her? We cannot listen to your demand and abstain from helping her. If you will make peace with us and clearly define our boundaries and abstain from conquest, China will not be only glad but will reward us both with gifts.” To this the Manchu replied, “If you think that China will give presents you have been grievously deceived by her. They are all liars and cheats and I hate them. Put away this idea and stand shoulder to shoulder with us. We must take an oath and sacrifice a white horse to heaven and a black bullock to the earth. After that I will send back all your generals and soldiers. Let there be no more weapons used between us, but only horse-whips.” This latter refers to friendly intercourse by means of horses. Gen. Kang also wrote, “Norach’i has takentaken Puk-kwan and Gen. Kim T’a-suk is dead. Pak Yang-go has surrendered. Norach’i has joined the Mongol forces to his own and is advancing on Yo-gwang. His two sons Mangoda and Hongtasi advise him to first seize Liao-tung. Every day there are long debates to discuss whether it were better to strike Liao-tung or Korea first. This is a secret but I am sure of what I say. They are making great numbers of ladders and I am sure they are intendingintending to invade Korea first.”

This letter troubled the King, for it interfered with his own personal comfort. So he sent a swift messenger to Nanking begging the Emperor to send a large force to “guard your eastern territory” which meant that the king wanted China to stand between him and this Manchurian scourge.

The relatives of Gen. Kang were kept informed by him of the state of affairs in the north, and they sent large sums of money to Norach’i to buy him off and prevent him from invading Korea; and it may be that it was this, at least in part, that delayed it for some time. The king’s messengers found the road to Nanking blocked by the Manchus and so had to turn back. The king thereupon sent envoys one after another by boat, but as the Koreans were poor sailors, they failed to land at the right place and fell into the hands of the Manchus or were wrecked by storms.

The Manchus now, in 1621, held the whole of Liao-tung and the Chinese residents were fleeing in all directions. Thousands of them crossed into Korea and many crossed over to the islands of Ok-kang and In-san near the mouth of the Yalu River and there, huddled together in wretchedness and want, bewailed their pitiable condition.

The prefect of Eui-ju implored the king to forward troops to hold the Manchus in check and the Chinese Gen. Wang wrote the king demanding a contingent of Korean troops to oppose the wild horde that threatened the Ming power. But the king was utterly incompetent, and all Seoul was in a ferment. The king thought only of himself, and looked to it that a comfortable place was arranged for him on the island of Kang-wha, in case it should become necessary for him to leave Seoul. In the early summer a Korean named Yi YÖng-bang, who had gone over to the Manchus body and soul, and had become son-in-law to Norach’i, took a body of Manchu cavalry, crossed over to the islands of Ok-kang and In-san and massacred all the Chinese refugees he could lay hands on. This again struck terror to the heart of the king, and it threw Seoul into a fever of excitement. The king collected nine thousand troops from the southern provinces and stationed them at Su-wun, but there was no one whom he could appoint general-in-chief; so he had to recall from banishment Han Chun-gyum and confer this honor upon him. Han Myung-yun was made second in command. He was a man of low extraction but had acquired a certain amount of fame in the Japanese invasion.

In the following year, 1622, the Manchus entered China and were everywhere victorious. They wanted to make a treaty with Korea, but the king could decide neither one way nor the other. His envoys had not reached China and he had no word from the Emperor. The queen memorialized the king in the native script and said, “Those northern savages want to make peace with us, not because of any feeling of friendship for us but because they think they cannot handle China and Korea both at once. So they do this to keep us quiet until they finish with China. The king should make up his mind one way or the other and act. Think of what the Chinese did for us during the late invasion! We were on the very edge of destruction and they succored us. Both king and people should be of one mind and hasten to send soldiers to oppose this common enemy. Even if we do not succeed we shall have clear consciences, for we shall know that we have done what we could to aid China in the hour of her distress.” In the third moon a letter arrived from the Manchu headquarters which read as follows, “You say that you are the child and China is the parent. Well, I am now striking your parent, but you seem not to be able to help her. There is no use in trying to do so.” In answer to this grim pleasantry the craven king sent an envoy with gifts to the Manchu camp, but the gifts and envoy were both spurned with insults.

The Chinese general Mo Mun-nyung fled from Liao-tung by boat and landed at Yong-ch’un in Korea. Finding there many Chinese fugitives, and among them not a few soldiers, he organized a little army and marched against the Manchus. In his first fight he was quite successful, coming from the field with the head of the Manchu general, T’ung Yang-jÖng. He then made his headquarters at Ch’ul-san. With the approach of winter the Manchus crossed the Ya-lu in force and he was outnumbered and had to flee. He sent a letter to the king saying, “I am now here in your territory with a small force, let us unite and drive back this Manchu horde.”horde.” But nothing came of it.

The Manchus were exceedingly cruel toward their captives. Having collected a large number they made them sit down in rows and then the Manchu braves went along the line and shot arrows into their victims. If the wound was not instantly mortal the victim was compelled to pluck out the arrow with his own hands and give it back to his executioner.

Meanwhile Korea was going from bad to worse. For many years all official positions had been sold to the highest bidder. Governors and generals paid 30,000 cash, prefects 20,000 and clerks paid 3,000. No office could be procured without an immediate cash payment. The price put upon the office of Prime Minister was so great that for many years no one could afford to take it, and so the place remained vacant, perhaps to the benefit of the people. The king was ruled by a favorite concubine and she made use of her power to enrich her relatives and those attached to her. She and other concubines sent men to the country to peddle offices. Half the money they kept themselves and the other half went to the pockets of the concubines. Such was the desperate condition of affairs when the year 1622 came in; and we must now record the downfall of this wretchedwretched parody of a king.

A man by the name of Yi Kwi had desired for a long time to find some way of ridding the land of the desperate tyrant, and at last he found five men who were willing to engage with him in the good cause. They were Sim KyÖng-jin, Sim Keui-wun, Kim Cha-jum, Ch‘oe Myung-gil, Kim Nyu. After thinking the matter over and discussing it, they decided that if their plan succeeded they would put on the throne the grandson of Sun-jo Ta-wang. Kim Nyu was made the leader in this plot. Collecting money they fitted out a small but select body of soldiers and put Gen. Yi Heung-ip at their head, and the day for the event was set. But one of the men connected with the plot turned traitor and told the king the whole plan. The conspirators learned of it immediately and decided to carry out their program in spite of all. As it happened, the king was in a drunken carouse at the time this interesting bit of information was given him and he forgot all about it. That very night the band of conspirators met at the appointed rendezvous beyond the Peking Pass. But there was trouble, because some soldiers who were expected from Chang-dan had not yet arrived; so a swift messenger was sent to find them. They were met twenty li out and hurried forward. Yi Kwal, with several other generals, went to meet these troops beyond the pass and lead them into the city. They found several hundred soldiers ready for the enterprise; but a man named Chang Yu came in haste from the city and said, “The king has been told. The government troops are coming out to seize us.” Yi Kwi seized Yi Kwal by the hand and said, “Kim Nyu who was to lead us has not arrived and you must be our leader.” So he consented. He gave each soldier a piece of paper to fasten to the back of his collar so that they would be able to recognize each other and not be thrown into confusion. At the last moment Kim Nyu arrived and then there was a quarrel between him and Yi Kwal as to the leadership; but as day was about to dawn they let Kim Nyu take charge.

Having heard that the government troops were coming out of the West Gate they hastened around the mountain and entered the Northwest Gate. When the government troops learned by the great noise and tumult in the city that they had been outwitted, they returned only to find the insurrectionary troops before the palace. They had cut their way through the gates with axes and were setting fire to everything inside. As they entered the king’s apartments he slipped out the back door and scaling the back wall found refuge in a monk’s room. From that place he made his way to the house of one An Kuk-sin where he secured a suit of mourner’s clothes and then went to the house of a physician, ChÖng Nam-su. This man however informed the new government as to his whereabouts and he was seized. This occurred in the year 1622.

Prince Neung-yang, the nephew of the deposed king, was elevated to the royal position and crowds of people came and bowed to him as he sat in state before the palace. His posthumous title is In-jo Ta-wang.

His first act was to send a chair to bring back the queen dowager, from the Myung-ye Palace; but she, thinking that it might perhaps be a trick on the part of the wicked king, refused to go. She said, “The king himself must come and take me out.” So he came and showed her that the good news was indeed true. She sat on the throne just as she had done in the days of King Sun-jo, and when the new king came in he prostrated himself before her and wept; but she said, “Do not weep; this is a day of deliverance, and you should rather rejoice.” Then they brought in the depraved and fallen creature who had tried to play at king but had made a lamentable failure. The queen dowager exclaimed, “This arch-traitor and bloody man has come, and he must be judged here and now or I cannot leave this place. For ten years I have been imprisoned here. Day before yesterday I dreamed that the aged king Sun-jo came and said, ‘In a few days you will be delivered.’” The eunuchs brought the royal seals and the insignia of royalty and gave them to the newly appointed king. He banished the deposed king to Kang-wha and his son to Kyo-dong Island. He then gave posthumous honors to Princes Im-ha, Neung-chang, Yun-heung, Pu-wÖn and YÖng-ch‘ang whom the tyrant had caused to be murdered. He also called the queen dowager’s mother from exile on the island of Quelpart.

He found the government in a profoundly wretched condition and he forthwith began a systematic house-cleaning. He appointed new ministers to the six departments and a proclamation was sent to the eight provinces saying that every prefect who had bought his place should be driven from office and that all the land that had been stolen from the people should be returned to them; also that every prefectural clerk should pay up the arrears of revenue which he had withheld from the government. He drew up a company of soldiers at Chong-no, the center of the city, and there executed the former favorite Yi I-ch‘um and seventeen other men who had aided and abetted the deposed king in his monstrosities. Sixty more were banished to distant places where they were confined in small enclosures surrounded with brier hedges, and their food was handed them through small holes in the hedges. Pang Yup, the governor of P‘yung-an Province, and two others in the country, were executed by special messengers sent down to the country for the purpose. This Pang Yup was a most desperate villain. As he had something of a body-guard, resistance was anticipated, but the special messenger of death managed to draw off the guard on some pretext or other and then the work was done swiftly and surely. This governor was so detested by the people that they cut his body into small pieces and each man carried away a small piece “to remember him by.”

The king made Yi Kwi General-in-chief, conferred upon his father the title of Prince Chong-wun and upon his mother that of Pu-pu-in and gave her a palace to live in where the government hospital now stands. He drove out from the palace all vile women, all musical instruments, and he burned at Chong-no the wooden semblance of a mountain which the former king had caused to be made and which was always carried in his procession. This “mountain” was covered with growing shrubs and flowering plants. He made Gen. Chang Man commander of all the provincial forces, with his headquartersheadquarters at P’yung-yang. He beheaded the brother of the deposed queen and also the prefect who had suffocated the young prince at Kang-wha. Spies were sent throughout the country to ascertain the actual state of affairs.

This king was a deadly enemy of Buddhism, and he it was who ordered that no monk should set foot inside the gates of Seoul. The law was promulgated that whenever a common person entered the gates of Seoul he must dismount from his horse. Sacrifices were offered by the king in person at the tomb of Ki-ja and at the blood-marked stone at Song-do, the spot where ChÖng Mong-ju had been murdered when the dynasty was founded. It was decreed that revenue should be collected to the extent of a tithe of the grain, which was much less than before, but was collected more regularly. We cannot but sympathize with the wife of the son of the deposed king, who had been banished to Kyo-dong Island. She followed him into exile and attempted to secure his escape by digging with her own tender hands a tunnel seventy feet long. She had no other implement than a piece of iron resembling a common fire-poker. At the very moment of his escape the plot was discovered and the poor wife hanged herself out of grief and disappointment. When the king heard of this he ordered that honorable burial be given her remains and he put the young man out of misery by administering poison. That same year the deposed queen died and the king gave her the burial honors of a princess. She had been a devoted Buddhist and had endowed many monasteries with wooden or clay images. But she was not happy as queen and prayed that when, according to the Buddhist doctrine, she should take on another life it might not be that of a queen.