The ex-Regent’s influence.... The queen’s influence.... continued reforms.... King adopts new title.... cruel punishments abolished.... Arch demolished.... Yun Chi-ho.... Korea astonished at Japanese victory over Chinese.... Buddhist monks allowed in Seoul.... Yi Chun-yong banished.... Independence Day.... Pak Yong-hyo.... again banished.... American Mining concession.... Count Inouye retires.... cholera.... official change.... Educational reform.... arrival of Viscount Miura.... Japanese policy.... Miura directly implicated in murder of queen.... Inouye not concerned.... Japanese Government ignorant of Miura’s plot.

The year 1895 was big with history. Its events created a strong and lasting impression upon the whole Korean people and it is in the light of these events that the whole subsequent history of the country must be interpreted. The year opened in apparent prosperity. The king had taken oath to govern according to enlightened principles and had exhorted his officials to adhere strictly to the reform program, protesting that if he himself failed to do so it would be an offence against Heaven. The Ta-wun-gun had retired from public life but as his son, the brother of the king, was Minister of the Household and his grandson Yi Chun-yong held a position near the king, there can be no doubt that in a private way the Ta-wun-gun exercised fully as much influence as he had done while in active office. It is necessary to bear in mind that the enmity of the queen against the ex-Regent extended to the sons of the latter and in spite of the terms of the king’s oath constant pressure was brought to bear upon the king from that direction. Whatever be the reason, we find that in January Yi Chun-yong was sent to Japan as Korean Minister, an act that was really in favor of the anti-Regent faction since it temporarily removed one of the chief actors from the immediate stage.

As the king had sworn to pay personal attention to the details of government it was deemed advisable to remove the cabinet meeting place to the palace itself. Whether this was in accord with the spirit of the reforms may be doubted, for it worked directly for the complete centralization of power which later caused a reversal of the whole governmental policy.

The progress of the so-called reforms went on apace. The outside, the integuments, were changed, whatever may or may not have happened in the inner mind. The long baggy sleeves which had distinguished the true yang-ban were done away and the side-openings of the long coats were sewed up. The width of the hat brims was curtailed and other minor changes were effected. A salutary change was made by putting power into the hands of the ministers of state to carry out the work of their respective offices according to law without referring every thing to the central government, excepting in very important cases where it affected other departments. The immemorial customs regarding the salutations of inferiors to superiors and vice versa were largely done away and more democratic rules formulated. The Home Minister undertook to correct many abuses in the country, to ferret out cases where cultivated land returned no revenue, because of the indirection of the ajuns, and by this means the revenue of the government was very largely augmented.

At the advice of the leading members of the Cabinet His Majesty adopted the title of Ta-gun-ju Pye-ha (ta-gun-ju) pye-ha in place of his former title of Chon-ha (chon-ha). This elevated him to a position somewhat higher than that of Wang (wang) but still much lower than the title of emperor which he later assumed. All other members of the Royal Family were likewise elevated one degree.

At this time a radical change was made in the manner of punishing criminals. The cruel forms of execution and of torture which had always prevailed were done away and more humane methods instituted. Decapitation was done away and strangulation substituted. This worked no relief for the criminal but the horrible spectacle of public decapitation was relegated to the past.

A large number of men who had been banished or who had fled the country because of connection with the troubles of 1884 and other years, were pardoned and their relatives were again recognized as eligible to office.

On the native New Year which occurred in February the king issued an important edict saying that office should be given not only to men of noble blood but to others of good character and attainments, and he ordered that such men be selected and sent up from the country as candidates for official position. This was very pleasing to the country people and was hailed as a genuine sign of political renovation. At the same time the ancient arch outside the West Gate was demolished. This arch was the only remaining sign of Chinese suzerainty and its demolition broke the last visible thread which bound Korea to her great patron. We say visible advisedly, for there can be no doubt that the intrinsic loyalty of the vast majority of Koreans to China was still practically unimpaired.

On February thirteenth Yun Chi-ho returned from many years’ sojourn in America and China where he had gained a genuine insight into truly enlightened government, and his return to Korea would have been a most happy augury had there been enough enlightened sentiment in the country to form a basis for genuine as distinguished from superficial reform.

Meanwhile the Japanese were carrying everything before them in Manchuria and the end had now come. The Korean government therefore sent a special envoy to the Japanese headquarters on the field at Hai-cheng, congratulating them upon their brilliant successes. Soon after this the war terminated with the treaty of Shimonoseki by the terms of which China ceded to Japan southern Manchuria, and the island of Formosa, abjured all interest in Korea and paid an enormous indemnity. The result astonished the Koreans but so strong was the feeling in favor of China that very many still clung to the idea that China would pay the money and then go to work preparing for a much greater struggle with the victorious Japanese.

Since the year 1456 Buddhist monks had been forbidden to enter Seoul. This was part of the general policy of this dynasty to give Buddhism no political foothold. Now the Japanese secured from the government a reinstatement of the Buddhists in their original position and for the first time in four centuries and a half the mendicant monk with his wooden gong and rosary begged on the streets of Seoul.

In April a great misfortune overtook the house of the ex-Regent. His grandson, Yi Chun-yong, nephew to the king, was arrested and charged with having connived with tonghaks and others to depose the king and assume the reins of power. It was not shown that Yi Chun-yong had been a main mover in the scheme or that he had even favored the idea, but the very fact that his name had been used in such a connection was enough to send him into banishment on the island of Kyo-dong, off Kang-wha. Four other men connected with this affair were executed. This was a severe blow to the ex-Regent and did much to bring him to the point which made possible the terrible events of the following October.

The sixth of June witnessed a great celebration in Seoul, which has gone down in history as Independence Day. A fete was held in the “Old Palace” which exceeded in brilliancy any similar demonstration since the opening of Korea to foreign relations.

It was inevitable that, from the moment of his arrival in Korea, Pok Yong-hyo should be at sword’s points with the Ta-wun-gun, for the returned refugee represented the radical wing of the reform party, which the ex-Regent had always bitterly opposed; and besides the presence of such a strong man would necessarily subtract from the influence of the aged but autocratic prince. It is probable that the Japanese brought Pak Yong-hyo back to Korea under the impressionimpression that he would prove a willing instrument in their hands, but they soon discovered that he had ideas and opinions of his own and that he was working rather for Korea than for Japan. He failed to fall in with some of the plans which would help the Japanese but at the expense of Korea and, in fine, he became something of an embarrassment to his former benefactors. Meanwhile the king and queen were both attached to him, and this for several reasons. He was a near relative of the king and would have no cause for desiring a change in the status of the reigning house; in the second place he was a determined enemy of the Ta-wun-gun, and in the third place he was sure to work against a too liberal policy toward the Japanese. This attitude of increasing friendliness between him and the Royal family was a further cause of uneasiness to the Japanese, although Count Inouye himself had done much to win the good will of the queen. Finally Pak Yong-hyo had won the lasting gratitude of the king and queen by exposing the machinations of Yi Chun-yong.

The ex-Regent was determined that Pak Yong-hyo should be gotten out of the way. To this end he concocted a scheme which, with the probable sanction of the Japanese, seemed to promise success. He laid before the king certain grave charges of treason against Pak, which, though not believed either by the king or the queen, convinced them that it would be impossible to shield him from probable destruction; for the people still called him a traitor, the ex-Regent would spare no pains to see him put out of the way and it was evident that the Japanese would not take any strong measures to protect him. The queen called him up and advised him to make good his escape before action could be taken on the charge of treason. He complied and forthwith escaped again to Japan. He had not as yet broken with the Japanese and they were doubtless glad to help him away. It was early in July that he passed off the stage, perhaps for ever, and thus there were lost to Korea the services of one of the most genuinely patriotic Koreans of modern times. If the Japanese could have determinedly put the ex-Regent in the background and allowed Pak Yong-hyo to work out his plans on terms of amity with the Royal family all the evils which followed might easily have been averted. It was this act, as we believe, of allowing the ex-Regent to carry out his scheme of personal revenge that caused the whole trouble and there never was a time, before or since, when brighter hopes for Korea were more ruthlessly sacrificed.

But progressive measures kept on apace and during July the government issued new and important mining, quarantine and army regulations and organized a domestic postal system. A valuable mining concession in the district of Un-san in the north was granted to an American syndicate, a transaction that has proved the most profitable, at least to the foreigner, of any attempt to open up the resources of Korea.

Near the end of the month Korea suffered the misfortune of seeing Count Inouye retire from the Legation in Seoul and return to Japan. Never did the Japanese have such need of a strong and upright man in Seoul and never had a Japanese Minister in Seoul opportunity for greater distinction. There are those who believe that he despaired of accomplishing anything so long as the two opposing factions in Seoul were led by personalities so strong and so implacable in their mutual hatred as the queen and the ex-Regent. It is not unlikely that he felt that until one or other of these should be permanently removed from the field of action there could be no real opportunity for the renovation of Korea. This by no means implies that he desired such removal to be effected by forcible means but it is not unnatural to suppose that he must have given expression to the conviction as to the futility of doing anything under existing conditions in the peninsula. There have been some who have believed that the Japanese authorities in Tokyo determined upon the removal of the obstacle in Seoul by any means in their power. Subsequent events gave some color to this surmise but we cannot and do not believe that the Japanese government was a party to the plot which ended in the tragedy of the following October but that a fanatical and injudicious Japanese Minister to Korea privately gave his sanction to an act which the Japanese government would have sternly forbidden had they been consulted.

The summer of 1895 witnessed the first serious epidemic of cholera in Korea since the far more destructive one of 1886. Special plague hospitals were erected in Seoul and in spite of their temporary and inadequate nature the foreign protestant missionaries of Seoul, who were in charge, accomplished very much in the way of local relief. It is impossible to say what the total mortality in Seoul was, to say nothing of the country at large, but it is probable that ten or twelve thousand people died in the Capital before the subsidence of the epidemic.

The forces which worked to the expulsion of Pok Yong-hyo also operated to curtail the term of banishment of Yi Chun-yung who was recalled from Kyo-dong Island on August 6th, but even the ex-Regent could not secure the residence of his grandson in Seoul, so he sent the young man to Japan, since which time he has been numbered with the political refugees and has never been able to think of returning to his native land. After the departure of Count Inouye, who had enjoyed the partial confidence of the queen, the ex-Regent’s prospects improved to such an extent that several of the ministers of state who were well affected toward Her Majesty were removed and others substituted; especially significant was the removal of the king’s brother Yi Chu-myun from the Ministry of the Household. As he was the son of the ex-Regent, this would seem to be a defeat for that faction but, in fact, his removal from that position was a necessary step to the carrying out of the dangerous plot which was already being formulated in the mind of the queen’s determined enemy.

This summer, which witnessed so many curious contradictions, was further distinguished by a determined effort in the line of education. The Educational Department projected a Normal school and a beginning was made. One hundred and seventeen young men were sent to study in Japan and other measures of lesser importance were carried out.

On the first day of September Viscount Miura arrived from Japan to assume the duties of Minister. Over a month had elapsed since the departure of Count Inouye. The Viscount was an enthusiasticenthusiastic Buddhist and evidently belonged to the old rather than the new Japan. He was, withal, a strenuous man and is said to have considered the settlement of the Korean difficulties merely a matter of prompt and vigorous action. At the time of his arrival the ex-Regent was living at his summer-house near the river and from the very first he was in close relations with the new Japanese Minister. It was quite evident that the latter had espoused the cause of the ex-Regent as against the queen and that instead of trying to close the breach which was constantly widening between these two powerfulpowerful personages he was preparing to make use of this estrangement to further what he supposed to be the interests of Japan. Min Yong-whan, the most powerful of the queen’s friends, was sent to America as Minister; and everything was ready for the coup which had undoubtedly been determined upon. From the mass of conflicting evidence, charge and counter charge, it is difficult to escape the following conclusion. There were two different policies held by political parties in Japan as to the best way to handle the Korean question; one was what we may call the radical policy which advocated strong measures and the instant and complete overthrow of all opposition to the will of Japan in the peninsula; the other, or conservative, policy looked to the attainment of the same object by gradual and pacific means. It seems that the failure of Count Inouye to accomplish anything definite in the line of a settlement of internal dissentions at Seoul resulted in the appointment of Viscount Miura as an exponent of the extreme radical policy. He was supposed to do prompt work but what that work would be perhaps neither he nor his constituency saw clearly before his arrival on the scenescene. It would be going much too far to say that the assassination of the queen was once thought of, and yet it is more than likely that those most conversant with conditions in Seoul felt that by some means or other her enormous influence must be permanently checked and that affairs must be so managed that she should have nothing more to do in the handling of questions of state. How this was to be accomplished neither Miura nor any of his advisers knew until he came and looked over the field.

For this reason it is easy to see how the ex-Regent would be the first man in Korea with whom the Japanese Minister would wish to consult, and it is certain that the Ta-wun-gun would have but one word to say as to the solution of the difficulty. His experience of twenty years had convinced him that there was only one way to accomplish the object which the Minister had in view and while Viscount Miura naturally shrunk from adopting that course it would seem he too was at last convinced that it was the only feasible plan. That he actually advised it in the first instance we do not believe, but that he fell in with the plan which others suggested and which they offered to carry through without his personal intervention there can be no doubt whatever. Nor can there be any question as to where the responsibility for the tragedy rests; not with the Japanese Government, surely, except in-so-far as its appointment of such a man to the difficult post of Minister to Seoul may reflect upon its wisdom.

It has sometimes been hinted that Count Inouye upon his return to Japan advocated some such policy as that which was carried out by Marquis Miura but there is nothing to indicate that this is other than a libel, for the whole career of that able statesman gives the lie to such suspicions and his dispatches to his government show the very opposite spirit from that intimated in these slanderous reports. For instance we have the extract from his reports read in the Japanese Parliament in which he says:

On one occasion the queen observed to me, “It was a matter of extreme regret to me that the overtures made by me toward Japan were rejected. The Ta-wun-gun, on the other hand, who showed his unfriendliness toward Japan, was assistedassisted by the Japanese Minister to rise in power.” In reply to this I gave as far as I could an explanation of these things to the queen and after allaying her suspicions I further explained that it was the true and sincere desire of the emperor and government of Japan to place the independence of Korea on a firm basis and in the meantime to strengthen the Royal House of Korea. In the event of any member of the Royal family, or indeed any Korean, attempting treason against the Royal House, I gave the assurance that the Japanese Government would not fail to protect the Royal House even by force of arms.

This unequivocal promise of protection was made by Count Inouye just before his departure for Japan and we do not and cannot believe that he expressed anything but his honest sentiments and those of the government that was back of him. It has been urged that the action of the Japanese Government in acquitting Viscount Miura in the face of the evidence given proves the complicity of that government in the outrage and its previous knowledge that it was to be perpetrated, but this does not necessarily follow. That government was doubtless unwilling to stultify itself by acknowledging that its accredited minister to Korea was actually guilty of the crime indicated in the charge. This attempt to evade the responsibility was of course futile. There was no escape from the dilemma in which that government was placed but the deduction that it was particeps criminis in the events of October 8th is unbelievable. It was the work of Viscount Miura and of his staff and of them alone, as is shown by the following extract from the DecisionDecision of the Japanese Court of Preliminary Inquiry, which court sat in Hiroshima in January 1896.