THE KOREA REVIEW
Volume 2, 1902
Homer
B. Hulbert A. M., F.
R. G. S..
Editor.
Seoul: Methodist Publishing House.
Contents
INDEX OF THE KOREA REVIEW *
*Articles
by the Editor unless otherwise indicated
1902.
A
Beggar’s Wages 8
A
Celebrated Monument 102
A
Convert to Buddhism 404
A
Cuttle Fish Story 17
A
Hunter’s Mistake 19
A
Government Stock Farm 306
A
Jade Bowl 352
A
Korean Canute 165
A
Leaf from Korean Astrology
491, 529
A
Look Beyond 261
A
Maker of the New Orient 502
A
School for the Native Character
63
A
Snakes Revenge 208
Aesculapian
Episode, An 345
Ai-go
113
Alliance,
Anglo-Japanese 69, 71
Alphabet,
Remusat on the Korean
198
An
Aesculapian Episode 345
An
Island without a Sea 59
Ancient
Kingdom of Karak, The
541
Ancient
Korea, Note on 13
Appenzeller,
Memoir of Rev. H. G.
by Rev. W. C. Swearer 254
Apricots
344
Archery,
Expert 453
Astrology,
A leaf from Korean 491,529
Attack
on foreigners, Japanese 262
Banking
in Korea 250
Beggars
Wages, a 8
Bell,
The Great 387
Belt,
The Jade 387
Bible
Society Sunday 223
Bribery
began, How 164
Buck-wheat
301
Buddha,
The Golden 388
Buddhism,
a Convert to 404
Buddhist
Monastery, A 26
Budget
for 1902 120
Burial
Customs 241, 294
Cabbage
302
Canute,
A Korean 165
Cats
and the Dead 401
Cave
felem 306
Celebrated
Monument, A 102
Chang-ot,
The 21
Chestnuts
393
Cholera
Epidemic 406, 506
Christmas
among Koreans Rev.
G. H. Jones Ph. D. 61
Collbran,
Miss, (Obituary) 502
Convert
to Buddhism, A 404
‘Correspondence
24, 440
Council
of Missions 414
Count
di Malgra, The D.
Pegorini Esq 462
Crab-apples
345
Crow-talk
403
Currency,
Depreciated 116, 125
Currency,
Korean 337, 389
Cuttle-fish
Story, A 17
Donkey-maker,
The 20
Doom
deferred, The 352
Editorial
Comment 23, 69, 116, 166, 211,
262, 310, 355, 406,
453. 504, 549
Electric
Shocks 164
Embargo
on rice export 23, 166
English
and Japanese Alliance 69,71
Essence
of Life, The 209
Expert
Archery 453
Export
of rice, Embargo on 23, 166
Exposition,
The St. Louis 311
Famine
conditions 123
Feudalism
in Korea 354
Fiction,
Korean 286
Flutes,
The Twin Jade 386
From
Fusan to Wonsan 529
Ginko
395
Ginseng
26
Glass-works
27
Globe-trotter,
Korea a la
Golden
Measure, The
Good
Old Age
Good
Policy
Goose
that Laid the Golden Egg,
The 307
Greetings
22
Hair
at Weddings 22
Hazel
Nuts 395
History
of Korea 33, 81. 129, 177
225,
273. 21, 321
369.
417, 465, 513, 561
Hanging
Stone, The 18
Hospital,
The Severance 357, 510
How
Bribery began 164
Hunter’s
mistake, A 19
Independence
Club, The 216
Indian
came from. Where the 159
Island
without a Sea, An 59
Jade
Bowl, A 352
Japanese
Banking in Korea 250
Japanese
Attack on foreigners 262
Jujubes
394
Karak,
The ancient Kingdom of 541
Kato,
Esq. M., Adviser 212
Korea,
a la Globe-trotter - 161
Korean
Currency 337, 389
Korean
Fiction 286
Korean
History 33, 81, 129, 177, 225,
273, 321, 369, 417, 465, 513. 561
Language,
The Korean 433
Laws,
ordinances &c. W. H. Wilkinson Esq. 174
Look
beyond, A 261
Male
and female principles in Plants
354
Marks
of Royalty, The 351
Memoir
of Rev. H. G. Appenzeller
by Rev. W. C. Swearer
254
Memoir
of Count di Malgra by D.
Pegorini Esq. 462
Meteorological
Observations 272, 320 V. Pokrovsky M. D., 368,
416, 464.
512, 560
Military
School, Trouble in 29
Millet
205
Mission
Meetings 407
Monument,
A Celebrated 202
Murder
in Chemulpo 126
Native
Character, A School for the
63
Necessity
the Mother of Invention
193
News
Calendar 25. 71, 118, 167, 212, 265,
313. 359, 4 9, 459. 505, 553
North
and South Winds 115
Not
dead yet 452
Notes
on Ancient Korea 13
Oats
205
Obituary
Notice, Miss Collbran 502
Obituary
Notice, Count di Malgra
462
Obituary
Notice Rev. H. G. Appenzeller
254
Odds
and Ends 17, 65, 112, 164, 208, 261,
306, 351, 401. 450, 546
Old
Age, Good iS
Onions
303
Origin
of Korean People Dr.
E. Baelz 440
Origin
of Korean People 453
Pagoda.
The nine story 388
Pak-tu-san,
Volcanic? 361
Peaches
344
Pears
343
Persimmons
341
Phonetic
System for China 356
Pine
nuts 396
Plums
345
Postal
Service 396
Potatoes
301
Products
of Korea 49, 103, 203, 307, 341,
393
Queen
of Quelpart 458
Question
and Answer 21, 66, 115, 308, 353
Railway,
The Seoul- Eui-ju 206, 21 1
Remusat
on the Korean Alphabet
198
Revenge,
A snake’s 208
Reviews
159, 304, 458, 4 >8
Rice
49
Rice
export. Embargo 23
Sacrificing
at City Gates 353
Sak-sun,
The Works of Geo.
H. Jones Ph. D. 55
School
for the Native Character 63
Seoul
Chemulpo Tennis Tournament
408,411
Seoul
Electric Company 217
Sesanmm
300
Severance
Memorial Hospital 357,
510
Slavery
in Korea 149
Snake’s
Revenge, A 208
Sorghum
204
Status
of Woman i, 53, 97, 155
Sticking
Stone, The 67
Stock
farm, a Government 306
Stones,
Water-worn 305
Submarine
Adventure, A 145
Tadpoles
351
Taxation
in Korea 481
Telegraph
Service 396
Tennis
Tournament, Seoul 358
Tennis
Tournament, Seoul-Chemulpo 408, 411
Text
of Anglo-Japanese Alliance 71
The
Ancient Kingdom of Karak
541
The
Chang-ot 21
The
donkey- maker. 20
The
doom deferred 352
The
Essence of life 209
The
Golden Buddha 388
The
Golden Measure 385
The
Goose that laid the Golden
The
Great Bell 387
The
Hanging Stone 18
The
Jade belt
The
Jade flutes
The
Korean Language 433
The
Louisiana Purchase Exposition 311,313
The
Marks of Royalty 351
The
Nine Story Pagoda 388
The
North and South Winds 115
The
Origin of the Koreans Dr.
E. Baelz 440
The
Origin of the Koreans 453
The
Products of Korea 49, 103, 203, 300,
341, 393
The
Queen of Quelpart 4 58
The
Seoul Chemulpo Tennis
Tournament
408,411
The
Seoul tennis tournament 358
The
Seoul Eui-ju Railway 206. 216
The
Severance Memorial Hospital
357, 516
The
Status of Woman 1,
53, 97, 155
The
Sticking Stone 67
The
Treasures of Kyöng-ju 385
The
Twin Jade flutes 386
The
White Buddha 66
The
Works of Sak-eun
Geo.
H. Jones Ph. D. 65
Things
are not what they seem 450
Trade
Report of Korea II98
Travel
in Eastern Korea 529
Treasures
of Kyöng-ju 385
Turnips
302
Walnuts
393
Water
Worn Stones 308
Wheat
203
Where
the Indian Came from 159
White
Buddha, The 66
Winds,
South and North 115
Woman,
The Status of i, 53, 97,
155
Works
of Sak-eun Geo.
H. Jones Ph.D.
65
Wreck
of the Kuma-gawa 247, 261,
266
THE KOREA REVIEW
The
status of Woman in Korea.
(SECOND
PAPER.)
In
a former paper we discussed briefly the question of the
seclusion of woman. We
now come to the second division of our subject, namely, the
occupations open to
women in Korea. And before attempting to enumerate them we
should observe in a
general way that the chief occupation of the Korean woman,
whether of the high
or low class, is motherhood. Like the ancient Hebrew woman, she
says “Give me
children or I die.” This springs from the instinct for self-preservation. The Confucian
code renders male offspring a sine qua
non of a successful life and a woman who brings her
husband no children is
doubly discredited. There is no more valid cause for divorce in
Korea than
barrenness. There are no “old
maids” in
this country. It becomes a matter of public scandal if a girl
passes her
eighteenth or twentieth year without settling in a home. Of
course in the case
of cripples or incompetents it is a little difficult to arrange,
but many a
young man takes his bride home only to find that she is a deaf
mute or
cross-eyed or humpbacked, or partially paralyzed. This is a
triumph for the old
woman, the professional go-between, who “works off” these
unmarketable goods
without the groom or his family knowing anything about the
deformity until too late.
But the balance is even as between the brides and the grooms,
for a nice girl
as often finds herself tied to a drunk- ard or a case of non compos mentis. The Korean woman’s main
business then is wifehood and motherhood,
but even so [page
2] there
are many opportunities for her to help along the family finances
and supplement
the wages of a husband who is too often shiftless and dependent,
or worse.
Remembering that there are three
social grades in Korea, the high, the middle and the low, our
first question is:
What occupations are open to women of the upper class, who from
necessity or
inclination desire to earn an honest penny?
Strange as it may seem, the only kind
of a shop such a woman can keep is a wine-shop. Of course she
never appears in
person but if her house is properly situated she can turn a
portion of it into
a wine shop where customers will be served by a “clerk” or
bar-maid, perhaps
the lady’s slave or other servant. No lady will ever sell cloth
or vegetables
or fruit or anything, in fact, except wine. Silk culture is a
very common
industry in which ladies take a prominent part if they are
living in the
country. The care of the eggs, the feeding of the worms, the
manipulation of
the cocoons and the spinning of the silk are methods by which
the wife of the
gentleman farmer passes many pleasant hours and adds materially
to the finances
of the household.
As in China so in Korea it used to be
customary for the king to come out one day in the year and go
through the form
of plowing thus indicating the high regard in which agriculture
is held. At the
same time the queen used to come out and gather mulberry leaves
with her own
hand and feed the silk-worms, to indicate that this is one of
woman’s highest forms
of industry. And, as might be expected, weaving, sewing and
embroidery are
forms of labor common to the highest ladies, though the best
embroidery is not
done by them.
Many Korean ladies of restricted means
act as tutors to the daughters of their more fortunate sisters.
They teach the Chinese
character and literature, letter-writing, burial customs, music,
house-keeping,
hygiene, the care of infants, obstetrics, various ceremonies,
religion,
fiction, needlework, embroidery and other things which the
little girl should
learn. All these forms of useful learning are taught by lady
teachers quite commonly
in the home of the well-to-do gentleman. Of course the teacher
is not seen by
the gentleman of the house.
In the country the tending of bees
falls to the lot of the lady of the house and it is not beneath
her dignity,
however high her [page
3] position
may be. She may also help in the care of fruit trees but
especially of the
jujube tree. Nor is it considered lowering for her to engage in
the making of
straw shoes. It seems a little singular that the Korean lady
should be able to make
the commonest and lowest kind of footwear when it would be
entirely beneath her
dignity to make the better kinds of shoes, such for instance as
those which her
husband would wear in town.
In Korea there are many blind people
and not a few of them make a living as exorcists. If an inmate
of a house is sick
someone will run for a blind exorcist who will come and drive
out the evil
spirit which causes the disease. But men are not the only ones
who ply this
curious trade. Any Korean blind woman, no matter what her rank,
can become an exorcist.
A lady exorcist, as might be expected, is in demand among the
upper classes
almost exclusively.
Korea is the fortune-teller’s
paradise. Superstition is so prevalent that .scarcely any
undertaking is begun
without first consulting the fortune-teller. Fully as much of
this is done among
the upper classes as among the lower, for the former can better
afford the
luxury. Indigent ladies do not hesitate to enter the ranks of
the
fortune-tellers. It is an easy, graceful, lucrative form of
labor and carries
with it an element of adventure which probably appeals strongly
to some
natures.
But a higher form of labor to which
the Korean lady is eligible is that of the physician. Most of
the forms of
labor enumerated above are open to women of the middle class as
well as to
ladies but no Korean woman can be a physician except she belong
to the highest
class. The science of medicine, or I might better say, perhaps,
a science of
medicine, has received great attention from Koreans for many
centuries. The Korean
pharmacopoea has been celebrated even in China; and it cannot be
denied that it
contains certain crude drugs which are often effective. But
however this may
be, Korea has many native lady physicians who administer their
extract of
centipede or tincture of bear’s gall (which are not, by the way,
among the
effective remedies above referred to) or decoction of crow’s
foot or whatever
else the symptoms of the patient seem to demand. They are said
to be very
skillful at acupuncture which together with the application of
the moxa forms [page 4] the extent of Korean
surgery. The Korean lady doctor
is used more especially in obstetric cases where the Korean
patient could not
possibly be attended by a male physician. A rather good story is
told of a
certain queen who was taken ill. Unfortunately no lady physician
could be
found, and the distinguished patient grew rapidly worse. Male
physicians were
at hand but of course they could not see the patient. Suddenly
there appeared
at the palace gate a venerable man who said that he could
prescribe for the
queen. When asked how he could diagnose the case without seeing
the patient he
said “Tie a string around her wrist and pass it through a hole
in the
partition.” It was done and the old man, holding the end of the
string,
described her symptoms exactly and wrote out a prescription
which quickly
brought her round. Compared with this, Marconi’s recent triumph
in wireless
telegraphy seems—but how did we come to digress like this? Let
us get back to
our subject.
In time of war Korean ladies formerly
made themselves useful by constructing bows and arrows. There
was a special kind
of bow, only fifteen inches long, which would throw an iron
arrow, like a
needle, with great force. Women themselves sometimes helped to
“man” the city
walls and would make effective use of these little bows.
Large quantities of hemp are grown in
Korea and a coarse kind of linen is extremely common. The Korean
lady is
privileged to take a hand in the preparation of the hemp and the
making of the
linen.
In different parts of the country
special customs prevail, as in Ham-gyŭng Province where ladies
often engage in
the making of horse-hair switches with which elderly gentleman
supplement their
thinning locks in making up that most honored sign of Korean
citizenship, the
top-knot.
We must now pass on to occupations
that are open to Korean women of the middle class. As might be
supposed, a descent
in the social grade widens the field of the Korean woman’s work.
The middle
class woman can engage in all the occupations of her higher
sister except those
of the physician and the teacher of Chinese literature, but
besides these there
are many other openings for her.
She may be the proprietress of any
kind of a shop, [page 5] although
she will not appear in person. She can “take in washing” which
means, in Korea,
carrying it to the nearest brook or well-curb where the water
she uses speedily
finds its way back into the well. She can act as cook in some
well-todo family;
she can tend the fowls and the pigs, as farm wives do at home,
and thereby earn
her own pin money. Concubines are procured exclusively from this
middle class.
Many middle class women are comb-makers, head-band makers and
tobacco pouch
makers. They are allowed certain fishing rights as well, though
they are
restricted to the taking of clams, cuttle fish and beche de mer.
The women on
the island of Quelpart held, until lately, a peculiar position
in this matter of
fishing. The men stayed at home while the women waded out into
the sea and
gathered clams and pearl oysters. As the women were always nude
there was a
strict law that men must stay indoors during the fishing hours.
So these modern
Godivas were the bread winners and, as such, claimed exceptional
privileges. It
is said that the island of Quelpart bade fair to become a genuine
gynecocracy. But it was all changed when Japanese fishermen
appeared and began
to fish off that island. The women’s occupation was gone and the
men had to go
to work again.
Another important field of labor that
is monopolized by women of the middle class is that of
wet-nurse. Women of the
upper class often act in this capacity but as a matter of
friendship—not for
pay. Buddhist nuns all come from the middle class but it is
considered a great
drop in the social scale. That peculiar class of women called
na-in or palace
women are all of the middle class. They are in some sense the
hand-maidens of
the queen. They engage in embroidery and other fancy work under
the eye of Her Majesty.
Foreigners often suppose that this position is a disgraceful one
but these
palace women are entirely respectable members of society and any
delinquency on
their part is severely dealt with.
Many women of the middle class are
innkeepers. Travel on Korean roads is so slow that inns are very
numerous and women
of the middle class very frequently find this a successful means
of livelihood.
The hostess has little trouble about keeping the accounts. All
she has to do is
to watch [page
6] the rice
bowls and the bean bag; for food and fodder are the only things
charged for in
a Korean inn. Sleeping room and stable room are thrown in
gratis. If the
hostess had to keep an eye on these things as well it would be
impossible for
her to preserve any semblance of seclusion.
The making of shoes and of fish nets
also devolves upon women of this class. Ladies of the upper
class can make straw
shoes only but middle class women can make any kind.
Of all these occupations of middle
class women there are only
two in which low class women cannot engage, namely that of palace-women and
tobacco-pouch makers.
We now come to the lowest class of
all. While middle class women are thoroughly respectable, women of the low class
are looked upon as entirely outside the social pale. They have
practically no
rights at all and are at the mercy of any one into whose hands
they fall.
There are first those unfortunates
called dancing-girls. The northern province of Pyŭng-an takes
the lead in
supplying women to fill the ranks of this degraded class. The
girls are taken
when very young and trained to their profession. These women are
never veiled
and go about as freely as men. In the Korean view they are
unsexed and are
social outcasts. They are not necessarily women of bad character
and many are
the stories illustrative of their kindness, charity and
patriotism. And yet, if
the estimate of their own countrymen can be accepted, such
goodness is the very
rare exception. In early days there were no dancing-girls, but
boys performed
the duties of this profession. In course of time, however, a
gradual weakening
of the moral tone of the people let in this unspeakable evil.
The dancing-girl
is a protegé of the government; in fact, the whole clan are
supported out of
government funds and are supposed to perform only at public
functions. They do
not by any means constitute that branch of society which in
western countries
goes by the euphemistic name demi monde.
The dancing-girl usually closes her public career by becoming
the concubine of
some wealthy gentleman.
As in Ancient Greece the heterai had greater
oppotunities for
education than respectable women had, so in Korea the greater
freedom of the
dancing-girl gives her an opportunity [page 7] to acquire a culture which
makes her intellectually far more companionable than her more
secluded but more
reputable sisters. This of course is a great injustice. There is
a very wide
distinction made between dancing-girls and courtezans, of which
latter Korea
has its full share.
There are also female jugglers,
tumblers, contortionists and professional story-tellers. Their
occupation
describes them. The mudang or sorceress is much in evidence in
Korea. She is
the lowest of the low; for besides an entire lack of character
she is supposed
to have commerce with the evil spirits. The p’an-su or blind
exorcist is the
enemy of the evil spirits and, by a superior power, drives them
away. But the mudang
is supposed to secure their departure through friendly
intercession. This of
course determines her unenviable position and few women in Korea
are more
depraved than the mudang.
The female slave is very common in
Korea. She may have been born a slave or she may have been made
one as a punishment
or she may have sold herself into slavery in order to help some
relative or to
liquidate the claims of an importunate creditor or she may have
been made a
slave because of her husband’s crime. The condition of the slave
is rather
better than that of many of the poor people of Korea for she is
sure of food
and shelter, which is more than many can say. As a rule the
slave is treated
fairly well and does not particularly excite our pity. She will
be seen
carrying water home from the well and not only will her face be
uncovered but
there is usually an hiatus between her very short jacket and her
waistband
which leaves the breasts entirely exposed.
The professional go-between who acts
in the capacity of a matrimonial bureau is one the peculiar
excrescences on the
body politic of Korea. It is her business to find brides for the
bachelors and
husbands for the maidens. Her services are not absolutely
necessary, for the
parents or relatives of the eligible young man or woman are
usually able to
arrange an alliance; but there are many cases where the services
of the
go-between are of value. If an undesirable young man or woman
fears that he or
she will not draw a prize in the matrimonial lottery the
chung-ma is called in,
and it is made [page
8] worth
her while to find an acceptable partner for her client. So it
comes about that
she is always well worth watching and her description of a
prospective bride or
groom should be verified if possible by occular evidence. A case
has just come under
my notice where a nice girl was provided with a husband by a Chung-ma, The girl’s
relatives went to
see the prospective groom and found him handsomely dressed and
living in a fine
house, but when the wedding ceremony was over he took her home
to a wretched
house where his father and mother and a large family lived
huddled together
like rabbits in a hole. The deception was a most cruel one, for
the girl had
been accustomed to a life of comparative luxury.
Occasionally these go-betweens are
brought to justice for these felonious acts but generally the
girl would rather
suffer in silence than have the matter made a public scandal.
Besides these members of the low class
we also have those women who are professional attendants at the
wedding parade
and with huge piles of false hair on top of their heads follow
unveiled in the
nuptial procession. Besides these there is only one class to
mention. These are
the women butchers at the Confucian School at Seoul. At no other
place can
women act as butchers, but these women are supposed to be
descended from a wild
tribe which swore allegiance to Korea and some of whose members
were given this
position as an hereditary one. It is said that, contrary to the
usual order of
things, these people get their upper teeth before the lower
ones. This I have
not verified, nor is it of any consequence.
The foregoing is not a complete list
of all the occupations open to the Korean woman but the most
important ones will
be found here.
(To
be continued).
A
Beggar’s Wages.
He
was no beggar at first, nor need he ever have been one; but when
the monk met
him in front of his father’s house and, pointing a bony finger
at him, said “you
will be a [page
9] beggar
when you are fifteen years old” it simply frightened him into
being one. I’ve
forgotten his name but we can call him Palyungi, which name will
do as well as
any. He was twelve and the only son of wealthy parents. How the
snuffling monk
knew that he was going to be a beggar is more than I can say but
perhaps he
envied the boy his good prospects and was sharp enough to have
learned that you
can frighten some folks into doing most anything by just telling
them that they
are destined to do it.
Palyungi was a sensitive lad and he
never thought of doubting the monk’s word. He reasoned that if
he stayed at
home and became a beggar it would mean that his parents also
would be reduced
to want, while if he went away and became a sort of vicarious
beggar it might
save them.
How he induced his parents to let him
go is not told but sure it is that one day he set out without a
single cash in
his pouch, not knowing whether he would ever see his father’s
home again. He
wandered southward across the Han through Ch’ung-chŭng Province;
across the
lofty Cho Ryŭng or Bird Pass begging his way from house to
house. So sensitve
was he that he hardly dared sleep under any man’s roof for fear
his evil
fortune would be communicated to it. His clothes were in rags
and he was
growing thinner and thinner, eating sometimes of the chaff and
beans which the
horses left in the corners of their eating troughs, sometimes
dining with the
pigs.
At last one night he was limping along
the road toward a village, when his courage gave out and he sunk
in a heap
beside the road and gave up the struggle. He fell into a light,
troubled sleep
from which he was awakened by the sound of a galloping horse. It
was now almost
dark, but rising to his knees he saw a horse come pounding down
the road with
halter trailing and no owner in sight. On the horse’s back were
two small but
apparently heavy boxes. As the horse passed him he seized the
trailing halter
and speedily brought the animal to a stand-still. These heavy
boxes, what could
they contain but money. For a moment the temptation was strong
but the next
moment he gave a laugh as much as to say “I’m not fifteen yet,
what good would
the money do me if I am to be a beggar anyway?” So he tied [page
10] the horse to a tree out of
sight of the road and walked along in the direction from which
the horse had
come. He had not gone a mile before out of the darkness appeared
a man evidently suffering from great excitement
and running as fast as he could go. He fairly ran into
Palyungi’s arms. His
first word was “Have you seen my horse? I am undone if I cannot
find him. He
was loaded with the government tax from my district and if it is
lost my head
will be taken off and all my family reduced to poverty.” The boy
asked him the
color of the horse and other particulars and, when sure that
this was the owner
of the horse he had caught, led him to the spot where he had
tied it. The owner
was so delighted that he fell to crying, and opening one of the
boxes took out
a silver bar and tried to make the boy accept it, but he would
not. After
urging him in vain the man went on his way with the horse and
the treasure.
So Palyungi’s wanderings continued for
two years more. He slept under no man’s roof for fear of
bringing it evil
fortune but made his bed in the stable or under a pile of straw
or m any nook
or corner he could find.
At last fortune led him to the village
of Yang-jil late in the autumn when the frosts of winter were
coming on.
Someone invited him in to spend the night but he refused as
usual telling them
that he might bring bad luck. As he turned away someone said:--
“There is a fine house up the valley
among the hills and no one lives there. It is said to be
haunted. Every person
that lived there was killed by the tokgabis. Why don’t you go
and stop there?”
Palyungi thought it over. Here was a
chance to sleep in a house without injuring anyone. He accepted
the proposal
and after obtaining precise directions as to the position of the
house started
out in great spirits. The tokgabis surely would not have any
interest in injuring
him. At last among the trees he spied the tile roof of a fine
mansion. He
entered the gate. All was silent. The open windows gaped at him.
The silence
was depressing, but Palyungi
entered bravely. It was now nearly dark and everything was
gloomy and
indistinct, but the boy groped about till he found a cozy
corner, and after
munching a handful of broiled rice that he had [page 11] brought in his sleeve rolled up in
paper, he lay down and went to sleep, oblivious of ghosts and
goblins.
It might have been midnight or later
when he started up, as wide awake as ever in his life. There was
no apparent cause
for this and yet he felt in the darkness about him an influence
that was new to
his experience. As he sat listening in the dark he heard a
little rustling
sound and something soft and light brushed across his face like
the wing of a
butterfly.
This was too much. He was willing to
meet the tokgabis in
the light but it
was unfair to attack him in the dark. So he felt about in his
pouch till he
found his steel and tinder and struck a spark. This he applied
to some little resinous
splinters which he had brought for the purpose and immediately a
tiny flame
sprang up. Holding this above his head he peered about him into
the darkness.
He was in a large room or hall and the beams and rafters above
him were concealed
by a panelled ceiling across which rainbow colored dragons were
chasing each
other. Out toward the middle of the room he saw two long
snake-like things
hanging down from a hole in the ceiling. He shrank back in
dismay for this was
worse than tokgabis but lighting some more of his sticks he soon
perceived that
these two things were not serpents but rope ends moving in the
breeze. It was
the frayed end of one of these that had brushed across his face
in the dark.
Now this was a very curious sight and
Palyungi was eager to learn what connection these ropes had with
the tragedies
that had been enacted in this house. So he boldly grasped one of
the ropes and
gave it a violent jerk. Down it came, accompanied by a clang
like that of iron.
On the end of it hung an enormous key. Well, of course a key
always suggests a
money box and a money box always suggests a miser, and misers in
Korea are the
special victims of tokgabis so putting two and two together Palyungi thought it would be
worthwhile looking about a bit. Now, misers in Korea do not go
and dig a hole
in the ground and bury their money, perhaps because they are too
lazy to dig it
up every time they
want to count it, but they often put it in a box and hide it
among the beams
above a ceiling. So Palyungi hunted about till he found an old
ladder and then
crawling up through [page
12] the hole
in the ceiling was rewarded by finding a small but very heavy
box tucked away
among the rafters. He gave it a push with his foot and sent it
crashing down
through the flimsy ceiling to the floor below. The key fitted,
of course, and
he found himself the possessor of a pile of silver bars, enough
to make him
enormously wealthy. There were at least four thousand dollars’
worth—good wages
for four years of begging! How would he ever be able to spend
all that money?
It was now growing light and
shouldering his treasure trove
he trudged down the valley toward the village. Before he entered
it he hid his
box under an overhanging bank. He then went into one of the
houses and begged
for something to eat at the kitchen door. The wench in charge
bade him come in
and warm his toes at the fire. It seems that it was a feast day
at that house
and as the boy sat there in the kitchen on the dirt floor he
heard the host in
the neighboring room telling his guests a remarkable adventure
he had once had.
He was carrying the government tax up to Seoul when the horse
ran away and all
would have been lost had not a beggar
boy caught the horse and restored it to him. Palyungi pricked up
his ears at
this. It sounded familiar. The man concluded by saying:
“Ever since that I have been seeking
for that boy and I have laid aside for him one third of all my
income since that
day, but I cannot find him.”
Palyungi knowing that he would
not now be dependent upon the man’s bounty opened the door of
the room and made
himself known. The gentleman clasped him in his arms and fell to
crying, he was
so glad. After a time he told the boy that he had been provided
for and should
never need money again, but Palyungi smiled and said:
“I shall not need your money for I
have three times as much as your whole property is worth.”
He then led them to the place where he
had hid the box and disclosed to their amazed eyes the treasure
it contained. He
was now sixteen years old and the prophecy had been fulfilled.
So he went up to
Seoul on his own donkey like a gentleman and found that his
father and mother
had suffered no calamity through him.
[page 13] He married the daughter of the
man whom he had befriended and the last heard of him was that he
was holding the
portfolio of Minister of Ceremonies-a position which his period
of mendicancy
had eminently fitted him to enjoy if not to fill.
Notes
on Southern Korea.
Ma-han
Anything
that bears upon the condition of southern Korea in ancient times
and that helps
to throw light upon that complicated question, the composition
of the Korean
people, must be of interest to all Who wish to gain an intimate
knowledge of
Korea as she is.
I have lately come across a
work entitled Sak-eun-chip (索隱集)
or “The Works of Sak-eun.” This Sak-eun is not the man*s name
but his nom de
plume and I have not as yet been able to identify him nor to
determine the date at which he wrote.
What he says, however, is so striking that it is worth
preserving for future
reference. He says, in effect:
Anciently in south-western Korea there
were three tribes or communities called respectively Wŭl-la-gol (越羅骨),
Sammu-hol (森茂忽)
and Ku-ri-ch’ul-myo (xxxx). In course of time I-yang (xx) the chief of Wŭl-la-gol,
succeeded in uniting them under one government including
fifty-four villages.
This kingdom, if it may be so called, was bounded on the north
by Chosŭn; on
the east by Măk (x) and Pyön-han (xx); on the south by Im-na
(xx) and on the
west by the Yellow Sea. When Ki-jun fled south from Chosŭn he
came to
Keum-ma-gun (xxx) which was in Wul-la-gol. The fiftyfour towns,
which had
already been united by I-yang, bowed to Ki-jun and he became the
king. The
country was called Ma-han, not (xx) but (xx), the ma meaning not “horse” but “to soothe,” to quiet,”
which to Ki-jun
may have meant “to civilize.”
We
will notice that among the three tribes which I-yang [page 14] united one was called
Sam-mu-hol (xxx). Now this last character hol is the same as in
the word Mi-ch’u-hol
(xx x) the ancient name of Chemulpo, and supposed to be a
northern name. At
least it helps to prove that the word hol
was a native word meaning town or village or settlement. If this
Sam-mu-hol was
the most northerly of the three tribes then it may be that it
was of northern
origin while the others were of southern origin. In so far as it
goes it is
against the theory of a southern origin for southern Koreans in
ancient times.
We find here also that the fifty-four towns which comprised
Ma-han were
connected under one government before the arrival of Ki-jun. We
have mention of
that interesting tribe called Im-na in the extreme south which
gives us one
more kingdom or tribe whose name ends in na (x) which I believe
to have been
the base of the modern word na-ra or “kingdom.”
Of course in these names the Chinese characters are used merely
to
transliterate and the meanings
of the
characters have no significance.
We should much like to know what
I-yang called his united kingdom but that we are not told. He
may have called it
Ma-han himself, before Ki-jun came, but we have nothing definite
about it.
This statement also helps us to locate
the boundaries of Ma-han which seem to have been in the vicinity
of the Han River
in the North and to have followed pretty closely the eastern
line of the
present Ch’ŭng-ch’ung and Chŭl-la Provinces, but keeping
probably to the west
of the southern branch of the Han River, as far as this goes.
Chin-han.
This
work gives a very different account of the origin of Chin-han
from the
generally accepted one which affirms that Chinese refugees came
to Ma-han and
were sent by the Ma-han authorities to the eastern part of the
peninsula. The
book under review gives many more particulars of this Chinese
immigration and
it is here that its chief value is found The account is as
follows:
Anciently
the people in south-east Korea lived along the shore in the
valleys. There were
two communities named [page
15] Myŭng-go-heul
(xxx) and Hŏ-ga-whal (xxx) they lived by fishing and hunting,
though they also
cultivated the ground a little. During the ancient Chosŭn
dynasty in the
sixteenth year of Kyong-sun, the twenty-third year of Hyön-wang
(x x) of the
Chu (x) kingdom in China, corresponding to 346 B. C. a wild
chieftain from the
far north beside the Heuk-yong River (xx) came and did obeisance
to the king of
Chosŭn. For this he was driven out of his tribe and came to
Chosŭn. His name
was Ang-ni Ko-han-gil. With a few companions he wandered
southward into what is
now Kyöng-sang Province until he reached Hŏ-ga-whal. The people
received him well
and gave him a place to live in what was called O-ch’ŭn (xx) now
the town of Yŭn-il.
Being superior to the Hŏ-gawhal people in intelligence he soon
gained an
ascendency among them and the two communities broadened out into
six, with him
at their head.
The years sped on until the time of
king A-wang of Chosŭn and his seventh year, the thirty-second
year of
Chin-euiwang (xxx), 215B.C. The kingdom of Yŭn (x) in northern
China had been
overcome by Chin-si-wang and he compelled the people to build
the Great Wall. A
considerable portion of the Yun people were walled out. This
displeased them
much. One of the Yun men who was a superintendent of the work of
building the
wall decided that he would run away rather than submit to this.
His name was
Chin-hon (xx)’ He with 60,000 followers sailed from the vicinity
of Shan-hai-gwan
and came to Korea where they landed at the mouth of the Păk
River (xx) which is
now called the Păkma River or (xxx). It is the town of Pu-yŭ in
Ch’ungchŭng
Province. They could not understand the speech of the people
there, but they
had the good luck to meet a man who knew their tongue. He said
his name was
Chin-hun (xx) and that he had been driven to Korea by a storm
seven years before.
He was from the Chu (x) kingdom. He advised the immigrants to go
eastward where
they would find a pleasant place to settle. He offered to guide
them. They went
eastward crossing the mountain range at Cho-ryung or Bird Pass,
the most
celebrated mountain pass in Korea. They were the ones to
discover and use it
first. Arriving at the six settlements or communities above
described they
entered one of them [page
l6] named Yŭn-ch’ŭn Yang-san
(xxxx) of which one Kol-gari (xxx) was chief. They were given a
place to live
to the east of this place and after two years they were
comfortably settled. It
was not long before Chin-hun had obtained control of the whole
neighborhood and
the six communities all recognized him as leader. The added
numbers raised the
number of the towns to twelveAfter Chin-hun died it was not long
before Ma-han
gained control of all this section of the country by conquest,
after getting
control of Pyön-han (xx). It was at this time that the name
Chin-han began to
be used. Ma-han governed Pyön-han by sending a Chin-han man
Chinwan, (xx) the
Son of Chin-hun as governor and he governed Chin-han by placing
there as
governor a Pyön-han chief named Ang-nong-gon (xxx). Pyön-han had
received that name from Ma-han.
In the second year of the Ma-han king
Wŭn-wang (xx) the first year of the Han emperor Sun-je (xx) B.C.
57. in the
fourth moon of the year a Chin-han man of Yŭn-ch’ŭn Yang-san
named Kol-ga-hol
(xxx) a descendant of Kol-gari had a son named Hyŭk-kŭ-se and he
was made king
of a new kingdom called Sŭ-ra-bŭl, afterwards called Sil-la. A
legend about it
states that Kol-ga-hol formed a liaison with a fox on Nang-san
(xx) which had
assumed the shape of a woman. The fruit of this union was a
child which
Kol-ga-hol wanted to get rid of; so he cut a large gourd in two,
hollowed out
the center placed the child inside, and threw it away. Some one
found it and
thus the story of the egg originated.
Such is the account given by Sak-eun
and it differs so radically in some respects from the other
accounts that it is
worth studying. We should notice that according to this account
(1) The Chinese immigrants
came long before the founding of Ma-han, as indeed they must if they came at the time
of the building of the Great Wall. (2) That they discovered Cho-ryŭng or “Bird Paws” (3) That since they came
215 B.C. and
Ma-han was founded in 193 B.C. the conquest of Chinhan by Ma-han might very well
have occurred in the time of Chin-hun’s son. The dates agree
remarkably well,
(4) That both Chin-han and Pyön-han were so named by Ma-han, the
han being apparently a generic
word while the Chin and the Pyon were suggested by local
conditions, Chin being
the [page 17] family name of so many of
the rulers of the former and Pyon being a sound that enters so
largely into the
names of the different communities of the latter.
Pyön-han.
At
first there were four communities on the west bank of the
Nak-tong River in
Southern Korea. They were called Sŭl-gol-t`a (***) Ka-gal-Ung-jin (****) Ch’ŭl-wulch’ul-jin (****) and Hal-ga (**). They spoke the same language and
were practically one. They had no calendar. The wisest among
them became the
leaders, a sort of patriarchal government. In ancient times a
part of the Whang-i
(**) tribe,
one of the nine wild tribes that inhabited northern Korea before
Ki-ja’s time,
came southward and overcame these four communities and made
twelve towns in all.
Later they became subject to Ma-han. At the time of the Ma-han
invasion the
chief of this district was Ang-nonggön (***). He surrendered to Ma-han and
was sent as governor to Chin-han. The land was bounded on the north by Măk (*) on the east by Chin-han
on the south by the sea and on the west by Ma-han. Ma-han named
it Pyön-han. This
ends the few notes that are given about Pyön-han. They bear evidence to the existence
of an original southern stock and mention, as few other accounts do, their
dealings with the north. The invasion of the Whang-i tribe if it
actually
occurred must
have been at an extremely early date, at least 1000 B.C.
Odds
and Ends.
A
Cuttle-fish story.
Everyone
should know that the octopus or cuttle-fish can be captured only
by unmarried girls. The fish
will fly the presence of a man or a married woman but in the
presence of young
girls they are quite tame. Such at least is the Korean notion.
One time there
was a wedding in a fishing village and the bridegroom had taken his bride home
and they were seated in their room. It is the custom for the
bride to be very
quiet and not say a [page 18]
word or lift her eyes for several days after the ceremony. So
the bride sat
silent and demure before her liege lord. The house stood just
beside the sea
and a full moon was just rising over the eastern waters. A
shadow appeared on
the paper door. It looked like the shaven head of a monk.
Suddenly the girl
rose to her feet dashed at the door and ran down to the beach
and threw her
arms about something which the husband took to be the monk.
After a time the
bride returned and before she could explain her action the
husband upbraided
her for her immodest action and declared he would not live with
her. She
silently departed to her father’s house, but the next day the
old woman who
acted as go-between came to the angry groom and said that the
girl had only run
out to catch an octopus which had raised its round head and the
moon casting
its shadow against the door made it look like the shaven head of
a monk. The
girl caught the octopus but was ashamed to say anything when her
husband
charged her with evil conduct. So the quarrel was made up.
The
Hanging Stone
In
Sun-heng, Kyŭng-sang Province there is a monastery called Pu-sŭk Sa
or “The
Monastery of the Hanging Stone”. It stands half way
between Tă-Băk
San (***)
and So-băk San
(** *). It
is a very ancient monastery. Behind it is a great boulder on the
top of which
stands another stone like a roof, but a peculiarity of this
upper stone is that
there is everywhere a space between it and the under stone so
that a rope can
be readily passed between them! This rivals the rock in the
Mosque of Omar, in
Jerusalem, which is supposed to hang between heaven and earth.
Good Old Age
At
this same monastery there is a curious stalk of bamboo. In the days of
Silla a great sage, Eui Sang, after reaching the summit of
goodness at this
monastery went to India and visited the Chŭn-ch’uk Monastery, (***) the most celebrated in
the world. When he came back he brought a bamboo staff and planting it beside the
door of his room at Pu-sŭk Monastery he said, “When I am gone this staff
will put forth leaves and when it dies you may know that I am
dead.” He started away and immediately
the bamboo put forth shoots, and to the present day it has not
withered. In the
days of Prince Kwang-ha [page
19] about the middle of the
seventeenth century an audacious governor cut it down, saying
that he would
make himself a walking stick of it. But immediately two shoots
sprang up from
the stump and attained the original height of the plant. It is
called the
Pi-sun-wha (***)
or “The
flower of the Spirit flown.”
A Hunter’s Mistake
He
was a great hunter. If a cash piece were hung at a distance of ten paces he
could put his arrow head into the hole in the cash without
moving the coin. One
day as he sat at his door three geese flew by high in air. One
of the
bystanders said “You
cannot bring down all those geese at one shot”. He seized his
bow and shot as
the ancient mariner shot the albatross. The three geese came
floundering to the
ground. That night the hunter dreamed that three fine boys came
to him and said
“We are
going to come and live at your house.” Sure enough, that winter his wife
presented him with boy triplets. He was inordinately proud of
them. They grew up
strong and handsome but on their tenth birthday they all fell
ill with the
small-pox and a few days later at the same hour died. The old
man was
inconsolable. He wrapped the bodies in straw and tied them as is
customary to
the branch of a tree on the mountain side to let the evil humors
of the disease
dry up before burying them; so that when buried the bodies would
easily decay.
Then in his grief he took to drink and would go about half drunk
bewailing his
loss. One night a crony of his in his tipsy ramblings stumbled
along the mountain
side and fell asleep right under where these three bodies hung
tied to the tree.
Late at night he woke and the moon shone down upon him between
the bodies. It
was a gruesome sight. Just then the sound of a wailing cry came
up from the
village below where the sorrow-stricken father staggering homeward gave
vent to his grief. The man listened. A murmuring sound came from
overhead. Was
one of the corpses speaking? Listen! “Brothers, we have our revenge on the
wicked hunter. Hear his wailing cry. His life is wrecked. As we
flew through
the sky, three happy
geese, he laid us low at one wanton stroke, but now we are even
with him. Sleep
in quiet, brothers, our work is done”. The next day when the
hunter heard of this he broke
his [page 20] good bow across his knee
and never shot another arrow.
The Donkey Maker
When
the celebrated Chöng Mong-ju, the last of the Koryŭ statesmen,
was a young man he went up to
the capital to attend the national examinations but did not
succeed in passing.
On his way home in company with six young fellow-travellers he
entered the outskirts of Ma-jŭn in Kyŭng-geui
Province. They were all very hungry and seeing an old woman
sitting beside the
road selling bean “bread” they eagerly purchased a
piece to stay their hunger till they should reach their inn and
get a good
meal. Chöng Mong-ju never did things in a hurry. He always
preferred to wait
and see how things turned out before experimenting. He noticed
that the old
woman did not give them the bread that was in the tray before
her but reached
around and produced another batch of bread from which she cut
generous portions
and gave to his companions. Thdy ate it with great gusto, but
before they had
finished they began to act very curiously, wagging their heads
and acting
altogether like crazy men.
Chöng saw that something was wrong. He suspected that the bread
had been
medicated in some way. Looking intently at the old woman he
perceived that her
face wore a very curious, unhuman look. Going close to her he
said: “You must
eat a piece of this bread yourself or I shall strike you dead on
the spot”. There
was no escape and Chöng evidently meant what he said; so she had
to take a
piece and eat it. The effect was the same as on his companions.
She began to go
wild like them. Turning he was amazed to find that his six
fellow-travellers had
all turned into donkeys. He leaped toward the drivelling old
woman and said
fiercely: “Tell me the antidote instantly or I will throttle you”. The
old woman had just sense enough left to point to the other bread and say “That
will cure them”, before she too was transformed into a donkey.
Chöng put a
straw rope through her mouth and mounting drove furiously up the
hill, lashing
the donkey with all his might. It did not take long to tire her
out. When she
was exhausted, Chöng dismounted and facing the animal said: “I charge you to assume your
original and proper shape.”
[page 21] The poor broken donkey
began to wag her head this way and that and soon her form began
to change to
that of a white fox. Before the transformation was complete Chöng seized a
club and with one blow crushed the animal’s skull. This done, he hurried back to his six
unfortunate companions and fed them with the bread which the old
woman had said
was the antidote. A few minutes later they had all turned back
into men. That
night these six young men all dreamed the same thing, namely,
that an old man
met Chöng Mong-ju on the road and charged him with having killed
his wife, and
struck him on the head so that the blood flowed down on his
shoulder. In the
morning, strange to relate, it was found that there was a wound
on the young
man’s temple. The dreams proved prophetic, for when at last
Chöng Mong-ju met
his death at the hand of an assassin on Sön Chuk bridge in
Song-do the blow
that felled him was delivered on that very spot on his head.
Question
and Answer.
(1) Question, What is the original significance of the
Chang-ot (쟝옷) with which Korean women cover their
faces on the
street?
Answer. This custom came from
China about 450 years ago. It was in common use among the women
of the Ming Empire.
At that time and for many years after, the turumagi or outer coat was not worn
by respectable Korean women and the chang-ot was made to serve two purposes, first that of a head
cover and second that of cloak. The sleeves were added to make
it look like a
coat. The story that the sleeves were put on in order that when
men were called
away to war their wives might give them these cloaks to wear as
coats is entirely
mythical. The chang-ot is so named because it was
first used by women in going to “market.” The country fairs or markets
are called chang and
so these
garments are “market
clothes.” That the custom came from China is shown by the fact
that a common
name for chang-ot is
Tang-eui or (**). [page 22] And, by the way, the use
of this character shows that those things in Korea named tang,
as tang-p’an, tang-sok, tang-je, tang-na-gwi, tang-yo-ka, tang-sŭ etc. did not necessarily
come into Korea at the time of the Tang Empire in China. In fact
this tang is a
general name for China, used
ever since the time of the great Che-yo To-tang-si (*****). The sseul-ch’ima of Song-do is practically
the same as the Seoul chang-ot, but it has no sleeves. In
P’yŭng-yang instead of these the women
wear enormous bell shaped hats that come down so that the face
is practically
hidden. This hat is called the sa-kat
because made of sa a
kind of reed,
and is said to have come down from the time of Ki-ja, 1122 B.C.
(2)
Question, Why do
palace women and
attendants at weddings wear so much hair?
Answer, It is said that a certain
princess living in Songdo during the last dynasty had a deformity of
some kind on her head, and to cover it she put on a large amount
of hair. And
this set the custom; just as the deformity of a certain queen in
the west gave
rise to the reprehensible habit of wearing bustles. Another
explanation is,
that, in carrying boxes on the head at weddings, instead of
using a cloth pad
to protect the head, it came to be considered good form to use a
pad of false
hair.
(3)
Question. The other
day I saw two men
bowing to the ground before each other in the muddy street; what
might be the
occasion of this?
Answer, When a man’s father dies
he goes into deep mourning and is not supposed to see or visit
his
acquaintances for a hundred days. After that when he meets a
friend for the
first time both of them bow to the ground, the friend in honor
of the dead man
and the mourner in reply to the low salute of the friend. But
this is not often
seen in Seoul for the custom is mostly confined to Kang-wŭn
Province. The men
who were seen bowing thus were probably from that province.
If a slave has been manumitted for any
reason and after a long interval
should happen to meet his former master he will bow to the very
ground, but of
course the master will not bow. In the case above cited both men
bowed, so the explanation
must be that given above.
[page 23] Editorial Comment.
In
the Kobe Chronicle for Dec. 18th
the editor comments on what he is pleased to call our ignorance
of political
economy in that we affirmed that the embargo on the export of
rice from Korea
was injurious to the country.
We would like to call his attention to the fact that political
economy is not an
exact science like mathematics and, unfortunately for his
contention, the book
knowledge of political economy which he quotes so glibly was
made for
enlightened countries where there are good facilities for
transportation, where
the people have easy access to foreign markets and where the general
intelligence of the people makes it possible to take advantage
of foreign
markets. Those so-called laws are not universally applicable.
Let us take for
instance an inland town in Korea where there is enough rice to
feed the local
population. The local magistrate
forbids Korean agents of the rice merchants in Seoul from buying
up this rice
but when a Japanese agent arrives, who has no treaty right
whatever to buy a
grain of rice in the interior, the magistrate cannot control
him. He buys the
rice, transports it to the neighboring river and floats it down
to the sea at
little or no cost. The Koreans have the money but they have no
rice. They
cannot eat money. The editor of the Kobe Chronicle says that
with their money
they can send away and import rice and be as well off as if they
had not sold.
If this is not ludicrously untrue on the very face of it, it
will not take long
to show that it is. Even if the Koreans knew where to buy, which
they do not,
and had agents who knew how to buy, which they have not, and foreign rice
were pleasing to the Korean taste, which it is not, even then it
would cost the
Koreans much more; for their middle men must be paid and instead
of floating the
rice downstream
at practically no expense it has to be laboriously towed up
stream to its
destination. Our book-learned cotemporary is perhaps laboring
under the idea
that Korea is a thoroughly developed country, covered with a
network of
railroads which make the cost of transportation equal in either
direction. We
would [page
24] suggest that the editor of
the Kobe Chronicle examine into the condition of affairs in
Korea and lay his book on the shelf a
while before criticizing the statement that the embargo on the
export of rice
from Korea was a prime necessity. One might as well talk about
the margin of
cultivation among the Esquimaux or the balance of trade between
the Apache and Ute
Indians as to talk about applying the canons of political
economy, as developed
in Europe, to the primitive conditions of Korean rural society.
Correspondence.
The
Presbyterian Church of
Manchuria.
Liaoyang, Manchuria.
Dec. 15th 1901, To the Editor of The Korea Review
Dear
Sir,
At
a meeting of the Presbytery of Manchuria held at Newchwang last
month, -the first since the Boxer
persecution, --the
elder Wang Cheng Ao
of Liaoyang made a statement to the court of the circumstances under which he and other
Christians fled to Korea last year, and of the most brotherly
way in which they
had been entertained by the Korean Christians and by the
missionaries all along
their line of flight from the Yalu to Chemulpo. His account was received
with feelings of profound gratitude to God for the way in which
He had raised
up friends for His people when scattered abroad in their day of
adversity. I
was thereupon instructed, in the name of the Church of
Manchuria, to convey
heartfelt thanks to all concerned for the ungrudging hospitality
thus shown,
and for the spirit of courtesy and brotherliness that was
willing to receive
those who were in bonds as bound with them. The Lord reward them
in that day
when before all nations He will recall how once, when He came to
them as a stranger,
they took Him in! [page
25] May I rely upon your kind aid in conveying,
in the widest
way you know how, this expression of gratitude from The
Presbyterian Church of
Manchuria to the Church in Korea.
I
am,
Your
obedient servant,
George
Douglas, Moderator of Presbytery.
News
Calendar.
Through the Chinese Minister in
Seoul Chinese fishermen have secured a license to fish off
Whang-hă and P’yŭng-an
Provinces. An
animal license fee is paid.
In
Ye-an, Kyŭng-sang, Province, is the shrine of the great scholar
Toé Gye. It was
recently rifled by thieves and the tablet was carried away. It
caused an
immense stir among the people. The governor took the severest
measures to detect the culprit but without success. The Emperor has given $1000, to repair the shrine and
replace the tablet by a new
one.
The
following fact is given to show what the Koreans consider to be
the greatest
injury one man can do another. An ajun
or yamen-runner in
Kim-ha in the south made bold to bury his father too near the
grave of the
ancestor of one Yi Yu-in. The latter, having been appointed
prefect of the
district promptly dug up
the ajun’s grave and
destroyed it. The
ajun paid him back by
digging up the
prefect’s father’s grave and scattering the bones to the four
winds. After
which he naturally
left for parts
unknown.
His
Majesty, recognizing the great suffering caused by the severe
cold sent out a
policeman to look up needy cases in order to offer them help.
The policeman
made out a
list of his own acquaintances
and friends and left out all others. The result is that he is now
suffering in a cold prison cell the just punishment for his
misdeeds.
On
the fifth of last month when the streets were so dangerously
slippery many
painful accidents occurred but there was only one fatal
accident. A woman going
to a ditch to wash
some clothes fell heavily and was so severely injured that she
died on the
spot.
During
the present winter about ninety people in Seoul have frozen or
starved to
death.
Seven
foolhardy highwaymen, armed to the teeth, attacked an official
at Tong-jak on
the Han River near Seoul. He was travelling with a retinue. The
official and
his suite had to say good-bye to their money and most of their
clothes. The
robbers took their booty and went to Kwa- [page 26] Ch’ŭn. On the road they
met some horses loaded with government revenue and escorted by
five soldiers.
The thieves did not reckon on much
resistance and attempted to steal the government money, but the
five soldiers
gave so good an account of themselves that the seven robbers are now cooling their wits
in jail.
In
Ok-ch’ŭn,
Chŭl-la Province, on the nineteenth of December a government
building was burned
and its contents, consisting of $3624 of government tax, was lost.
About the same time $3900
of government tax was lost in the same way at Chŭng-eup. We fear
that something
may be read between the lines here.
On
the fifth instant the magnificent new office building of the
Seoul Electric
Company in the center of Seoul was destroyed by fire. Only three
days before,
the company had opened the building by an entertainment which
was attended by a
large number of foreigners and natives. The fire is said to have
originated in
a defective flue in which the workmen
had left a piece of scaffolding. We understand that the building
was insured
and that the company will recover $48,000. With characteristic
American energy the company will begin the reconstruction of the
building
immediately and they hope to have it ready for occupancy again
in six months.
The ponderous fireproof safe “was uninjured by the heat. The
paint inside the
safe was not even cracked. The contents of two “fireproof” Japanese safes
were found in ashes. It was discovered that between the outer and inner
plates of these safes nothing had been used but sand.
On
New Year’s
day His Majesty received the diplomatic and consular bodies, and
the foreign
employees
of the government in audience.
Last
autumn the ginseng crop amounted to 28,000 lbs. of red ginseng
and 35,000 lbs.
of “wet” ginseng, or undried
ginseng. The whole crop was sold to Yi Yong-ik who, after
marketing the crop in
China, was to have
paid the farmers for it. He now claims that the farmers deceived
him as to the
amount and he says he will pay them one dollar a pound instead
of eight dollars
which is the usual price. This will be a saving of some $350,000. Naturally the
farmers do not acquiesce in this arrangement and 195 of them
have come up to
Seoul to secure redress.
Prince
Yi Chă-sun has been appointed special envoy to attend the
coronation of Edward
VII of England. A better appointment could hardly have been
made, for the Prince
has seen a great deal of foreigners and his magnificent physique
cannot but
attract attention.
The
government is building an enormous Buddhist monastery about a
mile outside the
East Gate. It is intended that this will be the head monastery in Korea and will hold the
same relation to Buddhism in Korea that the Vatican does to
Roman Catholicism
throughout the world. It will contain between three and four
hundred kan of
buildings and the plan is the
same as that of the great Ch’ŭn-ch’uk Monastery in Thibet. The ceremonies
connected with the commencement of this work took place on the
fourth instant.
Monks from all over the country to the number of 800 or more
congregated at
this spot together with Japanese [page 27] monks from the Japanese quarter
in Seoul. An immense crowd of Koreans surrounded the place to view the scene.
The
Seoul Fusan
Railway will prove an inestimable blessing to the Korean people,
but the Chöng family are not able to
see it just now, as the projected road passes close to the tomb
of their great
progenitor near Tong-nă. A great number of that family are
besieging the
Foreign Office to have the railroad go by some other route. If
that railroad were
to keep clear of all the graves between here and Fusan it would
be a thousand
miles long rather than three hundred.
The
Japanese local paper says that the revenues of the Household
Department for 1902 will be as follows
From
sale of Ginseng
$300,000 rice tax
500,000 mining licenses
500,000
fisheries and salt
100,000 minting
500,000 sale of offices
1,000,000
Emperor’s
private purse 750,000 gifts for the Queen’s
tomb
500,000
-------------4,050,000
The
government contemplates the erection, just east the Imperial
Altar of a large
stone tablet commemorative of the achievements of the present
reign. As the
present condition of the exchequer does not permit of an appropriation for
this purpose out of the public funds an invitation has been
extended to all
officials of whatever grade to contribute toward this object. It
must be plain
to all that the events of the present reign have been momentous enough to warrant such a monument. The
opening of Korea was one of the great events of the nineteenth
century, for the
Far East.
Pak
Che-sun, whose place in the Foreign Office was filled by Min
Chong-muk during
his absence in Japan, has
resumed the duties of Minister of Foreign affairs.
A
telegraph line has been completed from Vladivostock to the town
of Kyung-sung which is about 150 li
south of the Tuman River. The matter of connecting this with
Wonsan has not yet
been decided upon but of course it will be done before long.
Several
Russian agents interested in the manufacture of glass have
arrived in Seoul
with the intention of looking into the feasibility of manufacturing glass in
Korea. The Russian authorities have asked the government for the
loan of a
portion of the imperial mint in which to carry on the
experiments. In view of
the fact that in the
early eighties Von Mollendorf brought experts here for this same
purpose and failed,
it will be interesting to note whether this new venture will be
a success.
There certainly is enough sand about here but the question is
whether it is the
kind of sand which can be utilized for the making of glass. It
will be a
distinct advantage
if this sand can be made useful. Those who remember the days
when we had to
tramp across the “little [page
28] Sahara”
on the way to Chemulpo will be glad
to have their revenge on that
terrible strip of sand.
Heretofore
the government has been accustomed to supply the students in the
various schools
with their tiffin and also to supply paper, pens, ink, etc. for
the work, but
as the public finances are so low it has been decided to
discontinue this practice and the students will have to provide
their own
materials and their own food. In one school the students study
continuously
from ten till three without any intermission at noon.
To
help out the funds for completing the great Buddhist monastery which the government is
erecting outside the East Gate each of the seven main government
departments
and of the three secondary departments are asked to contribute
five million
cash each. It will amount to $20,000, Korean money.
Yi
Hak-yŭn a “strong men” of Nam-yang, forty miles from Seoul distinguished himself
the other day and proved that the Korean stock is by no means
played out.
Crossing Pinul-ch’i Pass he met three armed brigands who
demanded his pelf. Though he was entirely unarmed he made a dash at the nearest
one, knocked him down, secured his sword and with it killed the
other two. The
third one he bound and brought in and delivered to the police.
The
Foreign Office has applied to the Finance Department for the
funds necesssary for
sending the new minister, Min Yong-chan, to France. He will probably
start in February.
Nam
Yang is so infested with bands of robbers that more than half the houses are
deserted and things are in a chaotic condition. A company of police are to be
sent to restore order.
A
fire in Su-wun on the fifth of January unfortunately resulted in
the death of
an entire family. On the same day a family of five people living
outside the
South Gate froze to death.
In
P’yŭng-gang, Whang-hă Province, there has been an outbreak of
vandalism among
the Korean gold-miners. They have formed a marauding party and
terrorized the
whole district stealing women,
cattle, food and money. The government is asked to send troops
at once.
In
Eui-ryŭng
they had last summer all the rain that was lacking everywhere
else in Korea.
Over twenty miles of irrigation works were washed away and it
will require the
entire revenues of the district to repair them.
The
“gold brick” has appeared in Korea. A crafty gentleman gave his
friend two large
pieces of gold and received in exchange the deeds for valuable
rice-lands. The
next day the man who sold the fields found that he had only a couple of gilded
stones to show for them.
It
is reported that the Korean government has consented to the
request of the U.
S. government relative to a further occupancy of the present
legation grounds
in Peking, until the end of the current year.
The
Chief Commissioner of Customs has informed the Foreign Office
that if the
Superintendents of Trade at any of the ports persistently absents himself from his
post his pay will be stopped.
[page 29] At the new monastery outside the East Gate there
will be placed one director, one assistant director, one
secretary, one
assistant secretary,
nine clerks, two accountants, four messengers, fifteen kisus,
five policemen and
fifty “soldier monks”.
On
the ninth inst. the grandson of Prince Yi Chă-sun was married to
the daughter
of Sim Kon-t’ăk.
His Majesty the Emperor made them a present of one thousand
dollars.
Two
more regiments are to be enlisted one of
which will
be stationed at Kyŭng-ju
and the other at Chin-ju both in south Kyŭng-sang Province.
We
learn ftom H. J. Muhlensteth,
Esq. that he has received from His Majesty an appointment as an
adviser to the Foreign Ofiice. This appointment has not
been
officially announced. We understand that this does not affect the position of
Mr Sands as Adviser to the Foreign
Office.
There
has been serious trouble in the Military School. The students
supposed that
they would be given the preference in the selection of officers
for the army but as outsiders
were continually being appointed instead these students were
much dissatisfied.
Nine of them took the lead
in a demonstration against
the authorities. They made out a written complaint to which four
hundred and
eighty out of the five hundred and forty students verbally
subscribed. On the
night of the ninth instant they presented this petition in a
body to a captain who was on duty at the
school. He refused to receive it saying that it should be
presented to someone
higher in rank than himself. Upon
this the irate young
men proceeded to act in a riotous manner smashing windows and making themselves generally
obnoxious. Then they all left the place and went home or
wherever they pleased.
This fact was soon comnunicated
to the authorities of the school Who came in hot haste to quiet
the disturbance
but found only about sixty men at the school. Shortly after this
thirty two of
the men who had been away returned to the school having been
persuaded to this
course by their parents
and friends.
When
His Majesty learned
of the trouble he gave orders for the arrest of the unruly
students. This
becoming known, almost all the recalcitrants hurried back to the
school for fear of something worse. The military
authorities looked into the matter the next day and the nine men
who led in the revolt were landed in jail at the
War Office and the sixty men who had not run away and the thirty
two penitents
who came back immediately were all given the rank of captain.
Most of these
were not members of the highest class in the school. The four
hundred and twenty
men who are left declare they will not study, though they have come back.
The
local papers tell us that in the appointment of superintendents of the
work of building the Queen’s tomb at Keum-gok the four political
parties have
been considered. From the No-ron party 800 have been appointed,
from the So-ron
party 500, from the Nam-in party 400 and from the Puk-in 300. This makes 2000
superintendents in all! We are not
told how many
workmen there are.
[page
30] A Korean
telegraph line has been lately completed between Masanpo and
Chin-ju, the
capital of South Kyŭng-sang
Province.
The
Department of Agriculture, Commerce, etc. has remitted to the Finance
Department the license money received from Korean miners. Each
mine pays six
and three quarters ounces of gold per month.
The
people of Kwe-san have voted to raise a monument in honor of Kim
Sang-il a
former official who lives in that district. He has opened his
private
storehouse and fed many poor people and has supplied many with
arms to defend
themselves against brigands. No one appreciates kind and
generous treatment
more quickly than the Korean.
Full
reports have come in as to the damage done by the the fearful
storm in Chŭlla
Province on Sept. 24th. They are late in arriving but are
vouched for as being
correct. The storm raged from the 24th until the the end of
month. The damage
was as follows.
In
Kwang-ju
920 houses In Na-ju
967 houses and 17
lives In Chang-sung
310
houses and 85 lives In Yung-gwang
530 Tam-yang
206 Nam-py’ŭng
251 Ch’ang-py’ang
90 Ko-ch’ang
128 houses and 5
lives Kok-sŭng
209 houses and 3
lives Ok-kwa
195 houses and 5
lives Ham-py’ŭng
103 Heung-dŏk
21 Kwang-yang
82
-------------------------4012
houses and 116 lives
News
comes for the first time of the wreck of a Korean junk at the
month of the
Tuman River. It had been to Vladivostock on a trading trip and
returning was
overtaken by a storm and was wrecked. Of the crew five escaped
and the
remainder, ten in all, were drowned. This occurred on Oct. 29th.
The
Prefect of Kil-ju was ordered by the Home Office to stop the
collection of
taxes but through excess of zeal he collected $6,000, more. For
which reason he
is ordered to resign.
The
native paper states that the question of Japanese colonization
in Korea is all
the talk in Tokyo and it is said that Japanese agents have made
a careful
examination of portions of southern Korea noting the
topographical,
agricultural and social conditions carefully.
Yun
Su-pyŭng, having studied sericulture in Japan, has returned with
the necessary
apparatus for teaching this important industrial art.
On
Christmas day twenty-four houses and a large amount of grain
were destroyed by
fire in Cho-gye.
The
case of Yi Ch’ang-geun is a curious one. He went to America to
engage in trade!
While there he says he “met” a brigand who relieved him of all his
spare cash, and was forced to apply to the U. S. Government [page 31]
for money to
secure his passage back to Korea. The name of the place where
this occurred is,
in the language of Mr. Yi, Ruguri (?)
There
are large copper mines in the town of Kap-san in the far north.
The native
paper says that recently a disastrous landslide occurred there
which entombed
600 (!) men. It seems impossible to accept these figures.
Three
masked burglars broke into the Law Department buildings on the
night of the
12th instant and bound two of the clerks and looted the place
carrying away
some $600.
worth of plunder.
The
friends of Dr. A. D. Drew will be glad to learn his present
address which is 1262 7th Ave. Oakland,
California.
The
strenuous effort on the part of the Finance Department to make
former prefects
disgorge their illgotten gains has resulted in the arrest and
imprisonment of
eleven ex-prefects, who at different times had charge of the
important
districts, Su-wun, Hong-ju, Kong-ju Kang-neung, Chŭnju, Whe-ju,
Yun-an, P’ung-geui, Po-sŭng, Chin-hă, Ulsan, An-dong, Chik-san, Hă-nam, Hyŭp-ch’ŭn, Hă-mi, Nam-wŭn and Mu-jang.
The
criminal laws of Korea which have been under revision have now
been finished
and will be published shortly.
An
inspector of country prefectures named Hyŭn Yŭng-un who was
supposed to go down
to the country and see that things were being properly conducted in various districts
has been having a very gay time of it. In Ulsan he seized
seventy-three men and extorted $2,700 from them; in Yang-san he seized
fifteen men and extorted $1,500; in Eun-yang from five men he
took $1,000; in Kyöng-ju
from ninety-four men he took $24,000; in Yong-ch’ŭn from twenty-two men he
took $4,400. A crowd of people from those districts have come up
to Seoul to
try to get back their money.
Chemulpo is bringing Korea more
and more in touch with the world at large. We used to think of
Korea as the
last corner of the world but now all that is changed. For some
time the great
steamship lines across the Pacific and from the East to Europe
have been
represented by
Holme Ringer & Company of Chemulpo, and now we learn that E.
Meyer &
Company of
Chemulpo have been made agents of the magnificent North Ger man
Lloyd Steamship
Company. They have on view in their store in Chemulpo elaborate
plans of the
vessels of that line and they quote figures on trips to any part
of the world.
In fact one can buy
a ticket at that office which will take him clean around the
world without the
purchase of any
other ticket whatever. Between these two firms the foreigner in
Korea can have
his choice of all that is best in the way of travel that the
East has to
afford. We look forward to the time when these great lines shall
have direct
connection with Chemulpo. That ought to be a reasonable hope in
view of the
fact that one of the eastern termini of the Siberian Railway
will be at the
head of the Yellow Sea.
It
has been decided not to build the barracks in Song-do which were
contemplated
and the large amount of timber which was brought there for that
purpose is for
sale.
Dr.
Richard Wunsch who lately arrived in Seoul as court physician [page
32] has begun his work in the
palace, and
three Koreans from the Imperial German Language School, which is
under the
efficient direction of Prof. Bolljahn, have been appointed as
his interpreters.
On
the arrival of the Chinese Emperor in Peking the Emperor of
Korea sent a
telegram congratulating him on the auspicious event. The Emperor of China
answered in a fitting manner.
As
His Majesty enters upon his sixth decade he has ordered every government official in the
land to compose
two poems in honor
of the event.
The
Foreign
Office has informed the Home Office that in future foreigners
who are found
travelling in the interior without passports will be fined.
During
1901, ninety-three men-of-war entered Chemulpo, of which there
were thirty-five
Japenese, twenty-one English, fifteen Russian, eleven French,
five Austrian,
four German one Italian and one American. Of merchantmen there were
454, of which there
were 298 Japanese, 124 Korean, 26 Russian, 3 English. 1
Norwegian, 1 German and 1 Chinese. Compared with
1900 there were forty-seven more men-of-war and thirtyone more
merchant
vessels.
The
native papers tell us
of a fierce fight that took place in December in the border town
Hu-ch’ang on
the Amnok or Yulu River between
500 mounted Chinese bandits and a Korean force composed of tiger
hunters and
soldiers.
Thirty houses had been burned and hundreds of others looted; one Korean
had been killed and forty-four beaten till nearly dead. Then the tiger hunters and local
soldiery attacked the marauders and in a running fight twenty
Chinese were
killed, thirty-seven captured while
several others froze to death. The remainder were driven across
the Yalu.
We
deeply regret to have to announce the death on Jan. 31 of Anna, the infant daughter of Rev.
and Mrs. H. O. T. Burkwall.
The funeral service was held on Saturday, Feb. 1st.
For
the Emperors use at the festival called Nap-pyŭng (from which, by the way, the last
month of the Korean year is named) the people of Kim-sŭng sent
up two tigers,
one bear, and twenty or more deer and smaller game.
A
wealthy man of Kang-wha
named Whang Pong-heui has given to the poor people of his
neighborhood 200 bags
of rice. The government has recognized his generosity by conferring on him the
rank of
chu-sa.
The
Fusan paper states that the Japanese population of that town has
grown from 6094
in 1900 to 7014 in 1901 an increase of almost a thousand, or
over 16 per cent.
The
Famine Relief Commission, heretofore mentioned, has sent to all
the prefectures
for statistics of needy parties. It has already distributed to
needy people in
Seoul 1000
cash apiece, or forty cents.
On
December 6th at San Francisco a daughter was born to Dr. and Mrs. A.
D. Drew. On January 18th
a daughter was born
to Rev. and Mrs. G. H. Jones of Chemulpo. In January a daughter
was born to Mr. and Mrs. Luhrs of
Chemulpo.
[page
33] KOREAN
HISTORY.
MEDIEVAL
KOREA
The
king decided that there was no possibility of ridding himself of
this incubus
but by sending the crown prince to China. The escort consisted
of forty men,
and there were three hundred horse-loads of gifts. In good time
all arrived at the
court of the Mongol emperor. Gen. Cha however did not enjoy his
triumph, for at
this very time he sickened and died.
When the prince arrived at the Chinese
court the emperor was away on a campaign against the Sung Empire in the south;
so he announced himself to the official in charge at the
capital, Song Kil. The
latter asked if the king had as yet gone back to Song-do, to
which the prince
replied in the negative, but added that the king would go as
soon as possible
if the emperor demanded it. Song Kil rejoined “How can we recall the
soldiers so long as the king does not leave Kang-wha?” The
Prince replied “Gen. Cha said that if I came
the troops would be recalled. If they are not recalled the
people will have no
hope except in flight.” When Song Kil heard this
he countermanded an order which had been given for additional
troops to be sent
into the peninsula. Word was sent, instead, ordering the
destruction of the palaces
on Kang-wha. The order was obeyed and it is said that the fall
of the buildings
sounded like distant thunder. But the aged king who had suffered
so many
vicissitudes of fortune was not to survive this great shame, and
in the summer
of 1259 he passed away.
Koryŭ was now without a king and the
crown prince was far away in China. It was decided to form a
regency to act
until the return of the prince. At first it was conferred upon
the second son
of the deceased king but the officials, remembering that the
dying king had
said “Put
my grandson in as regent until the prince returns”, made the change, and the
crown prince’s son,
Sun, became regent pending his father’s return.
[page 34] As the Mongol troops
continued their depredations in the north an envoy was again
dispatched to the
emperor’s court. As the latter was still away campaigning in the
south the
envoy made bold to follow him up. He passed Chŭk-san and finally
found the
emperor at Hyŭp-ju and delivered his message. The emperor said “If you profess to be
friendly with me why are you always talking about my troops
being in the way?
Yet since the crown prince has come to China I am willing to
show you this
favor”.
He thereupon sent an order for the retirement of all Mongol
troops from Korea.
Some busybody told the emperor that
Koryŭ had no desire to hold faith with China and in consequence
an envoy came
in haste to Song-do demanding why the people who had fled to the
islands did
not return to their homes. The reply was that the detention of
the prince in
China was a cause of uneasiness
and that even if he returned it would take at least three years
to get the
people back to their homes; how much less could it be done with
the prince in
China. This then became the standing complaint of the Mongols,
that the Korean
people would not come back to the mainland.
By this time the uncertainty of
affairs and the fact that the central government was weak and
the Mongols still
numerous caused great instability in the north. The people were
easily induced
to revolt on the slightest provocation. It became a regular
custom for the
people, if they did not like their prefect, to kill him and
transfer their
allegiance to the Mongols. The central government did not dare
to punish them,
for this would provoke the Mongols, and reprisals would be in
order. At the
same time there was trouble in the south, for pirates from both
Japan and the
Sung kingdom of southern China kept ravaging the island of
Quelpart. An official
was sent from Song-do to take in hand the defense of the island
but the people
found him worse than the pirates had been.
It was in 1260 that the crown prince
followed the emperor southward, but soon after reaching the
emperor’s camp the
latter died in the town of Hap-ju and Gen. A-ri Pal-ga took the
reins of power
arbitrarily. The prince knew that the great general Hol-p’il-ryŭl (Kublai) would doubtless become
emperor in spite of this seditious movement on the [page 35] part of A-ri Pal-ga; so he
secretly effected his escape from the latter’s camp and struck
directly across
the country to Kang-nam where he found Hol-p’il-ryŭl in charge
of an army, and,
informing him of the emperor’s decease, they both hastened
toward Peking. It
was not till the crown prince returned to Peking that he learned
of his father’s
death and he hastened to assume the mourner’s garb.
The emperor, Kublai Khan, sent him
back to Koryŭ with great honor, believing that, as he was to
become king of Koryŭ,
the vassal power would thus become more closely united to China.
Two Mongol
generals came with him as escort. These were Sok Yi-kă and Kang
Wha-sang. On the
way these generals were told by a Koryŭ renegade that the crown
prince would
change the capital to Quelpart. They asked the prince to face
this man and deny
the charge but he assumed a royal attitude and exclaimed “I would cut off my hair and
become a slave before I would meet the villain”. The generals
were ashamed to
press the matter. As they approached Kang-wha the prince’s son,
the acting king
came with a great retinue to meet them at Che-jung Harbor, where
they all took
boat and crossed to the island. As the Mongol generals strongly
urged the king
to go back to Songdo, the latter sent many of the officials back
there in order
to make it appear as if he would follow shortly. All Mongol
soldiers were now
recalled from Koryŭ and all their prefects as well. The emperor
likewise gave
the king a present of seals, clothing, bows, arrows, silks and
other articles
of value. The king so far conceded to the wishes of his suzerain
as to remove
from Kang-wha to Tong-jin on the adjacent mainland, from which,
however, it was
but half an hour’s sail across to the island again. In addition
to this the
king sent the heir apparent to China with gifts, of which, in
view of the
depletion of Koryŭ’ s treasury, the officials gave the greater
part out of
their private means. The main request preferred at Kublai ‘s
court was that he
would not listen longer to the representations of Koryŭ
renegades whose one
object was to stir up strife and keep the countries at war with
each other. The
emperor assented to this.
In 1261 the emperor made a requisition
upon Koryŭ for a large amount of copper and lead. The king did
not have [page 36] the copper and yet did not
dare to refuse; so he sent to A-t’o in China and bought copper and
delivered it as ordered, but told how he had procured it. The
emperor charged
him with lying and claimed that he was remiss in her duties as a
vassal. He
moreover ordered that the king take a census of Koryŭ, establish
a horse relay
system, train soldiers and prepare provisions for an army. The
king was unable
to comply and an estrangement grew up between him and the
emperor which was
unfortunate for both. Hong Ta-gu, a Koryŭ renegade, took
advantage of this to
charge the Koryŭ prince, who was then in Peking, with having
insulted the Mongol
crown prince. The emperor believed the charge and cut off the
Koryŭ prince’s
revenues and treated him with marked coldness. Hong also
poisoned the emperor
toward Koryŭ by intimating that she would soon attempt to throw
off the yoke of
China. But by the following year the relations seem to have
become cordial
again, for when the king asked that the tribute be remitted on
the ground of
the heavy expense of rebuilding palaces at Song-do, the emperor
not only
consented but sent a present of 500 sheep. Koryŭ was also
fortunate in the
sending of an envoy to Japan, for he returned with a large
amount of rice and
cloth from Tsushima, which had been stolen by Japanese corsairs.
In 1263 the king was ordered to repair
to Peking. A long discussion followed, some of the courtiers
advising one thing
and some another. The monks at this time said, in effect, “I told you so”, for they
had long ago promised the king that if he would favor them he
would not be
called to Peking. But go he did, leaving his son to administer
the kingdom in
his absence. Sun, whom we will remember as the Koryŭ gentleman
who had married
a Mongol princess and who was thoroughly Mongolized, told the
emperor that
there were 38,000 troops in Koryŭ and that someone should go and
bring them to
China where they could act as allies for the Mongols in their
conquests. To
this Yi Chang-yung, who was in the king’s retinue, answered. “Formerly we had that number
of soldiers but many have died and few are left. If the emperor
cannot believe
this let him send Sun with me to Koryŭ and we will review all
the troops and
learn the truth.” This was a telling blow, for Sun knew that if
he once crossed [page
37] into Koryŭ territory his
life would not be worth an hour’s ransom; so he discreetly held
his peace. The
king came back to Song-do in December of the same year.
In 1264 the Japanese pirates made
another descent upon the shores of southern Koryŭ but were
driven away by the royal
forces under Gen. An Hong.
In 1265 the seed was sown that led to
the attempted invasion of Japan by the Mongols. A Koryŭ citizen,
Cho I, found
his way to Peking and there, having gained the ear of the
emperor, told him
that the Mongol power ought to secure the vassalage of Japan.
The emperor
listened favorable and determined to make advances in that
direction. He therefore
appointed Heuk Chŭk and Eun Hong as envoys to Japan and ordered
them to go by
way of Koryŭ and take with them to Japan a Koryŭ envoy as well.
Arriving in Koryŭ
they delivered this message to the king and two officials, Son
Kun-bi and Kim
Ch’an were
appointed to accompany them to Japan. They proceeded by the way
of Koje Harbor in Kyŭng-sang Province but were
driven back by a fierce storm and the king sent the Mongol
envoys back to Peking.
The Emperor was ill satisfied with the outcome of the adventure
and sent Heuk Chŭk with a letter to the king
ordering him to forward the Mongol envoy to Japan. The message
which he was to
deliver to the ruler of Japan said “The Mongol power is kindly disposed
toward you and desires to open friendly intercourse with you.
She does not desire
your submission but if you accept her patronage the great Mongol
empire will
cover the earth.” The king forwarded the message with the envoys
to Japan, and
informed the emperor of the fact.
Meanwhile the emperor was being worked
upon by designing men who were seeking to injure Koryŭ. They
succeeded so well
in their designs that he sent an envoy bearing a list of
specified charges
against the king. (1) You have enticed Mongol people to Koryŭ.
(2) You did not
feed our troops when they were in Koryŭ. (3) You persistently
refuse to come
back to the capital. (4) When our envoy went to Koryŭ you had a
spy watch him.
(5) Your tribute has not been at all equal to the demand we
made. (6) You
brought it about that the Japanese did not accept our offer. The
emperor’s [page
38] suspicions
continued to increase until finally he sent a general, U-ya Son-dal, to demand that Yi
Chang-yong and Kim Chun, two of the most influential officials
of Koryŭ,
together with the father and son of the latter, be brought to
Peking. Kim Chun,
on learning of this, advised that the envoy be promptly killed
and that the
king remain in some island, out of harm’s way. But the king knew
that such a
course would be suicidal and firmly refused. So Kim Chun himself
put Gen. U-ya
Son-dal to death and then announced the fact to the court. The
king and court
were dumbfounded at his temerity but dared not lay hands on him,
though they
all felt sure they would suffer for his rash act. Fortunately
for them,
however, other events of great importance were happening which
distracted the
attention of the emperor and secured immunity from punishment.
These events we
must now relate.
The Mongol and Koryŭ envoys, upon
reaching the Japanese capital, were treated with marked
disrespect. They were not
allowed to enter the gates, but were lodged at a place called T’ă-jă-bu, outside the west gate
of the city. There they remained five months, and their
entertainment was of
the poorest quality. And at last they were dismissed without
receiving any
answer either to the emperor or to the king.
Kublai Khan was not the kind of a man
to relish this sort of treatment and when he heard the story he
sent a
messenger straight to Koryŭ telling the king “I have decided to invade Japan.
You must immediately begin the building of one thousand boats.
You must furnish
four thousand bags of rice and a contingent of 40,000 troops.”
The king replied
that this was beyond his power, for so many of the people had
run away that
workmen could not be secured in sufficient numbers. The emperor, however,
was resolute and soon sent an envoy to see if his orders were
being carried
out, and to make a survey of the straits between Koryŭ and
Japan, in the
vicinity of Heuk-san Island. The emperor could scarcely believe
that the
Japanese would dare to treat his envoy so disrespectfully as had
been reported
and he suspected that it was some sort of ruse that the king of
Koryŭ had been
playing on him; so he decided to send his envoy Heuk Chŭk once
more to Japan. This
time also he was accompanied by a Koryŭ envoy, Sim Sajŭn.
[page 39] Meantime Kim Chun finding that his foul
murder of the Mongol envoy went unpunished, became prouder and
more headstrong.
His son stole two boatloads of vegetables intended for the
king’s own table.
This roused the ire of the king. Kim Chun might kill all the
Mongol envoys he
wished but when it came to stealing from the king’s table
something must be done.
There was only one official, Im Yun, who hated Kim Chun worse
than he feared
him and the king selected this man for the work in hand. Sending
away all the
other officials to a neighboring monastery to sacrifice to
Buddha for his
health, he summoned Kim Chun and, when he had him at his mercy,
let Im Yun fall
upon him with a club and take his life. Kim Chun’s brother
likewise fell the
same day and the household of the offender was broken up. The
usual impotence
of the king was illustrated here by the very trick to which he
was forced in
order to rid himself of his traitorous subject.
The spring of 1268 opened, and still
the envoys had not returned from Japan. The Koryŭ people managed
to capture some
Japanese from Tsushima who had come near the Korean coast. They
were sent to
Peking together with an envoy. The emperor was delighted, showed
the captives
all over the palace and reviewed the army before them. After
showing them all
the grandeur of the Mongol court, he sent them back to tell
their king about it
and to urge him to make friends with the great Yuan empire. This
same year the
crown prince went to the Mongol court.
Im Yun, whom the king had used as an
instrument for the removal of the obnoxious Kim Chun, did not
intend to go without
his reward. He began to plan how he might become a king-maker
himself. He
desired to depose the king and put another in his place who
would be quite
subservient to himself. To this end he began to banish those who
might oppose him
in this scheme, and at last when he had cleared the way and
deemed the time
ripe, he surrounded himself with a powerful guard and called all the officials to a council.
He told them that the king desired to kill him, but rather than
die tamely he
was resolved to do something desperate. He asked them if they
agreed, but no
man dared to open his mouth. Then putting on his armor he led
the way to the
palace and proclaimed Chang as king. This Chang was a distant
relative of [page 40] the king. He also made all
the officials bow to him. The records say that this deed was
accompanied by a
tremendous storm of rain in which the deposed king was driven
forth on foot. Im
Yun and his lewd followers then proceeded to loot the palace.
The parvenu Chang, at the instance of
Im Yun, sent an envoy to the Mongol court saying that the king
had handed over
the reins of government to him. The king’s son, who had gone but
lately to the
Chinese court, was now on his way home. He arrived at night on
the farther bank
of the Yalu River and was there met by a secret messenger who
had crossed in
the dark to tell him that Chang had usurped the throne and that soldiers
had been stationed at Eui-ju to kill him when he arrived. So the
Prince turned
and hastened back to the emperor and a letter was immediately
dispatched
demanding the reinstatement of the rightful sovereign. After two
such appeals
had remained unanswered the emperor threatened to send an army
to enforce the
demand. The officials thereupon became afraid and reluctantly
put the rightful
king back upon his throne. The emperor then ordered both the king and the
man who had deposed him to go to China in order that the matter
might be
investigated. The king went but Im Yun refused and sent his son
instead. The
emperor ordered the king to write out the cause of the trouble
but the latter
feared that if he did so it would make trouble for him when he
went back, for
Im Yun was a powerful and unscrupulous man. He therefore told
the emperor that
he was troubled with a lame hand that prevented his writing.
Later however, in
private, he made the matter bare before the emperor and as a
consequence Im Yun’s
son was thrown into prison. Before returning to Koryŭ the king
asked the
emperor to bestow upon his son, the crown prince, the hand of
one of the Mongol
princesses, to give him a Mongol escort back to Koryŭ, to place
a Mongol
governor at P’yŭng-yang
and to return to the control of Koryŭ the northern districts of
the peninsula.
The emperor consented to all but the last of these requests.
When the king came
back to Song-do, Im Yun attempted to oppose him but was speedily
put down and decapitated.
Arriving at the capital the king went
into camp outside [page
41] the
walls to await the completion of the palace which was in course
of
construction. The troops oppressed the people, and when the king
ordered them
to disband they marched out in a body and went by boat to
Chŭl-la Province and
began to act in a rebellious manner. A royal army, sent against
them, chased
them into the island of Chin-do where they forced the people to
join their
standards. Mongol and Koryŭ troops were sent against them, but the people
hated the Mongols so heartily that this rather added to the
difficulty than
otherwise, and the disaffection, spreading with increased
rapidity, began to
assume serious proportions. The emperor learned of this and,
believing that the
king was hardly equal to the task of managing the affairs of the
government,
sent a commissioner to assume control at Song-do.
Matters stood thus when in 1270 the
emperor determined to send another envoy to Japan. Cho Yong-p’il
and Hong Ta-gu
were appointed to this important mission and they were joined in
Koryŭ by the
representative of that country, by name Yang Yun-so. This
embassy was charged
with the somewhat dangerous task of demanding the submission of
Japan. The
emperor did not anticipate success in this, as is shown by the
fact that he had
rice fields made in Pong-san, Koryŭ, to raise rice for an army
of invasion
which he intended to launch upon Japan. For this work he ordered
the king to
furnish 6000 plows and oxen, as well as seed grain. The king
protested that
this was quite beyond his power, but as the emperor insisted he
sent through
the country and by force or persuasion obtained a fraction of
the number
demanded. The emperor aided by sending 10,000 pieces of silk.
The Koryŭ army
had dwindled to such a point that butchers and slaves were
enrolled in the
lists. The rebel army had been driven out of Chin-do, but a
remnant had crossed
over to Quelpart where the kingdom of T’am-na still flourished.
Many of these rebels had been captured on Chin-do and had been
taken as
captives to China. Now at the request of the king they were sent
back to
Song-do for punishment. A curious complication arose in
connection with this.
These rebels, when they first went to Kang-wha had stolen the
wives of many of the
officials there and had carried them south. These women
accompanied their newly
acquired husbands to China; but [page
42] now that
they were all returned to Song-do many of them again met their
former husbands.
Some were received back gladly while others were not wanted,
owing to new
arrangements which were quite satisfactory. But the king
commanded that all
officials who found their former wives should take them back.
The emperor, influenced by evil-minded
men who exaggerated the wealth of the peninsula, demanded that
Koryŭ send a
large amount of timber to China, but the king answered that he
could not
accomplish impossibilities. The commissioner who had been sent
was a capable
man and was well liked by the people in spite of his Mongol
nationality. The
commissioner fell ill and was fast approaching his end. The king
sent him some
medicine but he refused to take it, saying that if he took it
and yet died the
emperor might charge the king with having made away with him by
poison. So the
disease ran its course and the commissioner expired amid the
lamentations of
the people. Their appreciation of this Mongol’s kindness shows
how badly they
were accustomed to being governed. Their high appreciation of
his mild and just
government overcame even their prejudice against his birth.
It was in this same year that Kublai
Khan proclaimed the name of his empire Yuan.
When the Mongol and Koryŭ envoys
returned from Japan they were accompanied by a Japanese envoy.
The king hurried
them on to Peking where they were received by the emperor with
great delight,
who hoped that he had now gained his point. But he did not relax
his
preparations for an invasion, for he commanded the king to
hasten the
construction of boats and the collection of provisions.
Everything however was
hindered by the rebels on Quelpart who built there a strong
fortress and made
it a center from which to harry the southern islands and even
parts of the
mainland. The exchequer was exhausted and the people could not
endure further
taxation. Many of them fled from their homes to escape the
exactions of the
government. It is said that one day the king himself had to get
along without
any side dishes or condiments.
The land seemed doomed to misfortune.
A marauding party of Japanese landed at Keum-ju and the people,
in fear of their
lives, treated them well and gave them whatever they [page 43] asked for. This the
renegade Hong Ta-gu told the emperor with embellishments of his
own and averred
that Koryŭ was making friends with Japan with a view to an
invasion of China.
The action of the people of Keum-ju made this seem probable.
This fed the
emperor’s suspicions of Koryŭ’s bad faith and added materially
to the
overwhelming difficulties under which the land was already
staggering.
The matter of the Quelpart rebels came
to an issue when they began ravaging the coast of Chŭl-la Province, burning at one
place between twenty and thirty ships and carrying away a number
of Mongol
soldiers as prisoners. The follow* ing spring a strong body of
Mongol and Koryŭ
troops crossed to Quelpart, overthrew the stronghold of the
rebels and placed there
a garrison of 500 Mongol and 1000 Koryŭ troops.
The eventful year 1273 opened with a
vigorous demand on the part of the emperor that the king prepare
300 vessels, for
which he was to supply not only the labor but the materials as
well. At the
same time the vanguard of the army of invasion, 5000 strong,
came to Koryŭ,
perhaps to see that the commands of the emperor were promptly
complied with. They
brought 33,000 pieces of silk to use in purchasing supplies for
their
maintenance. Silk was the very last thing that the
poverty-stricken people of Koryŭ
wanted, but it was forced upon them and they had to buy whether
they wished or
not. The king in attempted obedience to the Emperor’s demands
assembled 3500
carpenters and other artisans necessary to the building of the
boats, and the
work was begun.
The Mongol governor who had been
placed at P’yŭngyang
was a man of dark and fierce aspect and he was universally
feared and hated. He
also demanded the society of the fair sex and seized women right
and left.
Famine stared the capital in the face and the emperor was
obliged to send 20,000
bags of rice to relieve the distress. In spite of the
inauspiciousness of the
times the crown prince who had been plighted to a Mongol
princess was sent to
Peking where the nuptials were celebrated. No sooner had this
been done than the
emperor sent to Koryŭ the main body of the army which was to
cross the straits
and attack Japan. It consisted of 25,000 men. Thus slightingly
did the great
conqueror gauge the prowess of the Island Empire.
[page 44] King Wŭn-jong died while
the prince was in China and the emperor hastened to confer upon
the latter the
insignia of royalty and send him back to take charge of affairs
at home. This
prince’s name was Ko, posthumous title Ch’ungryŭl. The princess, his
wife, did not accompany him to Koryŭ at first but waited to
follow at leisure.
When the young king arrived at Song-do has first act was to send
an escort to bring
his Mongol queen to him.
The events above recorded had followed
thick and fast upon each other and now the great and long
contemplated invasion
of Japan was about to become an accomplished fact. The entire
army of invasion
rendezvoused on the southeastern coast of Korea, opposite the
islands of Japan.
It consisted of 25,000 Mongol troops under Generals Hoi Ton,
Hong Ta-gu and Yu
Pok-hyong; and 15,000 Koryŭ troops under Gen. Kim Pang-gyŭng.
The flotilla that
was to carry this army across the straits consisted of 900
boats. Sailing from
the shores of Korea the fleet made for the island of Iki near
the mainland of
Japan. Entering the harbor of Sam-nang they found a small
garrison stationed
there. Generals Kim and Hong attacked and routed this outpost,
returning to the fleet, it is said, with 1000 heads. From this point they
approached the mainland, landing at several points for the
purpose of making a
general advance into the country. The Japanese however attacked
them briskly
and checked the advance, but were themselves checked by a Koryŭ
General, Pak,
whom the Mongols praised highly for his valor.
It was a foregone conclusion that the
allied Koryŭ and Mongol forces must retire sooner or later.
Forty thousand men
could do nothing on the Japanese mainland. So they retired
slowly back to their
boats. Nature aided the Japanese, for a storm arose which
wrecked many of the
boats and many more were scattered, so that the total loss to
the allied forces
was something over 13000. The scattered remnants of the fleet
rendezvoused as
best they could at the harbor of Hap and from there made their
way back to Koryŭ.
So ended the first attempt to subdue the Land of the Rising Sun.
Meanwhile events were not at a
standstill in the peninsula. The king went as far as P’yŭng-yang
to meet his
bride. Escorting her back to the capital he gave her a palace of
her [page 45] own, fitted up according to
her fancy. The records say that she had sheep skins hanging in
the doorways.
This would probably be in accord with Mongol ideas. The former
Queen was
lowered to the position of second wife or concubine. The
Mongolizing tendency had
now gone so far that the king ordered the officials to adopt the
Mongol
coiffure. The order was not obeyed until after long and heated
debate, but at
last the conservatives were voted down and all submitted to the
new style. At
the same time the Mongol dress was also adopted.
An amusing incident is reported as
having occurred about this time, A courtier named Pa-gyu
observed to the king, “The male population of the
country has been decimated but there are still plenty of women.
For this reason
it is that the Mongols take so many of them. There is danger
that the pure Koryŭ
stock will become vitiated by the intermixture of wild blood.
The king should
let each man take several wives and should remove the
restrictions under which the
sons of concubines labor.” When the news of this came to the
ears of the women
they were up in arms, as least the married portion; and each one
read to her
spouse such a lecture that the subject was soon dropped as being
too warm to handle.
When the king passed through the streets with Pa-gyu in his
retinue the women
would point to the latter and say “There goes the man who would make
concubines of us all.”
In spite of the failure of the plan of
invasion, the emperor could not believe that Japan was serious
in daring to oppose
his will and so sent another envoy demanding that the Japanese
sovereign come
to Peking and do obeisance. We may well imagine with what
ridicule this
proposition must have been received in the capital of the hardy
islanders.
Chapter
VIII.
A
Queen huntress....general tax....
a jealous Queen....tribute....a thrifty Queen....lack of filial piety....a termagant....Mongol influence at its
zenith....second invasion planned....corrupt court
....preparations for the
invasion....expedition sets sail....difficulties [page 46] ....terrible catastrophe....survivors retreat....new
preparations....the
plan given up....corruption....famine in China....
northern
cannibals....at last driven back....a son’s rebuke.... Timur Khan makes
changes....king abdicates....family difficulties ....an abject king....new slave
law....king
goes to Peking... Ch’ung-sŭn
ascends the throne....a
disgusted courtier....a
kingless country....eunuchs elevated....reconstruction....king of Mukden....pander to the Mongol court....king’s father banished.... silver
coin.
The
sporting proclivities of the Mongol queen of Koryŭ were an
object of wonder and
disgust to the people, for she was accustomed to accompany the
king in his
expeditions and was as good a horseman as any in the rout. It may well be imagined
that the finances of the country were in bad shape, and it was
found necessary
to reconstruct the revenue laws to meet the constantly recurring
deficit. For
the first time in the history a general tax was levied on all
the people, high and
low alike. Hitherto
taxes had been levied only on the better class of people. This
tax was called
the hop’o which means “house linen,” for the tax was levied in
linen cloth. This shows that although coin circulated, barter
was as yet the
main method of interchange of commodities.
The custom of dressing in white must
be a fairly ancient one for we learn that at this time the
government ordered the
use of blue instead of white, as blue is the color that
corresponds to east.
The birth of a son to the king’s Mongol consort was the signal
for great
rejoicings and festivities. Everyone offered congratulations,
even the
discarded queen.
It is said that the king paid some
attention to this former queen and that it aroused the fierce
jealousy of the Mongol
queen. She declared that she would write and complain to the
emperor that she
was being ill-treated.
She was dissuaded from this by the earnest entreaties of the
officials. At the
same time a further concession was made to the Mongolizing
tendency by changing
the names of official grades to those in use among the Mongols.
The emperor had not given Up his plan
of subduing Japan, and for this purpose he began the preparation
of boats in
the south of Korea, calling upon the Koreans to supply all the
requisites. But
this was not the only use to which he put his Koryŭ vassal, for
he also
demanded women and [page
47] pearls;
the former were taken from the men and the latter from the
women; and both were
sent to the Mongol court.
The Mongol queen of Koryŭ was a
thrifty woman and let no small scruples stand in the way of the
procuring of
pin-money.
She took a golden pagoda from one of the monasteries and melted
it down. The
bullion found a ready market. She also went into the ginseng
raising business
on her own account, taking people’s fields by force and marketed
the crop of
ginseng in Nanking, where it brought a good price. She thus
turned an “honest” penny. But it all went against
the aristocratic tendencies of the king. That the queen was not
without a touch
of superstition is shown by the fact that she desisted from
accompanying the
king to the grave of Wang-gon when told that the spirit of the
founder of the
dynasty was a strong one and that if she went she might be
attacked by some
dangerous disease.
When someone hinted to the queen that
the former queen was plotting against her life she promptly had
her seized and
put to the torture, and it would have cost her her life had not
the officials
interfered and won the inquisitors over to clemency. But her
oppression of the
people went on unchecked and she sequestered so much of their
property that hundreds
of people were driven into actual mendicancy. Even when news of her mother’s death
reached her she stopped feasting but a short time, to shed a few
conventional tears,
and then resumed her revels. This was perhaps her greatest
offence in the eyes
of the people of Koryŭ. But her affection for her husband was
very real for we
learn that when he was taken sick and she was told that it was
on account of
her lavish use of money, she stopped building, sent, away her
falcons and
restored a gold pagoda to the monastery from which she had taken
it. She had
ideas of her own as to the proper treatment of women by the
sterner sex, for
when the king preceded her in one of the processions she turned
back and
refused to go. The king went back to pacify her but she struck
him with a rod
and gave him a round scolding. She was meanwhile doing a stroke
of business in
sea-otter skins. She kept a large number of men hunting these
valuable animals,
but when she found they were “squeezing”
half the catch she imprisoned the offenders.
[page 48] It was not till 1279 that
all the officials, high and low, military and civil, had adopted
the Mongol
coiffure and dress. It was now that the Mongol influence was at
its zenith in
the peninsula. In this year the whole royal family made a
journey to Peking and
it was the signal for a grand festival at that capital. It put
an end once for
all to the suspicions entertained by the emperor relative to the
loyalty of the
king of Koryŭ. The busybodies therefore found their occupation
gone. On their
return the queen resumed building operations, seized over 300 of
the people’s
houses and had a thousand men at work erecting a palace.
Meanwhile what of the Mongol envoy who
had been sent to Japan with his daring demand that the Japanese
sovereign go to
Peking and do obeisance? He had been promptly killed, as might
have been
anticipated. When the king sent word to Peking that the
emperor’s envoy had
been killed, another invasion was immediately decided upon; and the king was charged
with the duty of preparing 900 vessels to transport a great army
of invasion
across the straits. The king was hardly prepared for such an
undertaking. He
was spending his time in revelry and debauchery. He called to
Song-do all the
courtezans, sorceresses and female slaves and had them join in
singing obscene
songs for the delectation of his guests. His manner of life was
in no sense
worthy of his position. It is not surprising therefore that
famine found its way
to Koryŭ the following year, and the emperor had to give aid to
the extent of
20,000 bags of rice.
The king wanted to lead the army of
invasion, and so the emperor called him to Peking to discuss the
matter. But Hong
Ta-gu talked the emperor over and secured the post of
general-in-chief himself.
He raised 40,000 regular troops and another general raised
100,000 more among
the vassal tribes. The king advised that only the men from the
dependent tribes
be sent, but that their number be increased. To this the emperor
did not
consent, and soon the king came back to his capital where he
went to work
preparing the 900 boats, 15,000 sailors and 10,000 bags of rice, together
with many other things that would be needed. The emperor sent
Hong to
superintend these preparations and the king, being thrown
completely into the
shade, could do nothing but obey orders.
THE KOREA REVIEW
FEBRUARY 1902
The
Products of Korea.
It
is my intention to give, in a series of papers, a brief account
of the chief
products of Korea and the places where each is produced most
abundantly or to
best effect. In order to do this it will be necessary to follow
some logical
order. We will therefore consider the cereals first, then the
fruits and
vegetables, then the minerals, and then the animals, fishes,
reptiles and other
living products; after which will come the leading industrial
products.
It is hardly necessary to say that the
chief cereal of Korea is rice. The Koreans say that it
originated in Ha-ram (**) in China in the days of
the Sil-long-si (***)
a dynasty
that existed from 2838 B.C.
to 2698 B.C. The name Sil-long itself means “Marvelous Agriculure” The name was doubtless
given at a later time. The first rice was brought to Korea by
Ki-ja in 1122 B.C. together with other
cereals. Before that time the only grain raised in Korea was
millet. At first, of
course, rice was confined to the north-western part of Korea,
but the Whang-I (**) tribe which Ki-ja found
occupying portions of the Whang-hăe Province of to-day became split up, and
a portion fared southward until they reached the four tribes which later became Pyön-han.
They were the first to introduce rice into southern Korea. This may have
happened between 600 and 1000 B.C. or even earlier. When Pyön-han
was taken by Ma-han, about a century before the Christian era, rice went
into south-western Korea and almost simultaneously into Chin-han
in the
south-east. After the founding of the [page 50] Kingdom of Sil-la in 57 B.C., envoys from the kingdoms
of Ye (*)
and Măk (|g) just to the north, took back seed rice, and thus
introduced it
into what is now Kang-wŭn Province. But while rice flourished
remarkably in the
southern portions
of the peninsula, the central eastern portion was too
mountainous and sterile.
For this reason rice has never flourished in the province of
Kang-wŭn excepting
in the prefectures of Wŭn-ju, Ch’un-ch’ŭn, Kang-neung and portions
of Whe-yang. It is the poorest rice coUntry in the peninsula.
Rice worked its
way north from Ma-han and south from Chosŭn until the interval
between them was
spanned, namely the present provinces of Ch’ung-ch’ ŭng and Kyŭng-geui. About
600 A.D. envoys from the Suk-sin
tribe, which lived just north of the Tuman river, brought
presents to the court
of Cho-sŭn in P’yŭng-yang.
They carried back, among other presents, some seed rice; but
they had to pass
through the territory of the Ok-jo (**) tribe which occupied north-eastern
Korea. They were attacked by Ok-jo people and robbed of half
their seed rice.
Thus it came about that the present province of Hamgyŭng was
supplied with
rice. But rice does not grow well there. Ham-gyŭng stands next
to Kang-wŭn
Province in this respect. The only districts in this province
where rice grows
well are Ham-heung, Kyöong-heung,
Yöng-heung, Tukwŭn and An-byŭn.
There are three kinds of rice in
Korea. First, that which is grown in the ordinary paddy fields.
This is called
specifically the tap-kok or paddy-field rice. This is used
almost exclusively
to make pap the
ordinary boiled rice.
Then we have the chŭn-gok or field-rice. This is the so-called
upland rice.
This is a drier rice than the paddy-field rice and is used
largely in making
rice flour and in brewing beer. The third kind is the
wha-jŭn-gok or “fire-field rice”. This is
grown exclusively on the slopes of mountains. It is more like a
wild rice. The
term “fire-field”
probably comes from the fact that most of it is grown in the
south and wha or fire
is the element corresponding
to south; so instead of saying south-field rice they say “fire-field” rice. It may be
also because it is grown almost always on the south side of a
mountain, which
of course has the most sun. This rice is smaller and harder than
the other
kinds and for this reason [page
51] it is
mostly used to supply garrisons, since it withstands the weather
and will last
much longer than the lowland rice. Under favorable circumstances
the lowland
rice in store will last five years without spoiling but the
mountain rice will last
ten years or more.
The enemies of rice are drought,
flood, worms, locusts, blight and wind. It is the most sensitive
to drought
while on the other hand the fact that the best fields are the
lowest in the
valleys makes it most susceptible to injury from floods. The
worm attacks the
rice only occasionally but is extremely destructive when it
comes, even as
cholera is among men. The only way this plague can be averted,
so the Koreans believe,
is for the king to go out into the fields, catch one of the
worms and bite it
and say “Because
of you my people are in danger of starvation; begone!” At the
same time
sacrifice is made to Heaven. Such a plague occurred during the
reign of Yŭng-jong
(1724-1776).
The king went outside the north-east gate and sacrificed on the
north altar. It
was terribly warm and the ground was literally parched. He would
not allow the
officials to support him to the altar but walked unsupported and
his head uncovered.
He knelt and besought Heaven to avert the plague, while the
perspiration flowed
down his back and dropped from his beard. He arose and walked
down into the
fields and taking a worm between his teeth pronounced the
formula. No sooner
had he entered the gate of the city than the rain came down in
torrents, so they
aver, and the year turned out
to be a “fat
year”. They also
say that
since that time, however many worms there may be in other parts
of Korea, that
field has never been molested. If there is a plague of locusts
the same
ceremony takes place, or did take place, except that instead of
biting a worm
the king took a blunt pointed arrow and shot it among the flying
locusts, at
the same time adjuring them to depart. There is also the chi-han or “ground-drought” to be
contended against. This sometimes happens in spite of rain and
is attributed to
some kind of “fire” in the soil which destroys
the roots of the grain. In this case the king was accustomed to
go out to a
rice field in the palace enclosure, make a fire of charcoal
before the field
and sacrifice. The charcoal, made of oak wood, is supposed to
have power to
draw to [page
52] itself
any evil humor which may be in its neighborhood. Perhaps the
Koreans may have
had some notion of the disinfecting properties of charcoal.
The finest piece of rice-land in Korea
is a board plain situated in the two districts of Keum-gu and
Man-gyŭng in Chŭl-la
Province. The two districts were named from the plain which is
called Keum-gu
Man-gyŭng Plain (****) and
means “The
Golden Valley a Boundless Sea of Waving Grain”. It is said that
when the monk
Mu-hak, who had so much to do with the founding of the present
capital, neared his
end he asked to be buried in the midst of this vast rice plain.
He, being a
monk, had no son to perform the sacrificial rites before his
grave and so he
asked that the people living there each give one gourd of rice a
year and with
the combined amount purchase the materials for sacrificing to
his departed
spirit.. The place of his grave is today unknown but every year
the people give
their rice and sacrifice to Muhak the monk. Here is a pretty
combination of
Buddhism and Confucianism.
The following is a free translation of
perhaps the most celebrated Korean poem on rice.*
The
earth, the fresh warm earth, by Heaven’s decree,
Was
measured out, mile beyond mile afar;
The
smiling face which Chosŭn first upturned
Toward
the o’er-arching sky is dimpled still
With
that same smile; and nature’s kindly law,
In
its unchangeability, rebukes
The
fickle fashions of the thing called Man.
The
mountain grain retains its ancient shape,
Long-waisted,
hard and firm; the rock-ribbed hills,
On
which it grows, both form and fiber yield.
The
lowland grain still sucks the fatness up
From
the rich fen and delves for gold wherewith
To
deck itself for autumn’s carnival.
Alas
for that rude swain who nothing recks
Of
nature’s law, and casts his seedling grain
Or
here or there regardless of its kind.
[page
53] For him
the teeming furrow gapes in vain
And
dowers his granaries with emptiness.
To
north and south the furrowed mountains stretch,
A
wolf gigantic, crouching to his rest.
To
East and west the streams, like serpents lithe,
Glide
down to seek a home beneath the sea.
The
South –warm mother of the race –pours out
Her
wealth in billowy floods of grain.
The
North – Stern
foster-mother – yields
her scanty store
By
hard compulsion; makes her children pay
For
bread by mintage of their brawn and blood.
*The
original of this was written by Yun Keun-su (***) at about the time of the
great Japanese invasion. He was thirteen years old at the time
and it is said
of him that he could write so well that rough paper would become
smooth beneath
his brush pen.
The
Status of Woman in Korea.
(third
paper.)
In
the last paper we mentioned some of the more important
occupations that are
open to women. The list there given could be supplemented by
many more of a
local nature. For instance the women of Kwang-ju are celebrated
for their skill
in glazing white pottery. They do it much better than men. The
women of Whang-hă
province are also skillful at glazing the sak-kan-ju, a kind of brown jar. Most
of the crystal which Koreans use for spectacles comes from
Kyung-sang Province,
and women are much more skillful than men in selecting the stone
and in
determining the quality of crystal before it is cut. Women are
also very
skillful in preparing ginseng for the the market. This is done
mostly in the
vicinity of Song-do. The women of Sŭng-ch’ŭn in P’yŭng-an Province
far excell the men in raising and curing tobacco, and Sŭng-ch’ ŭn tobacco is celebrated
as being by far the best in Korea. Women are also good at making
medicine, at
certain processes connected with paper making, at making
pipe-stems, at
splitting bamboo, at cutting mother-o’-pearl for inlaying
cabinets, at spinning
thread and at a thousand other lesser arts which do not in
themselves
constitute a livelihood.
We next come to the question of the
relative wages which women receive. And first, without comparing
them with the men,
let us inquire what forms of female labor are most remunerative.
It is rather
difficult to determine, for remuneration [page 54] depends entirely upon skill
and there is no such thing as a regular salary for any woman
worker. But as a
general rule it will be found that next to the dancing girl the
pay of the lady
physician is about the highest of any. Next in order we might
perhaps put the
female acrobat or juggler, although the fortune-teller might
receive about as
much. The go-between, or matrimonial agent, gets good pay,
though it is a precarious
living. The same may be said of the wet-nurse or “milk-mother.” The woman who is skillful
at putting on cosmetics is also well paid. The teacher or tutor
in a gentleman’s
family receives no pay whatever, although she may be given a
present now and
then. Among female artisans the pay depends so largely upon the
amount that a
woman can do and the quality of her work that no rule can be
laid down, but the
sewing woman, the comb maker, the head-band maker and the weaver are most likely to
make a good living.
As to the amount of money actually
received we can say but little, as all female work is piece
work; for while a
female physician may make anywhere from ten to forty dollars a
month, an
acrobat’s pay may be as low as four dollars or as high as sixty
dollars. The
lady physician would get her chair-coolie hire and about a
dollar for each
visit. The acrobat’s work is very uncertain. She would probably
get four dollars
a day while working. The fortune-teller gets eight cents for
each fortune she tells and it takes
from an hour and a half to two hours. But in certain cases she
might receive as
high as twenty dollars for a single forecast.
The go-between gets from five to eight
dollars for each case, but her income is determined entirely by
her thrift and honesty.
The woman who applies cosmetics to the face of a bride gets from
ten to sixteen
dollars for each job and anyone who has seen a Korean bride in
her stucco will
say the money is well earned.
A good seamstress would earn about a
dollar a day and a comb-maker or head-band maker would make
about the same. The
wet-nurse receives about forty cents a day besides her food, but
the foreigner
has to pay twenty and support her lazy husband.
In comparing the wages of women with
those of men we find somewhat less of difficulty. In sewing,
weaving, [page 55] comb making, fishing,
head-band making, doctoring, glazing pottery, preparing ginseng,
salt making,
shoe-making, exorcism and many other forms of labor the wages of
men and women
are the same. In fact if a woman can make a thing as quickly and
as well as a
man she will receive as high pay. In this respect the Korean
woman has the
advantage of the American or European female artisan.
There are other forms of work in which
the woman receives less than a man. For instance in farming,
shop-keeping,
fortune-telling,
tobacco raising, and in general in whatever other forms of labor
men and women
are both engaged the woman as a rule will receive less than the
man, but it is not
because of her sex. It will be because a woman has not the
requisite strength
or ability to do work equal to a man*s work. But the matter of
relative wages
is complicated by the fact that in the different provinces
different rules
prevail; for instance in the southern provinces of Chŭl-la,
Kyŭng-sang and Ch’ung-ch’ung, women’s wages compare
more favorably with men’s than in the northern provinces. We may
lay it down as
a rule in regard to the common day laborer’s wage in Korea that
a woman will
receive practically as much as a man.
But rather more interesting
than all this is the question of female education. The relative
degree of
education as between men and women is not thoroughly understood
by foreigners,
judging from what we see about it in print. It is commonly
believed that
education is almost wholly confined to the male portion of
society, but I think
this opinion must be somewhat modified. Among Korean gentlemen
there are
practically none who have not at some time or other studied the
Chinese
character more or less thoroughly. It is probable that out of an
average lot of
Koreans who have studied Chinese not more than five in one
hundred can take up
a Chinese work and read it intelligently at sight as an English
boy of fifteen would
take up ordinary good English prose and read it. This opinion is
not mine
merely but has been verified by reference to many well-informed
Koreans. As for
women of the upper class, it is estimated that about four in ten
study at least
through the Thousand Character Classic, but the proportion of
those who can
read a Chinese book is much smaller than among the men . Perhaps
one per cent
of ladies who study Chinese [page
56] gain
enough knowledge of it to be of actual use in reading. As we
have before said,
girls of the upper class are taught only by their fathers or brothers or by a female
tutor. Among the middle and lower classes there are practically no
women who ever study
Chinese. Among the men of the middle class very many study a few
Chinese
characters but they seldom get enough to read more than the
mixed script of the
daily paper in which the grammatical construction is purely
Korean. Almost all
ladies who study Chinese at all know enough of it to read the paper, for this
requires only a knowledge of the meaning of about 1500 Chinese
characters.
The Korean native alphabet or on-mun
is often called “the
woman’s writing.” It
was not so intended when it was made but such has been the
result. The
knowledge of this magnificent alphabet is extremely common among
Korean women.
Practically all ladies know it. If one of them is lacking in
this she will be
looked upon much as a western lady would be who should speak of
George Elliot
as a gentleman. Among middle-class women something less than
half are
conversant with the native character; perhaps thirty per cent.
Among the lower
class there is practically no knowledge of any writing.
So much for the basis upon which an
education is built, though we recognize that education does not
all depend upon
books and book knowledge. We next ask what the Korean woman
reads and studies.
The one work that Korean women must master, without fail, is the
Sam-gang Hang-sil (** **) or “The Three Principles of
Conduct.” These three principles are (1) Treatment of Parents, (2) The
Rearing of a Family, (3) House-keeping. We humbly submit that
while this
curriculum would not result in what we might call a liberal
education, it forms
a magnificent basis for an education. A woman deserves and needs
as good an
education as a man, but the three subjects above given are
indispensible in any
scheme which looks toward preparation for a successful life.
While we cannot
but praise the Koreans for insisting upon these, we have reason
to complain
that they too often stop there. Many women of the middle class
also study this work
and many, who cannot read, learn it by proxy. The book is
written in Chinese
and in Korean on alternate pages. [page 57] Next to this comes the
O-ryun Hang-sil (****)
or “The Five
Rules of Conduct.”
This is also written in Chinese and Korean and is the same as
the Chinese work
of the same name with very few additions from Korean history.
This is studied
nearly as much as the Sam-gang Hăng-sil, by the women of Korea.
There is one
other important work, the Kam-öng-p’yŭn (***) “A Book of Interesting and
Proper Things,” being a mass of anecdotes illustrating the
various virtues and
vices. There are also the five volumes of So-hak (**) or Primary Literature.
They include the same subjects as the O-Ryŭn Hang-sil, namely
the relation between father and child, king
and subject, husband and wife, old and young, friend and friend;
and also all
kinds of good maxims and exhortations to virtue. They contain
also arguments in
favor of education and the pursuit of letters.
We must not forget to mention the Yŏ-eui
Chöng-jŭng (****)
or “Female
Physician Remedy Book.”
This is a sort of domestic medical work dealing with pre-natal
conditions,
parturition and infants’ diseases. It is studied only by a
select few of the
highest classes.
These are the books regularly studied
by women, and ignorance of their contents is looked upon with a
species of contempt
among women of the upper class, and to a less extent among women
of the middle class. But besides
these books there is a very extensive literature in the native
script. It
contains many historical works on ancient, medieval and modern
Korea, poetical
works books of travel, epistolary productions, biographies,
hunting and other
sports, and a vast range of fiction which includes fairy tales,
ghost stories, tales of love, hate,
revenge, avarice, ambition, adventure, perseverance,
self-sacrifice, and all
the other passions and appetencies which human nature possesses
in common the world
over.
The palace women are the best masters
of the native character. They acquire great skill in writing and
they prepare on-mun copies of current news,
government enactments and general matter for the queen and other
members of the
royal family to read.
Of all these books those in the first
four classes, which are regularly studied, are secured only by purchase; but as for [page 58] novels and story-books Seoul
abounds in circulating libraries where books are lent at two
cents or less a
volume, to be returned within five days. They may also be bought
if so desired.
They are all printed in the running or “grass” hand.
Now an important difference between
the education of men and that of women in Korea is that while a
man’s education
is almost entirely from books the woman studies and learns many
other things.
Of course her theoretical study of housekeeping and other
domestic arts is
supplemented by actual experimentation, in which she has the
advantage of her brothers.
But entirely outside of books there is a wide range of study for
her.
As for purely ornamental arts they are
not much studied by women in Korea. For instance music is
studied almost exclusively
by the
dancing-girls, at least vocal music; and of instrumental music
the Korean lady
seldom learns more than the use of the ku-mun-gŭ which we may call, in the absence of a
better term, the Korean guitar. Music has always been considered
in the Far
East, and indeed in the whole of the orient, as a meretricious
art. And for the
same reason the art of dancing is confined to a special class,
and that a
degraded one. The art of embroidery is the only purely
ornamental art studied
by Korean women and this is naturally confined to the favored
few who have
money and leisure. The best embroidery, however, is made by the
palace women and
by men who learn it as an industrial rather than an ornamental
art.
As for the industrial arts we hardly
need say that sewing, weaving, fishing, head-band making,
cooking and all the rest
of them have to be learned, but we could not include this line
of study in our
present review of woman’s education without tiring the reader.
Such is an imperfect and fragmentary
account of what constitutes a woman’s education in Korea. The
fact that there
is practically no such thing as a girls’ school in Korea,
outside of those
instituted by foreigners, and that girls are taught almost
exclusively those
things which will be of practical use to them within the walls
of their own
homes, is necessarily narrowing to the intellect and makes the
woman [page 59] a companion to man only in
a physical and domestic
sense. The influence which this has upon society is too well
known to need
discussion here; but we cannot forbear to say that it is the
experience of many
foreigners who have had to do with Korean girls that these long
centuries of
narrow training have not impaired their intellectual capacity.
It has simply lain
dormant, and whenever given an opportunity it has shown itself
to be easily
equivalent to
that of the men.
An
Island without a Sea.
Near
the center of Korea, where the provinces of Kyŭngsang, Ch’ung-ch’ung and Kang-wŭn touch each
other, rises the lofty Pi-bong Mountain (***) or “Mount of the Flying Phoenix.” Approaching it from the
west by one of the deep valleys between its spurs, one’s way is blocked by a high
cliff which anciently afforded no means of ascent. About fifty
feet up the side
of this cliff there was an opening like the arch of a small gate
leading
apparently into
a cave. The Koreans held the place in awe deeming it to be the
home of some
great serpent or some mountain spirit. Only once had it ever been known to
be entered by man and he was a wandering monk who managed to
effect an
entrance, and was never seen again.
But at last the mystery was solved by
the great scholar U T’ak (**)
near the close of the Koryŭ dynasty. He had been sent to Nanking
on some
mission and there he first saw
the great Chu-yŭk (**)
or Book of Changes, ten volumes in all. The Ming emperor let him
take it to read. After two days he
brought it back and said that he had mastered it. The emperor
laughed at his
presumption, as if, forsooth, a man could master the Book of
Changes in two
years, to say nothing of two days; but U T’ak stood before the emperor and repeated the contents
of all ten of the books from memory. For this almost superhuman
feat the
emperor did him great honor and sent him home loaded with gifts.
On his arrival in Korea his
first care was to transcribe on paper the great classic whose
contents he had
brought in his [page
60] head.
It was thus that the Book of Changes was first introduced into Korea. But we have
wandered from our proper story.
U T’ak looked upon the debauchery and
excess of the last days of Koryŭ with disgust. He felt that the
capital was no
place for self-respecting men. And yet he knew that his
departure would attract
attention by its implied censure of the wicked court and that he
would be
pursued and killed. So, having made all his preparations, he
left the city
secretly and by forced marches reached the town of Tan-yang long
before anyone
could catch him. It was here that this cave existed high up the
side of the
cliff. This was his native town and he had determined to explore
the dreaded
place in search of a sure retreat from the minions of Sin-don
the monk who held
the king “in
his sleeve,”
as the Koreans say. Near to the cliff there grew a tall tree
whose branches,
swaying in the wind, swept the threshold of the gloomy orifice
which led no one
knew whither.
He boldly climbed the tree, crept
out on one of the branches and swung himself across to the
narrow ledge. He took
a candle from his pocket and with flint and steel struck a
light. Looking down
at the crowd of villagers who had assembled to see the rash man
throw away his
life he waved his hand to them and then plunged resolutely into
the cave. A few
feet brought him to a sharp turn,
a few feet further another turn, another, and a burst of
sunlight dazzled him.
He found himself in a broad mountain valley hemmed in on all
sides by lofty
mountain walls. The only access to it was the cave opening
through which he had
come. The whole floor of the valley was one field of waving
grain while the
higher slopes beneath the encircling cliffs were covered with
fruit trees of
all descriptions, laden with their treasure. The only way he
could account for
it was on the supposition that the monk who had been seen to
enter the cave,
over a century before, had brought seeds and planted them; for
now the whole
valley
blossomed like a veritable garden. Before long the villagers
below were amazed
to see him rolling out bags of rice from the cave and pitching
them over the
precipice. But first he took the precaution to cut the limb of
the tree which
gave a means for ascending to his retreat. The people sent him
such [page 61] things as he needed by
means of a basket which he let down with a straw rope. But he
did not tell them
the secret. They supposed some friendly dragon had taken him
into partnership.
His enemies came to apprehend him but he poured out a shower of
rice on their
heads that nearly smothered them. They knew that if they persisted rocks might
follow the rice, so they gave up the chase.
In time he brought his family up to
his retreat, built a magnificent house and lived in affluence.
Generations
passed and gradually the place filled up with dwellers and a
rocky stairway was
built up the cliff. It is there to-day and the valley inside the
rocky arch is
called the To-dam-dong (***)
or “Island Pond District.” Before U T’ak died he was made
magistrate of the
whole prefecture and because of his benign influence the Koreans say that
never has that district produced a traitor, a spendthrift, a
robber or a
beggar; that it has never known famine or pestilence or flood;
and the only
thing that prevents its being an earthly paradise is that it is
very hard to get salt-fish.
Christmas
among the Koreans.
Among
the Christian people of Korea the anniversary of the birth of
our Lord is a
great festival. Crowds attend the Christmas services in the
churches, in the
cities and the country alike. In the preparations for the
festival nearly the entire
membership is enlisted. Some raise the funds, others secure the
tree and the
evergreens for decoration. Each Christian family provides at
least one lantern
for the “light
display”
at night. The secret of its success lies in the unanimity with
which the entire
church enters into the spirit of the event.
The churches are decorated in truly
oriental style. Arches of pine branches span the approaches.
Lanterns hang from
lines along the pathways and the church itself is redolent with
the sweet smell of pine and cedar.
Banners of red silk with gold letters and green margins tell of
Jesus of
Bethlehem. [page
62] White is
conspicuous by its absence. It is the symbol of mourning and would not
be appropriate at this time of universal joy.
The Christmas tree is especially
popular with the Koreans. The pine is the only tree that abounds
in Korea and
to the Korean it is the symbol of long and vigorous life. So to
the Korean
Christian it symbolizes the undying love of Christ and gives a
hint at the promise
of immortality.
Giving is a prominent feature of the
Korean Christmas, but it is done mostly at the church and not in
the family. Koreans
do not wear stockings like ours and if Santa Claus should come down a Korean chimney and
reach the fireplace he would still find himself out of doors and
probably very much
the worse for wear.
One church made an innovation this
year in the way of presents by giving each member a calendar. It
is hard for foreigners
to realize fully how useful a gift this is to a Korean, The
regular government
calendar is full of pagan notions about luck and ill-luck and gives no hint of the Sabbath.
A Christian calendar is published each year, showing which days
are Sabbaths
according to the Korean count.
As might be expected, crowds of people
are attracted to the vicinity of the church by the lights and
the festive air that
pervades the whole neighborhood, and advantage is taken of this
to impress upon
them a few of the fundamental truths of our religion.
Korean Christians remember the poor on
Christmas Day. They do it as naturally as though their ancestors
had been Christians
for fifteen hundred years. This last year special attention was
paid to the
poor at our Christmas service. Last summer the greater part of
Korea was
visited by a terrible drought which utterly ruined the crops and
brought
thousands to the verge of starvation. The month of December was
marked by
extreme cold which added to the suffering of the needy, and
among the destitute
are many Christians. The story of the suffering of the Koreans
this year is a
pitiful one but cannot be told here. In Korea it does not take a
very large sum
of money to spell the difference between life and death. For
instance one yen
will buy enough of their fuel for a month, and yet over one
hundred persons
froze to death in [page
63] Seoul
during the recent cold. Many sad instances come to our ears, A
family found its
fuel gone. They made an appeal but unsuccessfully. That night
they lay down to
sleep under a small coverlet and the next day the neighbors
found them, father,
mother and two children, frozen to death. A mother with her
child was driven by
hunger from her home. They tried to reach a large town and,
night overtaking
them when almost there, they sat down to rest, presumably, by
the wayside. They
went to sleep and the next day the men of the city found them
sitting hand in
hand, dead in the icy embrace of the frost. But this is only one
side of the
story of the destitution which afflicts Korea. The following
incident will illustrate
a phase of it. One family, a mother and three children were
several days
without food, when a neighbor took pity on them and gave them
some wheat. They
made porridge and of this they partook, the children eating so
ravenously that
it resulted in the death of all three the same day. .
This year famine relief was the object
in our churches in the afflicted region. The First M. E. Church,
Seoul, raised a
fund and on Christmas morning distributed rice and fuel to over
four hundred of
the destitute in the capital. The same thing was done at
Chemulpo. Other
churches raised funds, some larger, some smaller, for the same
purpose, but
whether large or small the amount of good done cannot be
estimated; for, as
above noted, it takes only a small sum of money to tip the balance between life
and death in Korea. And this money given in the name of Jesus
added to His
glory in this land.
Geo.
Heber Jones.
A
School for the Native Character.
The
causes which brought about the establishment of the new School
of the Native
Character, or (언문학교), are
extremely interesting. It was necessary to make some repairs at
the Government
Medical School. The carpenters had been at work but had stopped
to have a
smoke, as we know they sometimes do, when one of the school
teachers overheard
a conversation between two of the workmen.
[page 64] “How is it, anyway, that
some people have plenty of money and leisure and others have to
work all day
long to get enough to live?” said one of them. “It seems to me that Heaven
is unfair to apportion the good things so unevenly among men.”
“Not at all,” answered the
other, “it
is not Heaven that is to blame but we ourselves. Heaven does not
give success
or failure. It only gives opportunities, and just in proportion
as we improve
them or throw them away we are successful or the reverse.”
It astonished the teacher to hear an
ignorant man talk with such wisdom, so he came near and said.
“I see that you are an
educated man. You evidently have studied the Chinese characters
diligently.”
“No,” replied the carpenter, “I never
studied them at all.”
“But how else could you speak with
such wisdom as you just did if you have not studied the great
books? Have you been
connected with foreigners?”
“Yes,” said the carpenter. “I
am a Protestant Christian. The missionaries have put many good
books into the
native character and it is as easy to learn of these things
through the native
character as through the Chinese. In fact it is easier. It takes ten years
to get even a little Chinese, fifteen to learn to read well and
twenty to become a mun-jang;
as you yourself know. But how many of us common people can do
that? If a man
wants to eat honey cakes he must have plenty of money and a high
position like
yours, but as for us we have to buy Japanese biscuits at three
for a cent. Just
so with the books; you can read the Chinese because you have
money and leisure
while we have to put up with the on-mun; but, look you, we can get
as much good out of the Japanese biscuits as you do out of the
honey cakes and
they are much better for the digestion.”
The teacher stared at him in
amazement. The truth of the argument was as plain as day. He for
the first time
grasped the fact that if there ever is to be an enlightened
Korea it must be by
the use of the native character which a child can learn in a
month. He bid the
man good-bye in polite language and went to the Department of
Education. He [page
65] related
the incident to the Minister and the latter was greatly
impressed and agreed
that there must be a school for the native character. The
teacher then went to
Kim Ka-jin, one of the most liberal-minded of Korean statesmen,
and laid the
matter before him. He took it up vigorously. Backing was found
for a school, a
building was secured and a beginning has been made toward
revolutionizing the
whole structure of Korean education. This is the entering wedge.
Today it is
small but, once started, the wedge will split the dense mass of
Korean
ignorance and some day the Chinese character will be as great a
curiosity as
are the hieroglyphics of Egypt. We have always believed that, to
be permanent,
this movement must start among the Koreans themselves. It has so
started and
one of Korea’s highest officials and a thorough student of the
Chinese
character has given it his warm approval and personal help. Now
is his opportunity
to put his name upon the page of history as Korea’s intellectual
liberator by
starting a general movement throughout the country in favor of
the native
script -a
movement like that which liberated England from the intellectual
thraldom of
the Latin, which gave modern Italian its first classic at the
hand of Dante and
which in Luther’s Bible opened the eyes of the Germans to the
splendid
possibilities of their mother tongue.
We do not understand the arguments of
those who would continue to teach Koreans the Chinese character.
If they are right,
then Cadmus was wrong. The Korean alphabet is capable of
conveying every idea
that the Korean mind can grasp. We would not oppose the
etymological study of
those words which have been borrowed from China. By all means
let them be
studied, but phonetically. What we object to is the shameful
waste of time in
acquiring the ideograph.
Odds
and Ends.
“The
Works of Sak-eun.”
In the very
interesting “Notes on Southern Korea” which
appeared in the last issue of the Review, the author states that
he had not
been able to identify the author of the work from [page 66] which the “Notes” were translated (the
Sak-eun-chip) or determine the date at which it was written,
possibly the
following may throw some light upon the matter.
A work frequently quoted in Korean
histories is the Sageui Sak-eun **** From the similarity of names it would
seem that the work from which the notes were taken might be
either an edition
of the Sa-geui Sak-eun or a redaction based on it by some Korean
scholar. This
the happy possessor
of the work may be able to determined by examining into it from
this
stand-point.
The Sa-geui Sak-eun was written by Sze
Ma-cheng a famous scholar of the Tang dynasty in China who lived
about A. D.
720. Mayers tells us that Sze Ma-cheng devoted his life to the
study of the
epoch-marking “Historical
Record” of Sze Ma-ts’ien
(***) which
was written about B.C.
91. In was on these Historical Records that Lze Macheng based
his Sa-geui
Sak-eun or “Elucidation
of the Historical Records.” This together with various critical
comments and
additions made from time to time by various literati comprises
the collection
known in Korea as the Sa-geui P’yŭng-nim
**** which
is the basis of many of the citations from Chinese history found
in Korea.
If the above identification prove true
the “Notes” translated will then
represent the historical information prevailing in China in the
eighth century
concerning Korea.
Geo.
Heber Jones.
Question
and Answer.
Question (4) What is the history of
the “white
Buddha”?
Answer In the days of king Mŭyng-jong
(**),
15451567 A.D., there was a high official named Kim Su-dong (***) who was so celebrated that it
was a common saying among Koreans “If a son is born like Kim Su-dong the father
will be a blessed man.” He was one of the finest looking men
that Korea ever
produced. In the matrimonial market he secured anything but a
prize. Whether it
was the fault of a Chung-ma, or “bride finder” is not told,
but the fact remains that when the bridal paste was taken off
her face he found
that her face was twice as broad as the canons [page 67] of Korean beauty permit, that the pock
marks in her face were as big as thimbles and that her eyes
sloped down, giving
her a most ugly expression.
When Kim Su-dong realized the truth, whatever his feelings
may have been, he made no complaint whatever but bore his
misfortune with the
greatest equanimity. Not so his mother. With the exaggerated
prerogative of the
Korean mother-in-law she treated the unfortunate woman brutally.
Her husband
expostulated, saying that it was not the girl’s fault that she
was born ugly;
but the mother would listen to no excuse. She kept the girl in a dark
room where no one could see
her and made her work night and day. Not content with this she
hunted up the
go-between or “bride-finder” and had some exciting passages at
arms with her,
which, it is hinted, had a decidedly depilatory effect.
This went on for a couple of years
during which time a son was born to the unfortunate woman. At
last the mother-in-law could stand it no
longer to have such a fright of a daughter-in-law about, so one
day when Kim
was away she drove the woman from the house with the child. The
young woman had
borne everything patiently
but this was too much. In a terrible passion she went away to a little hovel and
deliberately starved herself to death. Of course Kim could do
nothing for her
as long as his mother hated her so.
The night she died she sent a message
to her husband and said: “I
am dying and all I ask is that you bury me beside some running
stream where the
fresh water flowing
over my body will cool my fevered spirit.”
He paid no attention to the request
but buried her on a hill-side. A few nights later her spirit
appeared to him in
a dream and reproached him for not heeding her request, but he
answered that if
a body is buried beside water it will be very bad. because, as
everyone knows,
if water gets into a grave the dead man’s body will smell and
the result will
be that his relatives will swell up and die.
But the woman’s ghost persisted, and
begged to be buried beside the stream which runs through the
valley outside the
Ch’ang-eui gate, below the water gate called Hong-wha gate. Kim told it to
the king and the latter gave him
a spot beside the stream and told him to obey the spirit’s
mandate.
[page 68] So Kim buried her in the
bed of the stream beneath a great boulder and on its surface
carved her
semblance. It was called the Ha-su (**) or “Ocean Water” which had been the woman’s
name. In time it came to be considered a sacred place and people
in passing
would pray for good luck or even bring food and offer it. Some
monks seeing
this built a little house, confirmed the holy character of the
place -and ate the rice.
This
caused an addition to the name of the two characters Kwan-an (**) or “Hall of Peace.” So it is known
to-day as “The
Ocean Water’s Hall of Peace.” It is the presence of the monks
that has made
foreigners call this the “White
buddha.” The face is that of a woman and an examination of the
dress will show
that it is a woman’s garb.
They say that however high the water
of the brook may be it never wets the image but flows around it
like a
whirlpool.
Question
(5) What is the significance of rubbing a stone on a slab, set
for the purpose
before a shrine?
Answer. After careful inquiry we
are unable to answer the question in this form. Well informed
Koreans say that there
is no such custom in this part of Korea but as the question came
from a
subscriber in the country it may be a local custom. It is just
possible that
the questioner may be referring to what the Koreans call 붓침바위 or “sticking boulders” which
are common enough though there is no shrine near them. They are
boulders beside
the road with little shallow hollows scooped in their sides and
people take little
stones and try to make them lie in these hollows without
slipping off. They try
and try again and the motion looks very much as if they were rubbing the
boulder with the smaller stone. They do this for good luck. If
the stone sticks
it is a good sign and if not it is a bad sign so they keep on
trying again and
again. If they succeed finally in making it stick it cancels all
previous
failures. This is
done more by boys than by men. The little wood gatherers will
set their loads
down and take turns trying the “sticking
stone” and if one succeeds he will cry, “O, I shall sell my load
of wood
quickly today.” Rather pathetic, isn’t it?
[page 69] Editorial Comment.
That
which was inevitable has come at last, namely a definite understanding
between England and Japan as to the question of the continued
autonomy of China
and Korea. There
has been a general understanding among all the powers that the
dismemberment of
China is out of the question, but general understandings not
binding. The
present guarantee of the independence of China and Korea could
hardly have been
effected by a conference of all the powers together. It was
necessary that two
of them, any two perhaps, whose interests were large enough to
count for much,
should start the movement looking toward a definite settlement
of the question.
This convention is inimical to none of the powers nor is it a
threat. Russia
has stated in plain terms that she desires the independence of China
and of Korea and this convention simply voices the same idea. It
only goes a
step further and shows that England’s and Japan’s interests are
so vitally
involved in establishing this proposition that they are willing
to commit
themselves definitely to its establishment. The autonomy of China and Korea means
more to some powers than to others. The reasons for this are
geographical, commercial,
political, social and racial.
The question which all will ask is,
how will this effect the Russian occupation of Manchuria. We see
no reason to
doubt Russia’s good faith in her definite promise to give
Manchuria back to
China. But even if there were those who doubted it their fears
would be set at
rest by the publication of the terms of this convention which
takes it for
granted that the promise will be kept and that the markets of
Manchuria will
remain open to the trade of the
world.
No fair-minded person can look
otherwise than with satisfaction upon the building of a branch
line of the
Siberian Railway to tide-water on the Yellow Sea. It will prove
an immense
advantage to Manchuria as well as to Siberia. Russia’s development of the vast resources of Siberia is as sacred
and binding a duty as is the development of Canada by [page 70] Great Britain and if the
Manchurian Railway facilitates this development no one can
complain. But of
course this does not necessitate the alienation of Manchuria
from the Chinese crown.
Russia has distinctly disclaimed
any such intention and the present convention is only an added guarantee that China
will remain intact in
all her borders.
It has been pretty well demonstrated
that a condition of stable equilibrium does not conduce to the
welfare of the
Korean people. None of these eastern countries, not even Japan
herself, was
able to break forth from her medieval status into nineteenth
century
enlightenment without help from foreign sources. What has been
lacking in Korea
all along is some definite policy, some ideal toward which to
press. Her
progress has been spasmodic and uneven. From the time when the
first treaty was
made with Japan in 1876 until the overthrow of Chinese
suzerainty in 1894,
Chinese influence was paramount and the progress made was almost
purely
commercial. From the summer of 1894 till 1896 Japanese influence
was
predominant and other ideals were introduced many of them useful
but others
untimely. Then came the inevitable reaction and a new set of
ideas came to the
fore. Since that time the conflicting interests of various
powers, each unable
to give its own impress to the government, have resulted in a
state of
equilibrium which leaves more or less to be desired in the way
of economic
growth, financial stability and general prosperity. If, as seems probable,
the signing of this convention, which makes England and Japan
coordinate guarantors
of the independence of Korea, results in a preponderance of
Japanese influence
in the peninsula, it is reasonable to suppose that with foreign
help the
Government will adopt some definite policy looking toward the
rehabilitation of
the country’s finances, the definition of the powers and
prerogatives of the
different branches of the Government service, and whatever else
may be needed
to increase and develop the prosperity of the people; for it is
only by such
development that Korea can become most useful to herself as well
as to the world.
Such influence would not imply the power to assume a dictatorial
attitude. The
very propose of the convention is to guarantee the independence
of the two
countries, China and Korea. It does not imply the right to use
Korean territory [page 71] to carry out extensive schemes of
colonization, for this would evidently contravene the express
terms of the
convention. In concluding this convention England and Japan
undertake grave responsibilities not only to
each other but toward China and Korea, In guaranteeing
independence to Korea
and China they are morally bound to guarantee that the
independence of these
two counties shall be made to mean better things for themselves (Korea
and China) than any other condition
would. If such is the case and they live up to their responsibilities this alliance means no
mere stolid opposition to agencies of disintegration in China
and Korea but an
active, vigorous campaign of helpfulness which will result
sooner or later in
putting both these empires in a position where native initiative
alone shall
suffice to keep them on the track of progress.
News
Calendar.
The
following is the text of the Anglo-Japanese Convention signed in London on Jan. 30th 1902: --
The
Government of Japan
and the Government of Great Britain, being desirous of
maintaining the present
condition of peace over the whole situation in the extreme East,
and being
desirous of preserving the independence and integrity of both
the Empires of
China and Korea, and also in view of the existence of special
relations of
inteiest in these two
countries for conferring equal advantages in behalf of commerce
and industry on
all countries, have hereby decided upon the following agreement:
--
Art.
1. -Both High
Contracting Parties, in view of
their recognition of the independence of China and Korea,
declare themselves to
be entirely
uninfluenced by any aggressive tendencies in either country, but
considering
the special interests of both Contracting Parties, that is,
Great Britain being
specially concerned in China, while Japan, in addition to her
interests in
China, has particular political and commercial interests in
Korea, in the event
of the above mentioned interests being inimically affected by
any aggressive
action of other Powers, or by the outbreak of a disturbance in
either China or
Korea requiring interference for the protection of lives and
property of the
subjects of either of the Contracting Parties, it is hereby
agreed that either
of the Contracting Parties shall be authorised to take necessary
measures for
the protection of the aforementioned interests.
[page
72] Art. 2. -If either Japan or Great
Britain, for the purpose of protecting their respective
aforementioned
interests, proceed to declare war against other Power or Powers,
the other one
of the High Contracting Parties shall observe strict neutrality, and in addition to this, shall
endeavor to prevent other Power or Powers from going to war
against the allied
Power.
Art.
3. -In the
case aforementioned, if any other Power or Powers go to war
against the allied
Power, the other High Contracting party shall proceed to give
assistance to the
allied Power and shall jointly participate in the war, and peace
shall also be
arranged on the mutual consent of the two allied Powers.
Art.
4 -Both
Contracting Parties hereby agree not to conclude with other
Powers any
agreement likely to inimically affect the aforementioned
interests without
consultation with the other Contracting Party.
Art.
5-When
either Japan or Great Britain recognises that the aforementioned
interests are
in danger, the Governments of the two countries shall
communicate the matter to
each other
sufficiently and without reserve.
Art.
6. -This
Agreement shall be put in force immediately from the date of the
signing of the
same, and
it shall be effective for five years. If neither of the
Contracting Parties
announces its intention of discontinuing the Agreement twelve
months before the
termination of the aforementioned five years, the Agreement
shall be held effective
until the end of one year from the day when either of the
Contracting Parties
announces its intention of abolishing the Agreement. But if
either of the
allied Powers is still engaged in war at the time of the
termination of the
period, the present alliance shall be continued until the
conclusion of peace.
In
witness whereof, the undermentioned being vested with full power
from their
respective Governments, have affixed their signatures hereto.
Done
in duplicate in London on this 30th January. 1902. (Signed) Hayashi. Lansdowne.
At
Hong-ju in Ch’ung Chŭng Province
a rich vein of coal is said to have been found and an attempt is
being made to
organize a company to open it up.
The
Japanese whaling company made a catch of four whales within a
single week, the
aggregate weight being 100,000 lbs., so says the local Japanese press.
Nickel
blanks to the number of 40,000,000 have been imported by order of the Korean
government through the firm of Collbran, Bostwick 6t Co. , but
now that the goods have arrived the
government repudiates the order. Of course the matter will be
settled properly in time.
The
tomb-keeper at the Tong-neung has received a polite note
requesting him to be
sure and deposit the trifling sum of 1,000,000 cash at [page 73] Manguri Pass or “Danger
Pass” on a certain day or else the population of Korea will be
suddenly
lessened by one. Five policemen have been sent down to witness
the demise of
the faithful grave-keeper.
A
gentleman named Kim living in Ta-dong, Seoul, got up one morning
and found that
his Sin-ju or
ancestral tablet had
been stolen. This terrible calamity completely destroyed his
peace of mind but
later in the day he received a letter saying that if 2,500,000 cash were deposited at a
spot near the Independence Arch at a certain hour the Sin-ju would be
returned At the appointed time he carried 300,000 cash to the
appointed place,
and it was received by a suspicious looking individual who
declared that the
balance must be forthcoming or else the gentleman’s house would
be burned and
his life taken. Mr. Kim on the following night carried 200,000
cash to the
rendezvous but as the villain stooped to pick it up he threw
himself upon the
fellow and secured him. At the police headquarters the culprit
was tortured
into giving up his accomplice and the two forthwith expiated
their crime at the
end of a rope.
In
view of the serious falling off in the revenues of the country
owing to the
famine it was determined that it would not be well to make out a
regular budget
for the year 1902 but apportion the money between the different
departments as
it happened to come in. However, His Majesty ordered that this
course be not
pursued but that a regular schedule be made out as usual. It was
found that
instead of a regular income of $12,000,000 the government would
receive this
year only $7,000,000. The ministers of the various departments
met at the
Finance Department to discuss the matter of apportionment
between the different
departments. The ordinary appropriation to the army of
$4,800,000 was cut $1,000,000; all other military
appropriations wiped out: The entire appropriation for the War
Department, of
$356,000, to be discontinued and the department closed; The
Education
Department appropriation of $300,000, to be cut $50,000. The
Minister of
Education said that the salaries of foreign teachers could not
be cut and if
the appropriation is to be lessened he desires that the salaries
of these
gentlemen be paid directly from the Finance Department. The
Council is to be
discontinued. There was serious difference of opinion, especially from
the direction of the War Department and things are still largely
in abeyance. Meanwhile
the January salaries have none of them been paid, pending a
settlement of the
question of apportionment. The finance minister suggested that
the amount of
$30 a month given to foreign employees for house rent be cut off
but the
minister of education very pertinently remarked that sums
already contracted
for could not be easily cut down.
The
Educational Department having arranged for the opening of a
School of Mines and
a School of Trade, has determined to postpone the latter but as
the foreign instructors
for the former are on the ground it must be begun.
A
young Korean named Cho Man-sik was enticed by a Korean stopping
in Japan to
pawn his father’s house and go to
Japan. The father [page
74] followed and applied to the
Japanese government to seize the Korean who had induced his son to run
away and to send him back to Korea. This was done and the man is to
be severely punished as an example to those Who would lead young
men astray.
Colonel
Yi Kwan-ha who lives just west of the Kyong-bok Palace was visited by burglars on the
night of Jan. 26th. He was bound and gagged and the household
were frightened into silence, after
which the burglars made a clean sweep of the house carrying away
several thousands of dollars’
worth of goods and money.
A
man fell dead in the street near the ancestral Tablet Hall on Jan. 24th.
Someone saw him fall and, in order to find out who he was, examined the
contents of his pouch which contained a pawn ticket. This showed that the dead man was
Choe Yong-bo of Wha-ga ward.
A
Korean named So Chung-ak graduated from Tokyo University in 1900 and since that time has been
connected with the Finance Department there and has learned the
methods of government finance. He has lately returned to Korea.
The
Home Department instructed the Mayoralty Office, the Famine
Relief Commission
and Police Department to make a list of needy persons in the five great
divisions of Seoul. The numbers were discovered to be as follows.
The East Division, 3484 West, 5929 South,
2397 North, 6952 Central, 1901
making
in all 19753
As
Korea is now an Empire instead of a Kingdom the name of the
Temples of the God of War outside the
South and East Gates have had their
names changed from Kwan-wang-myo to Kwan-je-myo.
In
Nan-yang there are 373 deserted houses and in Kim-p’o there are 524.
It
is reported that Kim Ka-jin, who has held many ministerial
offices, is
intending to start
a private school for the study ol the native Korean character or alphabet,
called the on-mun. This is a step in the right direction
for just so surely as English took the place of Latin as the
Literary language
of England so surely will the splendid native alphabet of Korea drive out the ideograph, and the sooner the better for all
concerned
A
Chemulpo merchant was “held up” on the road in Pu-p’yung and robbed. A few days later he
recognized the robber at the station outside the South Gate. He called a
policeman
and had the robber arrested.
The crime was proved and the fellow was promptly strangled.
According to the Chemulpo paper
there are 1064 Japanese houses in Chemulpo with a population of
4628 which is
an increase over last year cf 74 houses and 413 people.
The
Whang-sung Sin-mun says that the Law Department has sent an
order to South Ch’ung-chŭng Province to arrest and send to Seoul [page 75] five men who represent
themselves to be propagaters of the Greek Catholic faith and in
this guise have
been oppressing villagers
in Hansan and Nam-p’o.
The
telegraph
system has been extended to the two prefectures of Kwang-ju and Mu-an. The
former is near Nam-han.
As
the Finance Department has not been able to turn over to the
Famine Relief
Commission the $ 20,000
granted by His Majesty, 300 bags
of Annam rice have been distributed, instead, to the poor of
Seoul.
The
attempt to make the students who have left the Foreign Language
schools and the
Middle School without cause pay back the money expended on them
by the
government has resulted in the receipt of fines to the amount of
$175.
The
districts of Nam-yang, Su-wŭn, Chin-wi and In-ch’ŭn are infested with bands
of robbers many
of whom seem to have a rendezvous or a retreat on the island
Ta-bu-do about
thirty miles south of Chemulpo. They have a black boat in which
they ply
between the mainland and their island. The government has placed
officers with
boats to intercept and capture them.
The
governor of Quelpart has been fined one month’s salary for not sending in his monthly
reports, as is customary.
About
the first of February several hundred mounted Chinese entered the prefecture of
Kap-san in the
extreme north and committed serious damage. They were opposed by the
border-guard but as the latter wore long hair the Chinese
thought they were not regular soldiers and
so treated them with contempt. Thereupon the soldiers cut their
hair off in
order to make the Chinese think they were properly drilled
soldiers from Seoul.
They then attached the Chinese fiercely and secured a signal
victory, driving the marauders
across the border.
Nine
merchants of Quelpart in crossing
to the mainland late last
December were driven in a storm to the coast of Japan in the vicinity of Nagasaki. They were cared for by the
Japanese authorities and sent
back to Korea about January 18th.
Korea
has lately bought from English firms six maxim guns four field guns, eight
mountain guns, and several gattling guns. The total cost was
$200,000. It is
said that an English engineer is employed to teach Koreans the use of
this artilery.
The
Minister of Agriculture, etc sent a note to the Foreign Office
about the end of
January stating that unlicensed Chinese fishermen were fishing
off the coast of
northeastern and northwestern Korea ard asking that steps be taken to put a
stop to it. A request was thereupon sent to the Chinese Minister
asking that the matter be
attended to.
A
curious story comes
from Ch’ŭng-ju. When the new prefect Yi Heui-bok arrived at his
post the ajuns or yamen-runners paid over to him
government taxes which they had collected, but one of them who had collected a large
amount, but for reasons best known to himself was not able to
produce it,
brought several bags of rice and some money to the prefect and asked him
to accept it as a gift and let him have time in [page 76] which to pay up the debt. At
this attempt to bribe him the prefect became very angry. He locked up the
culprit, called the other ajuns
and ordered
them to bring
a basin of water. In their presence he washed his ears very
carefully saving
that he could not afford
to have his ears defiled by such evil talk.
The
following provincial governors have been lately appointed; Yi
Keun-ho to South Chŭl-la,
Cho Chung-heui to North Kyöng-sang,
Cho Keui-ha to South
Pyŭng-an, Min
Yong-ch’ŭl to North Kyöng-sang.
A
former governor of Kang-wŭn Province
who was in arrears to the government, fearing arrest, sent in
his card to the
Finance Minister and asked to be given a little time in which to
refund the
money but Yi Yong-ik had him arrested on the spot, confiscated his house and other property and
recovered the lost money.
At
a meeting of the cabinet on Feb. 18th it was decided to recall all the
government inspectors from the three southern provinces, also all special tax
collectors, also all gold mine inspectors and to order no more
gold mines to be
opened up anywhere except in Kang-wŭn and P’yŭng-an Provinces.
A
large number of people in North P’yŭng-an Province have
petitioned the
government to send back their late governor Yi To-jă, but if rumor is correct
he has more important work to do in Seoul.
The
Emperor of Korea has conferred upon His excellency Leon Vincart
the Belgian
Representative a decoration of the first order.
It
is reported that M. Kato, Esq. former Japanese Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary to Korea will shortly arrive in Seoul
to assume the advisership to the Household
Department.
On
Feb. 20th Yi Yu-seung, who held
many high positions under the government previous to the
Japan-China war, memorialized the throne
urging that the project of erecting a stone to commemorate the
achievements of the present reign be reconsidered.
Yi
Yong-ik resigned the vice Ministry of the Finance Department on
Feb. 20th and
became Treasurer of the Household
Department, Cho Chung-mok was made Vice Minister of the Finance
Department, Yi Kon-myting
was made governor of Kyŭng-geui Province, Ko Yong-heui was made
Vice Minister of Education.
The
Russian Minister on Feb. 17th informed the Foreign Office that in case a Japanese subject
was made Adviser to the Household Department Russia would expect
the government
to invite K. Alexeieff
Esq. to become adviser to the Finance Department
On
Feb, 20th Han Kyu-sŭl was appointed Minister of Law and Sim
Sang-hun Minister
of Finance.
On
Feb. 21th the Foreign Office was notified of the fact that His
Excellency A.
Pavloff had been raised to the position of full Minister to
Korea.
The
Japanese paper in Chemulpo says the recently 900 sheep arrived
from Chefoo. It is not known whether
they are to be used in sacrificing at the Royal tombs or to
stock a farm in
Pu-pyŭng
belonging to some enterprising Koreans.
[page
77] The
rumor is abroad that in view of the Anglo-Japanese alliance the
Independent
Club is about to be revived in Seoul.
The
Russian government has intimated to the Foreign Office that the
attempt to
interrupt the completion of the Telegraph line from Vladivostock
to Wonsan will
be looked upon as an unfriendly act and will result in strained
relations
between the two governments.
It
is stated that W. F. Sands Esq. Adviser to the Household
Department has made a
communication to the Emperor consisting of ten different
recommendations. Their
nature is not stated but it is naturally surmised that they have
to do with the
new conditions which the government is called upon to face in
view of the
Anglo-Japanese alliance.
At
Sam-gă on the Han River near Seoul thieves are exceedingly bold
and ply their
trade day and night; on the night of the 21st they entered a
house and killed
its master and mistress and then made away with the moveables.
The police
authorities have threatened the policemen with severe punishments if the
criminals are not apprehended.
J.
McLeavy Brown Esq. the Chief Commissioner of Customs has left
Seoul en a trip
around the coast
in the interests of a lighthouse scheme for Korea. From Fusan he
will return on
the new steamer “Ang-jŭngwhan” lately purchased by the
government from a firm
in Japan.
Korean
fishermen on
the coast of Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province have appealed to the
government to put a
stop to the actions of armed Japanese fishing-boats in driving
Koreans off the
fishing grounds.
A very unfortunate shooting affray occurred in the
small hours of the morning
of the 24th inst. It appears that a French
subject named Rabec got into an altercation with Chinese and in
the course of
the struggle he drew a revolver and shot a Chinese policeman through
the chest which resulted in his death. There are so many versions of the
story that we will wait until official investigation has established the facts before
giving the particulars
On
or about the 24th inst a son
was born to Rev. and Mrs. Bull of Kun-san.
If
anyone wants to see a fine line of sporting goods especially in
the line of
shot-guns he well do will to examine the stock of R. Fujiki
& Co. of
Chemulpo. They have been made agents of the M. Hartly company,
successors to
Hartly and Graham of 313-315 Broadway, New York, U. S. A., who
have a
world-wide reputation. F’ujiki & Co., are carrying an excellent line of
double and single-barrelled shot guns, both hammerless and with
hammer. Also a
full line of ammunition,
loaded and unloaded shells, No. 12 gauge and No. 10 gauge. The
loaded shells
carry either smokeless or black powder as the purchaser may
prefer.
We
have received from E. Meyer & Co., of Chemulpo a handsomely
illustrated
pamphlet describing minutely the unsurpassed accommodations of
the steamships
of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line. We do not remember to have seen
anything
prettier than this in the way of advertising. We advise our
readers to be
careful in examining this work of art or they may be tempted to
start right off
on a trip to Europe for no other [page 78] purpose than to get a ride
on these boats. They are positively seductive.
Chi-ri
San is one of the most celebrated mountains in Korea. It lies
between the
districts of Nam-wŭn and Un-bong in Chŭl-la Province. The
Government of Korea,
last autumn, began the erection of an enormous monastery at the
foot of this
mountain. Owing to the falling off of the revenue the carpenters
and other
workmen have not been paid for their work, and there are fears
of an uprising
among them as they number several thousand.
The
sea between Fusan and Masanpo has been a favorite fishing ground
with the
Japanese, but of late the plying of so many steamers through
those waters has
largely diminished the numbers caught. And yet at present the
annual catch is 10,000,000 herring and 500,000 cod. The
herring used to be caught in great numbers near Chemulpo but
they have entirely
deserted the place since it became a frequented harbor.
Kim
Chŭng-sik, the Superintendent of Trade at Chinnampo, has been
appointed to
oversee the repairs on the West Palace in Pyeng-yang.
The
Cabinet has ordered the Minister of War to divide the garrison
of 400 which is
stationed at Ko-sŭng in Kyöng-sang Province into two parts,
sending 200 men to
Chin-ju and to supplement the remaining 200 by enlisting 200 men
locally; Also
to send 100 of the 200 who are at Ul-san to Kyöng-ju and to
supplement the
reminder by enlisting 100 men from the immediate vicinity.
At
the Government Medical Bureau the number of cases treated during
the year 1901
was 18390. This bureau is called the Kwang-je-wun. (***)
The
Japanese Minister to Korea arrived in Seoul on the 8th of
February.
Kim
Man-su the late Korean Minister to France has arrived in Seoul
and his
successor Min Yong-ch’an
left for
his new post on the 20th inst.
The
leaders of the insurrection in the military school have been
tried and
sentences have been imposed as follows. Cho Sung-whan to life
imprisonment and twelve others to a year and a half
imprisonment.
A
joint Korean and Japanese company has been formed in Fusan with
a capital of
50,000, for the purpose of erecting a rice-hulling mill.
On
the tenth of February a man living in Tă-mu-kol, Seoul, was
presented by his
wife with four boy babies.
A
pitiable tale comes
from South Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province giving the details of the
suffering there.
There have been many deaths by freezing. Half the houses are
deserted. The
roads are full of people half starved and pulling at the dried
grass beside the
road, to eat the roots. One witness
says that the sights and sounds along the road are so painful
that only the
most determined man would care to travel on them.
On
Feb. 7th a rocket, fired in the palace, landed in a government
lumber-yard
immediately to the south of the palace and a fire ensued which
burned seven
houses and $8000 worth of government lumber. On the 9th a fire
at A-o-gă
destroyed ten houses, and on the same day a large house in
Sa-jik-kol was
burned.
[page
79] On
February 22nd the native papers gave the contents of a
convention between the
Russian and Korean Governments which was entered into in 1900.
Up to the
present time it has remained more or less of a secret hut now
that England and
Japan have entered into an agreement which includes Korea in its purview
the Korean authorities have evident ly determined that the
publication of the
terms of the agreement between Russia and Korea relative to the
harbor of
Masanpo and the island of Ko-je
is rendered necessary. The terms of this convention provide:
(
1 ) That none of the land about Masanpo harbor or its approaches
shall be
permanently ceded or sold to any foreign power; but portions of
the land may be
leased to other powers for purely commercial purposes, not as
naval stations.
(2)
That the same provisions shall hold in regard to the island of Ko-je which lies in the mouth
of the harbor.
Such
in brief are the terms of the convention; and Koreans
determination to publish
them as widely as possible must be interpreted in the light of
events which
have occurred since the secret ratification of this convention.
The
Government, through the Department of Agriculture, Commerce and
Public Works is
making a determined effort to check the destruction of forests
in Korea. A
government rescript, in stringent terms, has been sent to each
prefect
throughout Korea to the following effect:
The
preservation of forests is important for five reasons, (1) The existence of forests helps to ensure a
sufficient rain-fall. (2) They help to preserve the fruitfulness
of the soil.
(3) They conduce to health in man. (4) They afford material for
use in many
important trades. (5) They
add to the wealth of the country. Therefore it is ordered that
throughout Korea
beginning with the second moon of next year, 1903, the owners of
every
first-class house set out each year twenty trees, owners of
second class houses
set out fifteen trees and
owners of third-class houses ten trees. Any man caught cutting
down a tree
without government warrant shall be compelled to plant two trees
for each one
cut down. Every year the local authorities shall keep strict
account of the numbers
planted and report all evasions of the law. Governors shall have
cognizance of
the matter and
punish all local magistrates for dereliction of duty in this
regard.
The
few Korean residents on the island of Ul-lung or Dagelet or
Matsushima have sent an urgent request that the
government compel the Governor of the islands, who has absented himself for more than a year,
to remain on the island, and that troops be sent to help the
people in their
efforts to prevent the despoiling of the forests on the island
by Japanese.
The
Educational Department has given its consent to the
establishment of a Native On-mun
School with Kim Ka-jin as
superintendent, Prince Eui-yang as assistant superintendent, Cho
Tong-wan as
principal and Chi Sŭk-yung as secretary.
[page
80] On Feb. 15th the Russian
Minister communicated
with the Foreign Office to the effect that as Korea was granting
Japan the
right to lay telegraph
cables along the shore
of Korea, Russia would expect to receive the acquiescence of the
Korean Government in her plan of
connecting the Korean telegraph system north of Wŭn-san with the Siberian system at
Vladivostock.
The Korean
Government replied that this could not be done, and it sent a
company of men to
demolish any telegraph line that may have been begun between Wŭnsan and the Tuman River. We
imagine that if this commission
attempts to carry out this programme in the presence of Russian
telegraph
constructors in the north something more than telegraph lines
will be
demolished.
At
a great ceremony at the new Wŭn-heung monastery outside the East Gate on the 11th inst. 8000 monks from
monasteries in the vicinity of Seoul took part. The crowd of
spectators was so
great that it is described by native witnesses as a “Sea of
men.”
On
the Korean
New Year’s day, all men in prison for
minor offences were pardoned
out leaving in prison a total of 136 men.
There
are some curious offences in Korea. When His Majesty was on his
way to the
ancestral tablet house on
the 16th inst a man stood
beside the road and rung a bell persistently. His Majesty
ordered the apprehension
of the man and the latter was asked why he disturbed the
imperial procession by
ringing a bell. He replied that he had come up to Seoul several
months ago and
had been trying every means to get an official position but
without success; and he had recourse to
this demonstration in order to bring himself beneath the eye of His
Majesty hoping
that he might be given something
to do. He is now tasting the sweets of solitude in the city
jail.
The
house of Yun Ch’i-sun in To-wha-dong, Seoul, was entered by a
burglar on the
night of the 16th
instant. He and his wife were both murdered and the house was
ransacked for valuables. The criminal
has not been apprehended.
The
Mining Bureau has been removed from the care of the Department
of Agriculture to that of the Household Department.
Before
the departure of Min Yong-ch’an for France, as Korean Minister,
His Majesty
instructed him to represent Korea at the Peace Conference at the
Hague.
The
Police Department has again been lowered to the status of a
Police Bureau.
The
Department of Agriculture has sent throughout the country
strongly advising the
people to pay increased attention to sericulture and promising
that the
Government will give substantial encouragement in the effort to
build up a
strong industry in silk.
The
Famine Relief commission has built an under-ground hut or um of forty-five kan at
the barracks at Pă-o-gă
for the use
of the destitute,
one hundred and fifty poor people
are being housed there, and fed daily on rice soup.
[page
81] KOREAN
HISTORY.
MEDIEVAL
KOREA.
Hong was so obnoxious to the
king that he requested the emperor to remove him and let Gen.
Kim Pang-gyŭng
superintend the work of preparation. To this consent was given.
It was in the next year, 1282, that
all the troops rendezvoused at Hap-p’o, now Ch’ang-wŭn, and prepared to
embark. The king went down from the capital to review the whole
array. There
were 1000 boats in all. Of Koryŭ soldiers there were 20,070, of
Mongols there
were 50,000. The soldiers from the dependent tribes, of which
there were
100,000, had not yet arrived. It is hard to say just who these
100,000 men
were. The records say they were from Kang-nam but they are also
designated by
another character in the records which would imply a different
origin.
Then the whole flotilla sailed away to
the conquest of Japan. They made for Tă-myŭng Harbor where the
first engagement
with the Japanese took place. At first the invaders were
victorious and 300
Japanese fell, but when the latter were reinforced the Mongols
drew back with
great loss. The allied forces then went into camp where it is
said that 3000 of
the Mongols died of fever. Gen. Hong was very anxious to
retreat, but Gen. Kim
said, “We
started out with three month’s rations and we have as yet been
out but one
month. We cannot go back now. When the 100,000 contingent
arrives we will
attack the Japanese again.”
Soon the reinforcements came.
The invading army now pulled itself
together and sailed for the mainland of Japan. As they
approached it a storm
arose from the west and all the boats made for the entrance of
the harbor
together. As it happened the tide was running in very strong and
the boats were
carried along irresistibly in its grip. As they converged to a
focus at the
mouth of the harbor a terrible catastrophe occurred. The boats
were jammed
[page 82] in the offing and the
bodies of men and the broken timbers of the vessels were heaped
together in a
solid mass, so that, the records tell us, a person could walk
across from one point
of land to the other on the solid mass of wreckage. The wrecked
vessels
contained the 100,000 men from the dependent
tribes, and all of them perished thus horribly, excepting a few
who managed to
get ashore. These afterwards told their story as follows: “We
fled to the
mountains and lay hidden there two months, but the Japanese came
out and
attacked us. Being in a starving condition, we surrendered, and
those of us who
were in fair condition were made slaves and the rest were
butchered.”
In that great catastrophe 8,000 Koryŭ
soldiers perished, but the remaining Koryŭ and Mongol forces,
beholding the miserable
end of the main body of the invading army, turned their prows
homeward and
furled their sails only when they entered a Koyrŭ harbor.
At first the emperor was determined to
continue the attempt to subdue the Japanese, and immediately
sent and ordered
the king to prepare more boats and to furnish 3,000 pounds of a
substance
called in the records tak
soé The character
tak means
a kind of wood from whose pulp paper is made, and the character
for soé means
metal, especially such as is used in making money. Some have
conjectured that this
refers to paper money, others that it simply meant some metal.
The following year, 1283, changed the
emperor’s purpose. He had time to hear the whole story of the
sufferings of his
army in the last invasion; the impossibility of squeezing
anything more out of
Koryŭ and the delicate condition of home affairs united in
causing him to give
up the project of conquering Japan, and he countermanded the
order for the building
of boats and the storing of grain.
The record of the next few years is
hardly worth writing. The royal family went to Peking with 1,200
men as escort and
remained there six months. Returning, they spent their time in
trampling down
good rice-fields in the pleasures of the chase and in seeking
ways and means of
making government monopolies of various important commodities,
especially salt.
On a single hunting expedition 1,500
soldiers accompanied [page 83] the
royal party afield. The queen developed a strange propensity for
catching young
women and sending them to her people in Peking. A law was promulgated that before
a young man married he must notify the government. This was done
for the
purpose of finding out where marriageable girls lived so that
they could be the
more easily seized and sent to China. One official cut off his
daughter’s hair when he found that
she was to be sent to China. The king banished him for this and
beat the girl
severely. It is said that these girls upon arriving in China
became wives, not concubines.
In 1289 a famine in China resulted in
a demand for 100,000 bags of rice from Koryŭ. The king was at
his wits end but
by great exertion and self-sacrifice on the part of the
officials 60,000 bags
were collected. They were sent by boat, but 6000 were destroyed
in a storm and
300 men were lost.
But now in 1290 a new element of danger
appeared in the shape of the wild tribe of T’ap-dan across the
northern border
who began to ravage the outlying Koryŭ towns. When thty had
penetrated the
countiy as far as Kil-ju the king sent an army against them, but
more than
20,000 came swarming down from the north and seized two
districts in Ham-gyŭng
Piovince. They ate the flesh of men and dried the flesh of women
for future
consumption. The Koryŭ troops held them in check at first. The
emperor sent 13,000 troops to
reinforce the Koryŭ army. In spite of this, however, the king
felt obliged to
take refuge in Kang-wha for fear of surprise. The following year
the T’ap-dan
savages came as far south as Kyŭng-geui Province and all the
officials and many
of the people fled before them. It was a literary man of Wŭn-ju
who was
destined to be the first to bring them to a halt. Wŭn Ch’ung-gap gathered about him
all the strong men of the neighborhood and drove back the van of
the invading
force. Then the great body of the savage horde came and surrounded the
town. Wŭn killed the messengers they sent demanding surrender,
and sent back
the heads as answer. A desperate attack was made but the little
garrison held firm till by a lucky
chance a rumor of some kind caused a panic among the attacking
forces and in
the stampede that followed every man’s sword was at his neighbor’s throat.
While this [page
84] was
going on Wŭn and his fellows made a sudden sally and captured the savage chief
To Cha-do, and sixty of his attendants were cut down. The rabble
then took to
their heels and from that day never dared to attack any
considerable town. The
spell of terror which had held the people of Koryŭ was now
broken aud they
found no more difficulty in keeping these savages at arm’s
length. Ten thousand
Mongol troops arrived and began a campaign against these
freebooters and in Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province had a
splendid victory over them,
leaving, it is said, a line of thirty li
of dead as they pursued the flying enemy. When the Mongol troops
went back
home, their general told the emperor that the war had destroyed
the crops of
Koryŭ and that 100,000 bags of rice must be sent. The emperor consented,
but when the rice arrived the officials and men of influence
divided the rice among
themselves, while the people went without.
All this time the crown prince was
suffering a lively feeling of disgust at the sporting
propensities of his father, and now that he
was about to return from Peking he wrote his father a very
sarcastic letter
saying, “As
all the public money has been used up in hunting tournaments you
must not lay
an extra expense upon the treasury by coming out to meet me.” The king was ashamed and
angry but went as far as P’yŭng-ju
to meet his son and took advantage of the occasion to hunt along
the way.
That Kublai Khan harbored no ill-will
against the Japanese on account of his failure to conquer them
is shown by his sending
back to their country several Japanese whom the Koreans had
caught and carried
to Peking. Two Koryŭ men carried them back to Japan; but the
Japanese did not
return the courtesy, for the two Koryŭ messengers were never
seen again .
The king and queen were both in China
when the emperor Kublai died and they took part in the funeral
rites, although
the Mongol law forbade any outsider to participate in them.
Timur Khan
succeeded Kublai. He apparently had no intention of invading
Japan, for of
100,000 bags of rice which had been stored in Koryŭ for that
purpose, he sent 50,000
to the north to relieve a famine-stricken district. He also gave
back to Koryŭ
the island of Quelpart which had [page 85] been in Mongol hands since the
time when the Mongol and Koryŭ soldiers had put down the
rebellion. From this
time dates the use of the name Ché-ju, which means “District across the water,”
and by which the island has ever since been known.
The king had now completed his cycle
of sixty-one years and the soothsayers were appealed to to read
the future.
They said evils were in store and he was advised to give amnesty
to all but
capital criminals, repair the tambs of celebrated men, give rice
to the poor
and remit three years’ revenue. But gray hairs had not brought
wisdom to the
king. His time was spent in frivolity and sensuality. The crown
prince looked
with unfriendly eye on these unseemly revels and when, in the
following year,
1297, his mother, the Mongol princess, died, he claimed that her
death was due
to one of the favorite concubines, and as a consequence the
suspected woman was
killed. The prince had married a Mongol princess in China and
now at her
summons he went back to China. The old man, bereft of both wife
and concubine, wrote
the emperor that he wished to surrender the reins of power into
the hands of
his son. The emperor consented and in the following year the
prince was
invested with the royal insignia, while his father was honored
with the title “High
King.”
The new queen was a Mongol and as she came to the Koryŭ capital
a new palace
was constructed for her. But her
royal husband saw fit to follow the example of his forbears and
take to himself
a concubine. The queen, by her frequent exhibitions of jealousy,
lost what
little love her lord had ever felt for her. She was not long in
letting the
state of affairs be known at Peking and soon an imperial mandate
arrived
consigning the concubine and her father to prison. Then another
came remandiug
both to China. Then a high monk came to mediate between the king
and queen.
This proved ineffectual and the emperor commanded both king and
queen to appear
before him in Peking. It was done and the royal seals were put
back into the
hands of the aged king. The prince and his unhappy queen were kept in China ten years.
The close of the century beheld an old
dotard on the throne of Koryŭ,
so incapable of performing the duties of his [page 86] high office that the
emperor was obliged to send a man to act as viceroy while the
old man spent his
time trifling with mountebanks and courtesans. The records state
that he had lost
all semblance to a king.
The viceroy whom the emperor had sent
was named Whal-yi Gil-sa, and one of his first proposals was to
do away with
slavery; but objection was raised that then a slave might become
an official
and use his influence to wreak vengeance upon his former master.
So a law was
made that only the eighth generation of a manumitted slave could
hold office.
In 1301 an envoy was sent to Peking to
make the audacious proposal that the crown prince’s wife should
be made the
wife of a Korean official named Chong. This was because the
Koryŭ officials
believed she had been criminally intimate with him and they were
anxious to get
the prince back on the
throne. An official originated the scheme of having this Chong
take the prince’s
wife and ascend the throne himself, but the emperor ordered him
thrown into
prison. When this had been done the aged king sent an envoy
pleading that the prince
be sent back to him. As this was not granted the king himself
went to Peking
where he lodged at first at his son’s house, but after a quarrel
with him moved
to the house of the discarded princess, his daughter-in law. The
emperor tried
to mediate between father and son but without effect. Then he
tried to send the
old man back to Koryŭ; but rather than go back the aged king
took medicine to
make himself ill and so incapable
of travel. He was fearful that he would be assassinated on the
way by his son’s
orders.
The emperor died in 1308 and was
succeeded by Guluk Khan. This young man was the friend of the
prince, and as a
consequence the old king was thrown into prison, his nearest
friends killed or
banished and the young man was raised to a high position under
the Chinese
government and his friends, to the number of a hundred and
eighty, were made officials.
But it was the old man that the emperor finally sent back to
Koryŭ to rule at
the same time he making the prince king of Mukden. Though so far
away from the
capi tal of
Koryŭ the prince was the one who really ruled Koryŭ, so the
records say. The
father soon died and the prince [page 87] immediately proceeded to
Song-do and assumed the throne in this same year 1308, His
posthumous title was
Ch’ung-sŭn.
He had been kept out of his own so
long that he now proceeded to make up for lost time, and vied
with his father’s
record in revelry
and debauchery.
It is said that a courtier took an axe and went to the palace,
where he asked
the king to decapitate him as the sight of these excesses made
him hate life.
The king was ashamed, though we are not told that he mended his
ways.
In his second year he revived the
government salt monopoly and put the money into his private
purse. Heretofore it
had been divided between certain monasteries and officials. The
Mongol empress
made him furnish large quantities of timber from Păk-tu
Mountain, floating it
down the Yalu. It was used in the building of monasteries. The
whole expense was
borne by the king. The latter was now spending most of his time
in Peking. The Koryŭ officials
earnestly desired him to come back to Song-do, but he refused.
There was a constant
flow of eunuchs and courtesans from Koryŭ to Peking and it would
be difficult
to imagine a more desperate condition of affairs in the king-deserted country. How it was
being governed we do not know. It was probably governing itself.
The rural
districts, which had been laid waste by the Mongol armies and
which had been
deserted by
their occupants, were probably being gradually occupied again
and the less they
heard of Song-do the better they liked it.
In the third year of his reign the
king killed his son because some busybodies told him that the
young man was
conspiring to drive him from the throne. This shows the depths
to which the
court had sunk, when kings were not sure but that their own sons
were their
worst enemies. Orders kept coming from Peking to make certain
eunuchs Princes.
These orders could not be disregarded. These eunuchs had
doubtless been in
Peking and were known to be devoted to Mongol interests. All
this time the king
was in Peking where his presence began to be something of a
bore. The mother of
the Emperor urged him to go back to Koryŭ. He promised to go in
the following
autumn, but when the time came he changed his mind and abdicated
in favor of
his second son.
[page 88] The new king, named To,
posthumous title Ch’ung-suk,
came to the throne
in 1314. One of his first acts was to take a thorough census of
the people.
Unfortunately the result is not recorded. The revenue laws were
also changed
and a new measurement of the fields was ordered with a view to a
more effective
collection of the revenue. The king likewise had ambitions along
religious
lines, for he sent 150 pounds of silver to Nanking to purchase
books; and
10,800 were secured. The emperor also gave 4,070 volumes. These
were doubtless Buddhist
books and it is more than likely that many of the books in the
Sanscrit or Thibetan character, still
found in the monasteries in Korea, are copies of the works
introduced into Koryŭ
during these times.
The king who had abdicated was sent
back with his son, though he had abdicated solely for the
purpose of being able
to live permanently in Peking. He spent his time in attending
Buddhist
festivals, but when he saw into what ruins the palaces in
Song-do had fallen he
said, “If
my father had feasted less I should have had better palaces.” He
soon returned
to to China where he devoted himself to letters. The emperor
offered to make him his Prime Minister but
he declined the honor. He mourned over the lack of letters in
Koryŭ and came to
realise that it was Buddhism what had proved the curse of the
dynasty. He
accepted the post of King of Mukden and later became Prime
Minister to the emperor.
The young king went to Peking in 1317
to marry a Mongol Princess, and like his father was very loath
to come back. We
infer that the position of king in Song-do was so hedged about
by priestcraft
that was it much pleasanter for the king to reside at the
Chinese court. Koryŭ must have been exceedingly
poor after the desperate struggles she had been through and life
in Peking with
his hand in the imperial exchequer must have had its
attractions.
At the end of a year however the king
and his bride came back to Song-do. The records say that in
order to induce him
to come they had to bribe the soothsayers to tell him that if he
did not come
he would be involved in war. As soon as he arrived he began to
search for
unmarried women to send to Peking. He had turned pander to the
Mongol court.
The men of the upper classes hid their daughters and denied
their [page 89] existence for fear they
would be seized and sent to Peking. He himself put in practice
the principles
he had imbibed at the Mongol court, and spent his days in
hunting and his nights
in high revelry.
The king’s father who had been made king
of Mukden, made a trip into southern China, or at least as far
south as Chŭl-gang
and Po-ta San where he engaged in Buddhist worship. Two years
later he asked
permission to repeat the visit and the emperor consented. But he
was suddenly
called back to Peking and ordered to go straight to Koryŭ. He
refused and the
emperor compelled him to cut his hair and to become a monk. He
was banished to
T’o-bŭn or
San-sa-gyŭl in the extreme
north. This was because one of the Peking eunuchs, who had
formerly been a Koryŭ
man and hated the king, told the emperor that the ex-king had on
foot a scheme
to raise a revolt in China.
At this time there was silver money in
Koryŭ in the form of little
bottle-shaped pieces of silver, but it was much adulterated by
an alloy of
copper. The king gave thirty of these bottles and the officials contributed a number
more; and with them a silver image of Confucius was made,
indicating a slight reaction
against Buddhism.
1322 the emperor, being deceived by
the lying representations of the king’s cousin who wished to
secure the throne
of Koryŭ, ordered the king to Peking. The latter was glad to go,
but was
obliged to get away secretly by night for fear of being
prevented by his
officials. When he got to Peking the emperor took away his royal
seal and
ordered him to remain there, which he doubtless was nothing
loath to do. The
officials of Koryŭ joined in a letter begging the emperor to
send him back, but without
success, till in 1324 the emperor died and his successor
proclaimed a general
amnesty, of which the aged ex-king took advantage to return to
Peking from his place
of banishment in the north. The king and Queen returned to Koryŭ
in the
following year. No sooner were they settled in their palace
again than they
went on a pleasure trip
to the Han River; but the trip ended disastrously for while away
on the journey
the Queen was confined and died in giving birth to a son. This
shows to what
extremes the passion for the chase led the court.
[page 90] Chapter
IX.
Horrible
excesses. . . .a royal desperado. . . .martial implements
proscribed another
scapegrace. . . .general suffering. . . .taxes increased . . .
.emperor
furious. . . .a general cleaning out. . . .the kings. . .
.beginning of the
great Japanese depredations....
king supplanted.... a
memorial. .. .omens of the fall of the dynasty ...Buddhism
ascendent.... a traitor falls. . . .costly
festival trouble in China the rising Ming power restiveness
under the Mongol
yoke Yi Whan-jo appears upon the stage. . . .genealogy place of
origin . . . . Mongol
adherents try to make trouble . . . .Mongol power opposed
coinage. . . .a new
capital . . .divination first mention of founder of present
dynasty. . .
.alarming Japanese raids “the mighty fallen”. . . .a curious
spectacle. . . .”Red
Head robbers”. . .they invade Koryŭ... a council. . . .P’yŭng-yang taken . .
. .panic at the capital “Red Heads” beaten. .. .king favors a
Mongol pretender.... the dreaded Japanese. . .
.king removes to Han-yang.
With
the year 1329 begins a series of events that almost baffles description. The worst
excesses of Rome in her decline could not have shown more
horrible scenes than
those which made the Koryŭ dynasty a by-word for succeeding
generations. The
king’s cousin, who was king of Mukden, was always slandering him
to the
emperor, for he was itching for the crown of Koryŭ himself. Meanwile the king
was building “mountains” and pleasure-houses
without end and his hunters were his favorites by day and the
courtezans his
boon companions by night. His son was in Peking learning the
ways of the Mongol
court and preparing to prove as abandoned a character as his
father. In 1331,
at the request of the king, the Emperor made the young man king.
The cares of
office seem to have interfered with his debaucheries. The prince’s name
was Chung, posthumous title Ch’ung-hyé. He was sent to Song-do
and his father called to Peking. This was well, for the young
man hated his
father intensely. No sooner had he assumed the reins of power
then he ran to
ten times the excess of riot that even his father had done. The
whole of his
newly acquired power was applied to the gratification of his
depraved appetites
and within a year so outrageous were his excesses that the
emperor had to
recall him in disgrace to Peking and .send back the father to
administer the
government. [page 91] This added fuel to the son’s hatred of
his father.
The reinstated king
continued his old courses and added to his former record another
desperate
crime, in that he frequently stopped a marriage ceremony and
forcibly carried away
the bride to become a member of his harem. It was a marvel that
the people did
not rise and drive such a villain from the country. When he made
a trip to
Peking in 1336 the emperor made him carry his son back to Koryŭ. He was such
a desperate scapegrace that Peking itself was not large enough
to hold him.
The following year the emperor promulgated a singular order and one whose cause
it is difficult to imagine. It was to the effect that all
swords, bows and
other martial implements be put away from all Koryŭ houses and
that no one be
allowed to ride a horse; but all must go afoot. This may have been a precautionary measure to prevent the
acquiring of skill in the use of weapons or in horsemanship, so
as to render
less probable the future use of such acquirements in an attack
upon China.
At last, in 1340, the king died and it
looked as if the desperate character who for one short year had
played fast and
loose with Koryŭ royalty would become king. A courtier, Cho Chŭk, surrounded the
palace with soldiers with a view to assassinating the young man
who had not yet
received investiture
from the emperor, and at the same time a message was sent to the
deceased king’s
cousin, the king of Mukden, summoning him to Song-do. The young
Prince, bad as
he was, had a considerable following, and a desperate fight
ensued in which he
was wounded in the shoulder. But Cho Chŭk’s forces were routed
and he himself
caught and beheaded. The emperor learning of this through the
Prince’s enemies,
called him to Peking and
took him to task for killing Cho Chŭk, the friend of the king of
Muk-den; but
the facts soon came out, and the Prince was exonerated and sent
back to
Song-do, having been invested with the royal insignia. Unlike
his father and grand-father,
he did not marry a Mongol Princess but took as his Queen a Koryŭ
woman. He
likewise took a large number of concubines. Not content with
this he had
illicit commerce with two of his father’s wives. The almost
incredible statement is made in the
records that on one occasion, feigning [page 92] drunknness, he entered the
harem of his dead father and had the women seized and violated
them. They tried
to escape to China but he prevented them from securing horses
for the purpose.
His profligate life was the curse of the country. Nothing was
too horrible, too
unnatural, too beastly for him to do, if it afforded him
amusement. He sent
20,000 pieces of cloth together with gold and silver to purchase
many things of
foreign manufacture, but what these were we are not informed.
One of his
amusements was the throwing of wooden balls at a mark but when
this lost
piquancy he substituted men for the target and frequently
engaged in this truly
humane pastime. General distress prevailed. Many died of
starvation and many
ran away to distant places and many became monks in order to
escape the king’s
tyranny. Sons cut off their hair and sold it in order to secure
food for aged parents.
The prisons were full
to overflowing. Suicide was a thing of daily occurence.
The king sent to Kang-neung to levy a
tax on ginseng, but as none could be found the messenger levied
on the
wellto-do gentlemen of the place and this was so successful that
the king
widened the scope of his operations and made it as hard to live
in the country
as at the capital. Everything that could possibly be taxed was
put on the roll
of his exactions. No form of industry but was crushed to the
ground by his
unmitigated greed. When amusements failed he tried all sorts of
experiments to
awaken new sensations. He would go out and beat the drum, to the
sound of which
the workmen were building the palace. This building had iron
doors, windows and
roof. If the king’s pander heard of a beautiful slave anywhere
she was seized
and brought to this palace which was also her prison and where
she spent her
time in weaving in company with many other women who had been
similarly “honored.” Often by night
the king would wander about the city and enter any man’s house
and violate any
of its inmates.
When this all came to the ears of the
emperor he was furious. An envoy was sent to Song-do with orders
to bring the wretch
bound to Peking. The king came out to meet this envoy but the
Mongol raised his
foot and gave the wretch a kick that sent him sprawling on the ground. He was
then bound and locked up and after things had been put in some [page 93] sort of shape in the
capital the king was carried away to Peking to answer to the
emperor. Many of
the king’s intimates were killed and many fled for their lives.
A hundred and twenty
concubines were liberated and sent to their homes.
When the king was brought before the
emperor the latter exclaimed “So
you call yourself a king. You were set over the Koryŭ people but
you tore off
all their flesh. If your blood should
become food for all the dogs in the world justice would still be
unsatisfied.
But I do not care to kill any man. I will send you to a place
from which you
will not soon return.” So he was placed on a bier, the symbol of
humiliation,
and sent away to Ké-yang “twenty
thousand li away,” so the records say.
No man went with him save his bearers. They carried him from
village to village
like a dead man. He died on the journey at Ak-yang before
reaching his place of
exile. When the people of Koryŭ heard of this there was general
rejoicing; and a proverb was made
which runs, Aya mangoji.
The Aya refers to
Ak-yang where he died and mangoji, freely
translated, means “damned.”
The heir to the throne of Koryŭ was a
lad of eight years. The emperor asked him, “Will you be like your
father or like your mother?” The lad replied, “Like my mother,” and thereupon
he was proclaimed king of Koryŭ. His posthumous title is
Ch’ung-mok. Orders
were sent to Song-do to discharge all the servants and officials
of the late
king, and to put an end to all the evils which had been fastened
upon the
people. The iron palace was turned into a school. The
examination laws were
changed. Heretofore the examination had been simply with a view
to ascertaining
the candidate’s knowledge of the classics. Now it was made to
include an
exegesis of obscure passages and exercises in penmanship. This
was followed by
an essay on “What is the most important question of the time.”
The emperor also
ordered the establishment of a new department, to be called the
Bureau of General Oversight.
The empress of China at this time
seems to have been a Koryŭ woman and her relatives, who abounded
in the Koryŭ
capital, expected to have their own way in all matters. This new
department,
however, arrested and imprisoned many of them and a number died
in consequence.
The [page 94] empress therefore sent a
swift messenger demanding the reasons for this. The reasons seem to have
been good, for the matter was dropped. Of course the young king
was not of an
age to guide the affairs of state in person. We are left in
ignorance as to
what form of regency administered the government for him.
In 1348 the boy king died and the
question as
to succession arose. The king’s younger brother Chi was in Koryŭ
at the time; but Keui, the son of Ch’ung-suk, the twentyseventh
monarch of the line,
was in China. The Koryŭ officials
asked that Keui be made king, probably because he was of a
proper age to assume
the responsibilities of royalty; but the emperor refused, and
the following
year, 1349, Chi was made king at the age of twelve, posthumous
title Ch’ungjong. Keui, the
unsuccessful candidate, was married to a Mongol princess,
perhaps as a
consolation for his disappointment.
With the year 1350 begins a series of
Japanese depredations on the coasts of Koryŭ which were destined
to cover a period
of half a century and which, in their wantonness and brutality,
remind us
strongly of similar expeditions af the Norse Vikings on the
shores of western
Europe. In the second year of the young king these corsairs
came, but were driven
off with a
loss of 300 men. Soon, as if in revenge, over 100 Japanese boats
were beached
on the shores of Kyŭng-sang Province; the government rice was
seized and many
villages wantonly burned.
That same year a kingdom called Ul-lam
sent an envoy with gifts to the king of Koryŭ.
In 1351 again the Japanese corsairs
came and ravaged the islands off Chŭl-la Province.
The emperor, for some reason not
stated, decided to make Keui, his son-in-law, king of Koryŭ. He
was therefore
proclaimed king at the Mongol court and started for Song-do.
This was the
distinct wish of the Koryfi officials and of course the boy upon
the throne was
helpless. He fled to Kang-wha and
the next year was killed by poison, but by whose hand
administered or at whose
instigation is neither known nor recorded. This new king’s
posthumous title is Kong-min. [page 95] The Japanese cared for none
of these changes but steadily pursued their ravages, gradually
creeping up the
western coast.
A Koryŭ man, Yi Săk, who had studied
profoundly and had passed the civil examinations in China, now
returned to Koryŭ
and memorialised the king in reference to five special points; to wit, (1) The necessity of having
definite boundaries for the fields. (2) Defense against the
Japanese corsairs. (3)
Making of implements of war. (4) The fostering of study and
learning. (5) The
evils of Buddhism.
All during this reign, so say the
records, there were signs and omens of the fall of the dynasty.
There were earthquakes,
eclipses and comets; worms ate the leaves of the pine trees in
the capital, and
as the pine tree was the emblem of the dynasty this was ominous;
red and black
ants had war among themselves; a well in the capital became
boiling hot; there
was a shower of blood; for many days a fog like red fire hung
over the land;
black spots were seen on the sun; there was a shower of white
horse hair three
inches long; hail fell of the size of a man’s hand; there was a
tremendous avalanche
at Puk-san, near the present Seoul. These ex
post facto prophecies show the luxuriance of the oriental
imagination.
In spite of the Confucian tendency
which had manifested itself Buddhism had no intention of letting
go its hold on
the government, and we find that in his second year the king
took a Buddhist
high priest as his teacher, and thus the direction was given to
his reign that
tended to hasten it toward its fall. He also conferred high
positions upon Buddhist
monks and so alienated the good will of all the other officials. This hostile feeling
took definite shape when Cho Il-si surrounded the palace with a
band of
soldiers, killed many of the leaders of the party in power
together with many of
the relatives of the Mongol empress, and announced himself prime
minister. To
screen himself he told the king that it was not he who had
caused the
execution, but two other men; and he even went to the extreme of
putting to
death two of his confiding friends in order to give color to
this statement.
But Cho Il-si had overestimated his strength and the king, by
secret
negotiations, was soon able to decorate [page 96] the end of a pole with his
head. Twelve of his accomplices were also killed.
As the Mongol empress was a Koryŭ
woman, the maternal
grandmother of the crown prince of China was of course a Koryŭ
woman. She was
living in state in Song-do when her grandson came from Peking to
make her a
visit. It
is said that in the festivities which graced this unusual
occasion 5,100 pieces
of silk were used in making artificial flowers. Such a feast had
never before
been seen at the capital of Koryŭ, however frequent they may
have been at Peking.
The records state that in 1355 there
was a great rebellion in China. We must remember that between
the years 1341 and
1368 affairs were in a chaotic state in China. The last Mongol
emperor, Tohan
Timur, came to the throne in 1333 and gave himself up to
licentiousness and
luxury. No attention was paid to the filling of offices
according to the time-honored law of literary
merit but the best positions were given to Mongols by pure
favoritism. This
caused widespread dissatisfaction among the Chinese and from
that time the doom
of the Mongol dynasty was sealed. In 1355 the low-born but
brilliant leader Chu
Yuan-chang, at the head of the insurrectionary army, crossed the
Yang-tse river
and took Nanking. This was the great rebellion spoken of in the
Koryŭ annals
and soon an envoy arrived from Peking demanding aid in the shape of
soldiers. Twenty-three thousand men were sent on this forlorn
hope. In 1356 a
Mongol envoy brought incense to be burned in all the Koryŭ
monasteries, doubtless with a view to
securing supernatural aid against the rising Ming power. At the
same time great
uneasiness was again caused by raids of the Japanese, which
increased in
frequency and extent. One gang of robbers alone carried out of
Kyŭng-sang
Province, at one time, 200 boat-loads of rice. This year also
saw the Ming
forces pressing on toward Peking and driving the Mongols back
step by step. As
the fortunes of the Mongols waned the loyalty of Koryŭ waned
accordingly. For
the mass of the Koryŭ people, the Mongol yoke had never been
less than galling,
and they hailed the signs of the times which pointed toward her
overthrow.
THE KOREA REVIEW
The
Status of Woman in Korea.
It
will be impossible to discuss the property rights of women without speaking
of property rights in general. It will be best to take up the
general subject,
in the discussion of which the property rights of women will
appear.
Let us first take the case of a
well-to-do gentleman in his home
surrounded by his family
which includes his wife, his two married sons and one unmarried
daughter. He
also has one
married daughter who, of course, lives at her husband’s parents’ place. This gentleman’s
property consists of ricefields, real-estate and ready money.
All real-estate
and land is held by deed from the government, the same as with
us. His ready
money is not in the bank for there are no banks, but it is
locked in his strong
box or is lent out to merchants at the rate of 1 per cent, or 1/2 per cent, per month, more commonly
the latter; which, considering the risk of loss, which is much
greater than
with us, is a very low rate of interest. The first thing we want
to know is
whether this gentleman has absolute control of this property
and, if not, what
are the other factors in the case. So far as his own immediate
household is
concerned he has absolute control, but if he has one or more
brothers and they
happen to be in needy circumstances he is bound to feed them. If
he refuses to
do so they can go to the local authorities and complain; and the
authorities
will command the well-to-do brother to hand over some of his
money or
real-estate or at least to give the indigent brothers enough to
keep them from
starvation. If on the other hand the successful brother can
prove that the
others [page
98] are
indolent and simply want to live off him he will be freed from
all obligation.
This obligation to feed a needy brother holds good whether the
wealthy one
received his money by inheritance or made it himself.
If he has sisters they are of course
married and have, in a sense, left his family and joined the
families of their
husbands. He is therefore free from all legal obligation to
them. In case they
are in severe straits he will probably help them but they have
no recourse to
the authorities. If his aged mother is still living he must of
course support
her. If he does not treat her well she has instant recourse to
the law and can bring
the severest penalties upon him. In fact she holds the power of life and death
over him. If he insults her or strikes her or is a thief or
seditious she could
strike him dead and the law would uphold her in the act. This is
not merely
theoretical for such acts have been performed not infrequently
even during
recent years. So long as the man treats his mother well she has
no voice in the
management of his money. It is hardly
necessary to say that the government exercises the right of
eminent domain and
can “condemn” any property and take it
over.
We next ask how a man can acquire or
dispose of property. He has the right to sell or dispose of his
property at will
but here also his brothers check his action. If he is wantonly squandering his
patrimony, or even property that he has himself acquired, his
brothers can
complain to the authorities and ask them to issue no deeds for
property so
sold. If it plainly works to their disadvantage to have the
property sold they
can prevent it. But we must remember that while this is the
unwritten law the
authorities if approached are not approached with empty hands,
and to go to law
does not by any means insure a just verdict or award.
When a man dies intestate his property
all goes into the hands of his eldest son who is obliged to
support all his
brothers. If he refuses to support them they apppeal to the law
and force a
division of the property, in which case the property is evenly
divided, no one
of the brothers receiving more than another. If there are
unmarried sisters the
elder brother will lay aside a portion of the property sufficient for their dowry,, he
himself being the judge as to how much to give them. [page 99] These unmarried sisters
have no recourse to the law so long as the brother supports them
and gives them
a home. If he refuses this they can compel it at law. If there
are married
sisters the brother who takes over the dead father’s property is
under no
obligation to give them anything. If they are in want he may
help them or not as
he
pleases.
Suppose a man, seeing his end
approach, desires to make a will. He calls in a few witnesses,
never from his
own immediate family, and writes his will before them and they
sign it in due
form. There is no such thing as probate in Korea, and the eldest
son always is
the executor of the will. Ordinarily the father will have no
doubt as to the
sou’s good intentions and will die intestate. It is when the
father fears that
his son will not treat the rest of the family well that he makes
a will. Supposing
then that the will specifies that the widow receive a certain
sum, the first
son, the other sons, the daughters married or unmarried, each a
certain
specified sum, every person mentioned in the will has the right
to claim at law
the amount bequeathed to him or her, and the woman’s right is as clear as the man’s. But
should the will include bequests to anyone not a relative, such as a friend,
or the poor, or a monk, or anyone else, such person cannot
recover the money at
law. They have no
redress. If however the executor, the eldest son, refuses to
carry out the
wishes of his father in these particulars and shows a too
avaricious spirit the
people of the place will compel him to sell out and move away. They will drive
him from the neighborhood and the authorities will not stir a
finger to help
him unless -but
the less said about that the better.
Now let us suppose that a man dies
leaving only daughters, one married and one unmarried. In this
case the great probability is that he
will adopt a son before he dies, someone among his near
relatives. This will be
principally in order to have someone to sacrifice to his spirit
after death.
This adopted son has all the rights and powers of a real son and will
control the property. Perhaps once out of ten times the father
will fail to
adopt a son, in which
case the daughters take charge of the property and administer
the estate
exactly the same as a man would and with equal powers. These
daughters are not
obliged to hand the money over to their [page 100] husbands unless they wish.
But the husband may of course, if evil minded, seize it, in which
case the wife will probably have no redress. This however would
very rarely occur, for if it were known the man would be subject
to the most
bitter scorn of his acquaintances and would be practically
ostracized.
In case a man dies leaving only a
widow she will adopt as her son the eldest son of one of her
husband’s brothers
and he will naturally have charge of the money. This is a hard
and fast rule
which is never broken. If there be no such nephew she may adopt some other boy if she desires or she can
hold the property in her own name. If her husband has a childless brother she
must divide the property with him, but not with any more distant
relative such
as uncle or cousin.
It is a very remarkable fact that
among the common people a wife has greater power over her dead husband’s property
than among the higher class. Even if she adopts a son she still
may control the
estate if she so desires. The Koreans have a queer saying to the
effect that to
live well in this world one should be the wife of a middle class
man and when a
woman dies she should wish to be transformed or reincarnated in
the form of a
gentleman or high class man. This is because among the middle
classes the woman
is more nearly
on a social level with her husband, she knows more about his business and has
more to say in the management
of affairs than does the high class woman; also she has a much
firmer hold upon
her husband’s estate in case he dies. She is not so strictly bound to take an
adopted son to whom she will have to hand over the property nor
does she have
to give so much to her deceased husband’s brother or brothers.
So they say that a person to be
happy should be either a man of the upper class or a woman of
the middle class.
As we descend in the social scale all
restrictive laws and all inequalities between the sexes are
toned down so that when
we reach the lowest classes we find that they are much the same
as in our own lands. The Koreans say
that among the very lowest classes are to be found the most
unfortunate and the
most fortunate women but this would not be our estimate for the
Koreans mean by
this that the mudang or [page l01]
sorceresses
and the courtezans and the dancing girls, being unmarried, are the most
independent women in the land and are cared for and fed and
dressed the best of
anyone in Korea. Of course this is a terribly false judgment, for it
looks merely
at material comfort and forgets the awful price at which it is
bought. On the other
hand the respectable women of the lowest orders are considered
the most
pitiable for they are everybody’s
drudge. They
have no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and live or die at
the caprice of their owners or masters.
The question arises as to whether a
married woman has control of the wages which she may earn. In
this respect the
middle class woman has the advantage of her higher sisters, for
while a
gentleman’s wife will invariably turn over the proceeds of her
work to her
husband the middle class woman may or may not do so. Every act
of a high born woman
is subject to far closer scrutiny than that of the middle class
woman and, as
she can never go to a shop to buy anything, she cannot well use
her money; she
is a very helpless being. It is very common for middle class
women to give up their wages to their
husbands and the latter can take money from their wives by force
without the
least fear of molestation from the authorities; but by
sufferance these middle
class women are given more freedom in this respect than others.
If a widow is possessed of
considerable property and sees her end approach, being without
sons or near
relatives, she may give her money to some young person and ask
him to perform
the annual sacrificial rites for her or she may go to a
monastery and give her
money and arrange to have Buddhist
rites performed. This is a very common occurrence in Korea and
forms an
important part of the income of the monasteries. But no woman of
the upper
class ever does this; it is only the middle class women who have
this
privilege.
[page 102]
A Celebrated Monument.
Marking
the Fall of Păk-Je.
One
of the most interesting monuments is buried eighteen feet
beneath the ground in
the town of Pu-yŭ in Ch’ungch’ŭng Province about a hundred
and ten miles south of the capital. There are very many buried
monuments in
this country the exact situation of which is known, but no one
seems to care to
bring them to the surface. This stone and its inscription are so important in Korean
history and the events attending its erection worked such great
changes in the
aspect of Korea that the matter deserves special mention.
We will remember that for the first
five or six centuries of our era three Kingdoms strove for
predominance in the peninsula,
Ko-gu-ryŭ in the north, Silla in the south-east and Păk-je in
the south-west.
Of these three Ko-gu-ryŭ was the warlike one, frequently at war
with the
different Chinese dynasties. Silla was the peaceful one,
fostering the arts of civilization.
Păk-je was neither one thing nor the other but jealous of both
her neighbors.
When China found it no longer possible to pit the three kingdoms
of Korea
against each other and was obliged to choose one with which to
side, she chose
Silla, and from that moment the fate of the other two was
sealed. It was in 660
that the Chinese emperor, Ko-jong (**) of the Tang (*) dynasty sent a great army
under the leadership of So Chŏng-bang (***) to cooperate with Silla
in the overthrow of Păk-je.
The particulars of the war may be
found in the pages of the history that is appearing in this
magazine, but it
will suffice to say that Păk-je fell before the combined forces
and became a mere
province of China. To commemorate this great event, for it was
no light matter
to overthrow a dynasty that had existed for 678 years, the
emperor ordered the
erection of a great monument at Pu-yŭ, which had been the
capital of Păk-je.
The stone was about ten feet high by seven feet wide and was
covered with a
Chinese inscription which is confessedly a fine piece of
writing. But its
literary qualities [page
103] are secondary to its
historical importance. It forms one of the definite and tangible
things upon
which we can put our hand and say, “This is a genuine piece of
historical
evidence,” and the inferences that may be properly drawn from
the stone and its
inscription are most important. It proves (1) The former existence of
the kingdom of Păk-je; (2) The union of China and Silla in her
overthrow; (3)
The date of the event; (4) The position of Păk-je’s capital; (5)
The
approximate population of the country. In all these points it
agrees so well
with what the ancient histories of Korea tell us that it helps
to establish the
credibility of those historical records.
In the following year, 661 A.D. P’ung (*) the youngest son of the banished king of
Păk-je raised the standard of revolt at Chu-yu-sŭng (***) and moved on the Chinese
garrisons. At first he was successful and swept every thing
before him till he
stood before what had been his father’s capital. He burned it to
the ground and
threw into the river the great monument which the Chinese had
erected. There it
lay till the days of king Mun-jong of the Ko-ryŭ dynsty,
1047-1084, when a
great drought occurred. The waters of the Păk-ma River were so
low that the
people found the monument lying in its bed. It was drawn out to
the bank but
was not set up. It was covered up with debris and the detritus
of the centuries
was piled upon it till in 1886 a foreigner determined that he
would see it.
This foreigner was Mr. Tong now Taotai of Tientsin but then
secretary to the
Chinese legation in Seoul. It can be accounted little less than
marvelous that
after a disappearance of so many centuries the people of Pu-yŭ
should have been
able to show him the exact spot beneath which the stone lay.
With a band of
coolies he dug on the spot indicated, and eighteen feet below
the surface he
struck the prostrate stone. His description of the scene as he
gave it to me by
word of mouth was genuinely dramatic. I doubt if any gold miner
ever exulted
more in striking “pay
dirt” on the bed rock than he did in unearthing this ancient
stone. He cleared
off its surface and took careful rubbings. He determined to make
the attempt to
raise the stone to the surface. Providence ordered otherwise,
for that night a
terrible storm of wind and rain swept the valley, houses were
unroofed, the
river rose in its [page 104]
wrath and swept away scores of dwellings and caused considerable
loss of life.
There could be but one explanation of it. The spirits were angry
because the
ancient monument was to be disturbed. A hundred willing hands
helped to shovel back
the dirt upon the stone in spite of the almost tearful
remonstrances of Mr.
Tong, and the next man who wants to dig that stone up will have
to tunnel to it
from some place so far away that the denizens of Pu-yŭ will know
nothing about
it.
But the precious rubbings were safe
and the inscription is given below. Time and the elements have
marred it but the
inscription is fairly complete.*
As the English text reads from left to
right, this Chinese
inscription is arranged in the same order rather than in the
regular Chinese
order but the lines are arranged vertically as in Chinese.
[Chinese text]
[page
106] It
would require too much space to give a literal translation of
this inscription
and even then it would be of little value to the general reader
because of its
frequent allusion to events and traditions which would require
copious
annotation in order to be made intelligible. We will therefore
merely give an
outline of what the inscription contains, leaving it to those
who are so
inclined to work out the exact meaning from the Chinese text
itself. It begins
with fulsome compliments to the Emperor of China, declaring that
his grace and
virtue [page
107] have
extended to the limits of the world and even barbarians are
civilized by his
benign influence. It then begins a flattering account of the
great generals who
led the forces against the Kingdom of Păk-je. It first mentions
the
General-inchief of the allied Chinese and Silla forces, So Chöng-bang (***), comparing his generalship,
his loyalty, his bravery, his dignity and his beauty with those
of celebrated
characters in Chinese history. It then describes the vitues of
Yu Păkyung (***) the second in command, in
much the same way that it speaks of the General-in-chief. Then
come the five
Generals of
the Left, Kim In-mun (***).
Yang Hăng-eui (***).
Tong Ch’ung (**)
Yi U-mun (***),
and Cho Kye-suk. All of these were Chinese excepting Kim In-mun
the great
general of Silla. It is a remarkable tribute to his generalship
that he should
be put at the head of all the Generals of the Left. Of him it
says that his
heart had the warmth of Spring and the clearness of jade; his
wisdom was of the
heroic order and his virtue was as high as that of the sages,
his military
skill could put an end to war; his statesmanship could calm the
minds of all
peoples. After describing the Generals of the Left it takes up
the four Generals
of the Right, Tu Song-jil
(***), Yu
In-wŭn (***),
Kim Yang-do (***),
and Ma Kön (**),
all of whom were Chinese except Kim Yang-do who was from Silla.
Having finished
this long list of compliments the inscription takes up again the
name of the General-in-chief and pays him
some more compliments having special reference to his work in
Korea. It tells
how he took the King of Păk-je, the Crown Prince, thirteen
ministers and seven
hundred courtiers and carried them to China. Five Chinese
military governors were
left to administer the Government and the country was divided
into seven
districts containing two hundred and fifty prefectures. There
were 240,000
houses and a population of 6,100,000.* The inscription ends with
a description
of the blessings which this conquest will bring to Korea in the
overthrow of
barbarous customs and the spread of civilization.
*There
must be a mistake here or else twenty-five
lived in one house. The number of houses is probably
approximately correct,
giving
with five to the house, a population of 1,200,000. The
comparatively small
Kingkom of Păk-je could not have contained 6,000,000 at that time. That
territory today does not begin to contain that number.
[page 108]
The Products of Korea.
(second
paper.)
In
a former paper we mentioned the fact that there are three kinds
of rice in
Korea, but under each of these species there are several
subdivisons. There are
the following specific varieties which are described by their
names: gluten
rice, non-adhesive rice,
unhulled rice (meaning that though hulled it looks like unhulled
rice),
wheat-rice, white rice (more than all other kinds combined),
yellow rice, red
rice and green rice.
Rice bears different names in
different stages of its cultivation and use. Seed rice, or
unhulled rice, is
called pe and in the language of
poetry it is called “The
Product of Haram” (because it is supposed to have originated in
Haram, China); also
“The
golden Sand” which, thrown into the sea (the fields), raises
golden waves; also
“The Ice
Pebbles” which melt into golden waters. After the seed rice
sprouts and the
vivid green of the young leaves appear it is called by poetic
license “The Bright Green Field.” After it is transplanted
and turns a darker green it is called “The Blue-green Plain.” When the heads
appear and begin to ripen the mixture of green and yellow is
called “The
Mottled Jade Wave.” When the field is yellow to the harvest “The
Yellow-gold
Wave.” When, it is being cut it is called “The Golden Ice” (for the
wave must be supposed to have congealed before it can be cut).
When the rice is
stacked ready for threshing it is called “The House of the
Golden Child” and
when it is threshed it again becomes pe or “Golden Sand” Hulled
rice goes by an
entirely different name. It is called sal.
This is the common name for rice, for this is its ordinary
marketable
condition. It is an interesting fact that although rice was
introduced from
China it bears a name of purely native origin, so far as we can
discover. It is
said that this word is derived from the Korean radical sal meaning clean, naked, uncovered, unencumbered,
as found in sal-mom, “naked body,” sal-panul “unthreaded needle,” salmul-gŭn, “separate object.” So it
has come to be applied to [page
109] the clean, polished,
separate kernels of white rice. This is one Korean explanation
of its origin,
but of course it requires verification.
The Koreans hold rice in great honor,
just as the Chinese hold the written character, and for this
reason we find no “nicknames” for it as we do
for food in western countries. There is no Korean equivalent for
our vulgar
word “grub” as applied to food. This species of reverence for
rice arises
doubtless from the fact that rice plays so much more prominent a
part in Korea
than any one form of food does in any western country. It is
illustrated by the
case of a wealthy and prominent official, uncle to the late Queen Dowager
Cho. As he was eating, one day, a visitor noticed that he
cleaned out his rice
bowl to the last kernel and picked up any stray morsels that had
fallen. The
friend laughed and said “You
should not be so particular.”
The old man turned angrily on him and holding up a kernel of the
rice said, “For this thing the whole
people of Korea work from Spring till Autumn, and shall we waste
even a kernel
of it?” And he bid the man begone and never to appear before him
again.
Next in importance to rice come the
different kinds of pulse, under which heading we include all the
leguminous plants,
the bean and pea family. That Korea is well provided with this
valuable and
nutritious
form of food will be seen from the following list of the
commonest kinds. Of
round beans, or peas, called kong, we find the “horse bean,” often called “bean-cake
bean,”
the “black
bean,”
the “green bean,” the “oil bean,” the “spotted
bean,” or “checkered beau,”
the “chestnut bean,” the yellow bean,” the “whitecap bean,” the “grandfather bean,” the “brown bean,” the “red bean.” There are several of the
long beans that come under the name kong, such as the “South-river
bean,”
the “Japanese
bean” and the “Kwang-ju bean,” but most of the beans proper belong to the family called p’al which includes the “mixed
bean,” a variety which produces various colors of beans
in a single pod, the colors being black, red, yellow, white and
blue; the “speckled
bean,” the “court-dress bean,” the “white bean,” the “black bean,” and the “blue
bean.”
Of all these different varieties of
pulse the first or “horsebean”
is by far the most common. It is the bean which forms [page 110] such a large part of the
exports of Korea. It is supposed by Koreans to have originated
in north-western
China and derives its name from the fact that it is used very
largely for fodder.
Of all these different varieties the
only one that is surely indigenous is the black bean, as it is
found no-where
else in eastern Asia. Of the rest the origin is doubtful. The
horse bean grows
in greatest abundance in Kyŭng-sang Province and on the island
of Quelpart,
though of course it is common all over the country. The black
bean flourishes
best in Chŭl-la Province; the green bean, oil bean and white
cap-bean flourish in
Kyŭng-geui Province; the yellow bean, in Whang-hi Provvince; the
South River
bean, in Cheung Ch’ŭng Province; the grandfather bean (so called
because of its
wrinkles) grows anywhere, but not in large quantities; the brown
bean and chestnut
bean, in Kang-wŭn Province; the different kinds of P’at all grow best in southern Korea.
Of these different kinds of beans the
horse bean alone is largely exported, although a few black beans
are also taken
to Japan.
It would be difficult to over-estimate
the importance of these different species of pulse to the
Korean; for they
furnish oily and nitrogenous elements that are wanting in the
rice. It is impossible
to enumerate the different kinds of food which are prepared from
beans for they
are almost as numerous as the dishes we make from wheat flour.
It will suffice to
say that, on an average, the Korean eats about one sixth as much
beans as rice.
They say that the man who eats beans will be strong, and they
attribute it to the oil, which is found in such large proportion
especially in
the round beans or kong.
The most celebrated story about beans,
current among the Koreans, tells about how they saved the life
of a noted
Chinaman. His brother had usurped the throne of the Wei Kingdom
and, as in most
oriental countries, the younger brother was an object of
suspicion. He was
seized and brought before the King, his elder brother. The King
said, “From the place where you
are standing step forward seven paces and if during that
interval you do not compose a quatrain you will
be condemned.” It is easy
to believe that this threat was a spur to [page 111]
Pegasus. The
young man stepped forward the seven paces and spoke the
following lines:
The bean-husks crackle beneath the
kettle
The beans themselves boil in the
kettle;
Both beans and husks come from the same
root.
It is sad to see products of the same
stem antagonize each other.
The
brother on the throne was so struck by the truth of this that he
acquitted his
younger brother, whose loyalty had always been perfectly sound.
The price of beans as compared with
rice may be said to be one half, as a general rule; though local
conditions
will vary the rule at times. There are certain kinds of beans
which cost nearly
as much as rice while the cheapest kinds cost only one fourth as
much. The
commonest bean, the horse-bean, costs about one third as much as
rice.
Third in importance comes barley. This
is sometimes called
tă-măik {**)
in contradistinction from so-măk(**) which is wheat. This designating of
barley as great and wheat as small may be either because the
kernel of barley is
larger than that of wheat or because barley is a more important
pro* duct than
wheat to the Korean. The Koreans say that barley originated in
Shantung and Hyŭp-sŭ
(**) China,
and that it was first brought to Korea by Kija. Being first
introduced into Pyŭng-an
Province it worked its way next into Kangwŭn Province and from
there into the
south. The very best barley is raised in Kang-wŭn Province the
next best in Py’ŭng-an Province the third
best in the far south and the poorest
in Whang-h& nnd Ham-gyŭng Provinces. The other provinces
yield a fair
quality. It is rather surprising to learn that on the average
the people of Kyŭng-geui
Province eat more barley than any other Koreans. The barley used
for making
malt or nuruk comes
mostly from the
far south.
The great value of barley comes from
the fact that it is the first grain to germinate in the spring
and so helps to
tide the people over until another crop of rice comes in. It is
the great
supplementary food product of Korea and in this sense may be
considered almost
as important as the different kinds of pulse. The uses of barley
are very
numerous; besides being used directly as farinaceous food it
becomes malt,
medicine, candy, syrup, besides a number of different
side-dishes. [page 112] It is also used very largely
for fodder; indeed it is the main
fodder of Korea, beans being too costly to use in quantities.
The common name for barley is pŭ-ri, a
word of native origin.
Koreans name two kinds of barley namely Sal-pŭ-ri or “rice barley,” and Kŭt-pŭ-ri, “unhulled barley.” The first
is used only for food and the latter only for fodder.
The most celebrated mention of barley
in Korea is the statement that when Kija went back to China on a
visit he found
the grave of his former sovereign sowed with barley, and he
composed a poem
upon it. In poetical parlance the Koreans call barley “The fifth moon Autumn” because it is harvested
then. A celebrated poem says:
“If you would know where
grain grows plentifully and where it is scarce you should ask
the P’o-gok,* the grainbird, and he will
tell you that when the south wind blows in April the barley
forms a golden sea.
It is the same gold you saw last Autumn and will suffice to feed
the soldiers
as they march
on their country’s
errand.”
*
As Confucius was travelling he hungered and seeing a bird upon a
tree he asked
it, “Where
is there grain?” It answered, “In Ha-ram land grain grows
luxuriantly.” From
that time on this bird was called the p’o-gok or “grain-bird.”
Odds
and Ends.
Good
Policy.
In a book called **** or “Daily notes by Sŭ-san”
under the heading “Anciens
and modern Miscellany”
(written about 350 years ago) we find some fine character
studies, of which the
following is a sample. Whang-heui was prime minister to the
first king of this
dynasty, but long before attaining that high position he gave
promise of great
things. Being appointed prefect of Ma-jŭn he went down to his
post in disguise
in order to see how things were being done. On his way he passed
a field in
which a farmer was plowing with two bullocks, one of which was black and the other
yellow. As the farmer came to the end of his furrow the prefect
asked him:
[page 113] “Which is the better
bullock, the black or the yellow one?” But the fellow answered
never a word. He
plowed to the end of another furrow and back and to the same
question again
refused to answer. The prefect wondered at it but determined to
make one more
attempt to get a civil answer. This time the fanner looked up at
the sky and
seeing that evening
was at hand unyoked his bullocks and tethered them in a plot of
grass nearby;
then approaching
the prefect he led him gently up the hillside and, when near the
top, bent toward him and whispered in his ear:
“The black one is just a
little bit the better of the two.”
The prefect, thoroughly mystified,
demanded, “Why
in the world didn’t you say so before? It was not necessary to
drag me all the
way up this hill to tell me that.”
The farmer looked grave and said, “We do not know how much or
how little of our language the bullocks may understand. It does
not do to talk
about our inferiors and compare and criticize them before their
faces.”
Whereupon the prefect went on his way
a wiser and a better man. The farmer had seen through his
disguise and had
taken advantage of his question to teach him a lesson which all
governors and
magistrates do well to heed.
Ai-go!
He
was a
Korean from the interior taking his first peep at the outside
world. He had
tramped in to Fusan from his distant country home and had stood
for an hour
watching the workmen on the new Seoul-Fusan Railroad. He learned
to his
amazement that they were going to dig these ditches through
every hill and
build embankments across every depression all the way from Fusan
to the
capital, the great Seoul, which he had heard so much about and
whose wonders
had been so often pictured in his fancy. He was on his way now to that Mecca which
every Korean hopes to see once before he dies. For five years he
had been
saving up money to fulfill his heart’s desire.
As he stood gazing in admiration at a
filling that was half completed, one of the foremen happened to
pass.
“Say, friend,” said he in a
deprecatory tone, “how
long will it be before this railroad is finished all the way to
Seoul?” He
supposed it might he anywhere from ten years to twenty.
[page 114] The foreman was in a hurry
and took out his watch to note the time. He glanced at the
time-piece and then looked
up.
“O, it will take a long time yet –I can’t tell just how long,” and he hurried on.
The country-fellow looked after him
half angry and half amused as he soliloquized. “That fellow imagines he can
fool me into thinking it will take only an hour. He looked at his watch
and hurried off as if he was afraid he wouldn’t get back to see the road
finished, but I am no fool even if I am a country boy. I have
helped build
paddy-field dikes and I’ll
bet my hat-strings that this job takes no less than fifteen
years.” And on he went to the
port.
There he boarded a little coastwise
steamer and was rolled around the coast to Chemulpo. On board
the boat he was kept
so busy thinking about the disarrangement of his internal
economy that he did
not have time to wonder at the marvelous speed with which the
steamer plowed
the water, which must have
been in the vicinity eight knots an hour. But when he set foot
on shore again
he pulled himself together, drew a long breath and said:
“Ai-go!” which, being interpreted,
means –well
more than we could put on two pages of the Review.
He boarded the train and went
careering over the hills and across the valleys, at what he
considered
lightening speed, sitting on the edge of his seat and clutching
it with both
hands, and with an unformed “Ai-go” right on the end of his
tongue all the way to Oricle, (why wasn’t it spelled Oracle and done with it?) At this point he
regained the power of
speech but made no use of it till he got to Yong-tongp’o where
he saw some more
grading going on. He turned to a fellow-passenger and asked in a
most
deferential tone:
“Can you tell me, please,
what road that is that they are building out there?”
“Why, that is the
Seoul-Fusan Railroad.”
“Uh?”
“The Seoul-Fusan Railroad,” repeated the man. The countryman
stared in a dazed sort of way and at last there came up from the
very depths of
his anatomy a deep and fervid “Ai-i-i-go-o-o!!”
[page 115] “Why, what’s the matter?” The countryman gazed out of
the window and then at his fellow-traveller, and then putting
his hand on the
latter’s sleeve he said in a hoarse whisper:
“I left Fusan only two days
ago and they were only just beginning the road and now I get
here I find they
are finishing it. A thousand li in
two days!
Ai-go!!”
This is only one better than the
statement of the Kobe
Chronicle a few
weeks ago that the road would be finished some time this spring
and that trains
would be running from Seoul to Fusan before the end of the year.
Question
and Answer.
Question. (5) Why is the south wind
called Ma-p’ung and the north wind Han-eui Pa-ram?
Answer. The twelve signs of the
zodiac are represented in Korea by twelve different animals and
these are also
applied to twelve different points of the compass. Beginning
with the north and
passing around to the east they are, in order, the rat, ox,
tiger, rabbit,
dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, fowl, dog and pig. It will
be noticed that
the seventhwhich corresponds to south is horse or ma, and so the south wind is
called the Ma-p’ung
** or
Horse wind.
The
compass is also divided into eight parts or sections. The names
of these parts are taken from eight
stars and are named as follows beginning with the section lying between south and
south-west and passing to the west, gön-ch’un, tătă, i-wha, chil-noé, son-p’ung, kam-su, kan-san and
kon-chi. The first of these being gön-c’hun means “heaven” but the pure Korean
for Heaven is han-ul of which the root is han, probably allied to the
Dravidian word van
which also means heaven. This han-eui
pa-ram is a contraction of han-ul-eui pa-ram, the eui
being the possessive
ending; and it means the “Heaven
Wind” and
refers not, as the question states, to the north wind to the
south-west wind.
It is quite likely however that in some places it has come to be
applied to the
cold northwest wind. Such carelessness would be quite in keeping
with the
Korean temperament.
[page
116] Editorial Comment.
The
past month has been signalized by heroic attempts to stem the
tide of
depreciated currency and bring some sort of order out of the chaotic conditions of the
present monetary system. Besides the nickels minted by the
government there are
more than twenty-five separate and distinct brands of nickels
circulating in
Korea. Until recent years counterfeiting has not been worthwhile
in Korea, for
the old time cash was of such small value and the metal and work
together came
so near to equalling the face value that there was not much
profit; but one of
these nickels is equivalent to twenty five of the old cash and as they can
be made at a net cost of less than a cent and a half apiece it
is readily seen
that there is some temptation to counterfeit. This form of
felony has been
indulged in not only by thrifty Koreans, but many Japanese took
advantage of
the situation to coin large amounts and at the present moment
ten Japanese are
languishing in durance vile for this offense. None should be
more anxious than
the Japanese to prevent counterfeiting and a depreciation of the
currency, for
the Japanese merchants are the greatest sufferers from it. If
exchange is
leaping five and ten points in twenty-four hours there is
evidently no
possibility of stable business -except
for the money-changers. Anyone with five thousand yen in his
pocket can go into
the street and drive exchange up or down almost at will. This
city is the money-changers
el Dorado, On a
certain day this month paper yen were
selling at a premium of ninety per cent at one point in Seoul
while on that
same day it changed at over a hundred per cent premium at
another point. Money
has to be hawked about the streets to find a good bidder. A
sharp broker can buy
at eighty per cent premium with one hand and sell at seventy
with the other. The
Koreans were beginning to “catch
on,” when the
thing was nipped in the bud by the government arresting a couple
of the
brokers. But it is difficult to see what good this will do. It
is not the
brokers who cause the rise and fall in exchange. We believe that
it is caused
by the fact that there are two few rather than too [page 117] many brokers. The small
amount of capital involved in the brokerage business has the
result that even a
moderate sum of money thrown on the market causes a violent
commotion. It there
were a street lined with brokers’ establishments, as in many eastern
ports, the mutual competition would prevent such rapid
fluctuations. A stone
thrown in a pail of water will create a greater commotion than
if thrown into a
pond.
On the whole the nickel is an
unfortunate coin for it is cheap enough to invite counterfeiting
even by people
of small means and at the same
time it is valuable enough to make it well worth counterfeiting.
It is only by
taking the most determined steps and keeping up an untiring
watch that the
Korean nickel can be kept anywhere near on a par with the
Japanese coin. The
foreign representatives have bestirred themselves in the matter
and we trust
that confidence in the Korean coinage will be restored and that
a rate of
exchange will be maintained which whether high or low will be
fairly steady. It
is the fluctuations that play the mischief with business.
*
It
is from a mere sense of justice that we call the attention of
the public to the
names of those Koreans who are making great sacrifices to help
their
fellow-countrymen who arc in destitute circumstances. We should
be happy and proud
to print the name of every one of these men and we do so
whenever one is
brought to our notice. It is a happy sign that Koreans of wealth
in various
districts are sharing their money so generously with their
starving fellow-men.
It is not merely surplus funds that are being so distributed but
fields and
other property are being sold to find means for tiding the poor
over the hard
months of spring till the barley is ready to eat.
*
The
hard unvarnished facts presented by Mr. Fenwick in this issue
concerning the suffering of the people is evidence beyond cavil
of the actual
condition of affairs. A foreigner living in Kunsan states that a
Korean came to
him for food and said that his wife and children were starving
at home. He could
not bear to go back and listen to his children’s pleadings for
food. He could
stand hunger himself but he could not [page 118] bear to sit and hear the
children cry for food and not be able to give them a mouthful.
*
The
news that money has been appropriated for a new United States
Legation building
is very welcome. It is quite fitting that Uncle Sam should be
housed as will in
Seoul as his French, English, Russian or German cousins. It is
not the policy
of the United States to build when it is possible to rent but it
is quite
evident that one must build, in such a place as Seoul. Even in
Peking the U. S.
Government has departed from its usual policy and is building a
Legation.
*
The
theft of dynamite from the American mines is a serious affair.
It will
doubtless be hidden in some populous town or city where its
explosion may cause
fearful loss
of life. It may be carried on the person where accident is still
more probable.
Imagine a man with a stick of dynamite up his sleeve indulging
in the genial sport of pyun-sa-hom or
stone fight. A pebble hitting him would cause a severe case of “The boy, O where was he?” and not only he alone but
his whole side would be annihilated. This is only one of the
pleasant pictures
that can be conjured up even by an imagination of medium
activity. We do hope
they will keep a better watch over the stuff. There are explosive
agencies enough at work in Korean society without adding
dynamite.
News
Calendar.
The
native papers state that the building of the Seoul Pusan R. R. has necessitated
the demolition of 321 houses in the single prefecture of Fusan.
At
the request of the Home Department the Finance Department has
issued $1,169.70
in aid of those whose houses were swept away by abnormal tides
last year.
There
have been signs of renewed activity on the part of the
concessionaires of the
Seoul-Euiju Railroad and it is currently stated that work has
already begun near Song-do.
Three
Japanese policemen have been stationed on Dagelet island to keep
the peace
between the Japanese and Korean residents at that isolated
point.
[page
119] Min Pyŭung-sŭk, the head of the Railroad Bureau resigned ou the
24th of February and Yu Keui-whan took his place.
Wun
Shih-kei, the influential man in China, has sent a message to the Korean
government speaking in high terms of the Anglo-Japanese alliance.
The
magistrate of Pu-pyŭng asks the government for the loan of 1,000 bags of rice for famine
sufferers in that district.
Eighteen
prefectures in North Chulla Province declare their inability to
pay their year’s
taxes which amount in the aggregate to $217,710.
On
the 26th of February imperial gifts of money, cotton cloth,
linen, and shoes,
which had been postponed from the Imperial birthday of last
year, were given
out, amounting in value to several thousand dollars.
The
French minister has asked for an indemnity to cover the cost of houses and
furniture lost by the French Roman Catholic priests on Quelpart
during the
disturbance of last spring. The amount asked is four thousand
yen.
A
man was accidentally killed on the line of the Seoul-Fusan
Railway at Pu-pyung
on the 26th of February.
There
are only two telephones in use in private Korean houses in
Seoul, but it is
safe to say that as soon as the enormous convenience of the
telephone is
discovered there will be many more.
It
has been customary heretofore to change the Japanese guard on
the twelfth of
May but hereafter it will be done on the tenth of April. The
number is two
hundred.
It
has been decided to renew all the deeds for fields throughout
Korea. Heretofore
all these deeds have been merely hand written affairs and the
change will be a
very useful one. A special bureau will be established for this
work. The new
deeds will be printed on a paper made specially for the purpose. It is made of a
combination of Korean and foreign paper.
The
Chinese minister to Korea sent a despatch to the Foreign Office
on March 1st in which he said that one thousand Chinese
in Manchuria who had met with great misfortune at the hands of
robbers and of
Cossacks had crossed the Yalu and entered the prefecture of
Chă-sung. The
prefect Pak Hang-na received them kindly, fed
them and helped them with money and other needful things and
they are settling
there. The minister praises the prefect very highly and declares
his intention of
raising a monument to him in Cha-sŭng.
He also desires that the Home Office do something in recognition
of the prefect’s
kindly action and reward him in a fitting manner.
Many
merchants of Ham-gyŭng Province have telegraphed the government
that having paid their year’s taxes last
Autumn it is unfair to allow special tax collectors to fleece them by demanding
double, and they ask that these men be recalled and punished.
All
the men who created the disturbance in the Military school have
been pardoned
except their leader, whose sentence has been commuted [page 120] to fifteen years,
imprisonment. He was condemned to imprisonment for life.
The
Minister of Foreign Affairs sent a despatch to the French
Legation on the 2nd
inst asking that, in view of the death of the gentleman who was
carrying on the
negotiations in regard to the French loan of $5,000,000, the
original contract
be returned and the transaction called off. But the French
minister replied to
the effect that the death of the special agent of the Annam
Company did not
affect the contract, the terms of which must be carried out.
Three
hundred and eighty logs of pine which were being brought from Eui-ju by
boat for use in palace buildings in Seoul have been lost through
the wrecking
of the boats off P’yŭng-an Province.
It
is estimated that the revenue of the government for 1902 will be
$7,586,530
(Korean currency) and the budget for the year calls for
$7,585,877, leaving
$653. The revenue is made up of the following items:
Land
tax $4,488,235 House tax 460,295 Miscellaneous taxes 2 10,000
Arrears of 1901
tax 800,000 Customs 850,000 Various imposts 110,000 Minting
350,000 Balance
from 1901 318,000 -------------7.586.530
And the expenditure will be as follows:
Imperial
purse 737.361 Sacrifices 162,639
Household
Department: Railway bureau 22010 Palace police 101,205 The Port
police 97,910
N. W. Railway
18,484 Entertainment 17,378 Palace
war department 65,275 Cabinet 37,510
Home
Department: The office 35,854 The Mayor’s office 6,124
Provincial Governors 91
,962 Vice Governors 43,074
Quelpart 4,222 Prefects 779.712 Hospital 7.512 Vaccination
bureau 3,354 Traveling
Expenses 730 Sacrifices 866
[page
121] Foreign
Department: Office
26,264 Superintendents of Trade 51,154 Foreign Legations 211,420
Finance
Department; Office 54,629
Elder’s fund 551 Customs 141,600 Mint 280,000 Pensions 1,956 Transportation 100,000
War
Department: Office 50,766 Army 2,735,504
Law
Department: Office 32,337 Supreme Court 15,317 City Court 8,615 Prefectural
Courts 1,251
Police
Department: Office 201,589 Prisons 22,703 Provincial police
51,42 (sic) Traveling Expenses . . 400
Educational
Department: Office 24,187 Calendar 6,010 Government Schools 93,063 Subsidised Schools
22,580 Private Schools 5,970 Pupils abroad 15,97o
Agricultural
Department: Office 30,968 Miscellaneous 9,924
The
Council: Office 17,128
Imperial
Guard 55,792
Survey bureau 7,824 Decorations 18,457
Communications:
Office 21,330
Post and Telegraph 353,580
Relief
bureau: Office 6,446
Land
deed bureau 22,108 Law Revision 720 Sanitation 35,000 Repair of Prefectural
buildings 10,000
[page
122] Capture
of robbers 5,000
Fire and Ship-wreck relief 5,000 Burial of prisoners 300
Entertainment of
Japanese Guard 480
Gold mine survey
1,840 Contingency
fund 600,000
During
the current month a daughter was born to Dr. and Mrs, J. Hunter
Wells of
Pyeng-yang.
Rev.
and Mrs. W. D. Reynolds and family arrived from America early
this month and
are stopping temporarily in Kun-san. They will make their home
in Mok-po. Mr. Reynolds has come up
to Seoul and will be here a month engaged in Bible translation
work.
The
Russian Minister announced to the Foreign Office that the
Russian Whaling
Company was prepared to pay $450,
as tax for the past year.
The
Korean Minister to Japan writes to pay that the expenses of the
thirty six
Korean students
in Tokyo from the ninth moon of last year amounting to $1,980, and $?09.25 for return expenses
of thirteen sick students has been advanced by the Japanese
government and
should be promptly refunded by the Korean government.
During
the past
winter 113 houses have fallen in ruins because of heavy rains in
the old
historic town of Kyöng-ju,
which used to be the Capital of the Kingdom of Silla.
One
hundred and sixy-one
prisoners in Seoul are awaiting trial, of whom eight are former
prefects who
have failed to pay up their arrears of taxes.
A
curious scene might have been witnessed in front of the Home
Department on the
5th inst. There is a Korean custom which consists of presenting
a Man-in-san or
“Ten
thousand man umbrella.”
If a magistrate has ruled exceptionally well the people of his
district make a
huge umbrella and write on it their praises of the prefect and a
list of the
names of the people who join in the memorial. This umbrella is
brought to Seoul
and presented to the Home Office. It appears that the prefect of
Kang-neung on
the easturn coast was
oppressing
the people and the yamen runners were making their fortunes; but
the yamen runners
fearing that the prefect would be driven out bribed some of the
people to make
a “Ten thousand man umbrella” and bring it up to Seoul. It was
done, but a
crowd of the common people followed and when the umbrella was
presented they
told the Home Department that it was simply a blind to cover unp the misdeeds of the
prefect They therefore seized the umbrella and tore it to pieces
before the
Department.
Min
Yong-whan has asked the government for a charter for a company
which
contemplates the raising of poultry on a ranch in Pup’yung near Chemulpo.
It
is reported that when the Japanese learned that the Korean
Government had
replied to Russia’s demand, relative to an adviser in the
Finance Department,
saying that this government did not contemplate [page 123] the employment of a
Japanese adviser in the Household Department, the coming of Mr.
Kato as adviser was indefinitely
postponed.
On
the eighth inst. a number of soldiers of the Pyeng-yang Regiment
when
intoxicated created a disturbance
at Chong-no firing off their
guns and brandishing swords, and the gendarmes were quite unable to manage
them. Unless soldiers can be kept under fairly strict discipline
they become a
source of danger.
In
north Kyŭng-sang Province, in thirty four districts, the number
of children
vaccinated last
year was 3090, for which $927, was received from the parents. The fee varies from
300 to 500 cash in the country. In
Seoul it is free.
A
gentleman of Su-wun named Yŭm Keui-rok out of pity for the
starving people of
that district sold rice fields equivalent to one fifth the size
of Seoul and
with the proceeds bought Annam rice in Seoul and fedthe inmates
of 150 houses
for four months, beginning last December.
As
it is intended to make paper money at the mint a number of young
men have been
selected to study up this branch of industry and fit themselves
for the work.
A
man named Hong Chong-sun secured the right to manage all the ferries across
the Han in the vicinity
of Seoul. He immediately raised the tariff a hundred percent and
made the
ferry-men do the work at bottom
prices.
Therefore the ferrymen made a violent demonstration with clubs
and stones with
the result that the obnoxious Hong was driven out and things
resumed their
former status.
On
the l0th
inst. No Sang-uk of Kyung-sang Province memorialized the throne
complaining
loudly of the condition of affairs and claiming; 1) that the Anglo-Japanese
alliance was necessitated by the misgovern of the Korean officials:
(2) that the administration of the government is corrupt; (3)
that sorceresses,
exorcists and monks are much in evidence; (4) that the best men
are not chosen
for government offices; (5) that the people are oppressed by
special and oppressive taxes: (6)the finances of the country have been
thrown into confusion by the change
in the circulating medium and the introduction of nickels; (7)
that revision of
the laws makes it impossible for the people to know what they
may and what they
may not do. Then follows language that we cannot venture to
translate and that
in any European country
would subject a man to prosecution for lèse majesty. One must
study the
oriental mind a long time before he can understand why such
things pass
unnoticed when statements which to us would seem far less
obnoxious would be visited by swift penalty.
We
have received from M. C. Fenwick, Esq., who has been taking a
trip through the
famine districts in the south, some valuable notes on the condition of the people
there. He gives the facts just as he received them from the lips
of the people and without comment. He
takes up nine typical cases.
A.
This man is a tenant on one acre of rice land. He planted half of it and realized
seven bags of unhulld
rice and gave two of it for [page
124] rent The
remainder produced forty-five pecks or mal
of hulled rice. One man on
short rations, eating two meals a day, consumes three pecks a
month. He also
had one-fifth acre of beans that yielded two pecks. He has a wife and
four children. His wife weaves a little linen. His taxes are
thirteen nyang a
year.
B.
This man rents one and four-fifths acres and a house. Also has a
small wood
patch. He planted one and three fifths acres and harvested
fifteen bags of
rice, gave seven for rent. The remaining eight produced
seventy-two pecks of
hulled rice. There are eight in the family and every grain of rice is
gone already. Taxes thirteen nyang
C.
He rents one and one-fifth acres of rice land but could not
plant any of it. He
has half an acre of bean field that produced twelve pecks. His
taxes are thirty-four yang. He has a
wife and three children.
D. This man rents one and
three-fifths acres of rice land and planted it all. He harvested
eighteen bags
and gave eight for rent. The balance produced ninety pecks of
hulled rice. His
fuel costs forty nine nyang
a year. Also harvested thirty pecks of beans. He has a wife and
two children.
E.
This man rents are acre and planted two-fifths realizing forty-seven pecks. He gave
twenty-three for rent. The balance produced ten pecks of hulled
rice. His taxes
are twelve and a half nyang.
He has a
wife and one child.
F.
He is a bachelor working one acre of government land. He is
living for one year
on seven
pecks of rice and four pecks of beans.
G.
This man rents four-fifths acre of rice land and he planted half of
it. The owner kindly remitted the rent and left him twenty seven
pecks to live on.
He also had fifteen pecks of beans. He has no other means of living. His family consists of
his father, mother, wife and two children.
H.
He rents one-third acre but could not plant any. Taxes six nyang. Has paid four nyang and the government is
hounding him for the other two. From one-twentieth acre of land
he harvested
three pecks of beans. Has a wife and two children. He has no
other means of
living.
I.
This man rents seven-tenths acre of rice land and planted three
tenths;
harvested two and a half bags giving half for rent. He has eleven pecks of hulled rice to
live on. He also harvested eleven pecks of. beans and fifteen
pecks of buck
wheat. His rent is twenty-five nyang.
His family consists of mother, wife and three children.
The
people in this district, it will be seen from the above, have
eaten up
everything they have and are in desperate straits. What they
will do until the
wheat crop ripens in July it is hard to say. The government has
exacted the
full tax in every case but that of H. who paid four out of six nyang.
The
birthday of the Prince Imperial was celebrated on the 18th instant. The diplomatic
corps, the foreign employees of the government [page 125] and the officers of the
Japanese Guard were received in audience in the morning. In the evening
a reception was held at the Foreign Office at which the Korean
band rendered
the national hymns of Korea, Japan, England, Germany, Russia,
France and the
United States. The remarkable progress of this band reflects
great credit upon
their able director Dr. Franz Eckert.
On
the 15th inst the representatives of the different powers met in
Seoul and
conferred in regard to the steps necessary to be taken to
rehabilitate the
Korean monetary system. Seven specific points were set forth,
(i) To stop the
minting of more nickels and the severe interdiction of
counterfeiting; (2) the
severe punishment of anyone convicted of counterfeiting; (3) To
make or import
no more nickel blanks; (4) To punish anyone who has them in his
possession; (5)
As nickels are used now only in Kyŭng-geui , Ch’ung-ch’ŭng,
Whang-hă and South
Kyŭng-sang Provinces, they should be made legal tender in any
part of Korea;
(6) To destroy the counterfeit nickels now in circulation; (7)
To give a reward
to anyone who will give information leading to the conviction of
a
counterfeiter.
Ten
Japanese who have been counterfeiting Korean nickels are now in
jail awaiting
sentence.
The
government evidently does not care to have its nationals engage
in the
lucrative business of Exchange. Of course the fluctuation in
exchange is not
caused by the exchangers but it is plain that the government
intends to attack
the subject vigorously for it has arrested two Koreans most
prominent in this
business.
The
people of Sŭng-jin the newest of the open ports of Korea are
highly incensed
over the joining of that town with the neighboring town of
Kil-ju. The two have
been merged into one. The people of Sŭng-jin affirm that if this
continues they
will burn every house in the district and run away. As there are
over 3,000
houses in the district it would be quite a blaze.
A
man named Pak Sang-hun proposes a new form of tax. He proposes
to make every
road in Korea a toll road and sell tickets without which no one
can travel. One
ticket will allow the bearer to go ten li,
and it is proposed to charge three or four cents for a ticket. This cannot
be made to apply to railroad travel, so it forms a good argument
for the rapid
building of railroads.
The
finance Minister has requested all the Departments to send in
any balances
there may be in hand from last year.
A
conference was held on the 19th instant between the Japanese
Minister, the
Foreign Minister and the Finance Minister relative to the
monetary system of
Korea.
During
the past month the fluctuations in exchange have been very
great, the lowest
being seventy-eight cents premium and the highest about
ninety-six cents
premium.
It
is proposed by the government to issue fifty-cent silver pieces and to prohibit
the manufacture of silver hairpins, spoons, dishes, chopsticks,
knives, etc.
[page
126] In
Su-wun district a man named Chöng T’ă-yŭp has been giving 142 households five pecks of
rice each per month during the winter. He has also paid their
taxes, has sold a
large number of fields and raised 3,000,000 cash with which to
help others who
are rendered destitute by the famine. In the same district Yŭm
Keum-nok sold rice fields and is
supporting ten housholds till the barley crop is harvested .
On
the Korean bank of the Yalu river there grows a great wealth of
reeds used in
making mats and many other things. For the past four years the
Chinese have
been helping themselves to these
reeds and the Korean government estimates the value to be
$120,000. It
consequently asks the Chinese Minister to secure the payment of
this sum.
On
account of the strenuous opposition of the Korean government the
Russians have
decided not to press the matter of running a telegraph line
through northern
Korea from Kyong-heung
to the Siberian border.
Twenty-five
houses were destroyed by fire in Ok-ch’un on the 20th inst.
Last year fishing licenses
from the Korean government were held by forty-six Japanese in
Chemulpo, 374 in
Fusan, 40 in Kun-san, 28 in Ma-san-po, 52 in Won-sam and 112 in
Mokpo, making
650 in all.
Yi
Yong-jik in resigning the position of Ch’an-jang made some very
pointed
criticisms of the present personel of the government on account
of which Yun
Yong-sun the prime minister went outside the wall and refused to
come back. The
Emperor banished Yi Yong-jik for three years.
Yun
Tuk-yung the governor of Whang-hă
province raised 50,000,000 cash from the half-starved people of
his province
over and above the regular taxes and also 50,000 bags of grain. The people raised such a
stir that he came up to Seoul whither they followed him with
loud demands that
he be made to disgorge.
We
are glad to observe that in connection with the post and
telegraph bureau the
Department of Communications is establishing a telephone system
between Seoul
and Chemulpo as well as other points in the vicinity which
cannot but be of
great convenience to the public.
Japanese
Buddhists who already have a monastery in Seoul are about to
establish another
in P’yŭng-yang.
A
rather exciting time is reported from Chemulpo where four
Koreans who were
trying to exchange 8,000 yen for Korean money were taken in tow
by a Japanese
who said he had nickels in abundance. He took the four Koreans
to a boat and
plied them with vnne, took them across to an island and gave
them more wine,
evidently intending to victimize them. When he deemed the time
ripe he proposed
that they come to business. To his chagrin he found that the
Koreans held only a
note for the money and not the real stuff. A quarrel followed
and as a result a
boat floated away on the tide bearing the body of a Korean. It
was picked up by
some islanders and the Korean was found to be [page 127] still alive. He was brought
to Chemulpo where he gave the above details and furthermore
stated that the
other three Koreans were killed and their bodies thrown into the
sea. As they
have not been seen since that night there is probably some truth
in the
statement and efforts are being made to find the perpetrator of
the crime.
Kim
Yung-whan of Nam-p’o
has given fifty bags of rice to the district and in Ch’ung-yang Yi Seuug-jo sold
land and bought 300 bags of rice wherewith to help his poor
neighbors till the
barley is ready to eat.
Yi
Yong-ik has brought up again the question of erecting a monument
commemorating
the glories of the present reign and promises to see that the
necessary funds
are forthcoming.
On
the 15th inst the fourth installment of Annam rice arrived. It
consisted of
17,000 bags.
It
is estimated that three hundred destitute men have come up to
Seoul from the
country.
The
Railway Bureau informs the Department of Agriculture that $2510.14 have still to be
paid Koreans for land taken in the building of the
Seoul-Chemulpo Railway.
Kim
Chung-geun, lately governor of Kang-wŭn Province, has been put
at the head of
the bureau of surveys.
The
Chinese Minister informs the Foreign Office that the Chinese
soldiers who came
into Korea last Fall were refugees and not robbers and asks that
they be released. It seems that they
committed no depredations but the border guard seized them
supposing they were
robbers.
Leon
Vincart, Esq, , the Belgian representative, left Seoul for
Europe about the
tenth instant. The legation is in charge of Mr. Cuvelier.
The
Minister of Education has issued a mild reprimand to all the
Korean teachers in
the common and higher schools blaming them for lack of diligence
and exhorting
them to mend their ways.
In
the town of Chang-sa in north Chulla Province a fire occurred which
destroyed thirty-six houses and aid is asked from the government
for the
destitute people.
The
Finance Department has asked the Law Department to cause the
arrest of all the
ex-prefects who are still in debt to the government to the
extent of eighty
dollars or more.
Sŭ
Chŭng-sun
has been appointed governor of South Ham-gyŭng Province in the place of
Kim Chong-han, resigned.
On
the 14th inst. a dinner was given
at Yong San in honor of the beginning of the construction of the
Seoul-Euiju
Railway.
There
has been a theft of dynamite at the American Mines in Un San
P’yŭng-an Province
and the Korean authorities have been asked to use every exertion
to apprehend
the thieves, not so much because of the loss to the company as
because of the
great danger of its exploding and injuring many of the people if
it remains in
the hands of those who to not know how to handle it.
[page
128] We
regret to learn from the American papers that as Dr. and Mrs.
Allen were about
to start on their way back to Korea,
Mrs. Allen fell on the ice and broke one of the bones of the
leg. They were
intending to come via the Siberian Railway, but this accident
prevented it.
They will be welcomed in Korea by all their nationals not only
on their own account,
but also because the Minister has secured an appropriation for a new Legation building
in Seoul.
The
suite of Yi Cha-guk who goes as special envoy to the coronation
of King Edward
VII consists of Ko Heui-gyung, Kim Cho-hyun and Yi Chong-dok.
The
writers of abusive anonymous letters to Han Kyu-sul and Yi
Keun-t’ak, Ministers
of Law and Police, after strenuous efforts have been arrested.
The letters
accused them of treason and other serious crimes.
The
Sendai Maru was
wrecked near Pusan on
the 19th inst. All the passengers and mails were saved.
Later
reports concerning the trouble between the governor of Whangha Province and the people
state that the people have sued him and claim that he has stolen 400,000,000 cash or $160,000 from
them.
On
the 25th inst the recommendations of the diplomatic corps
relative to the
monetary reforms were presented to His Majesty.
There
are three men in Korea who have passed their l00th birthday; two in Heung-yang, in Kyŭng-sang
Province, and one in Ham-heung, in the north.
We
are pleased to announce that Hon. H. N. Allen and Mrs. Allen
arrived in Seoul
on the 29th inst.
It
will be remembered that W. H. Wilkinson, Esq., of H. B. M.’s
Consular Service
published a few years ago a valuable book on the governmental
changes in Korea
for the years immediately succeeding the Japan-China War. There will soon
appear under separate cover a supplement to the KOREA REVIEW containing a continuation
of that work for the year 1901. It is the author’s intention to
fill in the
hiatus between his former work and this, as opportunity may
permit. Our next
number will contain an abstract of the matter with which this
new publication will
deal. As a matter of record it will be of great value and
importance. Notice
will be given as soon as this work is on the market.
[page
129] KOREAN
HISTORY.
In this same year, 1356, we see the
first rising of the cloud that was soon to spread over the
country and,
breaking, clean the land of the corruption which had so long
been festering at
her core. This event was the coming to the capital of the father
of the man who
founded the present dynasty, on the ruins of Koryŭ. This man was
Yi Cha-ch’un whose posthumous title,
given after the founding of this dynasty, was Whan-jo. As his
son founded this
dynasty it will be fitting to inquire briefly into his
antecedents. His
great-grandfather was Yi Ansa, a Koryŭ official who died in
1274, and who was
afterwards given the title Mok-jo. His son was Yi Hăng-yi, born in Tŭk-wun in
Ham-gyŭng Province, who was compelled by the Mongols to take
office under them
while they held possession of the north. His posthumous title is
Ik-jo. His son
was Yi Ch’un,
born in Ham-heung in Ham-kyung Province, who held rank under
Koryŭ between 1340
and 1345. His posthumous title is To-jo. His son was Yi Cha-ch’un of whom we are now
speaking. He was born in 1315 and at the time of which we are
writing he was
made prefect of his native place, Sang-sŭng, in Hamgyŭng
Province. This part of
Koryŭ had been held by the Mongols during the whole period of
their occupation
of Koryu until their loosening grasp let it fall back into the
hands of Koryŭ
and the king hastened to reorganise his government there.
The relatives of the Mongol empress
still nursed the delusion that they could do as they pleased in
Koryŭ, secure in the possession
of such powerful friends at Peking. But they soon discovered
their mistake, for
their misdeeds met the same punishment as did those of others.
Infuriated at
[page 130] this they planned an
insurrection. They thought this newly acquired district of
Sang-sŭng would be
the most likely to co-operate with them in this scheme; so they
opened
negotiations with its people. The king therefore summoned Yi
Whan-jo to Song-do
and warned him against these traitors. Foiled here, the empress’
relatives
appealed to the country to rise in defense of the Mongol
supremacy, which was
being thus rudely flouted. They learned what Koryŭ thought of
Mongol supremacy
when they were incontinently seized and put to death and their
property
confiscated. The next step was the sending back to China of the
Mongol “resident.”
This was followed by an expedition into trans-Yalu territory
which seized all
the land there which formerly belonged to Koryŭ. Fearing,
however, that he was
going a little too fast, the king
sent an envoy to Peking to tell the emperor that the local
governor of the
north was responsible for these reprisals and not the central
Koryŭ government.
Troops were nevertheless stationed in each of these newly
acquired districts
and fields were cultivated to provide for their maintenance.
Not long after this the important
question of coinage came up. We have already seen that the
medium in Koryŭ was
little bottle-shaped pieces, but as these were each a pound in
weight they
could be used only for large transactions. Each one of them was
worth a hundred
pieces of linen. It was decided to change to a system of regular
coinage, and
so the silver was coined into
“dollars” each worth eight pieces of
five-strand linen. It is probable that in all small transactions
barter was the
common method of exchange although there may have been a metal
medium of
exchange as far back as the days of ancient Chosŭn, a thousand
years before
Christ.
The question again came up as to the
advisability
of moving the capital to Han-yang, the present Seoul. Enquiry was made at
the ancestral temple but what answer the spirits made, if any,
we are not told.
All dishes and implements as well as tile were made black
because the peninsula
is nearly surrounded by water and black is the color that
corresponds to water according to
Chinese and Korean notions. Black was substituted for the
prevailing color in
dress which was at [page
131] that time blue-green, and
men, woman
and monks all donned the sable attire.
It was at length decided to change the
capital to the other site and palaces were ordered built there.
They were, so some say, probably
outside the present south gate of Seoul.
It is said that in order to decide
about the removal of the capital the king had recourse to that
form of
divination which consisted in making scrawls at random with a
pen and then
examining them to see what Chinese characters the marks most
resembled. At
first they did not favor a change, but after several trials the
favorable
response
was obtained.
The year 1359 beheld a recurrence of
the dreaded Japanese incursions. At this time the robbers burned
300 Koryŭ boats at Kak-san. An
official, Yi Tal-jung, was sent to govern the great
north-eastern section of
the land. He was a friend of Yi Whan-jo, the prefect of
Sang-sŭng. As he approached
that place his friend Yi Whan-jo came out to meet him,
accompanied by his son
Yi Song-gye who was to become the founder of the present
dynasty, and whom we shall
designate by his posthumous title T’ă-jo. When Yi Whan-jo handed his friend
a cup of wine he drank it standing, but when Yi Tă-jo handed him
one, so the
story runs, he drank it on his knees. When the father demanded
why this greater
deference was shown his son the guest replied, “This boy is different from
us,” and, turning to the young man, he continued. “When I have passed away you
must always befriend my descendants.”
The Japanese raids had now reached
such alarming proportions that an extra wall was built about
Song-do and all
the government granaries along the coast were moved far inland to be out of the
reach of piratical parties, who would naturally hesitate to go
far from their
boats.
The breaking up of the Mongol power
was foreshadowed by the act of a certain Mongol district Ha-yang
which, with its
garrison of 1,800 men, now came and enrolled
itself under the banner of Koryŭ. How had the mighty fallen!
Less than eighty
years before the world had trembled beneath the hoof-beats of
the “Golden Horde.” This was
followed by the submission of a wild tribe in the north called
Pang-gukchin,
and a Mongol rebel sent a messenger with gifts to the [page 132] court of Koryŭ. Meanwhile
the Japanese were ravaging the southern and western coasts
without let or
hindrance. It was a curious spectacle, a country eaten up by its
own excesses
receiving humble deputations from former masters and at the same
time being
ridden over rough-shod by gangs of half-naked savages from the
outlying islands
of Japan,
There was one tribe in the north
however, called the Hong-du-juk or “Red-Head Robbers,” who
threatened to invade the country, but forces were sent to guard against it. In the case
of the Japanese marauders the difficulty was to know where they
were going to strike next. There was military power enough left
in Koryŭ had it
been possible to so place the forces as to intercept or bring to
action the
robber gangs. The Japanese had really begun to threaten Song-do
itself and the
king wished to move the capital to Su-an in Whang-hă Province.
He went so far
as to send a commissioner to look over the site and report.
The king was not blessed with an heir,
and in 1360 he took a second wife, which was the cause of
constant quarrelling
and bickering.
The “Red-Head Robbers” were led by Kwan Sŭn-sang and
P’a Tu-ban.
They now took the city of Mukden and, entering Liaotung, sent a
letter to the
king of Koryŭ saying “We
have now consolidated our power and intend to set up the Sung
dynasty again.” The Mongols were thus
beset on both sides and were in desperate straits. Three
thousand of the “Red-Heads” crossed the
northern border and carried fire and sword into the frontier
towns. A Mongol
general, deserting the banners of his waning clan, took service
with these
people. His name was Mo Ko-gyŭng. He collected 40,000 men and
crossed the Yalu.
Eui-ju fell forthwith and the prefect and a thousand men
perished. Chöng-ju
soon fell and In-ju was invested, but a stubborn resistance was
here
encountered. The prefect, An U, was the only prefect in the
north who was not
afraid of the invaders. He made light of their power and by swift
counter-marches and brilliant manoeuvers succeeded in making
them fall back to Chöng-ju.
In the meantime Gen. Yi An was sent north to P’yŭng-yang to take
charge of the
army of defense. The tide of fortune had turned again and the
invaders were in
full [page 133] march on P’yŭng-yang. A
council of war was held at which it appeared that all the
generals were about
equally frightened. With a powerful force in hand and an easily
defended town to
hold they still considered only how best to make a retreat. Some
were for
burning everything behind them and retiring to some point more
easy of defense;
but Gen. Yi An thought they had better leave a large store of
provisions in the
city, for the enemy would pause and feed there until everything
was gone, and
this would give the Koryŭ army time to gain needed
reinforcements. This course
would also appear so foolish to the enemy that few preparations
would be made to
meet the Koryŭ troops later. This plan was adopted and the army
retired into Whang-hă
Province and left the gates of P’yŭng-yang open to the invaders.
This caused
the greatest consternation in the capital, and every citizen was
under arms.
The king immediately sent and deprived Gen. Yi An of the office
which he had so
grievously betrayed and put the command into the hands of Gen.
Yi Seung-gyŭng.
The invading host was now feasting in P’yŭng-yang
and the king and queen in Song-do were practicing horse-back
riding with the
expectation that they would be obliged to leave the capital. It
was the
beginning of winter and the cold was intense. The Koryŭ soldiers
died by
hundreds and the people were being wantonly killed by foraging
parties of the “Red Heads.” The records say that they
left “heaps
upon heaps” of
dead in their track.
As in duty bound the Koryŭ forces went
north and engaged the invaders at P’yŭng-yang. At first the
latter were successful
and a thousand Koryŭ troops were trampled under the hoofs of the
enemy’s
horses; but in the end the “Red Heads” were defeated and,
retreating
northwards, were hotly pursued as far as Ham-jung. There they
were reinforced
and attempted to make a new stand; but the Koryŭ troops, drunk
with success,
attacked them with such abandon that they were obliged to build
a palisade
within which they intrenched themselves. The Koryŭ generals
surrounded this stockade
and, by a simultaneous assault of horse and foot, broke through
tlie barrier
and put the occupants, numbering 20,000, to the sword. The
leader, Whang Chi-sŭn
was taken alive. A remnant fled to the Yŭn-ju River where the
ice broke [page 134] beneath them and 2,000
perished. The few survivors made a desparate stand on a hill but
were starved
out and compelled to continue their flight, in which hundreds
more were cut down
along the road; and at last, out of 40,000 men who had come
across the Yalu,
just three hundred recrossed it and were safe.
Hardly had this happened when seventy
boat-loads of these same “Red
Heads”
arrived at P’yŭng-ju and soon after a hundred boat-loads more
disembarked at
An-ak and scoured the surrounding country. They were, however,
soon put to flight
by Gen. Yi Pang-sil whom the king rewarded richly for his
services.
It was at this time that the king
first received an envoy from Chang Sa-sung, a pretender to the
Mongol throne. The king
made the first move toward breaking away from the Mongol yoke by
sending an
envoy in return. The Koryŭ court
evidently was in great doubt as to just how matters were going
to turn out in
the struggle that was under way in China. By favoring these
advances on the
part of a Mongol, whether of the imperial family or not, it is
probable that
the king lost the good-will of the Mings who, as we shall see, looked with
satisfaction upon the overthrow of Koryŭ and the founding of the
present
dynasty
The alarming increase both in the
frequency and the violence of the Japanese incursions gave scope for the
development of the military genius of Gen. Yi Whan-jo, the
father of the
founder of this dynasty. He was appointed general of the west to
guard against
the freebooters. The people of Song-do were in dismay over the
proximity of the dreaded Japanese
and over the defeat of all the armies sent to put them down.
Many civil
officials took part in the martial preparations and even took
the field in
defense of their country. The Japanese were now penetrating
Kyŭng-geui Province.
In this year, 1360, they
landed on Kang-wha, killed three hundred men and stole 40,000
bags of rice. So
many men were in mourning that the king was obliged to curtail
the period of
mourning from three years to only a few days. The palace in
Han-yang had now
been completed and the king removed to that place, apparently
because it was
further from the sea shore and more difficult of access by the
Japanese.
[page
135] Chapter.
X.
An
unnecessary warning. .. .”Smoke-house Soldiers” .... Yi Whanjo
dies Yi Ta-jo
takes his place . . .new invasion by “Red Heads” ....Song-do evacuated the enemy
revel in the capital ...cannibals
. . .plans for defense the “Red Heads.” badly beaten. . . . Gen. Yi distinguishes himself.
. . .the monster Kim Yong. . . .Gen. Yi brings Nap-t’ap-chul to
terms. . .
.Quelpart revolts . . .”tax without reason”. . . .the Mongols
proclaim a new
king for Koryŭ. . . .a bold envoy.... a faithful eunuch .... Kim Yong
destroyed ...Mongol invasion. . . .order restored. . . .Gen. Yi
drives back the
Mongols ... .Japanese advances ...a conscientious official,, ..
.the Japanese creep
nearer to Song-do . . .king inconsolable . . .he meets Sin-don . . . .who becomes his
favorite. . . .king’s oath to Sin-don . . . .disgrace ful practices.... an heir to the throne. . . .Sin-don’s
policy . . .Japanese swarm
along the coast .... Sin-don the “Tiger”. .. .he chides the king.
With
the opening of the year 1361 Yi Whan-jo was appointed general of
all the forces
in the north and north-east. This was done against the advice of
one of the
officials who told the King that as Gen. Yi was from the
north-east it was dangerous to appoint him general
over the forces there, for
untoward events were likely to happen. The king turned a deaf ear to this warning,
which indeed was unnecessary, for
the king had no more loyal subject that Yi Whan-jo. The king, having feasted the
new appointee, sent him on his mission and himself returned to
Song-do.
Ere long came reports of new and
terrible ravages by the Japanese along the southern coast,
especially at Nam-hă,
Kosŭng, Kö-je and Ul-ju, while at Fusan they stole a large
number of Korean
boats. A garrison had been stationed in the south to be used in just such
emergencies, but it had been used for so many different things
that it could
not be concentrated upon any given point; so levies were made on
the common
people. These levies went under the name of Yun-ho-gun, or “Smoke-house Soldiers”
because from every house where smoke was seen arising a man was
requisitioned. At the same time the governor of Chŭl-la Province
advised the
establishment of a horse relay system, but the suggestion was
not acted upon.
[page 136] At this time the king lost
the services of Gen. Yi Whanjo who died at his post. His son, Yi
Sung-gye,
better known by his title Yi T’ă-jo, stepped into his father’s
place. At the very
beginning of his martial career an opportunity presented itself
for him to
perform a signal service for the king. A certain Pak Eui deemed
that the time
was ripe for an insurrection and he began to take steps in that
direction, but the
king sent the young general, Yi T’ă-jo, against him and the
little blaze was promptly stamped out.
As a consequence the young man was confirmed in the position of
military governor
of the north and east, and under his command was placed a large
body of troops.
And now there burst upon the country another storm of fire and
blood. The “Red
Heads” had been gaining ground rapidly and were now ready to
take their revenge
for the terrible reverses they had suffered during the previous
invasion. They
crossed the Yalu 200,000 strong under the leadership of generals Pan-sŭng Sa-yu and Kwan Sŭng-săng.
The king promptly sent Gen. Yi Pang-sil against them and ****ed to swell the army to as
high a point as possible, *****monks and
other people of means brought *********while the walls of Song-do were guarded
*********t engagement the Koryŭ army
was crum*********d one of the leading
generals was killed, ******sent a
letter to the king saying “We have ten *********d there is no escape for
you except in prompt surrender. It seemed true, for the invading
army swept
like a cyclone though the north, and in Song-do panic reigned.
Flight seemed
imperative. The women and children belonging to the royal
household were sent
away first and the king was about to follow, when the defeated Gen. Yi Pang-sil came
hurrying in and implored the king not to run away but to rally
the people about
him and stand the siege. The king went to the center of the
city, “Big Bell Street,” and
submitted the question to the people, asking whether they would
rally round
him. Just two men responded. This settled the matter and the
king and queen,
each on horseback, rode out the south gate, while behind them
came a weeping
crowd of old men,
women and children. Such was [page
137] the confusion that parents
lost their children and families were scattered. The king’s
escort consisted of
only ten men. When he arrived at the Im-jin river he sent
messengers in all
directions summoning all loyal soldiers to rally round him.
The northern savages swept down upon
the devoted city, sat down in its palaces and gave themselves up
to every form of
excess. They feasted upon the cattle and horses, hanging their
hides upon the
city wall and pouring water over them and letting it congeal,
thus preventing
the citizens from making their escape from the city
clandestinely.
The king in his flight carried terror
with him, for the people thought the enemy would be in hot
pursuit; so they scattered
in every direction. This displeased the king so much that when
he arrived at
the capital of Ch’ung-ch’ŭng
Province he imprisoned the governor. From that point he hurried
southward as
far as Pak-ju, now An-dong, in Kyŭngsang Province.
Day by day the horrible orgies of the
savages in Song-do increased in barbarity. It is said that they
cooked and ate
little children and that they cut off the breasts of women and
fed on them.
In the midst of these vicissitudes the
king appointed Chong Se-un as general-in-chief of all the Koryŭ
forces. He was
a wise and loyal
man and was ever thinking of ways and means of checkmating the
invaders. He
advised the king to send out a general letter encouraging the
people and
calling all the soldiers to rally to the defense of the country.
The officials
were also encouraged and made to feel that their utmost
endeavors must be put
forth in the good cause. The generals were all exhorted to do
their best and
were threatened with death in case they proved unfaithful. So
the campaign was
opened. The savages had looted all the towns about Song-do and
had taken Wŭn-ju
and killed its prefect. They also went north to An-byŭn in
Ham-gyŭng Province where the
people pretended to surrender, but, having gotten their
conquerors intoxicated,
they fell upon and killed
them. The same tactics were tried in Kang-wha with equal
success.
Gen. Chöng Se-un now appeared before
Song-do with 200,000 troops. These figures must surely be an
exaggeration
[page 138] for we can hardly suppose Koryŭ
able at that tune to put that number of men in the field. Snow
and rain added
to the difficulties of the situation. A spy returned and said
that the troops
of the enemy were massed inside the South Gate and that if a
picked body of men
could gain entrance somewhere and attack them from behind they
could be easily
overcome. At the dead of night a picked body of horsemen gained
admittance
somewhere in the rear of the city and fell with fury upon the
garrison. At the
same time the main body advanced to attack the South Gate. The
savages, not
knowing the size of the attacking force and being surprised from
behind were
thrown into confusion and attempted to run away. Gen. Yi T’ă-jo
distinguished
himself by
pursuing and capturing Kwan Sun-sang the leader of the
hostile force. In this stampede the routed savages trod on and
killed each other
by
hundreds. In the center of Song-do the dead were piled in heaps.
It is said,
though it must be an exaggeration, that 100,000 men perished
miserably on that
night. As a result of this battle several Mongol seals which the
savages had
taken in previous fights with the imperial armies, were
recovered.
Some of the generals advised that a
remnant of the enemy be spared; so the Sung-in and T’an-hyŭng gates were thrown
open and Pa Tu-ban and his remaining followers hastened out and
made for the
Yalu River.
It is related that during the fight on
that eventful night a body of Koryŭ troops collided with a
company of the enemy
and a melée ensued near the East Gate, where the soldiers trod
on each other.
Gen. Yi T’ă-jo was there and was stabbed in the back with a
spear. Finding
himself in extremely narrow quarters he drew his sword and,
hewing a path
through the enemy, leaped the wall, horse and all, for he was in
the saddle.
The spectators thought he was a spirit. A volume might be filled
with the
stories of the wonderful achievements of this man, but most of
them are figments
of the imagination, invented at a later period to add lustre to
the name of the
founder of the dynasty.
The capable leader Gen. Chöng Se-un,
met the fate which has been the curse of Korean history from the
beginning to
the present time. Kim Yong-an, a jealous official, [page 139] forged a royal order for his
execution and sent it to Gen. An U who promptly carried it out.
When the king
learned of this he thought it was an incipient revolution but
soon the other
generals joined in a letter to His Majesty saying that it had
been done because
the murdered man was a traitor. The king accepted this as true
and rewarded the
murderers.
The fortress of Sang-sŭng near the
Tu-man River had long been under Mongol control and was governed
by a Koryŭ
renegade Cho Whi and afterwards by his descendants as a
hereditary fief. Now
when Koryŭ once more assumed control, Cho So-sang, the then chief of this
anomalous settlement, fled to Mukden where he joined the banners
of a wild tribe
under the lead of Nap-t’ap-chul, and proposed to them to make a
raid into Koryŭ.
This they did, crossing the Yalu and ravaging as far as Puk-ch’ŭng and Hong-wŭn. This promised to become a serious
matter, but the difficulty of the situation for Koryŭ was
increased tenfold by
a fresh invasion of the south by Japanese. The king was on his
way back to Song-do
when news of these two disasters reached him. Things looked
desperate, but to
add to the hopelessness of the situation the same Kim Yong-an
who had murdered
Gen. Chöng now compelled the king to kill Gen. An U on the
ground that it was
he who had killed Gen Chöng. The monster then proceeded to kill
his own
brother, and induced the king to put to death generals Yi
Pang-sil and Kim Teuk-pă,
two of the best surviving generals. It is a wonder that Gen. Yi
T’ă-jo was
spared. Song-do had been so roughly handled that the king feared the
historical records would be lost or destroyed; so he now sent
men to look them
up and put them in
a place of safety.
The wild Nap-t’ap-chul having been so
successful in their first venture, now once more entered Koryŭ
territory and as
the general sent against them was not able to check their advance Gen. Yi T’ă-jo
was appointed to this place. The enemy was encamped in Hong-wun
in Ham-gyŭng
Province. Gen. Yi attacked them there and routed them with a loss of 1,000 men. Near Ham-hung they
made a stand and defended themselves desperately, but he soon
had them in full
flight once more. Taking 600 picked cavalrymen he pursued them to Ch’a-ryŭng Pass and secured another
victory. Only one [page
140] of the enemy fought well.
This man fought aways in front of Gen. Yi. The latter feigned
flight to draw
him on and then suddenly turning attacked his pursuer and laid
him low with an
arrow from his unerring bow. The women who followed the camp of
the invading
army came out and taunted the men saying “You have overcome everyone
but these Koryŭ people; them you cannot conquer. You had better
retreat and
make for home.”
The enemy called a truce and told Gen. Yi that they had come not
to attack Koryŭ
but the “Red
Heads.”
This was a mere ruse to save time. Gen. Yi knew this and drawing
an arrow to
the head shot one of the leaders of the enemy through the body.
At last he gave
orders to his archers to shoot the horses from under the enemy.
This decided
the battle and the Nap-t’al-chul
sued for peace. In recognition of these services the king
appointed him general
of all the forces in the north. The general then proceeded to
annihilate all the colonies and settlements of the obnoxious
Nap-t’ap-chul throughout the
entire north, and having placed them where they belonged, showed
them that
their only hope was in making a lasting treaty with Koryu. This
they were quite
willing to do.
As the king came slowly north toward
the capital the officials urged that Song-do was too small for
the capital and too
near the sea to be well protected from the Japanese corsairs.
They therefore
urged him to remain for a time at Ch’ŭng-ju, and he gave consent.
And now, strange to relate, Quelpart,
at the instigation and under the leadership of Ho-dok-ko
Pul-wha, who had been
stationed there three years before to take charge of the
horse-breeding
industry, revolted from the sway of Koryŭ and became at least nominally
a part of the Yuan empire.
In order to reward the soldiers who
had done such good work in the north the king levied a special
tax on the
people which they gave with such poor grace that they called it
the “tax without reason.”
In 1362 the emperor of China, led to
it by the empress, whose seditious relatives had forfeited their
lives in Koryŭ,
proclaimed one Hye, called Prince Tok-heung, a relative of the
king, as king in
his place. But Koryŭ well knew that [page 141] the old time power of the
Mongols was gone and so prepared to resist the order.
Early in 1363 the king at last
re-entered his deserted capital. A strong force was sent north
to guard against
the pretender and an envoy was sent to Peking to ask why there
were two kings
for Koryŭ. The emperor replied that the newly appointed one was
the right one
and that he must be received in Koryŭ. To this the envoy replied
“Though you kill me and smear
my blood upon my clothes I will not accompany the pretender back
to Koryŭ.” The
emperor praised the envoy’s bravery and did not insist upon the
demand.
A
Koryŭ official named Kim Yong-an, whose evil deeds we have
already related, now
desired to kill the king and bring in the pretender. A eunuch,
An To-jok, knew of the plot and on
the
appointed night personated the king and was killed by the
assassin’s hand. The
plotter was forthwith seized, drawn and quartered and his limbs
were sent
throughout the land as a warning to other malcontents. The emperor was urged to
send the pretender as a prisoner to Koryŭ but of course he
refused. Not only
so, but he also ordered the king to send the royal seals to
Peking. The king
refused and began preparations for defense against a possible
invasion.
He did not have to wait long, for with
the opening of the year
1364 a Mongol army 10,000 strong crossed the Yalu and besieged
Eui-ju. In the
fight at that point the Koryŭ forces were completely routed,
though not till
after great valor had been shown by Gen, An U-gyŭng against
overwhelming odds. The
Koryŭ forces retreated in disorder to An-ju. Panic prevailed
among all the
people of that section for they thought the horrors of the
former Mongol
invasion were about to be repeated.
The king sent Gen. Ch’oe Yŭng with a considerable
force to An-ju where he made all his generals swear to stand by
the colors to
the last. He executed a number of fugitives as an example to the
rest and soon
succeeded in restoring some semblance of order in the camp. Gen.
Yi T’ă-jo was ordered
with 1,000 soldiers from the northeast province to An-ju. Also
generals Yi Sun,
U Che, and Pak Ch’un
were ordered to the same point, and the army thus consolidated
[page 142] assumed large proportions,
but the men were miserably dressed and fed, and the death rate
was high.
Dessert ions were of frequent occurence.
Gen. Yi T’ă-jo’s influence in the
northeast is proved by the
commotion that followed when be left. The remnant of the Yu-jin
tribe, led by
Sam Seun and Sam Ka seized the whole of this northeast and the
people were
longing for the return of Gen. Yi. These two Sams were cousins
of Gen. Yi and
they had fled beyond the northern border and joined the wild
Yu-jin folk.
The combination of the generals gave
great confidence to the troops and when the battle was joined at
Chöng-ju the Mongol
forces were badly defeated.
A Mongol general’s body
was taken and sent all about that section to encourage the
people and make them
believe their troubles were near an end. Gen. Yi blamed the
other generals for
not following up their advantage and they became angry and said
“If you are so brave, you
had better try it yourself.” So the very next day he led the
army out and
surrounded the Mongol forces at Su-ju near the sea, where another glorious
victory was won. That night the remnant of the Mongols fled back
to the Yalu.
Gen. Yi gave chase and it is said that only seventeen of the
Mongol army got
back in safety across that Rubicon of Korea, This done, Gen. Yi returned to his northeast province and
drove back to their haunts the wild tribe who had taken
advantage of his
absence.
Gen. Yi T’ă-jo was steadily rising in
favor although like Wang-gon he wisely stayed as far as possible
from his royal
master. The king now conferred upon him the title of Miljik-sa
which means “The Messenger who Restores
Confidence and Firmness.”
The Japanese had not ceased their
incursions.
Only a year had passed since 200 boat loads had ravaged the
southern coast and
now a like number swept the island of Kal-do in the south, so
that from many a
district no revenue rice was forthcoming. It is to be feared
that this was the
principal cause of uneasiness in Song-do -the loss of revenue. Troops were sent and a
fleet of eighty war boats to guard the coast and to convoy the revenue junks, but
these unexpectedly fell in with a Japanese fleet and were all
lost. This disaster
[page 143] caused a panic among the people
of Kang-wha and Kyodong Island. The governor of Chŭl-la Province
came northward
with troops guarding the revenue but he too met Japanese and
lost all the rice
and half his men.
This same year 1364 a Mongol official
told the emperor that the king of Koryŭ ought to be allowed to
retain his position;
and the emperor listened to him. The renegade Ch’oe Yu was sent
back to Koryŭ
where he was imprisoned and executed. The Koryŭ
envoy Yi
Kong-su also returned from Peking. A very neat story is told of
him. As he was pursuing his way across a wide plain which
seemed to have no inhabitants he was obliged to feed his animals
with the standing
grain. When he was preparing to resume his way he took a bolt of
linen and
wrote upon it “The
price of grain,” and left it among the standing barley. His
attendants said, “But the owner of the grain
will never get it. Someone will steal it.” The envoy replied, “That is not my affair. I
will have done my duty.” The king wished the emperor to send the
would-be king
to Koryŭ but to this consent was not given.
The Japanese crept nearer and nearer
to Song-do with every new expedition. They went into the temple
to the dead and
carried away a picture of the king. It was with great difficulty
that they were
dislodged and driven away.
In 1365 when the queen was confined
the king ordered the monks to worship on every mountain top and
at every monastery
to ensure a safe delivery, but all to no avail. She died in
giving birth to the
child and the king was inconsolable. Treasure was poured out
like water to make
the funeral the most imposing that had ever been seen in Koryŭ. For three years following
the king ate no meat.
It was in this year that the king had
that singular dream which led to such disastrous results. He
dreamed that
someone attempted to stab him, but a monk sprang forward and by
intervening
saved his life. The face of this monk remained stamped on his
memory. Soon
after this he met a monk, Sin-don, whose face was the same as
that of the monk who
had saved his life in the dream. He was the son of a slave in
Ok-ch’un Monastery and he was
looked down upon and despised by the other Monks. The king took
this Sin-don
[page 144] to himself, raised him to
high position and lavished upon him wealth and honors. As a fact
this Sin-don was a most unprincipled,
licentious and crafty man, but always when in the presence of
the king he
assumed the sedate demeanor of the philosopher and for many a
year completely hoodwinked his royal master. The
other officials expostulated in vain. In vain did they urge that
this monk was a
beast in human shape. The king considered him well-nigh
inspired. He believed
that it was jealousy that prompted their antagonism and rather
enjoyed getting
an outsider in and
showing them that office and honors did not always go by
inheritance. This new
favorite soon began to urge the banishment of this or that
official and the
king always complied. On this account the feeling against him
rose to such a
pitch that the king was obliged to send him away for a time lest
he should be
killed. He remained in this retreat until the king had put to
death some of his
worst enemies. At last the king sent and recalled him; but the
crafty man answered
“I cannot
go back. It is not right that I should hold office.” When the king reiterated
his pressing invitation the monk replied “I am afraid that you will
listen to my enemies.” To this the king made answer “I swear by the sun, the
moon, the stars, heaven and earth that I will listen to no one
but you.” So the wily man came back and from
that day completely dominated the king. He exaggerated the
faults of his
enemies and so gradually supplanted them with his creatures. It
is claimed of
him that he built a dark vaultlike room where he indulged in
almost incredible
excesses. He gave out that he could cure barrenness, and by his
evil practices
brought down upon himself the maledictions of the whole people.
The king alone
would believe no ill of him. He said he was the greatest prodigy
in the world.
At this time the Mongol empire was on
the verge of its fall and Koryŭ envoys found it impossible to
force their way through
to Peking and so were compelled to desist. It is a noteworthy
fact that though Koryŭ
hated the Mongols she nevertheless held fast to them till the
very last moment.
At this time it happened that the king
was without an heir and both he and the court were anxious about
the
succession.
THE KOREA REVIEW
A
Submarine Adventure.
The
“Monastery
of the Ocean Seal” [*The Ha-in-sa (***)] is one of the most important centers
of Buddhism in Korea. It is in the town of Hyup-ch’um and counts its inmates by
the hundreds. Its archives are piled with wood blocks cut with
Sanscrit
characters and the whole place is redolent with the odor of
Buddhist sanctity.
But it is the name which piques our curiosity and demands an
explanation. The “Ocean Seal” does not mean the
amphibious animal whose pelt forms an article of commerce but it
means the seal
with which a legal document is stamped.
The genesis of this name may appear
fanciful to the matter-of-fact
western mind but we can assure the reader that it is the most
rational
explanation he will find, and we would remind him at the same
time that there
are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of any
western system of
philosophy.
Hong Săng-wŭn was one of those
literary flowers that are born to blush unseen and waste their
sweetness on the
desert air of central Korea. Virtue is its own reward but that
reward seldom
takes the form of bread and butter; so while Hong was virtuous
he was lamentably
poor. His literary [page 146] attainments forbade his earning his living by the sweat of his brow so be earned it by
the sweat
of his slave’s
brow who
went about begging food from the neighbors. Curiously enough
this did not sully
his honor as work would have done.
As he was sitting one day in his room
meditating upon the partiality of fortune, a strange dog came
running into the yard
and curled up in a corner as if this had always been its home.
It attached
itself to Hong and accompanied him wherever he went. Hong took a
great liking
to the animal and would share with it even his scanty bowl of
rice, much to the
disgust of the faithful slave by whose efforts alone the food
had been
obtained.
One morning the dog began wagging its
tail and jumping about as if begging its master to take a walk.
Hong complied
and the dog led straight toward the river. It ran into the water
and then came
back and seemed to invite its master to mount its back and ride
into the
stream. Hong drew the line at such a prank but when he saw the
dog dash into the water and cross with
incredible speed he caught the spirit of the occasion and so far
curtailed his yangban
dignity as to seat himself on
the dog’s back. To his consternation the dog sank with him to
the bottom of the
river, but as he found no difficulty in breathing and naturally
felt some delicacy
about trusting himself alone to the novel element, he held fast
to the dog and
was rewarded shortly by a sight of the palace of His Majesty the
Dragon King of
the Deep. Dismounting at the door he joined the crowd of
tortoises and octopi
and other courtiers of the deep who were seeking audience with
their dread
sovereign. No one challenged his entrance and soon he stood in
the presence.
The king greeted him cordially and asked him why he had delayed so long in
coming. Hong carried on the polite fiction by answering that he
had been very
delinquent in paying his respects so late but that several
species of important
pol il or “business” had prevented his coming
sooner. The upshot of the matter was that the sea king made him
tutor to the
crown prince, who studied his characters with such assiduity
that in six months
his education was complete.
By this time Hong
was beginning to long for a breath of fresh air
and made bold to intimate as much to His Majesty, [page 147] who made no objection but
insisted upon loading him down with gifts. The crown prince drew
him aside and
whispered:
“If he asks you to name the
thing you would like best as a reminder of your stay with us,
don’t fail to name
that wooden seal on the table over yonder.” It was an ordinary
looking thing
and Hong wondered of what use it could be to him but he had seen
too many queer
things to be skeptical; so when the king asked him what he would
like he asked only
for the wooden seal. The king not only gave him the seal but the
more costly
gifts as well.
With his capacious sleeve full of pink coral mixed with
lustrous pearls and with the seal in his hand he mounted the dog
and sped away
homeward. A short half hour sufficed to land him on the bank of
the stream
where he had entered it aud with the dog at his heels he wended
his way across
the fields toward his former home.
When he arrived at the spot
where his little thatched hut should be standing he found the
site occupied by
a beautiful and capacious building. Had he indeed lost the only
place he could
call home? Anxiously he entered the place and inquired for the
owner. The young
man who seemed to be in charge answered gravely that some twenty
years before
the owner had
wandered away with his dog and never returned.
“And who then are you?” asked the astonished Hong.
“I am his son.” Hong gazed
at him critically and,
sure enough, the young man looked just as his son would have
looked. He made
himself known and great was the rejoicing in that house. There
were a thousand
questions to be asked and answered,
“And where did this fine house come
from?”
“Why, you see, the dog that
you went away with came back regularly every month bringing in
his mouth a bar
of gold and then disappeared again. We soon had enough to build
this place and
buy all the surrounding rice fields.”
“And it has been twenty years! I thought
only six months had passed. They evidently live very fast down
there under the
sea.”
Hong found no difficulty in adapting himself
to the new situation. He was well on in years now but was very well
preserved, as
one might expect from his having been in brine [page 148] for the last twenty years.
But he found no use for the seal that he had brought.
After several months had passed a monk
came wandering by and stopped to talk with the old gentleman. In
the course of
the conversation it transpired that Hong had visited the Sea
King’s domain. The
monk asked eagerly:
“And did you see the wonderful seal?”
“See it?” said Hong, “I not only saw it but I
brought it back with me.” The monk trembled with excitement.
“Bring it here,” he begged.
Hong brought out the seal and placed
it in the hands of the holy man. The monk took a piece of paper
and wrote on it. “Ten ounces of gold.” Then without inking the
seal he pressed it on the paper and lo! it left a bright red
impress without
even being wet. This done, the monk folded the paper and setting
fire to it
tossed it into the air. It burned as it fell and at the point
where the charred
remnants touched the ground was seen a bright bar of gold of ten
ounces weight.
This then was the secret. No matter what sum was asked for, the
impress of that seal would surely bring it.
They kept it going pretty constantly
for the next few days as you may easily imagine. The monk
received an enormous
sum with which he built the magnificent monastery and named it
appropriately
the Ha-in-sa or the “Ocean Seal Monastery.”
He went all the way to India to bring
the sacred Sanscrit books and the wood blocks were cut and piled
in the library
of the monastery. Beneath them was hidden the marvelous seal,
but Koreans say
that during the last Japan-China
war it disappeared. The man who holds it is probably ignorant of
its value. If
his eye happens to fall upon this and he discovers the virtues
of the seal we
trust he will do the proper thing as Hong did by the monk who
showed him its
secret.
[page 149] Slavery in Korea.
We
are in receipt of a number of inquiries relative to slavery in
Korea and it is
such a broad subject and such an important one that it seems best to
treat all these questions under a single heading.
The
historical aspects of slavery alone would more then exhaust our
space but they
must be briefly reviewed before describing the present status of
Korean slavery.
At the time of Ki-ja who came to Korea
in 1122 B.C.
slavery did not exist in China, but when that great colonizer
took in hand the
half-savage denizens of the peninsula he found it necessary to
enact stringent
laws. Among the different forms of punishment decreed by him we
find that slavery
was one. We cannot but admire the line of reasoning upon which
he based what we
believe to be a social evil. He said, in effect; God decrees that men
shall live by their own exertions, each man earning a living by
his own hands and
obtaining both the necessities and luxuries of existence by his
personal
effort. If therefore a man takes by wile or by force the fruits
of another man’s
industry he becomes joined to that man by a logical and moral
bond. If he eats the
other man’s food he belongs to the other man. Theft, therefore,
was punished by
slavery, the thief becoming the property of the man from whom he
stole. It was
possible for him to redeem himself by the payment of a million cash but even
after that he must remain a discredited member of society, a
social outcast.
Adultery was likewise punished by slavery; but the offender, for
reasons quite
palpable, could not become a slave in the house of the man whom
he had wronged
He became a slave of the government and the king gave him to one
or other of
the high officials.
This continued down to the year 193 B.C. when Kijun, the last of
the ancient
Chosŭn line, was
driven out by Wiman and fled to the southern part of the
peninsula. The upheaval
in the north disorganized society and slavery disappeared under
Wiman’s short
rule. Ki-jun however carried it south with him and introduced in
into his new
Kingdom of [page 150]
Ma-han. It existed in a mild form in the early days of Silla
through it could
not have been very common; for only murderers were condemned to
slavery.
Meanwhile the kingdom of Ko-gu-ryŭ arose in the north. Slavery
did not exist
there until Ko-gu-ryŭ began the conquest of the Hyung-no (***) tribes. These people
became
slaves in Ko-gu-ryŭ. So we find that at the time when Buddhism
began to find a
foothold on Korean soil in the fourth century a mild form of
slavery existed
throughout the peninsula.
One curious effect of Buddhism was to do away with slavery. The
exaggerated notion of human
and animal life entertained
by Buddhism together with the doctrine of the transmigration of
souls aroused a
decided sentiment against human slavery and the institution fell
into desuetude
throughout Korea as fast as Buddhism made conquest of the
country.
But after all Korea was
united by the first king of Koryŭ in 918 and Buddhism became
rampant, it began
a rapid deterioration. Its spirit dropped away leaving nothing
but the forms.
Luxury began to sap the life of the people and slavery once more
became an
institution in Korea. In fact the number of slaves was enormous
and many
exciting stories are told of how they revolted from time to time
and fought hard
battles with their masters but were at last put down. On one
occasion three
hundred slaves
had stones tied about their necks and were thrown into a river.
When the Koryŭ dynasty was overthrown
and the present one was set up there occurred a certain amount
of social
house-cleaning in this peninsula but slavery continued up to the
time of the
great invasion by the armies of Hideyoshi in 1592. This great
war killed off so
many of the male population of Korea that when peace reigned
once more a law was
promulgated forbidding the slavery of males and confining it to
females alone.
This has continued until the present time and the great
outstanding fact
regarding slavery in Korea today is that there is not a single male slave in all the realm
of His Majesty the Emperor of Tă-han.
In discussing the present
status of slavery in Korea, therefore, we have to do only with
female slaves.
And the first question is—How
does a Korean woman become a slave? There are four possible
ways.
[page 151] (1) Let us suppose that a woman
of the middle or lower class finds that she has lost all visible
means of
support and must either become a beggar or a slave or else
starve to death or
supposing that she is in great need of ready money to bury a
parent or to
support aged parents
dependent on her. She will go to an acquaintance and ask him to
recommend her to
someone as a slave. This is done and she is introduced into the
house of her
prospective purchaser. He looks her over, sets her to work and
satisfies
himself that she is competent. He then pays her forty thousand,
fifty thousand
or in exceptional cases as high as a hundred thousand cash for
herself and she
gives a deed of her own person made out in proper form. In place
of a seal she
places her hand upon the paper and marks its outline whereby she
can be at any time
identified. She is then his legal slave. The transaction does
not come under
the cognizance of the government but is a private contract.
Formerly only men
of the higher class were allowed to own a slave and it is only
during the last
forty years, or roughly speaking since the beginning of the
present reign, that
Koreans of the middle class have been allowed to hold slaves.
This is one of
the marked features of the rapid demolition of social barriers
that has been
taking place during the past four decades. It may be asked
whether under any circumstances a woman
of the upper classes could thus sell herself into slavery. She
can do so only
by disguising the fact that she is a lady born and so deceiving
her purchaser,
for no gentleman would knowingly buy a lady, not only because of
the innate
impropriety of the transaction but because he would subject
himself to the most
caustic criticism of his peers.
(2) The second way in which a woman
may become a slave is as follows. If a man of the upper class is
convicted of
treason (or formerly of counterfeiting, as well) he is either executed or banished and all
the female inmates
of his house become slaves. They are given by the government to
high officials,
but as a rule it is not long before
such women are liberated. They are never sold from one house to
another.
(3) If a woman slave dies, her daughter takes her place and becomes a
slave. She is called a si
chong or “seed
slave” as she follows the mother in the ordinary line of
descent.
[page 152] We shall consider below
the methods by which a slave can be liberated but under every
circumstance a
slave dying while
still unredeemed has to give her daughter, if she has one, to be
a slave in her
place. It is very probable that when a slave dies and leaves a
young daughter
this girl will go with her master’s daughter as part of her
dowry when she is
married.
(4) There is a fourth way by which a
woman may become a slave. She is poor and finds it impossible to
live. She
wants a home of some kind and so voluntarily offers herself as a
slave without
any compensation except the food, clothes and shelter that will
be given her.
One would suppose that such a slave would be of a higher grade
than the one who
has sold herself, but the very opposite is the case. The one who
has sold
herself can buy herself back at any time by paying back the
exact amount that
she received but the slave who becomes so without pay cannot
free herself by any
means. She has far less rights than the bought slave.
These are the four kinds of slaves in
Korea. There is a certain kind of service that is rendered by
boys that does not
properly come under the term slavery. Such boys are called, to
be sure, sang-no or “common slave” but they are not slaves.
They run errands and do odd jobs about gentlemen’s houses and
receive in
payment their food and clothing. They give no deeds, there is no
compact and
they can leave at any time. They are lower than the regularly
salaried servant
but vastly higher than the slave.
As all slaves are women it will be
necessary to inquire how their marriages are arranged and what
is the status of
the husband. It is manifestly to the interest of the owner to
have his slave
marry for if she should die her daughter would take her place.
In the case of a
bought slave she is allowed to select her partner about as she
pleases. She
will probably marry some day-laborer or coolie in the vicinity.
She has her
little room near the gate quarters and he is allowed to occupy
it with her free
of cost. He owes nothing to the master of the house and does not
do any work
for him except of his own accord. In the case of a slave who is
not bought she
has not so much freedom to choose her partner as has the bought
slave. Her
master can let her marry or not as he wishes. The probability is
that he will
consent; [page 153] In
the case of the slave who is not bought it is quite common after
several years of work for her master
to let her go with her husband, perhaps setting her up in some
little business
or other.
As the husband lives with his wife at
the house of her master we naturally wonder whose rice he eats.
She surely eats
her master’s rice, but what does he eat. He has no right to eat rice
that comes to his wife. He must earn his own rice and bring it
in. Then the two
“pool
their interests”
and get along very snugly. Of course if she can she will get
enough rice out of
her master’s bag to feed the whole family. If there are children
they too eat
of the master’s rice till they are old enough to work for
themselves.
We have already said that
if a slave dies her daughter becomes a slave in her mother’s
place. If there
are several daughters the first one will take her mother’s place
and the others
all go free, but if the daughter determined upon should die
before the mother
then the master selects another of the daughters to be slave in
her stead when
she dies. If a woman slave dies leaving three daughters and the
eldest after
taking her place dies even within a month the master cannot take
either of the
other daughters in her place. All male children are naturally
free; they cannot
be enslaved. They owe nothing to the master and as soon as they
can make their
way alone they no longer are fed out of his bag.
As for the duties of the
female slave it is easy to imagine what they are. She does all
the ordinary
rough work about the house. She does the washing, brings water
from the neighborhood
well, goes to market and buys the vegetables, helps with the
cooking, walks as
a mourner in her master’s funeral procession, runs errands and
makes herself
generally useful. If in the country she goes into the field and
works as an
ordinary field hand. She is not the familiar servant of the lady
of the house
and she seldom acts as lady’s maid. She is never called upon to
do any sewing
or nursing. Her place is in the kitchen or yard and not in her
mistress’ chamber.
Korean folk-lore is full of stories of
faithful and unfaithful slaves. In fact it may be called one of
the favorite
themes. Our space does not permit us to give any of these
stories in
[page 154] full but a sketch of one
or two will suffice
to indicate their general character. The first story is of the
good slave who though
his master (this occurred in the days when male slavery existed)
became
desperately poor refused to leave him, but wore himself out in
his attempts to
keep the wolf away from his master’s door. One day he went off
across the hills
to a village on a bagging expedition and as he was passing through the
woods a tiger leaped out at him and crouched in the road in the
act of springing.
The old slave addressed the animal calmly and asked if the tiger
saw anything worth
capturing in such a dried up specimen of humanity as himself,
who had lost all
his flesh in attempting to keep his master alive. The tiger
seemed to
understand,
and the old slave passed on, but a moment later heard the tiger
coming toward
him with great bounds. He gave himself up for lost and turned
just as the tiger
crouched before him and let fall from his month a large nugget
of pure gold;
after which, with a switch of his tail, he bounded off into the
woods. The astonished
slave picked up the piece of gold and carried it to his master;
and now that
his luck had been thus strangely changed it kept on mending.
Another story is that of a wicked female slave who imbibed socialistic
notions or evolved them from her own inner consciousness and
would go about
grumbling because her master had plenty of money without working
for it, while
she got none though she worked her fingers to the bone. At last
she meditated
revenge for her fancied wrongs. Suddenly appearing before her
master with hair
dishevelled and clothes torn she affirmed that she had been
brutally beaten by
a man living a few houses away and begged her master to avenge her. He called his men
servants and sent them to the house she indicated to inquire
into the matter.
They entered but could find no one there, till at last they
discovered a dead body
lying on the floor. They hurried out but at the gate were met by
two men who
charged them with having killed
the man in the house at the instance of their master. In spite
of all their
protestations and the indignant denials of their master the
government decided
to arrest the latter and send him into banishment. After the first excitement had somewhat
passed away the master remembered that it was [page 155] his slave who had asked to
have the men sent, so he began watching her. Pretending to leave
the place he
slipped behind the servants’ quarters and by applying his ear to a convenient
crack heard her boast to her accomplice of the clever way she had gotten her master
into the trap. He suddenly sprang out before her and forced her
to confess that
she had gotten the men to accuse him of having done the deed
when she herself
was the criminal. So she is executed and the right is
vindicated.
The
Status of Woman.
Concluded.
We
shall attempt to finish the discussion of this question in the
present paper
though it will be necessary to deal with the different headings
very briefly.
And first we will inquire as to the punishments of women.
If a man is a traitor or if he
desecrates a grave the common custom until very recently has
been to decapitate
him and all his male relatives to the fifth remove and to
execute by poison all
women of his immediate family, namely his mother, wife and
daughters. In
certain cases the women may be merely made slaves but this is
uncommon. If a woman
herself meditates treason she will be poisoned. For murder a man
is decapitated
and his wife poisoned. If the woman is the offender she will be
strangled or
poisoned. For arson a man will be strangled or poisoned and a
woman will be
poisoned. For theft a man may be either decapitated or strangled
or banished,
his wife will be enslaved and the property confiscated. Such
were the customs
up to the year 1895, but at that time the punishment of wives
and daughters for
the husband’s or father’s fault was done away and a great
forward step was thus
taken in judicial ethics. Since that time only the offender
himself has been
punished.
The subject of divorce is an important
one, and here the great inequality between the sexes becomes
manifest. On no pretext
whatever can a woman obtain a legal separation from [page 156] her husband. The only thing she can do is to run
away to her father’s house or to that of some relative. In this
case the husband
has no redress unless he can disprove her charges against him.
In that case he
can demand not her person but only the cost of the marriage
ceremony. This proving is not done by
legal process but is a matter between the parties concerned, and
their
relatives. The law will not force a woman to go back to her
husband’s home. It
will be thus seen that divorce in its main feature, namely the
getting rid of a
bad husband, is possible to any Korean woman, but there is no
legal document
which dissolves the marriage tie.
If a man wants to divorce
his wife the reason will probably be either that she has
committed adultery, or
that she is an inveterate gossip, or that she has insulted him,
or that she is indolent, or that
she does not attend properly to the sacrifices, or that she is a
thief. If the
woman thus divorced is a lady she has absolutely no redress,
whether the
accusation be just or not. If she is a common woman she can
appeal to the Mayor
of Seoul or to her local magistrate and can have her husband
punished for
driving her away without sufficient cause, if such be the case
and she can
prove it. If a woman is divorced or if she runs away from her
husband all the
children remain in his care.
She cannot take any of them with her unless he permits it. If
she clandestinely
takes one or more of the children away he can force her to give
them up.
Divorce is very uncommon among the
upper class. The wife and mistress of the house is by no means a
mere chattel as in
Turkey or
Persia. She has rights that all are bound to respect, and to
divorce her
requires very sound and patent reasons. She has her powerful
relatives who
would make
it very uncomfortable for her husband should he attempt to
discredit their
house by wantonly divorcing her. It is a great disgrace for a
gentleman to have
his wife run
away from him
and he will go
far to conciliate her and prevent such a scene. Among the common
people,
however, there is far greater license. Divorce is exceedingly
easy and common. If
a man marries and finds that the woman of his choice is not what
he had
anticipated he will simply send her home and get another. It is
very uncommon
for a woman to complain before the magistrate and have her
delinquent husband [page
157]
punished, for
in any case she cannot go back to him and the less said about
the matter the
better. The utmost promiscuity prevails among the lower classes.
A man may have
half a dozen wives
a year in rotation. No ceremony is required and it is simply a
mutual agreement
of a more or less temporary nature. The biblical picture of the
woman at Jacob’s
well who had had five husbands is precisely descriptive of
thousands and
thousands among the lower classes in Korea. The cost of a
regular wedding in
Korea is very great, averaging probably six months’ income. This is one of the
main reasons for irregular connections.
Concubinage is an institution as old
as history. It has existed in Korea from time immemorial. There
are three main
causes for it in this country, (1) If a man has no son by his wife; (2)
if the wife is an invalid or a cripple or old; (3) mere luxury.
The custom is
prevalent both among the higher and the lower classes. A woman
of the upper
class never becomes a concubine, but men of the upper class take
concubines
from the lower strata of society.
From time to time we hear excuses made
for concubinage in the case of a man whose wife is barren but
the excuse is not
a valid one; and for the very good reason that however many sons
a man may have
by a concubine not one of them can call him father, or become
his heir, or
sacrifice to his remains. He may have half a dozen sons by his
concubines and
yet when the time comes to die he will adopt a son from some more or less
distant branch of the family; and it is this adopted son who
will call him
father, worship him dead, and inherit all his property. The sons
of concubines
have no rights whatever nor would a man ever think of adopting
his son by a
concubine as his real heir. This rule applies specially to the
upper class
where great stress is laid upon purity of blood, but among the
common people
where the restraints are very much less the son by a concubine
may be a man’s heir.
In this case the man and his concubine belong to the same grade
of society
while with the upper class man his concubine is far below him; and the children
always take the status of the mother.
If a man of the upper class has one or
more concubines he must keep a separate
establishment for each of them. It [page 158] would be unheard of for a
gentleman to introduce a concubine into the home where his real
wife lives.
Among the common people however the wife and the concubine may
occupy the same
house. Human nature is the same the world over and it is
needless to say that
oftentimes the result is simply pandemonium. No other one thing
is so conducive
to domestic discord as this evil custom. The Koreans recognize
its baneful
effects and condemn it, but money and leisure offer great
temptations in Korea
as elsewhere.
In conclusion we must say a word about
the amusements of women. The commonest form of amusement is what
is called ku’gyung.
This word cannot be exactly
translated but it may mean to “look
see” or to “take a walk” or both combined. When the
Korean says kugyung
kap-si-ta he means, “Let’s go and take a stroll and
have a look about.” Now
this, in the uneventful life of a Korean woman, is one of the
highest forms of
pleasure. It makes no difference if she sees nothing more
exciting than a
passing bicycle or electric car; it is amusing and entertaining.
Of course such
pleasures are mostly limited to the middle class women who are
less strictly
secluded. Ladies amuse themselves very often by playing the kumungo a kind of
zither about five feet
long and one foot wide. Its musical capabilities are not
surprisingly high. They
also play the hageum
or violin, which
looks like a croquet mallet with a large head and short handle;
the strings
biing stretched from the end of the handle to the middle of the
head. The hair
of the bow is wound in between the three strings so that it
cannot be removed
while playing. This instrument is capable of emitting some of
the most painful
noises imaginable.
Korean girls are very fond of
swinging, and on a certain day in spring nearly every one who
can find the time
is swinging. Huge swings are arranged by the people in public
places but these
are used only by men and boys. Korean girls have a “see-saw” of their own. It is a
short board laid across a stick three inches high. The girls
stand on the two ends
of the board and when one comes down on her end it bounces the
other one up in
the air and when she comes down the same phenomenon happens at
the other end.
It must be far less amusing than a genuine see-saw. In the country
[page 159] the girls enjoy what is
called the chul-nori
or rope game. A
rope is drawn taut between two trees and the girls grasp it on
either side and
swing back and forth against it and sing. The Korean doll is
very common and is
called a kaksi.
It is most often seen tied on the little girl’s back where it is
carried as
infants are usually carried in this country. Dominoes, go-bang
and dice are
favorite games among women though the last are used almost
exclusively by
ladies of the upper class.
It may be asked whether Korean women
ever have titles corresponding to the western terms countess,
duchess,
baroness, etc. The wives of officials of the first rank,
corresponding to the
old time p’an-sŭ
(**), are
called Chŭng-gyŭng
Pu-in (****).
Wives of officials of the second rank corresponding to the old
time Ch’am-p’an (**) are called Chŭng Pu-in (***) and wives of officials of
the third rank are called Suk Pu-in (***). All other women of the higher class
are designated Yu-in (**)
The discussion of the status of woman
might be extended indefinitely but we have answered all the
questions that have
been proposed
and touched on the most important phases of the subject.
Reviews.
Where the Indian came from
The
Literary Digest of
March 8th quotes an article in The American Antiquarian
by Charles Hallock in which he
claims that the racial problem of the Western Hemisphere has now
been
practically solved. This solution, he says, clears up not only
the origin of
the American Indigenes but approximately the antiquity of their
progenitors.
Mr. Hallock believes that the ruined cities of Central America
were built by emigrants from Korea and that
subsequently they scattered and became the North American Indian
tribes. He says:
It is believed that the progenitors of
the ancestors of the Mexicans were an Asiatic colony from Korea
which was at that
time tributary to China, a fact which accounts for [page
160] coincidences of dates in the first
half of the sixth century. This opinion is confirmed by Chinese
Manuscripts
**** History shows that the Koreans migrated to escape tyranny,
undertaking a
sea voyage of nine weeks to the North-east **** The Koreans were
certainly in communication with
America as far back as the second year of the Dynasty of Tsin,
Emperor of
China, who declared war against Korea.
He says of these Korean immigrants
that their ruined and silent cities, like those of Asia Minor,
and their
massive pyramids, temples and palaces vie with those of the old
world. Then he
remarks that
Finally came those stupendous
terrestrial dislocations, emergencies, droughts, denudations,
and other dynamic phenomena which
punctuated the lapse of geologic time and changed the contour of
the continent.
By the
same cataclysm which broke up the foundations of the great deep,
according to
scripture *** the aceqias, aqueducts and irrigating canals were
destroyed or
rendered useless.
Apparently this caused the scattering
of these Central American Koreans and the gradual genesis of the
Indian tribes.
To anyone acquainted with the
Korean people, their history and civilization the above must
appear the height
of comedy. Does Mr. Hallock mean to
say that Koreans went to America at the time of the Tsin Dynasty
(255-209 B.C.)
and evolved a civilization in central America which could erect
great pyramids,
palaces and monuments that would vie with those of Europe and
all this before those geological upheavals
that changed
the contour of the American continent? Whom does Mr. Hallock
mean by “the dynasty of Tsin, Emperor of China?” Was Tsin the dynasty or
the Emperor? He speaks of the sixth century. There was a Tsin or
Chin Dynasty
in China at that time (*)
but it made no war on Korea as a whole. It may have had a fight
with Ko-guryu
in northern Korea but the notion that Koreans at that time went
to America to
escape tyranny is laughable. How did Koreans get by Japan if
they sailed
north-east? How did they get to central America if they sailed
north-east? And
besides all this the records of Korean history go back easily to
the time of
Christ and there is absolutely no intimation of any such
emigration nor is
there anything among Korean monuments to show that the Koreans
possessed the
ability to build the [page
161] massive
pyramids and remains that are spoken of. They must have evolved
the whole thing
after reaching American, even if they went, which is more than
doubtful.
We fear that Mr. Hallock’s efforts at
solving the origin of the America Indian are based on too
superficial a
knowledge of the geography and history of the far east. We
believe that the
North American Indian was originally an Asiatic, an offshoot of
that immense
Turanian family that spread all over northern Asia and over
India as well. The
only rational explanation is that they reached America by way of
the Kurile and
Aleutian islands or directly from Siberia to Alaska.
We imagine that Mr. Hallock’s
historical data are taken from Ma Twan-lin’s description of
Fusang which
certainly seems to be North America but it says nothing about
Koreans going
there and the account is altogether too vague to do more than
imply that the
Chinese had heard something about the great western continent.
The problem of
the North American Indian and the high civilization of ancient
central America
is not to be solved by any such simple twist of the wrist as
this.
Korea
a la globetrotter
Harper’s Monthly Magazine for March contains an
article on Seoul by Mr. Alfred Stead who, it is said, spent a
few days in this
city last Summer. Whether his description of Seoul is adequate
or fair may be
judged by a few quotations. He says the Japanese Legation is
near the Old
Palace which may be a reason why the King left it and went to
the Russian Legation.
As everyone knows the Japanese Legation is on the opposite side
of the city
from that palace, at least two miles away from it. He says that the present palace
was formerly the residence of the Regent, which statement is
fully two miles
off the truth for the Regent’s place is far across the city back of Kyo-dong. “Every now and then the
Emperor sends notes to the American and British Ministers
politely asking them
when they are going to move out into other quarters because he
does not wish
their presence so near the palace, and they answer equally
politely that they
were there when he came to this palace and it is for him to move
if he is not
comfortable.”
Now we do not hesitate to affirm that this is a gross and
libellous
exggeration. His Majesty came to the [page 162] present palace for no
other purpose than to be near the foreign Legations. It is
doubtless true that
he made overtures to the British Government to buy their
legation property but is
there anything improper about this? The British Government
refuses to sell and
that ends the matter. To say that His Majesty keeps sending
notes asking the
British Minister when he is going to “move out” would be amusing were it not
so injurious to His Majesty, who received Mr. Stead in audience
and treated him
as well as he knew how, only to be held up to ridicule in one of
the leading
magazines of the world. We advise the Government to refuse
audiences to
tourists who have a penchant for airing their inchoative notions
in this way
and of putting in a very unenviable position a magazine that
stands at the head
of the world’s periodical literature. To say that the American
Minister
receives such notes from His Majesty is flat falsehood. And it
is still flatter
falsehood to say that such supposed notes would be answered in
such a spirit as
is implied in the above quotation. It is an insult both to the
English and
American Ministers and deserves the most stinging rebuke.
The writer continues the
myth that the Emperor’s name is Li Hsi. Now the word si or hsi
means clan or
family as we would say “He
is a Smith” or “He
is a Howard.” It corresponds to the “a” in these expressions. The
King’s family name is Yi but the King is supposed to have no
name except his
imperial title until after his demise, when a posthumous name is
conferred upon
him. Mr. Stead shows his ability to obtain accurate information
when he says
that the present dynasty began 300 years ago, in which statement
he was only 210
years out of the way, as the dynasty was founded in 1392. We are
told that the
Emperor is regarded by the people as God (not as a god). Nothing
could be
further from the truth. His Majesty is not given divine honors to the least degree. He
exercises no sacerdotal function except in an occasional
sacrifice and this
statement is utterly opposed to every form of religion prevalent
in the
peninsula. Were Koreans to know that any foreigner had said this
they would
call it the rankest sacrilege.
The writer states that it is the
imperial custom, in hot weather, to spend most of the time
between audiences in
his bath-tub. [page 163] This
is the kind of statement one would expect to find in the columns
of one of
those newspapers whose one vocation is to tickle the public
fancy regardless of
facts. One would think from this that the Emperor of Korea was
on an equality
with some African chief. As Mr. Stead entered the anteroom
before entering the
Emperor’s presence we are told that all the officials prostrated
themselves and
again as he entered the audience chamber. If the English language means anything this
means that the officials prostrated themselves before Mr. Stead.
We wonder if
this was the impression he wanted his readers to receive. Can
anything he more
cruelly libellous than the statement that the Crown Prince could
not stand without
a table to lean upon? Of course such statements are utterly
false. The Crown
Prince is in normal health and it is well known that he is a man
of good
average intellect in spite of the wild statements of such
unmannerly guests as Mr.
Stead. He says that for occasions like that which he attended the court orders
up specially bad Chinese champagne. The readers of the Review
may rest assured
that the Korean Court does not, as this implies, take pains to
belittle and
insult its guests. It is false that the Emperor serves inferior
wines to his
guests and even if it were true we leave it to our readers to
judge of the
writer’s good taste in holding up to ridicule the hospitality of
His Majesty,
which we do not doubt he anxiously sought in order to have an
opportunity to “write it up.” His statement
that His Majesty is supposed to make a royal progress through
Seoul once a year
is entirely erroneous. His statement that sometimes a royal
procession costs
$700,000 a day is exaggerated twenty fold for such a procession
costs from
$20,000 to $30,000. It was only at the late queen’s funeral that
expenses ran
up into the hundreds of thousands. He says that once the
champaign for the
foreign representatives alone figured up to $70,000. This is
also a gross
exaggeration. At the time of the Queen’s funeral His Majesty
built pavilions at
the Royal Tomb for the entertainment of foreign guests and did
things in very
handsome style. The total cost for the entertainment of all the
foreigners may have
been $70,000 but we doubt it.
Those who know Seoul will smile to
learn that the Old Palace lies close to “the Hill of Puk-han” which
is seven [page 164]
miles from that palace, and that on top of that hill stands a
solitary tree,
while in fact “Lone
Tree
Mountain” lies in a diametrically opposite direction and the
mountain behind
the palace, namely Pu-ak, is covered with trees. And so it goes on through the entire
article, a tissue of grotesque exaggerations. But the most
amusing of them all
is the picture of the “Crown Prince” which is not the Crown Prince at all
but Prince Wi-wha who is in America, and has been there for
several years. It
is a great pity that such a magazine as Harper’s and that such a
well-meaning
host as the Emperor of Korea should both be victimized by such a
mendacious
scribbler.
Electric Shocks
A
recent number of the Outlook
contained
an article by Rev. J. S. Gale, the Corresponding Secretary of
the Korea Branch
of the Royal Asiatic Society, under the caption “Electric Shocks in the Far
East,” giving a most amusing and racy resume of the
kaleidoscopic changes that
have been effected during recent years in this peninsula. He
brings out with
unerring skill the salient points and dresses them in such a way
that though
the style is distinctly humorous we read much between the lines
that is as
distinctly pathetic. A great critic has said that true art
consists in
isolating a particular phase or idea and so concentrating attention
upon it as to lay bare its inner meaning. If this is true then
Mr. Gale has the
true artist’s touch.
Odds
and Ends.
How
Bribery Began.
This
is the story the Koreans tell to show when this evil custom
began. They say it was
during the reign of Chung-jong Tăwang (15061548) but we have our
doubts as to
whether it was not known or at least guessed about long before
then. They say
that the Vice Minister of Law was at that time very poor and had
the utmost
difficulty in finding the wherewithal to feed himself and
family. One of his
friends, a military official, wanted to help him in some
delicate way, so he
had a silver image of a boy made, on which was carved the
donor’s
[page 165] name. This he secretly
introduced into the Law official’s house. As might be expected
it was very
thankfully received. A few months later the father of this
military friend was
arrested for a serious crime but his son came to the Law
official and reminded
him of the silver he had received. The result was that the
criminal was
exonerated. In some way the facts got to the ear of the king and
the Law
official was cashiered. But this was the entering wedge.
A Korean Canute
It
would be
hard to duplicate the case of King Canute who sat on the sea
shore and ordered the
tide not to come in, but Korean folk lore contains something
very like it. Chöng
Tu-gyŭng a Korean official was sent by the King as secret
detective or O-sa (**) to Ham-gyŭng Province. He
was a very masterful man and liked to make everything bend
before his will. One
evening he entered an inn to put up for the night and after
eating his supper
he conceived the idea of writing a poem. As a spur to his own
genius he vowed
that he would complete a poem before cock crow. Now it is well
known that cocks
crow neither indiscriminately nor without forethought. Chöng
knew this as well
as everyone else. Even if experience had not taught him he
should have known it
from the famous poem of Ch’oé Ch’i-wun (***) the brightest literary
light of ancient Korea, which says:
In his thatch beside the river the
cock crows and I know that dawn is nigh. The willow branches wave in the soft morning
breeze and the setting moon makes a silver bridge across the
ruffled surface of
the stream. I hear the song of the fishermen up and down the
stream but the
white reed flowers, the moonlight and the fishermen’s clothes
are all one color
so I can tell that the fishermen are there only by their song.
So Chöng sat down to write his poem.
The night advanced. The thoughts would not come. The characters
chased each
other across his brain and danced wildly in his imagination but they
would not group themselves into orderly sequence. He found it
impossible to
force the muse. Every moment he grew angrier and more
determined. He would
write that poem before the cock crew. He bent to the task again
and racked his
brains. The hours crept on. He found at last an idea, smiled in
triumph, rubbed
his brush pen [page 166]
on the ink-stone and—the
cock crew. He threw the pen into the corner, tore the paper
across and rose in
a white heat of anger.
“Come here, you beggarly
inn-keeper,” he screamed. The trembling host appeared with his pajis “down-gyved at the ankles” and consternation on his
face.
“What do you mean by having
such a ****** old rooster on your place, to crow at such an
unearthly hour as this?
Have him out here while I wring his neck.” The goodman shuffled off muttering to
himself and brought the offending fowl which then and there paid
the extreme
penalty for its fault.
Editorial
Comment.
The
Editor of The Kobe Chronicle underestimates the value of the space in the
columns of his excellent paper when he wastes it in setting up
straw men to
knock down. In his March 19 issue he tries to make it appear as
if we had claimed
that no laws of political economy are applicable to Korea
whereas we distinctly
stated, in the remarks which he only partially quoted, that the
canons of
political economy, as developed in Europe, are not universally
applicable to
Korea, which the Editor of the Chronicle concedes when he says
that “it is quite true that the
working of those laws will differ according to the density of
the population
the means of communication
or the intelligence of the people.” What does he mean when he says “the working of those laws
will differ?” He
means they will work one way in one place and another way in
another place; in
other words they may work one way in highly enlightened Europe
and quite a
different way in Korea. It is pleasant to find this common
ground to stand upon,
which was precisely our first contention. But he should not have
wasted half a
column trying to show that we held that no laws of political
economy are
applicable to Korea.
After quoting our instance of an
inland village in Korea where Japanese agents buy up the grain and
export it leaving the people no option except to starve or
import from abroad at heavy expense he makes
the following statements.
[page 167] What induces the Japanese
agent to appear on the scene? Clearly the prospect of gain. What
induces the
people to sell the rice? Once more the prospect of gain.
Presumably the people
sell to the Japanese agent because they can get more money by
selling the
surplus of their crop to him than they could by selling it
locally. “Oh, but,” says the Editor of the
Korea Review, “the
Japanese agent scuds his rice down the river at practically no
expense while if
the crops should fail the following year that Koreans of this
inland town would
have to import the rice which they must have to live upon at
much greater
expense because it would have to be laboriously towed up
stream.” But the presumption
is that the Koreans of the inland town sold their rice to the
Japanese at a
higher price than they could sell locally or at any rate his
appearance as a
buyer must have tended to raise prices all around so that they
already have a
fund upon which they can draw to pay for the extra expenses of
towage.
Now let us examine this statement, for
it is a grave matter, especially as steps have been taken by the
Japanese to revise
the commercial treaty between Korea and Japan with special
reference to this
embargo business. The first error of the Editor of the Chronicle
is in supposing that we were talking
about a failure of crops the
following year. The condition that he
mentions has nothing to do with the present case at all. We were
talking of the
very year the failure of crop takes place and not of the year
before. One would
suppose this would not need reiteration but we will try once
more, and
patiently, to enlighten our esteemed cotemporary. As he knows,
the rice crop is
harvested in the autumn. Now let us suppose that there is one fourth
of an average crop. That means that in this inland town there
may be enough
rice to pull the people through the winter until the barley
ripens in the
spring. There is immediate
need of that rice locally and the
need will continue uninterruptedly for eight months. It has
nothing whatever to
do with the success or failure of any subsequent crop. There is
the little
stock of rice and there are the people needing it immediately.
Note carefully
that this rice is in the hands of the farmers who are by no
means the whole of the population; and
probably not more than a quarter of the farmers will have any
rice to sell. Those
few farmers who have a surplus
are glad to sell at the highest price possible. It is to them
the people look
for their [page 168]
supply. Now a Korean agent appears from Seoul to buy up rice for
the merchants
at the capital. The prefect intervenes and forbids the agents
from buying, for
this surplus rice will barely carry the people through the
winter; so the
agents retire. Then comes the Japanese agent whom the prefect
cannot control and he offers a lump sum
down for the surplus. The farmers who have the surplus are glad to sell to
him for two reasons, (1)
because he pays immediately for the whole lot while if the
people of the town bought
it they would buy it a little at a time as their scanty income
would permit, though
on the whole the amount would be about the same. (2) because
rice is too bulky
a commodity to hide and there is always the fear of bandits
during famine
times. So the Japanese agent carries away the rice and within a
month the
people are clamoring for food. They have money to pay for it but
it is gone. If
their hunger
did not come on till the “following season” of which our friend speaks
they might import, at a heavy loss, but as it is there is no
time to do it.
There had been enough rice and enough money to pay for it before the Japanese
carried it off but now there is absolutely nothing for them but
to starve. And
all this, mind you, when Japan is enjoying an unusually fine
crop of rice. We
affirm that
it is infamous and that the Japanese authorities who forced the
raising of the
Embargo are directly responsible for the starvation of hundreds
of Koreans. The
editor of the Chronicle may talk about the laws of political
economy as he
pleases but he cannot hide the damning fact. He says that if the
people had
been prevented from selling their rice to the Japanese agents
they would have
been compelled to raise loans in order to pay taxes and expenses
of production.
This statement alone shows how competent he is to discuss the
question for it
shows that he does not know that in the country rice is as good as legal
tender and that there could not possibly be any danger of the
farmer not having
money to pay the tax. So this is the question that the Chronicle says we “do
not even try to meet.”
The reason we never tried to meet it is because we supposed
anyone who knew
anything about conditions here would know too much to ask it.
The fact remains that the raising of
the Embargo helped materially to produce a state of affairs in
Korea so
terrible that in one instance a mother ate her own child.
[page 169] News
Calendar.
Two
of the twenty-nine men who followed the governor of Whanghă Province up to Seoul to recover
400,000,000 cash that he illegally extorted have been thrown
into jail.
On
the 26th of March 15070 bags of Annam rice arrived. This is a matter of
great importance, for just at present there would be great
distress in Seoul
were it not for this rice. In fairness it must be admitted that
in the
importation of this rice Yi Yong-ik has showed decided business
ability.
Of
all the famine stricken districts
of Whang-hă Province Yun-an is perhaps the worst afflicted. Out of five thousand
houses two thousand are empty. Scores of dropsical sufferers on
the verge of
starvation are lying beside the roads. But in spite of it the officials command the people to
hand over their money. The people have appealed to the Home
Department for
clemency.
The
Japanese Minister applied to the Korean Government for
permission to erect a
telephone line between Seoul and Chemulpo but the government replied that as
it was already preparing such a line it would be impossible to
grant permission
for others to build.
The
people of
Im-pi in Southern Kyŭng-sang Province have petitioned the
government to prevent
Japanese from settling on the coast in their vicinity. These
Japanese build
houses and till the land and in fact are permanent settlers on
Korean soil
outside the treaty ports.
The Koreans evidently fear that if this sort of thing begins
there is no knowing where it will stop.
On
the 31st of March exchange was $188
Korean for $100
Japanese yen.
The
government very wisely has released the two men who were
arrested for acting as
money brokers.
The
native papers assert that of the money paid out by the Finance
Department for
salaries last month one half was depreciated currency.
The
reports from Su-wun state that typhus is very prevalent there
and that as many
as seventy people have died there in a single day recently.
Yi
Yong-jik, who as was noted last month, was condemned to be banished
for severe strictures which he made on the government officials has been sent to Ch’ul-do or “Iron island” off Ham-gyŭng Province to remain for three years.
Yi
Keun-t’ăk must be a very busy man as he is judge of the Supreme
Court, Chief of
Police, second in command of the gendarmes, and Chief of the
Imperial Body
Guard.
The
native papers state that the Chinese Minister has asked the
Korean government
to intervene to prevent the repetition of Korean [page 170] raids across the Yalu into
Chinese territory. It seems that the tables are being turned.
The
Korean government has taken into its employ four Russians. Two
of them are
glass makers, one an iron founder and one a weaving expert.
Japanese
merchants have brought from P’yŭng-an Province 5200 bags of rice to sell in
Chemulpo and Seoul.
Of
the $20,000 donated by the emperor for famine relief $15,000 have been distributed
in the country and $5,000 are to be distributed in Seoul.
Yi
Yong-ik has in hand 52000 lbs of government ginseng which will
be shortly sent
to China and marketed.
Yi
Han-Sŭl has put down $2000, to start a silk growing
farm in Yong-pyung.
Permission has been secured from the Department of Agriculture
Sim
Neung-wŭn of Tong-jin has given $4,000 to help seventy
households over the hard
times until the barley crop ripens.
C.
T. Tong Esq,
formerly Chinese Consul at Chemulpo, has been appointed
President of the Chinese
Chamber of Commerce in Chefoo which
represents
merchants in eight of the provinces of China. This is called the
Choo-chow Guild,
The
13th inst was set apart by the Japanese authorities as the
annual memorial day
to the soldiers who fell in the late war and to whom a monument
has been
erected on the slopes of Nam San.
On
the 4th instant Yi Chă-gak the
special envoy to King Edward VII coronation, together with two
aides Ko Ueui-gyŭng
and Kim Chohyŭn started for England. The sum of $40,000 was appropriated for their expenses.
According
to the report of the Japanese Consul in Wonsan gold has been
exported from that
place to Japan during the past year to the amount of $1,658,495;
and to China
to the amount of $16,750; making
a total of $1,676,245.
This is an increase of $242,669 over last year.
On
April 1st
work was, begun on the monument that is to be erected in
commemoration of the brilliant events of the present reign. There will
be two stones, one in the ordinary shape and one in the shape of a large drum, with the ta-geuk or national emblem in the center. The
cost of these together with buildings, etc, will be defrayed by
a tax of 20 per
cent on the salaries of all government officials during two months.
Kim
Pyŭng-t’ăk of Mu-ju, Ham-gyŭng Province, has paid $120 towards the taxes of the
destitute people of his town and distributed large quantities of rice to the starving.
The
famine on the island of Kyo-dong near Kang-wha has resulted in
the desertion of
598 houses.
Appropriations
as follows have been made toward the expenses of Prince Wi-wha
who is now in
America: a balance of the appropriation for 1900, $8,000; and
for the first
month of 1902, $667.
The
prefect of Mi-ryang, Kyŭng-sang Province writes the government
that there is
danger of a rising among the people unless one Kim Ch’ang-yul, [page
171] who is interested in a gold
mine there, is not compelled to pay back $35,000 which he has taken from
the people by indirection.
As
we have before
noted, the new monastery,
the Wun-heung-sa
outside the east gate has been made the chief monastery in the country and the
whole system has been organized with this monastery as the
governing center.
The Household Department is not leaving the matter in the hands of the monks but
has appointed a civil director, secretary and six clerks. This
is a rather
remarkable revival of Buddhist influence in Korea.
Kim
Ch’ŭng-sik
the superintendent of trade in Chinnampo is in trouble. Last
year he urged the
government to engage the services of a very wonderful geomancer living
at Myo-hyang San and select a place in P’yŭng-yang for a new
palace. The
Emperor so ordered and gave some $20,000 for the purpose; but
later suspicions
were aroused regarding the affair and a detective was sent down
to investigate.
It was found that there was no such distinguished geomancer and
that the government
had been hoaxed. The result is that Kim Chŭng-sik’s honors have
been taken away
and his arrest has been ordered.
The
commission in charge of the erection of the new monument in
honor of the
brilliant events of the present reign have appealed to the students of all the
common schools in Seoul asking for contributions, and they are
giving ten cents
apiece all around.
An
old Korean custom is being revived. Before the late China-Japan war it was customary
for the prime minister to have a large fan called a p’a-ch’o-sŭn carried before him as
he passed along the street, but this was discontinued after the
war. It is now
to be revived.
A
clerk in the Chemulpo Korean Post Office having received two
letters from a
Frenchman with order for registration gave a false registration
receipt and
stole the letters one of which contained a check on Shanghai for
$2,000 and the other a check on
Nagasaki for $750.
He went to China and managed to get the $2,000 check cashed but
he met sharpers
or thieves who robbed him of it. Then he went to Nagasaki but
failed to cash
the other check. Then he came home and stopped at his house in Seoul.
The Frenchman hunted him up and got hold of his coat collar and
asked him to explain. The fellow bit the
Frenchman’s
hand and managed to escape and is still at large.
The
girl’s school which was founded in 1899 gradually fell into a decline but
now efforts are being made to put it on a solid footing. The
emperor is
interested in it and has given $10,000 to prepare new buildings
and it is
greatly to he hoped that the school will be a thorough success.
A
new tax is to be levied on tobacco and liquors throughout the
country.
The
government has conferred the rank of Chusa upon many wealthy men in
the provinces who have been giving their private means to
relieve the
sufferings of the people.
A
daughter was born
to Rev. and Mrs. Burkwall on the 18th inst.
[page 172] The tennis season opened
at the Seoul Union tennis grounds on the 18th inst.
Herbert
Goffe, Esq., the British Consul at Chemulpo, left for home on
leave early this
month and Mr. Fox, formerly Secretary of Legation in Seoul,
takes the place
thus made vacant.
Four
robbers entered the house of Kim Yong-je in Seoul on the 7th but
Mr. Kim put up
such a good fight that the rascals dropped everything they had
and fled. Among
the things they threw away was quite a considerable amount of
loot they had
taken elsewhere.
This was sent to the police headquarters and returned to its owners.
The
French Minister asks for payment, with interest, of $280, a debt incurred by
Koreans in Paris at the time of the exposition.
It
is announced that the removal of the late queen’s tomb will take
place in the
tenth moon, which will be in November.
The
prefect of T’ă-an
named Yi Keui-sŭk has distinguished himself by building a
school, at his own
expense, costing some $480.
And helped people pay their taxes to the extent of 200,000 cash,
and gave ten measures
of rice to each of 300 households.
The
late edicts against counterfeiting have borne fruit in the
execution by
strangulation of Hong Pyöng-jin and the severe beating of Yi Kön-yung and his introduction
to the chain-gang.
At
the intercession of several of the ministers of state Yi
Yong-jik has been
recalled from banishment. It will be remembered that he severely
criticized the
present personnel of the government.
The
entire town of Mi-ryang in Kyung-sang Province was destroyed by
bandits early in this month.
In
Kyo-ha district the people driven by hunger began to pull the bark from trees
and eat it. Some trees near a royal tomb were thus destroyed. The tomb
keeper protested but the people said, “We might as will die this
way as any
other”
and he could not stop them. Under one tree he found five dead
bodies.
The
governor of North Chulla Province reports that in eighteen
districts in his
province there are 21.363 households that are absolutely
destitute; they
include 41,358 persons.
A
Japanese has erected a pavilion on the slope of Namsan where
Koreans can go and
play “go-bang” or chess. It is a sort of sporting club, each Korean
giving a yen a month as dues.
In
Korea there is an institution called the Ki-ro-so which may be
translated “The Hall of the Elders.” If
is a sort of honorary
degree to which officials of the first and second grades are
eligible after passing their 50th year.
Previous to the time of Yung-jung Tă-wang (17241776) sixty years
was the limit
but at that time the age limit was lowered to fifty years. Since
the beginning
of the dynasty there have been only four kings who have attained
the age
requisite for enrollment in the list of the Ki-ro-so. Of these
four the present
king is one, since he has now attained his fifty-first year. For this reason the
Prince Imperial has memorialized His Majesty suggesting that
preparations be made for an
[page 173] imposing ceremony which
shall signalize the entrance of His Majesty into the “Hall of the Elders.”
Therefore on May 30 all the men in Korea over seventy years old
will be invited
to a great feast at the palace. On June 1st all the officials will
feast at the
palace. The total expense will probably be in the vicinity of
$300,000. As will
be seen from the statement above, this is a celebration that has
not recurred
since the middle of the 18th
century.
Since
the beginning of winter the capital of South Ham-gyŭng Province
has been in a
state of semi-anarchy. It was caused by the oppression of the
officials. In one
of the many popular uprisings a Chusa was killed and in all 180
houses have been burned. Even at the present time there is great
disaffection
not only there but throughout the country.
The
native paper states that the governor of Whang-hă Province has
so disposed of
the thousands which he stole from the people of his province
that he is safe
from punishment.
The
Russian Minister has applied for permission to connect the
telegraph line from
Seoul to Eui-ju with a Russian line from Eui-ju to Peking.
The
governor of Kang-wŭn Province asks for five hundred soldiers
from Seoul to help
guard the many mountain passes in his province because of the
large number of
highwaymen that infest the passes.
The
Minister of Education,
in view of the fact that military drill is to be introduced into
foreign
language schools asks that a captain be detailed to each of the
schools to act
as drill masters.
Yi
Yong-ik was appointed Chief of Police on the 17th inst.
One
hundred Japanese policemen and one hundred Korean policemen are
to be appointed
to act as guards at the forty
stations of the Seoul-Fusan Railway.
Thirty
armed robbers wrecked the village of Ku-nani, in the district of
Mi-ryang,
South Kyŭng-sang Province on the 2nd inst. Six of the villagers
were killed and
over 100 houses burned.
Cho
Han-byŭk, the general superintendent of six foreign language
schools, petitions
the government to erect in Pak-dong
a large buildirg which will house all these schools. The
estimated cost is
$90,000.
On
the 24th of March the three villages of To-rang, To-jŭng and Nam-San in South Ham-gyŭng
Proxnnce were destroyed
by fire, 187 houses being burned and 20 people killed.
During
the last two months 114 houses have burned in the town of Kyung-ju and three lives lost.
There
counterfeiters in Kim-sŭng have been arrested and condemned to the chain-gang for
life.
On
the l0th
instant a storm on the western coast wrecked forty Korean boats
near Mokpo and
thirty men were drowned.
An
official of Kong-ju in South Ch’ung-ch’ung Province reports that in the
town of Im-ch’ŭn a certain family was driven to such straits
that for some days
they fed off the bodies of two of the smaller children.
[page 174] Laws, Ordinances and
Notifications OF THE Corean Government Gazette, 1901
[not scanned easily, see
images]
[page 177] MEDIEVAL KOREA.
The
records say that he was so anxious to have a son that he committed an act almost if not quite
unparalleled in the history of any land, civilized or savage.
Having become prematurely
old by his terrible excesses, he introduced a number of young
men into the
palace and gave them the entre
into
the queen’s
apartments, hoping thereby that his hopes might be realised. In
this he was
disappointed. One day while passing an hour in the apartments of
his favorite, Sin-don,
he noticed there a new-born babe, the son of one of Sin-don’s concubines. He seemed
pleased with the child and Sin-don asked him to adopt it as his
own. The king laughed
but did not seem averse to the proposition. Returning to the palace he summoned
the officials and told them that for some time he had been
frequenting the
apartments of Sin-don and that he had gotten a son by one of the women there. He
knew well enough that if he proposed to adopt Sin-don’s son the opposition would
be overwhelming, so he took this means of carrying out the plan.
Of course it
is impossible to verify the truth of this statement. It may have
been a
fabrication of the historians of the following dynasty in order
to justify the
founder of the new dynasty in overthrowing Koryŭ. The annals of
the Ming
dynasty say that it was the king’s son and not Sin-don’s.
In 1366 the opposition to the favorite
increased in intensity and the king was almost buried beneath
petitions for his
banishment or death. These the king answered by banishing or killing the senders and by
this means the open opposition was put an end to. The wily monk
knew that he
needed more than the king’s favor in order to maintain his
position of honor,
and so he began to take away the fields and other property of
high officials
and distribute them among the people in order to curry favor
with them. This
brought from the officials a new and fiercer protest and they
told the king
that [page 178] these acts would make his
reign a subject of ridicule to future generations. While this
did not move the
king to active steps against Sin-don it caused a coolness to
spring up between
them.
All this time the Japanese were busy
at the work of pillage and destruction. They took possession of
an island near
Kang-wha with the intention of fortifying it and making of it a
permanent
rendezvous. They landed wherever they pleased and committed the
most horrible
excesses with impunity. The Koryŭ troops were in bad condition.
They had no
uniforms and their arms were of the poorest kind and mostly out
of order. They
dared not attack the Japanese even when there was good hope of
success. The
generals showed the king the ways and means of holding the
freebooters in check but he would not
follow their advice, probably
on account of the expense. He paid dearly for his economy in the
end.
The mother of the king could not be brought to treat Sindon
with respect. When the king expostulated with her and told her
that the favorite was the pillar of the
state she declared that he was a low-born adventurer and that
she would not
treat him as her equal. From that time she incurred the deadly
enmity of the
favorite who used every means in his power to influence the king
against her.
He became suspicious of everyone who held any high position and
caused many of
the highest officials to be put to death. He was commonly called
“The Tiger.” The depth of the king’s
infatuation was shown when in this same year he went to a
monastery to give
thanks to Buddha for the cessation of famine, which he ascribed
to his having
taken Sindon as counsellor. It is also shown in the impunity
with which Sindon
took the king to task in public for certain things that displeased
him. The
favorite was playing with fire. The people sent to the king
repeatedly asking
if the rumors of the favorite’s drunkenness and debaucheries
were correct. But the
king’s eyes had not yet been opened to the true state of affairs
and these
petitioners were severely punished.
[page 179] Chapter XI.
Sin-don’s
pride....
Mongol Emperor’s plan of escape to Koryŭ . . .Mongol Empire
falls Japanese
envoy snubbed ....an
imperial letter from the Ming court. . . .ill treatment of
Japanese envoy bears
fruit . . . .more trouble in Quelpart.... census and revenue Gen. Yi promoted....Koryŭ adopts Ming dress and
coiffure . . Gen. Yi makes a campaign across the Yalu . .the
Japanese come
north of the capital....Sin-don
is overthrown....
popular belief regarding him ....trouble
from three sources at the same time.... a Mongol messenger.... the Japanese burn Han-yang.... a new favorite.... a laughing-stcck. . . .Chöng
Mong-ju an envoy to Nanking. . . .plans for a navy.... useless army.... Ming Emperor demands
horses. . . .Quelpart rebels
defeated...
king assassinated....Ming
Emperor refuses to ratify the succession.... Mongols favored at the Koryŭ
court.... a supernatural proof...
Japanese repulsed...
Japanese deny their responsibility for the action of corsairs.
The
year 1367 saw no diminution of the symptoms that proclaimed the
deep-seated
disease that was eating at the vitals of Koryŭ. Sin-don even
dared to flout the
emperor by scornfully casting aside an imperial missive
containing a notification
of his elevation to an honorary position. The king continued to
abase himself
by performing menial duties in Buddhistic ceremonies at his
favorite monastery.
Sin-don added to his other claims the power of geomancy and said
the king must
move the capital to P’yŭng-yang. He was sent to look over the
site with a view
to a removal thither, but a storm of hail frightened him out of
the project.
Returning to Song-do he refused to see the king for four days,
urging as his
excuse the fatigue of the journey. His encroachments continued
to such a point
that at last he took no care to appear before the king in the
proper court
dress but came in the ordinary dress of the Koryŭ gentleman, and
he ordered the
historians not to mention the fact in the annals.
The Mongol horse-breeders still
ruffled it in high style on the island of Quelpart where they
even saw fit to
drive out the prefect sent by the king. For this reason an
expedition was
fitted out against them and they were soon brought to terms.
They however
appealed to the emperor. As it [page 180] happened
the Mongol emperor was at this time in
desperate straits and foresaw the impossibility of long holding
Peking against
the Ming forces. He therefore formed the plan of escaping to the
island of
Quelpart and there finding asylum. For this purpose he sent
large store of
treasure and of other necessaries to this place. At the same
time he sent an
envoy to the court at Song-do relinquishing all claim to the
island. In this way he apparently hoped to gain the good will of
Koryŭ, of
which he feared he would soon stand in need. The king, not
knowing the emperor’s
design, feared that this was a device by which to raise trouble
and he hastened
to send an envoy declaring that the expeditious to Quelpart were
not in
reference to the Mongols there but in order to dislodge a band
of Japanese
freebooters. The former prefects had always treated the people
of Quelpart harshly
and had exacted large sums from them on any and every pretext;
but the prefect
now sent was determined to show the people a different kind of
rule. He even
carried jars of water from the mainland rather than drink the
water of
Quelpart. So at least the records affirm. Naturally the people
idolized him.
The year 1368 opened, the year which
beheld the demolition of the Mongol empire. It had risen less
than a century before
and had increased with marvelous rapidity until it threatened
the whole eastern
hemisphere. Its decadence had been as rapid and as terrible as
its rise. The
Mongols were peculiarly unfit to resist the seductions of the
more refined civilizations
which they encountered. The Ming forces drove the Mongol court
from Peking and
the dethroned emperor betook himself northward into the desert
to the town of
Sa-mak.
This year also witnessed
the arrival of a friendly embassy from Japan bearing gifts to
the king. Here
was Koryŭ’s great opportunity
to secure the cooperation
of the Japanese government in the work of putting down the
pirates who were
harrying the shores of the peninsula. Proper treatment of this
envoy and a little diplomacy
would have saved Koryŭ untold
suffering, but the low-born but all-powerful favorite. Sin-don,
took advantage
of the occasion to make an exhibition of his own importance and
he snubbed the
envoy so [page 181] effectually
that the latter immediately returned to Japan. The foolish
favorite went so far
as to withhold proper food from him and his suite, and addressed
them in low
forms of speech. The same year,
at his instigation, the whole system of national examinations
was done away
with.
Early in 1369 the first envoy, Sŭl Sa, from the Ming court arrived
in Song-do. He was the bearer of an imperial letter which read
as follow: --
“After
the Sung dynasty lost its power, a hundred years passed by
without its
recovering from the blow, but heaven hated the drunkenness and
licentiousness
of the Mongols and now after eighteen years of war the fruition
of our labors
has been reached. At first we entered the Mongol army and there beheld the evils
of the Mongol reign. Then with heaven’s help we went to the
west, to Han-ju and
overcame its king Chin U-ryang.
Then we raised the standard of revolt against the Mongols. In
the east we
overcame the rebel Chang Sa-sung
and in the south the Min-wŏl kingdom. In the north the Ho-in fell
before us and now all the people of China call us emperor. The
name of our dynasty is Ming and the name
of this auspicious year is Hong-mu. We call upon you now as in
duty bound to
render allegiance to us. In times past you were very intimate with us for it
was your desire to better the condition of your people thereby.”
Such
was the importance of this embassy that the king went out in
person to meet it.
Splendid gifts were offered which, however, the envoy declined.
In accordance with the summons
contained in this letter the king formally put away the Mongol
calendar and
assumed that of the Mings instead. An envoy was immediately sent
to the Ming
court to offer congratulations and perform the duties of a
vassal. The emperor
responded graciously by sending back to Koryŭ all citizens of
that kingdom who
had been held in semi-durance by the Mongols.
The criminal neglect of opportunity in
driving away the friendly
Japanese envoy now began to bear its bitter fruit. Many Japanese
had from time
to time settled peacefully in southern Koryŭ and the king had
given them a
place to live at Nam-hă in Kyŭng-sang
Province. They now broke their oath [page 182] of fealty to the
government, rose in open revolt and began ravaging the country
right and left.
As the emperor of the Mongols had fled
away north and his scheme for taking refuge in Quelpart had come
to naught we
would suppose the Mongol horse-breeders in that island would act
with
considerable circumspection; but on the other hand they kept up
a continual
disturbance, revolting and surrendering again in quick
succession much to the
annoyance of the central government.
In the latter part of the year 1369
the government again took a census of the arable land of the
peninsula in order
to make a re-estimate of the revenue to be received. This
indicates that there
had been a certain degree of prosperity in spite of all untoward
circumstances
and that the margin of cultivation had moved at least a little
way up the
hill-sides, and that waste land had been reclaimed. It is only
by inferences
from chance statements like this that we get an occasional
imperfect glimpse of
the condition of the common people. Oriental histories have not
been written
with reference to the common people.
The king had now handed over to
Sin-don the whole care of public business and he was virtually
the ruler of the
land. Gen. Yi T’ă-jo had shown his wisdom in staying as far as
possible from
the capital and in not crossing the path of the dangerous
favorite. He was now
appointed general-in-chief
of all the north-eastern territory and at the same time Gen. Yi
Im-in was
appointed to a similar position in the north-west. There was
some fear lest
fugitive Mongols might cross the border and seek refuge in Koryŭ
territory. The
chief business of the army there was to guard all the approaches
and see to it
that such fugitives were strictly excluded. In the following
year, 1370, Gen.
Yi Ta-jo even crossed
the Yalu, probably in the vicinity of the present Lam-su, into
what was then Yŭ-jin
territory, and took 2000 bullocks and 100 horses, but gave them all to the people
to be used in cultivating the fields.
Now that the Ming dynasty was firmly
established the emperor turned his attention to Korea. He began
by investing
the king anew with the insignia of royalty and presenting him
with a complete
outfit of clothes of the style [page 183] of
the Ming dynasty. He also gave musical instruments and the Ming
calendar. The
important law was promulgated that after a man had passed the
civil examinations
in Koryŭ he should go to Nanking and there undergo further
examination. The
king received all the emperor’s gifts and commands with complacency and
soon the Ming dress was adopted throughout by the official class
and more
gradually by the common people. It is the style of dress in
vogue in Korea today,
whereas the Chinese themselves adopted later the dress of their
Manchu
conquerers. In this respect the Koreans today are really more
Chinese that the
Chinese themselves.
With the opening of 1371 Gen. Yi led
an army across the Yalu and attacked Ol-ja Fortress. The whole
territory between
the Yalu and the Great
Wall was at this time held by the Ya-jin people or by offshoots
of the Mongol
power. The Ming emperor had as yet made no attempt to take it
and therefore this
expedition of Koryŭ’s was not looked upon as an act of bad faith
by China. Just
before the attack on Ol-ja began, there came over to the Koryŭ
forces a general
who, formerly a Koryŭ citizen, had long been in the Mongol
service. His name was Yi In-bok. Gen. Yi sent
him to Song-do where the king elevated him to a high position. A
bridge had
been thrown across the Yalu and the army had crossed in safety,
but a
tremendous thunder storm threw the army into confusion, for they
feared it was
a warning voice from a deity who was angered by this invasion of
trans-Yalu territory. With great
presence of mind one of the leaders shouted that it was a good
sign for it
meant that the heavenly dragon was shaking things up a bit as a
presage of their
victory. Their fears were thus allayed and the attack upon the
fortress was
successful. Gen.
Yi then led his forces toward the Liao Fortress but cautiously
left all the camp
baggage three days in the rear and advanced, with seven days
rations in hand.
The advance guard of 3000 reached the fortress and began the
assault before the
main body came
up. When the garrison saw the full army approach they were in
despair but their
commander was determined to make a fight. As he stood on the
wall and in person
refused Gen. Yi’s terms it is said that the latter drew his bow
and let fly an
[page 184] arrow which sped so true
that it struck off the commander’s helmet, whereupon Gen. Yi shouted, “If you do not surrender I
will hit your face next time.”
The commander thereupon surrendered. So Gen. Yi took the place
and having dismantled
it and burned all the supplies, started on the return march.
Provisions ran
low, and it was found necessary to kill the beasts of burden.
They were in some
danger from the detachments of the enemy who hung upon their
rear but they were
kept at a respectful distance by an ingenious stratagem of Gen.
Yi’s, for
wherever he made a camp he compelled the soldiers to make elaborate preparations
even to the extent of erecting separate cattle sheds and water
closets. The
enemy finding these in the deserted camps deemed that the army
must be in fine
condition and so dared not attack them. Thus the whole army got
safely back to
An-ju.
As the Japanese pirates, emboldened by
the impunity with which they could ravage Korea, now came even
north of the
capital and attacked Hă-ju the capital of Whanghă Province, and also burned
forty Koryŭ boats, Gen. Yi was detailed to go and drive them
away, which he
speedily did.
The royal favorite was now nearing the
catastrophe toward which his criminally corrupt course
inevitably led. He was
well known to all but the king whom he had infatuated. But now
he began to see
that the end was not far off. He knew that soon the king too
would discover his
knavery. For this cause he determined to use the little power he
had left in an
attempt to overthrow the government. What the plan was we are
not told but it
was nipped in the bud, for the king discovered it and arrested
some of his
accomplices and by means of torture learned the whole truth
about the man whom
he had before considered too good for this world. The revulsion
of feeling was
complete. He first banished
Sin-don to Su-wŭn
and then at the urgent advice of the whole court sent an
executioner to make
way with him. The messenger of death bore a letter with him in
which the king
said, “I
promised never to move against you but I never anticipated such actions as those of
which you have been guilty. Yon have (1) rebelled, (2) you have
numerous
children, though a monk and unmarried, (3) you have [page 185] built yourself a palace in
my capital. These things I did not agree to. So Sin-don and his two
sons perished.
It
is said of Sin-don that he was mortally afraid of hunting-dogs
and that in his
feasts he insisted upon having the flesh of black fowls and
white horses to
eat. For these reasons the people said that he was not a man but
a fox in
disguise; for Korean lore affirms that if any animal drinks of
water that has
lain for twenty years in a human skull it will have the power to
assume at will
any form of man or beast. But the peculiar condition is added
that if a hunting dog looks such a man in the
face he will be compelled to resume
his
original shape.
With the opening of 1372 troubles
multiplied. Nap T’ap-chul,
a Mongol chieftain at large, together with Kogan, led a mixed
army of Mongol
and Yŭ-jin adventurers across the Yalu and began to harry the
northern border. Gen.
Chi Yun was sent to put down the presumptuous robbers. At the
same time the
Quelpart horse-breeders again revolted and when the king, at the
command of the
emperor, sent a man to bring horses as tribute to China the
insurrectionists
put him to death. But the common people of Quelpart formed a
sort of militia
and put down the insurrection themselves. The Japanese also made
trouble, for
they now began again to ravage the eastern coast, and struck as high north
as An-byun, and Ham-ju, now Ham-heung. They also carried on
operations at
Nam-han near Seoul, but in both instances were driven off.
It is said that at this time the king
was given over to sodomy and that he had a “school” of boys at the palace to cater
to his unnatural passions. The people were deeply indignant and
talk ran very
high, but the person of the king was sacred, and his acts were
not to be
accounted for; so he went his evil way unchecked, each step
bringing him nearer
the overthrow of the dynasty which was now not far away.
Late in the year the king sent a
present of fifty horses to the Ming emperor.
No sooner had the spring of 1373
opened than the remnant of the Mongols in the north sent to the
king and said “We are about to raise a
mighty force to overthrow the Ming empire, and you must
cooperate with us in
this [page 186] work.” The messenger who brought
this unwelcome summons was promptly clapped into prison, but
later at the advice
of the courtiers he was liberated and sent back home.
It would be well-nigh impossible to
describe each successive expedition of the Japanese to the
shores of Koryŭ, but
at this time one of unusual importance occurred. The marauders
ascended the Han
River in their small boats and made a swift attack on Han-yang
the site of the
present capital of Korea. Before leaving they burned it to the
ground. The
slaughter was terrific and the whole country and especially the
capital was
thrown into a state of unusual solicitude. The Japanese, loaded
down with
booty, made their way to the island of Kyo-dong just outside the
island of
Kang-wha, and proceeded to kill and plunder there.
The boy whom the king had called his
son but who was in reality an illegitimate son of Sin-don, was
named Mo-ri-no,
but now as he had gained his majority he was given the name of U
and the rank
of Kang-neung-gun,
or “Prince
who is near to the king.” As Sin-don was dead the king made Kim
Heung-gyŭng his
favorite and pander. Gen. Kŭl Sang
was put in charge of the defensive operations against the
Japanese but as he
failed to cashier one of his lieutenants who had suffered defeat
at the hands
of the Japanese the testy king took off his unoffending head.
Gen. Ch’oe Yŭng was then put in
charge and ordered to fit out a fleet to oppose the marauders.
He was at the
same time made criminal judge, but he committed so many ludicrous
mistakes and made such a travesty of justice that he became a
general laughing stock.
As the Ming capital was at Nanking the
sending of envoys was a difficult matter, for they were obliged
to go by boat,
and in those days, and with the craft at their command, anything
but coastwise
sailing was exceedingly dangerous. So when the Koryŭ envoy Chöng
Mong-ju, one
of the few great men of the Koryŭ dynasty, arrived at the emperor’s court, the latter ordered
that thereafter envoys should come but once in three years. In
reply to this
the king said that if desired the envoy could be sent overland;
but this the emperor
forbade because of the danger from the remnants of the Mongol
power.
[page 187] The eventful year 1374 now
came in.
Gen. Yi Hyŭn told the king that without a navy Koryŭ would never
be able to
cope with Japanese pirates. He showed the king a plan for a navy
which he had
drawn up. His majesty was pleased with it and ordered it carried
out, but the
general affirmed that a navy never could be made out of landsmen
and that a
certain number of islanders should be selected and taught naval
tactics for
five years. In order
to do this he urged that a large part of the useless army be
disbanded. To all
of this the royal assent was given. The quality of the army may be judged from the
action of the troops sent south to Kyŭng-sang Province to oppose
a band of Japanese. They ravaged
and looted as badly as the Japanese themselves. And when at last
the two forces
did meet the Koryŭ troops were routed with a loss of 5,000 men.
Meanwhile the
Japanese were working their will in Whang-hă Province, north and
west of the
capital, and as to the details of it even the annals give up in
despair and say
the details were so harrowing that it was impossible to describe
them.
The emperor of China was determined to
obtain 2,000 of the celebrated horses bred on the island of
Quelpart and after repeated
demands the king sent to that island to procure them. The Mongol
horse-breeders
still had the business in hand and were led by four men who
said, “We are Mongols, why should
we furnish the Ming emperor with horses?” So they gave only 300
animals. The
emperor insisted upon having the full 2,000 and the king
reluctantly proceeded
to extremities. A fleet of 300 boats was fitted out and 25,000
men were carried
across the straits. On the way a gale of wind was encountered
and many of the
boats were swamped, but the following morning the survivors,
still a large
number, arrived at Myŭng-wŭl, or “Bright Moon,” Harbor where they found
3,000 men drawn up to oppose their landing. When the battle was
joined the
enemy was defeated and chased thirty li
but they again rallied in the southern part of the island at
Ho-do where they
made a stand. There they were surrounded and compelled to
surrender. The
leader, T’ap-chi
was cut in two at the waist and many others committed suicide.
Several hundred
others who refused to surrender were cut down. To the credit of
the officers
who led [page 188]
the
expedition be it said that wherever they went the people were
protected and
lawless acts were strictly forbidden.
The king had now reached the moment of
his fate. The blood of many innocent men was on his hands and he
was destined
to a violent death himself. He was stabbed by one of his most
trusted eunuchs
while in a drunken sleep. The king’s mother was the first to
discover the crime
and with great presence of mind she concealed the fact and
hastily summoning
two of the courtiers consulted with them as to the best means of
discovering the murderer. As it happened the eunuch was detected
by the blood
with which his clothes were stained. Put to the torture he
confessed the crime and
indicated his accomplice. The cause of his act was as follows.
One of the king’s
concubines was with child. When the eunuch informed the king the
latter was
very glad and asked who the father might be. The eunuch replied
that one Hong
Mun, one of the king’s favorites, was the father. The king said
that he would
bring about the death of this Hong so that no one should ever
know that the
child was not a genuine prince. The eunuch knew that this meant
his own death
too, for he also was privy to the fact. So he hastened to Hong
Mun and they
together matured the plan for the assassination.
U, the supposed son of the king, now
ascended the throne. His posthumous title is Sin-u. An envoy was
sent to
Nanking to announce the fact, but the emperor refused to ratify
his accession
to the throne. The reason may have been because he was not
satisfied as to the
manner of the late king’s demise,
or it may be that someone had intimated to him that the
successor was of
doubtful legitimacy; and now to add to the difficulties of the situation
the Ming envoy on his way home with 200 tribute horses was
waylaid by Korean renegades
who stole the horses and escaped to the far north. When news of
this reached
Nanking the Korean envoy there hastened to make good his escape.
A conference was now held at the Koryŭ
capital and as the breach with the Ming power seemed beyond
remedy it was
decided to make advances to the Mongols who still lingered in
the north; but at
the earnest desire of Chöng Mong-ju this decision was reversed
and an envoy was
sent to [page 189] Nanking
to explain matters as best he could.
The eunuch and his accomplice who had killed the king were now
executed and
notice of the fact was sent to the Chinese court.
There was great dissatisfaction among
the Koryŭ officials for they all knew that the king was a mere
usurper and it was
again suggested that approaches be made to the Mongols. About
this time also a
Mongol envoy came demanding to know whose son the present king
was. They wanted to put the king of
Mukden on the throne, as he was of course favorable to the
Mongols. A great and
acrimonious dispute now arose between the Mongol and Ming
factions in the Koryŭ
court. But the Mongol sympathizers carried the day. This,
however, came to
nothing for when news came that the king of Mukden and many
Koryŭ renegades
were advancing in force on the Koryŭ frontier to take by force
what the officials
had decided to give unasked, there was a great revulsion of
feeling and troops
were sent to hold them in check. This was in 1376, and while
this was in
progress the Japanese were carrying fire and sword through the south without let
or hindrance.
Pan-ya the real mother of the king
came forward and claimed her position as such, but another of
the former king’s
concubines, Han, had always passed as the boy’s mother and she
was now loath to
give up the advantages which the position afforded. For this
reason she secured
the arrest and imprisonment of Pan-yu. It was decided that she
must die and she
was carried to the water’s edge and was about to be thrown in
when she
exclaimed, “When
I die one of the palace gates will fall as a sign of my
innocence and the truth
of my claim.” The story runs that when she sank beneath the
water this came
true and all knew, too late, that she was indeed the mother of
the king.
The Japanese now made their appearance
again in Ch’ungCh’ŭng
Province and took the town of Kong-ju. The Korean forces under
Gen. Pak In-gye
were there routed but not till their leader had been thrown from
his horse and
killed. Then an army under Gen. Ch’oe Yŭng met them at Hong san. The
general rushed forward ahead of his men to attack the marauders
and was wounded
by an arrow in the mouth but he did not retire from the fight.
The result was a
glorious [page 190]
victory for the Koryŭ forces. The Japanese were almost
annihilated.
Some time before this the king had
sent an envoy Na Heung-yu to Japan to ask the interference of
the Japanese Government against
the pirates, and the reply was now brought by the hand of a
Japanese monk Yang
Yu. It said, “The
pirates all live in western Japan in a place called Ku-ju and
they are rebels
against us and have been for twenty years. So we are not at
fault because of
the harm they have done you. We are about to send an expedition
against them
and if we take Ku-ju we swear that we will put an end to the
piracy.” But the pirates in the
meantime ravaged Kangw^ha and large portions of Chŭl-la
Province.
Chapter
XII.
A
Mongol proposal...
“The Revellers”....
friends with the Mongols . . . .Gen. Yi takes up arms against the Japanese.... victorious. . . envoys to
and from Japan . . .gun-powder , defeat turned into victory by
Gen. Yi. . .
.fire arrows...
vacillation....prophecy....Japan helps Koryŭ.... jealousies.... a reckless king...Gen. Yi’s
strategem .... a triumphal return... the emperor loses patience a coast guard... stone fights.... heavy tribute... the capital moved... Japanese
repelled....
lukewarm Koryŭ....
a disgraceful act Gen. Yi victorious in the north...the emperor
angry.... Japan sends back Koryŭ
captives....
a skillful diplomat....
fine sarcasm....
a grave error....
victory in the northeast....
untold excesses...
“Old Cat” ....tribute
rejected.
Toward
the close of 1377 the Mongol chieftain In-pukwun sent the king a letter
saying, “Let
us join forces and attack the Ming power.” At the same time he
sent back all the
Koryŭ people who had been taken captive at various times. The
king’s answer was
a truly diplomatic one. He said, “I will do so if you will first send
the king of Mukden to me, bound hand and foot.” We need hardly
say that this request
was not granted.
The next attack of the Japanese
extended all along the southern coast. The general who had been
placed in the south
to guard against them spent his time feasting with [page 191] courtezans and he and his
officers were commonly known as “The Revellers.” Fighting was not at all
in their intentions. When the king learned of this he banished
the general to a
distant island. Affairs at the capital were not going well.
Officials were so
numerous that the people again made use of the term “Smoke House Officials,” for there were so many
that nearly every house in the capital furnished one. They
tampered with the
list of appointments and without the king’s knowledge slipped in
the names of
their friends. So the people in contempt called it the “Secret List.”
The coquetting with the Mongols
brought forth fruit when early in 1378 they invested the king of
Koryŭ and he adopted
the Mongol name of the year. It is said that this caused great
delight among
the Mongols and that they now thought that with the help of
Koryŭ they would be
able to again establish their power in China.
After the Japanese had ravaged to
their hearts’
content in Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province and had killed
1000 men on Kang-wha and had burned fifty boats, the king did
what he ought to
have done long before, namely
appointed Gen. Yi Tă-jo as General-in-chief of the Koryŭ forces.
He took hold
of the matter in earnest and summoned a great number of monks to
aid in the
making of boats for coast defence. The pirates now were ravaging
the east and
south and were advancing on Song-do. The king wanted to run away but was dissuaded. The
Japanese were strongest in Kyŭng-sang Province. Gen. Yi’s first
encounter with
them was at Chiri Mountain in Chŭl-la Province and he there
secured a great victory,
demonstrating what has always been true, that under good
leadership Koreans
make excellent soldiers. When the Koryŭ troops had advanced
within 200 paces of
the enemy a burly Japanese was seen leaping and showing himself
off before his
fellows. Gen. Yi took a cross-bow and at the first shot laid the
fellow low.
The remainder of the Japanese fled up the mountain and took
their stand in a
solid mass which the records say resembled a hedge-hog; but Gen. Yi soon found a way
to penetrate this phalanx and the pirates were slaughtered
almost to man. But
Gen. Yi could not be everywhere at once and in the meantime
Kang-wha again suffered.
Gen. Yi was next seen fighting in Whang-hă Province [page 192] at Hă-ju, where he burned the
Japanese out from behind wooden defenses and slaughtered them
without quarter.
The Japanese Government had not been
able as yet to put down the pirates, but now an envoy, Sin Hong,
a monk, came
with gifts declaring that the government was not a party to the
expeditions of
the freebooters and that it was verv difficult to overcome them.
And so the
work went on, now on one coast of the country and now on
another. The king sent
an envoy to the Japanese Shogun, P’ă-ga-dă, to ask his interference, but
the shogun imprisoned the envoy and nearly starved him to death
and then sent
him back. The king wanted to send another, but the courtiers
were all afraid.
They all hated the wise and learned Chöng Mong-ju and told the
king to send
him. He was quite willing to go and, arriving at the palace of
the shogun, he
spoke out fearlessly and rehearsed the friendly relations that
had existed
between the two countries, and created a very good impression.
He was very
popular both with the shogun himself and with the Japanese
courtiers and when
he returned to Koryŭ the shogun sent a general, Chu Mang-in, as
escort and also
200 Koreans who had at some previous time been taken captive.
The shogun also
so far complied with
the king’’s request as to break up the piratical settlements on
the Sam-do or “Three islands.”
A man named Im Sŭn-mu had learned
among the Mongols the art of making gunpowder and a bureau was
now formed to
attend to its manufacture but as yet there were no firearms.
With the opening of 1379 things looked
blacker than ever. The Japanese were swarming in Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province and on
Kang-wha. The king was in mortal fear and had the walls of
Song-do carefully
guarded. Gen. Ch’oe
Yŭng was sent to hold them in check. The Japanese knew that no
one but he stood
between them and Song-do, so
they attacked him fiercely and soon put him to flight; but in
the very nick of
time Gen. Yi T’ă-jo came up with his cavalry, turned the
retreating forces
about and attacked the enemy so fiercely that defeat was turned
into a splendid
victory. A messenger arrived breathless at the gate of Song-do
saying that Gen,
Ch’oé had
been defeated.
THE KOREA REVIEW
MAY 1902
Necessity,
the Mother of Invention.
Han
Chun-deuk was without doubt a very wealthy man, even from a
western standpoint.
His annual income consisted of 200,000 bags of rice. He lived
just above the
Supyo-dari or
“Water
Gauge Bridge,”
a fashionable quarter of the city in those days -namely, a hundred and fifty
years ago. But he was as generous as he was rich. Fifty thousand
bags of rice were consumed yearly in supporting his near and
distant relatives
and fifty thousand more in charities, or we might better say, in
other
charities. Anyone who was ill or in distress or lacked the means
to bury a
parent or to take a wife had but to apply to Mr. Han and the
means would be forthcoming.
In such veneration was this philanthropist held by the whole
community that
never was anything, even a tile, stolen from his place:
Such was the man whom one Cho, living
in Nu-gak-kol west of the Kyöng-bok Palace, marked for his
victim. This Cho had
come of a wealthy family but his elder brother, who of course
took charge of
the estate upon the demise of the father, had squandered the
patrimony in
riotous living and dying childless had left to Cho a legacy of
debts. These had
eaten up the remnants of the estate and now, thrown upon a cold
and heartless
world, the man accustomed to a life of ease [page 194] and uninstructed in any
useful trade, was in danger of falling to the status of “poor white trash” as that
term is applied in certain portions of America.
His wife stood in the imminent, deadly breach and fought back the
enemy by making tobacco pouches, which she put on the market at
ten cash
apiece.
One day Cho came in and sat for an
hour in deep thought, paying no attention to any words that were
addressed to
him, but finally raised his head and exclaimed:
“I have it.”
His wife gave him a quick startled
glance followed by a doubtful sort of smile which seemed to say:
“Yes, you seem to have it
very bad,”
but she did not say it aloud.
“Within two days we will be
wealthy folks again,”
he said. His reason was evidently tottering.
“Hm! The price of tobacco
pouches must have gone way up then,” she said. He gave her a glance of
scorn.
“Give me one hundred cash
and I will build up a fortune as if by magic” he cried. “This is no experiment. It’s a sure thin.”
She heaved a sigh as if she had heard
of sure things before, but nevertheless produced the hundred
cash. With this small
amount of capital he went to work and made good his word, for
ere twenty-four
hours had passed he was enormously wealthy. And this moving tale
hangs upon the
means which he employed to amass a fortune in so short a space
of time.
Taking his hundred cash he left the
house and was gone all the afternoon. In the evening he returned
and spent the major
portion of the night in putting a razor edge on a small knife
that he had
purchased. His wife wondered whether he were going into the
barber business or
were going to cut his own throat, but she asked no questions.
The following morning at a proper hour
Cho presented himself at the gate of the wealthy Han Chun-deuk
and asked to see
the master of the house. As Cho was a stranger the gateman of
course replied
that his master was out, but as Cho was insistent he effected an
entrance and
having announced his approach to the rich man’s reception-room by
clearing his [page 195] throat
vigorously he bowed himself into the presence of the
philanthropist.
It was still too early for the usual
callers to be present and the two men had the room to themselves. After a
few irrelevant remarks on the weather and the latest news the
caller came to
the point.
“Ahem! I have a very special
word to speak to you this morning. The fact is that though
formerly in good
circumstances I have become reduced to the greatest poverty and
am in great
need of a thousand ounces of silver with which to engage in
business. Could you kindly let me have it?”
A thousand ounces of silver! It took
even Han’s breath away.
A thousand ounces of silver! Well, well, here was a case. The
history of his
philanthropies had seen no such monumental effrontery. And he an
unknown man,
asking for a thousand ounces of silver before he had told his
name or been in
the room ten minutes. The good man fairly stammered:
“But, -but -how -but how can I give you all
that silver when I don’t know you, nor anything about your
particular circumstances,
nor your plans?”
The visitor sat with downcast eyes
and never a sign of embarrassment on his features. He spoke in a
slow
unimpassioned voice.
“It simply means that unless
you give me the silver, my life ends to-day,” and he fixed the
pooi
philanthropist with a glassy stare that made him shiver.
“Why, my dear fellow, how in
the world -what
is the sense -I
don’t see
where the logic of it comes in. Here you come a perfect stranger
and –”
“That has nothing to do with
it at all, I need a thousand ounces of silver or my life is
forfeit.”
“But a thousand ounces! Come now, let us say a hundred
and I will let you
have it, but a thousand, -no,
no.”
“Very well” answered Cho in the
same quiet tone, and he rose as if to go but as he gained his
feet he drew out
the sharp knife plunged it into his abdomen and cut a frightful
gash from left
to right and fell headlong before the horrified Han and lay
weltering in his own
life-blood.
The poor philanthropist wrung his
hands in an agony of fear. What should be do? The knife had
fallen to the
[page 196] floor at his feet and who
would believe that the unknown visitor had killed himself. He
sprang to the
outer door and made it fast. Then he went to the inner apartments and sent one of the
woman slaves to call his trusted body-servant. Him only he
admitted into the
presence of the dead and told the story, and begged the servant
to help him out
of the difficulty. The latter thought a few moments and then
said.
“What is the man’s name and
where does he live?”
“He never told his name but
from what he said I judge that his home is in Nu-gak-kol.”
“Well, then the only thing
to do is to let me put the body in a straw bag together with the
knife and
carry it to Nu-gakkol, set it down there somewhere and then
under pretense of
going for a drink of wine I can slip away. The bag will be
opened and the
people there will recognize
the dead man and take him to his home.”
“Just the thing” cried the master, and a
great load seemed lifted off his mind, but while the servant was
away finding
the bag the fear came back, not the fear of detection but fear
lest the spirit
of the dead should bring him evil. This impression grew stronger
and stronger.
How could this calamity be averted?
Perhaps if he complied with the dead man’s request it would quiet the
departed spirit; so he brought from his strong box a thousand
ounces of silver,
about sixty pounds in weight, and tied them securely in one
corner of the skirt
of the dead man’s coat. But he did not tell his servant this,
for even the most
faithful of servants might think the silver better spent upon
the living than
upon the dead.
When the servant returned, the body,
just as it was, was unceremoniously dumped into the straw bag
and placed upon a jigi or porter’s carrying frame. The
servant found the load heavier than he had anticipated, but
finally arrived in Nu-gak-kol.
It was just noon of a sultry summer day and the streets were
nearly deserted.
He set down his burden in a returned corner and wiped the
perspiration from his
brow. He glanced around the corner and saw that the coast was
clear, so hastily
throwing the bag upon the ground he shouldered the jigi
and made off; but some
evil chance made him turn back to see if the bag was all right.
Oh horror of
[page 197] horrors! a ghastly face was
peering at him over the edge of the bag. One eye was winking
violently while
the other was concealed by the headband that had become displaced. The mouth was
screwed into a shape that put to shame the devil guardians of
the realms of
hell, such as he had seen depicted in the monasteries. With a
low moan of
terror he started back, but just at that point a ditch crossed
the street and stepping
into this he was sent sprawling on the ground. Another instant
and he was up
and off at a pace that would bid defiance to the fleetest tokgabi that ever dogged the footsteps of mortal
man.
The face above the edge of the bag
watched the stricken fugitive out of sight and then a broad
smile took the
place of the diabolical grimace that had done its work so well.
Cho, for it was
none other, emerged from the bag and all bedraggled, ensanguined
and
dishevelled as he was, hugged that heavy coat-skirt in his arms
and slunk into
a neighboring door-way, for chance had favored him and he had
been put down
almost before his own house.
Before many days had elapsed Cho and
his family moved to the south where he invested in piece goods
and other
products of sunny Chulla.
There years went by, each one
of which doubled the capital of the thrifty Cho, and again we
see him in Seoul dressed
in the best the silk-shops could offer and standing once more
before the gate
of the great Han Chun-deuk. No one challenged him this time. His
gorgeous
raiment was passport enough.
He found the philanthropist in his
reception room, and after introducing himself came right down to
business.
“Didn’t you lend a man a
thousand ounces of silver some three years ago?”
Great heavens! the murder was out.
This man might have the police at his back. He must be “fixed” and that immediately.
“Hush,” whispered the poor
philanthropist “not
quite so loud please. So you know about that little thing too.
Well I can make
it better worth your while to keep still about it than to bring
it to the
notice of the authorities.”
[page 198] “On the other hand” replied
the visitor calmly
“I am here
on purpose to pay back that loan.”
“You?”
“Yes, you see I am the man
whom you sent away in the bag.”
Han was speechless.
“Yes, I want both to pay back
the money and to make a confession. It was a desperate chance
with me. I was driven
quite to the wall and if it had not been for that pig’s bladder
full of beef
blood that I carried under mv coat I don’t know how in the world
I could have
brought about a change in my fortunes. But I am well off now and am ready to pay
back the silver with interest.” And he told the wondering Han
about his
business venture.
It was fully ten minutes before Han
had fairly gotten his breath again, and then he exclaimed:
“By the shades of Yi
Sun-sin, that was the neatest thing I ever heard of. I won’t take back a cent of that
money; you
earned it all and more. But, I say, come up to Seoul and I can
put you onto
something much better than piecegoods. I want someone to help me handle my property and teach my son to carry
on the estate. You are just the man. Say you’ll come.”
And Cho came.
Remusat
on the Korean Alphabet.
A
few days ago as I was looking over that charming and still
valuable work of Mr.
Abel Remusat, entitled Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, which was published in
1820, I came across an interesting page about the Korean
alphabet and although
he had comparatively few sources of information about it he has
given us some
very interesting comments, and these coming from an independent
source and from
a man of such unquestioned linguistic ability are not without
scientific value
even after the lapse of almost a century. For this reason I have
seen fit to
translate what he has said about the Korean alphabet, for the
benefit of the
readers of [page 199] the
Review,
some of whom may not be burning with curiosity to know where the
Korean
alphabet came from, while others undoubtedly are.
In Chapter III. of this great work,
while discussing the question whether the Tartar tribes may have
had a written language
previous to the introduction of the Syriac by the Nestorians, he
remarks that
if they had such a written language it must have been phonetic
rather than
ideographic and then goes on to say:
“Now there exists, in a country,
which has uniformly been a vassal of the Tartars, a form of
writing, which
fulfills precisely the conditions above mentioned, and whose
origin is unknown.
It is the form of writing of which the Koreans make use when
they do not use
the Chinese character.
It is not ideographic like the Chinese nor
syllabic like the Japanese but it is a true alphabet with nine
vowels and
fifteen consonants, which both in their form and in the method
of grouping them
find no analogy in any other known alphabet. The Chinese authors
that I have
been able to consult in regard to Korean matters preserve a
complete silence
regarding this writing and they do not furnish a single clue by which to
determine the date when the Korean alphabet was invented. As I
have shown
above, this might easily be the Khi-tan or Niu-chen form of writing, adopted doubtless at the
height of the
Tartar power by the Koreans their neighbors and vassals, and it
remains for me
to show, in default of more positive proof, that nothing that we
actually know
contradicts this conjecture.
The Koreans have on the east the
Japanese from whom they surely did not take their form of
writing. Besides the radical
difference that I have before observed and which separates in a
marked degree
the written characters of the two people, we find that the very
same sounds are
rendered by the two people in ways that are totally different *
* *
* * * * * To
the south-west of Korea we find China from whose writing the
Korean can have
come only indirectly. The inventors of the Korean alphabet, if
they took the Chinese
characters as the basis of their work, have had to make such
changes and these
changes have been pushed to such a point that it seems to us
impossible to
recognize from [page 200]
what
Chinese character any particular Korean letter was derived. With
the Japanese
this is not so. (here the author quotes several of the
characters of the kata-kana
and hirokana showing from what Chinese
characters thy were evidently
taken.) But the alteration has been much greater in Korean, and
although 그 may have come from *
ki, and ㅊ
from * tsou, as in the Japanese cases
above cited, it is only analogy that guides us, since it is more
natural to
think that they imitated characters already existing than to
suppose that they
made them entirely new. On the whole the changes mentioned by
the Chinese when
speaking of the Khi-tan characters and those which
the Korean have been able to bring about would explain
sufficiently the difficulty we have in
discovering the origin of the modern Korean alphabet.
The Thibetan alphabet is the only one
that, on the score of form and of orthographic law, can offer
any considerable analogy
to the Korean. The ㅁ of the
Korean and the *
of the Thibetan, the Korean ㅂ and the
Thibetan *,
the Korean ㄹ and the Thibetan * and some others besides
are certainly not lacking in resemblance. The Korean * has. as in Thibetan, a
double usage, the one a nasal sound ng when it is a final and the
other a sort of mild guttural when it is an initial. But these
analogies are
not numerous enough nor striking enough to enable us to surmount
the difficulty
of supposing that the Koreans would have taken as their model the Thibetans, a people
whom they could have known only by name and who were separated
from them by the
whole breadth of the Chinese empire.
There remains then only the country to
the north of Korea from which the alphabet can have been
derived, and this is
precisely the land of Khi-tan
and Niu-chin, One may
therefore
conclude with a considerable degree of assurance that in the
eleventh or
twelfth centuries while the Tartars exercised complete control
over the
peninsula of Korea the letters of the Tartars passed to their
subjects perhaps
with some changes which, together with those that they had
already made in
forming their alphabet from the Chinese resulted in making the
Korean alphabet
quite unrecognizable. [*As
having come from the Chinese.
(Ed.)]
[page 201] I should rather admit this
hypothesis than to suppose that the Korean alphabet was invented
solely by that
people, for in the latter case Chinese histories would not have
failed to mention
the fact, as they do the invention of the Khi-tan
writing, while on the other hand they have been able to omit, as
being of
slight importance, the mere introduction or extension of a
system already
invented.”
Now let us briefly examine this
opinion and ask what position Remusat would have taken had he
been in
possession of certain facts that have came to light since the
opening of Korea.
His opinion is that it is safer to believe that the Korean
alphabet was made
from some former system than to believe that it was a purely
original product
and he therefore tries to surmise what that original source or
former system may have been.
He first eliminates the Japanese syllabary and the Syriac
characters on which
the modern Manchu script is based, as being out of the question.
He says that the
desire to find some analogy is the only reason for guessing that
the Korean
alphabet was made from the Chinese ideographs for the
resemblances are so
far-fetched as to be practically worthless. He then mentions the
Thibetan and
shows that there are some striking similarities not only in the
form of the letters
but in other respects; but he bars the Thibetan because in his
belief the
Koreans knew nothing about Thibet and were separated from it by
the whole
breadth of the Chinese empire. But had Remusat been conversant
with the fact that: (1) Through Buddhism Korea
was filled with Thibetan books and; (2) that at the time of the
invention of
the Korean alphabet the northern Tartars had been throughly
crushed by the Ming
power and (3) that the scholarship of Korea was at that time as
completely
confined to the monasteries and the Buddhist system as was
learing in Europe at
the same time confined to the monastic system, (4) that the best
history of the
present dynasty, the ****,
distinctly states that the Korean alphabet was made from the
Thibetan and the
ancient seal character of China and (5) finally that the
Thibetan alphabet was
the only phonetic system to which the Koreans had access as a
model –if he had known all these
things, is there the least shade of doubt as to what his
decision would have
been in the case?
[page 202] There are one or two
things, however, that need to be cleared up. The Thibetan
character as used in
the Buddhist books in Korea is not the square Thibetan character
that bears
such a resemblance to the Korean. It is evidently the same,
radically, as the
square Thibetan but consists of curved lines while the square
character, like
the Korean, consists of angles. Now the Koreans would naturally
search for an
angular or square alphabet as being more adapted to the use of
the brush pen,
just as the Chinese changed from the seal character to the square for
the same reason. When therefores the Koreans contemplated the
formation of an
alphabet and consulted the Thibetan, as exhibited in the
Buddhist books, they
naturally asked whether there was not a square character
corresponding to this
round or cursive one and easily found it in China, to which
county thirteen expeditions were made
by the commission appointed by the king of Korea for the purpose
of perfecting
an alphabet. Nothing could be more rational or simple than this
explanation and
an examination of the two alphabets suffices to clinch the
matter; for, as Remusat
points out, there are not only striking similarities between the
forms of the
letter, but special letters like *, which is the old form of the Korean ㅇ, have
two different uses both in Thibetan and Korean,
which eliminates the question of mere coincidence and makes it
practically
certain that there was some vital connection between the two.
For by what mere
coincidence could *
be both a final nasal and an initial guttural in both Korean and
Thibetan?
But we find a radical difference in
form between the Korean consonants and vowels; they are built on
a different plan.
What else could we expect when we find that the Thibetan is
practically without
well-defined vowels, even as the Hebrew or Arabic, and that
after the Koreans
had taken the consonants from the Thibetan they were driven to
some other
source for their vowel system. For this they fell back upon some
of the simpler
strokes of the ancient seal character of China.
The objection may be made that some of
the Korean works say merely that the Korean alphabet was made
from the seal
character of China and do not mention
the Thibetan. The clear statement of a standard work goes
further than
[page 203] the silence of a dozen
others. If one cook-book should say that bread is made of flour
and yeast and a
dozen others should say that bread is made of flour, without
mentioning the
yeast, does the silence of the latter in any way invalidate the
statement of
the former? We think not. And we should be still surer if we
knew that some
cook-book writers had a prejudice against yeast or were in some
way ashamed of
its use.
It seems therefore practically sure
that the Korean alphabet was formed partly from the Thibetan but
there will probably
be no absolute proof of it until someone is fortunate enough to
unearth a copy
of the Hun-min Chŏng-eum
(** **) the
book that was made at the time the alphabet was invented.
The
Products of Korea.
Wheat
In
China millet and wheat are known by the same name, mak *, but with this difference
that millet is known as “great
mak” and
wheat as “little
mak.” In
Korea on the other hand the two cereals have entirely different
names, puri and mil. This goes to show that they both have existed
in Korea from
very ancient times, for had they been introduced from China they
would probably
have borne a Chinese name. At the same time we may be reasonably
sure that
before the days of Kija there was very little grain of any kind
raised in Korea
and that the extensive cultivation of cereals began at that
time.
It is stated that Kija brought seed
grain but at first the grain was eaten only by the highest of
the nobility. It
was not till three or four centuries later that barley and wheat
became common
articles of food throughout the north. This change came about
largely through
commercial relations established between Korea and Shantung,
where the best Chinese
wheat was grown.
The best Korean wheat is raised in P’yŭng-an
Province. The people say that if it were properly handled it
could be made into
as good flour as the American, which has the name [page 204] here of being the best in
the world. Wheat grows also in all the other provinces and like
barley it is
considered a supplementary crop to rice, a stand-by in case of a
rice famine.
Wheat as well as barley is always sown
in drills but while there are both winter barley and spring
barley there is
only winter wheat. That is, wheat is always planted in the
Autumn.
The principal use to which wheat is
put is in making a kind of food called yak-kwa which means “medicine fruit.” The flour is made into a
dough with honey and cut into squares and fried in sesamum oil.
Without the
honey it is called chun-pyung a kind of pan-cake. These
are universally used in sacrifice at the time of the summer
solstice, together with
melons. Wheat is very
largely used as paste and in the country it is used by the
poorer people in the
form of a gruel instead of rice.
Sorghum
This
grain is of three kinds called ch’al-susu, me-susu and song-jang susu meaning glutinous sorghum, dry sorghum and “corpse” sorghum. The last name is
derived from the fact that the kernel is inclosed in a wrapping
which is
supposed to
resemble the cerements of the dead. The generic word susu is a mimetic word supposed to resemble the
rustling sound of
the grain when it is poured out.
Of these three kinds the dry sorghum
and the “corpse” sorghum are indigenous
while the glutinous sorghum came in from China. It is supposed
to have
originated in central western China at Ch’ul-sŭng (**). In China the stalk of the
sorghum is used in making sugar but when brought to Korea it
does not yield
sugar, whether from climatic or other reasons. Only the grain is
used. This
cereal is grown most in Kyŭng-geui Province but it also grows
commonly in all
the provinces, especially in the south. Much less of sorghum is
used in Korea
than wheat, millet or oats. In the capital it is mixed with rice
and eaten but
in the country it is often eaten alone, boiled like rice. It is
not considered
a good food alone, being too
laxative. It is also used as an ingredient in various kinds of
sauces and in
bean cake. It is occasionally used for making pancakes. A great
deal of it is
used in making candy, for which purpose it is supplemented with honey or with
Chinese sugar.
[page 205] A youth of seventeen was
once appointed magistrate of a country district. When he went
down to his post
he saw from the faces of the yamen runners and other underlings
of the office
that he was held in contempt because of his youth. He ordered a
stalk of sorghum to be brought and in presence
of all the staff ordered the chief ajun
to put it in his sleeve without breaking it. As the sorghum
stalk was taller than
the ajun he said of course that he could not do it. The young
man urged him to
try but he declined to attempt the impossible. Then the young
magistrate said.
“That stalk is not one year
old and still you cannot put it in your sleeve. I am seventeen
years old and
you will find it still harder to put me in you sleeve.” From that day he had no
more trouble, for the Korean synonym for being “under the thumb” of anyone is to “be in his sleeve.”
This cereal also came from northern
China many centuries ago and is cultivated mostly in Kang-wŭn,
Ham-gyŭng and P’yŭng-an
Provinces. It is a supplement to rice, though in the mountainous
districts
where rice is never seen it forms the staple food of a
considerable portion of
the people. It is boiled and eaten like rice or it may be mixed
with rice. From
the stalk of the oats the Koreans make a fine yellow paper called whang-ji
or “yellow
paper.”
It is very thick and stiff and is calendared much better than
the ordinary
Korean paper. It is used mostly in the palace, yellow being the
imperial color.
This paper as all made in Ham-gyŭng Province and specially in
the town of
Yongheung. A great deal of oats is fed to horses and cattle.
Millet.
There
are six varieties of this cereal in Korea (1)
Ch’a-jo or glutinous millet,
(2) Me-jo or
dry millet, (3)
Ki-jang or yellow glutinous millet, (4) Me-gi-jang or yellow dry millet,
(5) Ch’ŭng-jŭng-me
or green glutinous millet (6) P’i-jo
or panicled millet. Of these the first two are the common kinds
while the
others are comparatively rare. As in China so in Korea this is
one of the great
supplementary cereals which help the people over times of famine
when the rice
crop fails. The common name for all kinds of millet in Korea is
cho which means literally “small” as appears in many Korean
expressions, and was applied to millet because of the smallness
of the grain.
Of the six different kinds [page 206]
the ki’jang is the only one that is indigenous.
This cereal is a very important one in Korea being equal to the
beans or millet.
Rice, beans, millet and barley are the four great cereals for if
any one of
them were absent there would be some of the people who would
starve.
All the varieties of millet are eaten
boiled with rice or without except the green millet which is
used almost
exclusively in making candy. The yellow millet is used
frequently in making a
sort of dough cake. The panicled millet is the first grain used
in the
sacrifices at the royal tablet hall, because in China it is the
very first of
the grains to mature. The green millet is also used in making
certain kinds of medicines.
The costliest kind of millet is the ki-jang
which brings in the market about the same price as rice, while
the other kinds
bring from one third to two thirds that of rice.
The
Seoul Eui-ju Railway.
Our
readers will doubtless like to have some particulars in regard
to this
important work whose inauguration was celebrated on the eighth
instant.
The concession for this road was
granted in 1896 to a French syndicate called La Compagnie de
Fives-Lille. The conditions
were the same as those governing the American concesssion
between Seoul and
Chemulpo; namely, the Korean Government furnished the land over
which the line
should run.
For various reasons the French
syndicate failed to carry out the project and gave up the
concession. Two years
ago a new arrangement was made whereby the Korean Government
itself undertook
to build the road, using French materials and employing French
engineers. Yi
Yong-ik was made president of the Railroad, Mons. G. Lefevre,
formerly
Secretary to the French Legation, was made director, M. J. de
Lapeyriere was made
Chief Engineer and M. E. Bourdaret Assistant Engineer.
It is intended to construct only that
part of the line between Seoul and Songdo at present, but as
time and funds permit
[page 207] the work will be pushed
through to the North-west border where it will doubtless come in
touch with the
Siberian Railway system.
The terminal station at this end will
be outside the West Gate and will be 48.50 meters above
sea-level. Passing over
the pass A-o-gă at an elevation of 59.50 it descends to the
valley of the Han River, 17 m. above
tidewater. At a distance of 31 kilometers it leaves the valley
of the Han and
crosses to the
valley of the Kyo-ha which it traverses at an elevation of 15 m.
At 42 kilometers
from Seoul it crosses the Munsan-poa tributary of the Im-jin
River. At 51
kilometers it airives at the Im-jin River which will be crossed
at present by a
ferry, passengers and freight being transferred to another train
on the
opposite side. The road than passes into the valley of Songdo
and the terminal
station is at an elevation of 40 m.
Seventy-four percent of the line will
be straight and 26 percent curves. The sharpest curve will have
a radius of 200
m. and only one-fifth of the curves will be as sharp as this.
The maximum grade will be twenty-five
thousandths of a meter, or about 21 ft. to the mile.
The entire amount of cuttings and
fillings will amount to about 1, 000,000 cubic m. of which
190.000 are cuttings
and 810. 000 fillings; which gives an average of about 13,000
cubic meters per
kilometer.
There will be 150 small bridges and
culverts and of larger bridges there will be twenty-five. The
Im-jin River will
require a 500 m. bridge but this will not be built immediately.
The gauge of the road will be 1.43 m.
The ties will be 2.50 m. long, .30 m. wide and .125 m. thick.
Between the terminals there will be
six regular stations and four flag stations. The stations will
all be of brick.
The rolling stock will consist of five
locomotives of the Mallet type, five coaches partly first and
partly second
class, eight third-class coaches, five baggage cars and twenty
-five freight
cars.
A branch line 1.30 k.m. long will
connect the main live
with Hang-ju
on the Han River and 1.70 k. m. of side tracks will be placed at
intervals.
The total length of track will be 80
kilometers.
[page 208] The entire cost of
construction and equipment is estimated to be 6,470,000 fr.
which is an average
of 80,000 fr. per kilometer. This amounts to a total of
2,574,982, Japanese yen
and the expense is divided as follows.
Office Yen 150,000 Workshops
and tools 36,680 Cuttings and fillings 381,575 Bridges &c
117,273 Transfer
at Im-jin River 14,530 Masonry 111,852 Rails
&c 954,985
Stations &c 53,544
Buildings 129,470 Telegraph 15,645
Wharfs &c 95,115 Rolling stock 234,784 Sundries 114,772 Interest
at 6 per cent 137,727
The authorities of the road estimate
that the road will be able to take in about $120,000 a year of
which $100,000
will be from passengers. They estinate the running expenses at
$80,000 a year.
The coefficient d’exploitation will therefore be about 67
percent.
It is believed that this portion of
the road will be completed in two years, but of course it
depends largely upon the financial condition of
the Government. If the fine prospects for a good crop this year
prove true it
will go far toward rehabilitating the finances of the country.
Odds
and Ends.
A Snake’s Revenge
About
two hundred and eighty years ago a gentleman of good family was
appointed
prefect of P’ung-dŭk
in the western part of Kyŭng-geui Province. A short time after
arriving at his
post he visited the Kyöng-ch’ŭn
Monastery on Pu-so Mountain. As he sat there talking with the
abbot some of the
monks brought a generous bowl of rice and placed it on the
ground
[page 209] in front of a large hole
between the foundation stones. Presently an enormous snake
thrust its head out
of the hole and, and after looking this way and that, glided out
and began
consuming the rice. The prefect was horrified and asked why this
was done. They
replied that the snake had been there from time immemorial and
had been fed
from the monastery table.
The prefect insisted that the reptile
must be killed, but the monks insisted that it must not. The
prefect threatened
and finally accomplished his purpose. The snake was snared and
dragged from his
hole and beheaded. As his head fell there arose a thin blue
vapor which floated
away toward the city of Seoul.
Within a year the prefect, who had
returned to the capital, became the father of a handsome boy
whose only
peculiarity was a forked tongue. When the father saw this he
knew that he had
begotten a serpent, but he did not have the courage to destroy
the child as his
better judgment prompted.
The boy grew up as clever as he was
depraved, and by the time he was twenty he was a monster of
wickedness, but the
father still could not bring himself to rectify the mistake that
he had made.
One day a company of hermits arrived from the country and
presented him with a
bowl of liquid and said “If
you drink this you will escape a groat misfortune.”
“Yes, yes, I know all about
it,” cried
the miserable father “but
it seems decreed by heaven that the misfortune should fall upon
me and I dare
not try to avert it.”
The hermits went sadly away, for they
knew that by drinking that mystic potion he would have had
strength to destroy his
evil progeny. The next day the wicked son was condemned to death
for treason
and the father was compelled to drink poison.
The Essence of Life
It
may not be generally known to zoologists and natural historians
that if a fox
lives five hundred years its life essence, or Chŭng-geui, (**) condenses or crystalizes
into a jewel and lies in the mouth of the animal. Neither would
Yu Sŭng-yong
have known it had it not been for a fortunate conjunction of
circumstances. He
was a young man of twenty and unmarried, and he lived in the
southern town of
An-dong.
[page 210] One day as he sat at study he
looked up and saw a most beautiful woman pass by. He was simply
fascinated and could
not but follow her. This was very bad form indeed but he was
hardly accountable
for his actions.
The next day his old teacher looked at
him sharply and upbraided him, and the young man confessed his
fault but plead as his excuse that he had been virtually
hypnotized. He told
the old man that every time the woman opened her mouth to speak,
something like
a diamond flashed between her teeth. The old man gave a violent
start and
exclaimed:
“The next time you see her,
get possession of that jewel and swallow it instantly in spite
of her tears.”
A few days after, the fair vision
passed his window again and as before he felt the mesmeric
attraction but he
followed this time with a fixed purpose. He overtook the woman
and entered into
conversation with her as before. During the course of which he
said:
“What is that beautiful jewel
that I see in your mouth?” “Ah,
I mustn’t tell you that,”
she answered. He pretended to be much offended. “Let me see it just once,”
he said. She took it from her month and held it up between her
thumb and finger. The ungallant Yu snatched
it from her and swallowed it in a trice. The woman uttered a
piercing scream
and fell to the ground writhing as if in agony and weeping in a
most
heartrending way. Yu was almost sorry for what he had done but
when he saw the
form of the woman begin to assume the shape of a white fox his
pity was changed
to exultation. The fox slunk away up the hill and Yu went home.
He had
swallowed the Essence of
life and
from that day on he had but to read a book once to master it.
One glance at a
page and he could repeat every word by heart. After passing
before a line of
ten thousand men he could tell, the next time he passed, whether
the position
of any one of them had been changed. It hardly need be said that
be became the
most famous scholar in the land.
But he had no wife, and it was high
time that his bachelor days should be finished. One day as he
was on his way to
Seoul he stopped at by inn by the Han River. The innkeeper was a
gentleman in
reduced circumstances, and that [page 211] night
his young and clever daugter dreamed that she saw a dragon
climbing a willow.
In the morning she saw through a hole in the window the youg man
Yu standing in
the yard. She was much taken with his appearance and so far set
aside the
dictates of modesty as to ask her father what his name was.
“His name is Yu Sŭng-yang, I believe.”
“Is it possible” she cried “Why that means willow becomes
dragon”
(***) Then
she told her dream. The father saw the point and approached the
young man with
a proposition that needed no urging, after he had once
accidentally caught a glimpse
of the girl’s face. And the wedding came off all in good time.
Editorial
Comment.
The
actual commencement of work on the Seoul-Eui-ju Railway is an
augury of good
things to come even though the coming may be long delayed.
Judging from past
experience, the fact that the Government is financing the scheme
is not the
best promise of a speedy consummation of the work but we
sincerely trust that
this may prove a brilliant exception to the general rule and
that the work will
be pushed to a speedy and successful issue. We have noticed that
money is always forthcoming for anything
that the Government really wants and all that is necessary is
that that the
present interest should be sustained. Unfortunately this is not
always an easy
thing to do; but the presidency of Yi Yong-ik is the best guarantee
of a continued and sustained policy. He is a man of affairs and
has shown
staying qualities which are acknowledged even by those who
cannot always
approve his methods. As Minister Hayashi pointed out in his
address, which we
reproduce in this number, it will be a grand day for Korea when
there will be a
through line from Fusan to Europe. As things now stand there is
nothing
chimerical in this hope and we fully believe the first quarter
of this century
will see it an accomplished fact. Apart from commercial
considerations the building
of these lines will tend to emphasize the political equilibrium
of the Korean
peninsula.
[page 212] Granting that this
North-western Railway is in line with Russian aspirations we see
that both
parties to a possible disagreement over the peninsula are giving
hostages to
fate and increasing the risks of loss in case of defeat. This of
course lessens
the chances of war and ensures the peaceful exploitation of
Korean’s resources.
What we want to see is the developenent of Korea for Korea’s sake and for the elevation of
the Korean people. This may seem sentimental and it certainly is
true that the
struggle for commercial supremacy recognizes no sentimental barriers. It
would sweep away the most cherished prejudices without a
particle of
hesitation. The law of the survival of the fittest isthe very spirit of iconoclasm and
we cannot really hope that it can be withstood in Korea.
The
arrival of M. Kato Esq., formerly Japanese Minister to Korea, as
Adviser to the
Korean Household Department is an event of great importance.
Next to Count
Inouye he is the one Japanese that is personally acceptable to
His Majesty the Emperor
of Korea, and now that so much of the administrative power of
the Government is
centered in the Household Department the position of adviser is
greatly
magnified. It may be truly said that all the other departments
of the
Government are but appendages to the Household, following the
constantly
centralizing tendency which has been at work for the last five
or six years.
The Japan Herald says this position amounts to the
premiership of Korea but we have seen that the Korean Government
listens to
much advice that it does not follow, sometimes for good and
sometimes the
reverse. All that can be confidently affirmed is that if
the Government gives Mr. Kato a chance he can be of inestimable
value to Korea.
Ke believe that he will advise
in a broad-minded and liberal spirit and that, in spite of
inevitable
suspicions of prejudice in favor of his nationals and their
interests, he will
try to do that which will be for Korea’s own best welfare.
News
Calendar.
In
Yang-ju, in the village
of Ma-san-yi, is the ancestral home of one branch of the Cho
family. They have
lived there for centuries and near it is the ancestral burying
place. The house has twenty-five tiled
kan [page 213] and three of thatch. The
Cho family is agitated over the fact that some unscrupulous
parties have forged
a deed for the place and are trying
to sell it and they desire to warn all foreigners against
purchasing the
property.
In
answer to the invitation of His Majesty to the different powers
to send special
envoys, to be present at the celebration of the beginning of the
fifth lustrum
of the present reign, the Japanese and Chinese Governments have
signified their
intention of sending special envoys but the more distant powers
have decided to
delegate their resident ministers respectively as envoi’s for the
occasion.
The
name for the new Audience Hall which is being constructed in the
palace is Chung-wha-jun (***) or “The Hall of Middle
Harmony.”
The
Government in accordance with its previously expressed intention
is about to
secure from America through the United States Legation a
successor to the late
Mr. Greathouse, as adviser.
When
the examination of candidates for the degree of M. D. in the
Government Medical
School took place each man was searched for “cribs” and then subjected to six
days of continuous examination. It is still in progress.
The
Japanese have formed a company for the purpose of engaging in
the salt business
in Fusan. They have opened a large salt market on Deer Island
opposite Fusan.
Mons.
E. Clemencet the adviser to the Postal Department has been made
the recipient
of a decoration of the fourth class by His Majesty. This mark of
appreciation
is thoroughly well deserved. The conferring of the decoration
was accompanied
by a banquet at the Postal Bureau.
On
the 20th inst. the Postal and Telegraph Bureau sent to the
Finance Department (1i ) Telegraph receipts for
the last two years --$36,674.30; (2) Special income from
business of the American and English gold mines -$2400; (3) Telephone dues -$23.50.
The
contract of H. B. Hulbert of the Imperial Middle School has been
renewed for a
period of five years.
The
Foreign Office has informed the Chinese Minister, that Chinese
miners have been
digging for gold on Kang-wha without permission and that they
must be
immediately stopped. These miners have paid no attention to the
prefect who has
repeatedly warned them off.
The
Japanese Minister has asked the Korean Government to set aside a piece of land in
Masanpo for a Japanese concession. He estimates that about
700,000 tsubo will be requred.
The
annual catch of ling off Northeastern Korea amounted to 160,
000,000 which was
considered a small catch.
In
Ham-hung 107 houses were burned on the 30th of April.
Yim
Yong-sun, the Prime Minister, has resigned and Sim Sun-t’ak has
been appointed
in his place.
[page 214] An enormous stone is to be
brought from the town of Yong-in,
eighty li to the South of Seoul, and from it will be cut
the great stone drum which is to form part of the monument in
commemoration of
the achievements of the present reign.
Last
year’s ginseng crop of 10,000 lbs. has been brought to Chemulpo
and will be put
on the market shortly.
Yi
Pom-jin the Korean Minister to Russia was made Ambassador some
months ago but
the special seal tliat was cut for him was lost on its way to
Europe and so
another is to be cut.
Another
grave disturbance took place this month in Song-jin, the new port in the
Northeast, owing to the violent opposition of the people to the
joining of
their district with Kil-ju. Several hundred men were killed,
among whom was one
chusa or government
clerk.
Under
torture one of the suspects lately arrested made sweeping
charges against a
great number of Government officials including all the
Ministers. The man was
crazed with pain and his statements were wild, but all the men
thus accused
will probably be arrested and subjected to searching
investigation.
The
Annual Meeting of the Methodist
Episcopal Mission (North) has just been held in the city of
P’yŭng-yang, Bishop
Moore presiding. An account of the proceedings must be reserved
for our next
issue. The Bishop was accompained to Korea by Mrs. Moore, Miss
Marion Moore and
Miss Melvin, who comes in the interests of woman’s work.
Miss
Parsons, the editor of “Woman’s Work for Women,” published in
New York, is in
Seoul, a guest of the Presbeterian Mission. She has been
travelling around the world visiting
the various mission stations of the Presbyterian Church.
Twenty
robbers have been captured in Myon-chun and will go to swell the
heavy list of
capital punishments that have already taken place this year.
The
Buddhistic tendency of the times is shown by the fact that
Prince Yi Chă-sun,
Yi Kön-ha, Yi Yong-ik, Min Chong-muk, Yun Chŭnggu, Om Chun-wun,
Kwŭn Chong-sŭk,
Cho Pyŭng-dŭk and An Hak-ju are patrons of the Japanese Buddhist
temple in
Seoul where daily sacrifices are offered in behalf of the
Emperor.
Yu
Chi-heung a wealthy man of South Ch’ung-ch’ung Province has sold
his houses,
lands and other property and given the whole sum to the starving people, thus
reducing himself to straightened circumstances. The amount of
his gifts is
about $40,000. The people there have raised a monument in his
honor. Years ago
this man’s father did the very same thing, since which time the
family had
accumulated another fortune.
In
Paris there have been prepared the plates for printing Korean
postage-stamps
and also other apparatus for use in Korean post offices at a
cost of $7,600. Stamps have been printed
to the selling value of $567,400 and will be sent to Korea soon.
[page 215] The Seoul Station of the
Presbyterian Mission tendered a reception to Miss Parsons at the
home of Miss
Doty on the evening of the 27th inst.
Nine
tile houses burned near Chong-no on the 24th inst.
In
Ta-heung in
Ch’ung ch’ung
the prefect Yi Eun-ch’ŭl
during the the past winter gave the destitute people $1,000 and
100 bags of
rice.
Some
twenty residents near the northern border have petitioned the
government to
take possession of a large tract of land north of Păk-tu San
between the Tuman
and the Ussuri Rivers. This is apparently directly west of
Russian territory
and can be nothing else than a portion of Manchuria. The
petitioners seem to
think that though it belonged
to China before the late war it is now “anybody’s country.” The petitioners are sadly
behind the times if they suppose that any unclaimed territory in
that or any
other portion of the world would remain this long without an
owner.
The
people of Dagelet Island demand the punishment of An Wŭnsu for
slandering their
prefect to the government by claiming that he had collected an unjust tax
from the people and “eaten” it.
The
regiment of soldiers stationed at P’yŭng-yang has arrested the
superintendent
of trade at Chinnampo and sent him up to Seoul. He is the man
who deceived the
government in regard to building a palace in P’yŭng-yang,
mentioned in the
April Review.
According
to an estimate made by the Osaka Steamship Company 555 Japanese
came to Korea
in the single month of March, which was 353 more than came
during the
corresponding period last year.
Kim
Sŭng-heui,a clerk in the post-office in Song-do, is charged with the
embezzlement of $1488.86
of the office funds and orders have been issued for his arrest.
An
examination was held at the Police Department on Apr. 28 for the
purpose of selecting some new men
for the police force. The examination included arithmetic,
composition and the
raising of an eighty pound weight.
A
new tax of 500,000 cash a year has been levied upon the paper
manufacturers in
the town of Tă-gu.
Yi
Yong-ik, the Chief of Police, has issued stringent orders
against gambling,
opium smoking and counterfeiting and says that any policeman
failing to report
delinquencies will be severely punished.
In
the town of Sŭk-sŭng. Ch’ung Ch’ŭng Province, eighteen people
boarded a boat to
gather sea-weed but somehow the boat capsized. Twelve of the
occupants were
saved through the heroic efforts of a man named Sin Kyŭng-yŭl
but the remaining
six were drowned.
In
Ko-san there is a Korean who has attained his 106th year and the
prefect prays
that he may be made the recipient of special honors by the
government.
On
April 30th Yi Yong-ik posted at Chong-no a public notice that a
reward of $1000
would be
given for information that would lead to the [page 216] conviction of any man who
had been counterfeiting on a large scale, and rewards of $500
and $200 would be
given for the conviction
of lesser
offenders in the same line.
The
prefect of Anak reports that on account of the desperate
condition of the
people through the famine, a man in that district has given 150
bags of rice to
the most needy. This man’s name is Yu Unhyŭk.
So
far as we can discover the cause of the recent movement on the
part of the
government against former members of the Independence Club is as
follows. Na Hyŭn-tă,
a man who is in sympathy with the pro-Russian party in Seoul,
cherished a
violent antipathy against the Independence Club and was
determined to bring
trouble upon former members of that organization. For this
purpose he had
recourse to a strategem. Having arranged the details with his
friend Ch’oe Hak-nă the two of them
invited Kim Kwang-tă to a conference. Kim was formerly an active
member of the
Club. They told him that the Korean party lately formed in Japan
had agents in
Seoul and that the Independence Club was going to co-operate
with that party in
attempting to gain control of affairs in Korea; that Nam
Kung-uk, Yu Hak-ju and Chong Kyo were the leading
spirits in the matter and that if these three men were watched
and the government
kept informed of their plans the informers would stand to
receive substantial
rewards from the government. Also that while they (Na, Ch’oe and
Kim) kept watch
upon the three men mentioned, Yi Ch’an-yŭng would be a good man
to use as a spy
upon Yi Sang-jă who was another interested member of the
Independence Club. It
would seem that Yi Ch’an-yung was also behind the scenes with Na
and Ch’oe.
When Kim Kwang-t’ă heard this he asserted strongly that
it was all false; that there was no such plan on foot and that
the whole thing
was unreasonable and foolish. He then left the house and went
immediately to
Nam Kung-uk
and the other two men and informed them of wbat he had heard and
then went to
his own home. The next day Yi Ch’an-yŭng went to the house of Yi
Sang-ja but he
was out. His son however was there having already been told of
the matter by
Kim Kwang-t’ă. He immediately fired up and upbraided Yi
Ch’an-yŭng for having come to spy upon his
father. Yi Ch’an-yŭng, taken off his guard at finding that Yi
Sang-jă was informed of the whole
matter, was thoroughly frightened and hurried back to Na Hyun-t’ă and told him what had happened. Na then called Kim
Kwangt’a and blamed him for “giving the whole thing away.” Kim
feeling that he
was getting wound up in a net and not knowing what would be
sprung upon him
next confessed that he had done wrong and then went to the house
of Yi Sang-jă
and told him to keep still. Coming again to the house of Na he
found Na gone
but Ch’oe Hak-na
there. Ch’oe treated him so queerly that he was again thrown
into a chill and
hurried home. Meanwhile Na Hyun-t’a had gone to the palace police and
told them a long story about how the Korean party in Japan and
the Independence
Club were arranging matters, and gave a long list of names of
those interested
in the seditious venture. Among the names were [page 217] Kim Kwang-t’ă, Nam Kung-ŭk, Chong Kyo, Yu Hak-ju, Na Su-yŭn
and many others. Twenty police were immediately detailed to
effect the arrest
of these men. At first six men were arrested while others,
getting wind of the
matter went into hiding. Nam Kung-ŭk, the editor of the Whang-sung Sin-mun was arrested and police were
sent to bring Yun
Ch’i-ho up
to Seoul. Yi Yong-ik, the chief of police, having examined into
the matter
found it was all a hoax and recommended to the government that
the case against
these men be dismissed. But the government replied that the
subject had not
been sufficiently investigated and ordered the retention of the
arrested men.
The
Japanese minister has requested the government to inform the
Koreans on the
coast of Chulla
and Kyung-sang
Provinces not to be disturbed at the approach of Japanese
men-of-war which are
about to make surveys in those localities.
The
Japanese are about to begin the publication of a semi-monthly
magazine in
Seoul, in the interests of the three religions namely Buddhism,
Taoism and
Confucianism.
On
the eleventh inst an old man was killed by a railroad train in
the town of
Pu-pyŭng.
Sŭ
Sang-jip a wealthy merchant in Chemulpo has been arrested on the
charge of
sedition. It is supposed that he has had communication with Pak
Yung-hyo in
Japan.
The
brithday of Buddha which occurred on the 15th inst was observed
with
considerable show. The recent advances made by the Buddhist
element have
resulted in committing the government to a policy favorable to this cult.
During
the present year the government has received $292 as license
money from the
pawnshops of Seoul.
A
Korean company in Wonsan has requested permission from the
government to
establish a shipping company to engage in foreign and coastwise
trade. At
present their fleet consists of one boat.
The
Finance Minister notified all the country prefects that if all
current taxes and
all arrears are not paid up before May 15, all delinquents will
be arrested and
cashiered.
The
Japanese authorities have requested permivssion to lay submarine
cables to
build wireless telegraph stations and to build a telephone line
but the
government answers that as it is already preparing to do this
itself it can not
grant franchises to foreigners.
It
is interesting to read in the Japanese daily paper published in
Seoul a
statement made by Mr. Katogi an experienced Japanese electrician
regarding the plant
of the Seoul Electric Company. Coming from an entirely unbiased
source this
statement goes very far to show that on the whole Seoul is
provided with one of
the best electrical plants in the far east. Mr. Katogi says:
“By
permission of Mr. Bostwick, the Manager, I have examined the
power house and all the electric
lighting and railway plant of the Seoul Electric Company. It
gives me a great
deal of pleasure to see such excellent machinery and buildings,
so well
designed and so substantially [page 218] constructed. If there is
any criticism to make I should say that the plant is too
generously designed
for so backward a country as Korea.
“The generating machinery
consists of two 120 K.W.
rotary converters imported from the well-known Westinghouse
Manufacturing Co.
of America. The special merit of these machines is that they
produce direct
current at 550 volts for the use of the street cars and at the
same time an
alternating current at 385 volts for the use of the lights. Over
2000 volts of
alternating current are freely produced for the electric
lighting which design
is the most advantageous and skillful for a large city like
Seoul, where the
lights are scattered over such long distances.
“This design of machine is
not to be seen in Japan,
except one generator at Odawara, which is somewhat similar and
yet differs in
that a 75 K.W. rotary transformer is used for supplying the
current for the street
cars of which there are much fewer than in Seoul.
“The boilers are of the
Babcock and Wilcox type which are
so popular in Japan.
“The cars are arranged for
first and second class
passengers. Second class seats face outwards, outside the car.
This looks like
the open car used in summer in America and is rather dangerous
for women when
running fast.
“The conductors, like the
employees of the government
railways in Japan, are not sufficiently polite to the
passengers.
“At the present time there
are something over 1400
incandescent lights in use besides the arc lights which, as any
one may see,
are very brilliant.” Such is the statement of an expert.
We have not heard of any
accidents to women caused by
the seats on the cars facing outward nor, after considerable
experience, have
we seen any particular impoliteness on the part of the
employees, considering
the fact that very frequently people board the cars without
tickets and
intending to ride only until they are turned off. The only
possible criticism
that suggests itself to us is that there should be more little
culverts or
troughs under the tracks to let the water which lies in the
streets pass
through and find the ditch. This would help greatly to keep the
streets free
from mud. There is no question that the Electric Company is
doing more than any
other organization in a material way to make life worth living
in Seoul. It is
a pleasure to note that their building, which was so badly
injured by fire, is
nearly ready for occupancy again.
The eighth of May
witnessed a noteworthy event in
Seoul, the ceremony which inaugurated the beginning of work on
the Seoul Eui ju
Railway, or at least that portion of it lying between Seoul and
Song do the
former capital of Korea fifty-three miles distant.
The exercises took place
at the former Independence
Club house which was handsomely decorated for the occasion. The
French Admiral
with his staff was present accompanied by a marine band which
discoursed some
charming music. Addresses were made by the French Minister M.
Collin de Plancy,
the Japanese Minister G. Hayashi, Esq., and by Yi Yong-ik the
president of the
Railway.
[page 219] A banquet was
spread for the guests beneath
an ample awning and a Korean kwangda or acrobat performed on a
tight rope for
the delectation of the assembled populace. The addresses of the
French and
Japanese Ministers were as follows.
THE ADDRESS OF THE FRENCH
MINISTER.
Mr. President, Your
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
--
The opening of the
North-West Railway, to the
inauguration of which we have been invited, marks, as Mr. Yi
Yong Ik said, an
important date in the annals of Korea. It is not necessary for
me to point out
again all the advantages connected with such an enterprise, as
long as it will
be steadily undertaken, and I wish to see in the initiative
taken by the Imperi
al Government the promise of terminating the works happily, so
as to unite as
soon as possible the Capital of the Empire to Europe, on one
side, thanks to
the Trans-Siberian railway of which the regular traffic is only
a question of
some few days, and on the other side to Japan by the Fusan line.
The railway which
will then cross the Peninsula will be come in the near future
one of the most
important lines of the Far East and it will be an inexhaustible
boon to the
population.
I therefore
ask you to join me in expressing our warmest wishes in favour of
the new line
and of its prosperity. I specially offer to the Director-General
and to the
officials of the railway my best wishes of success. But allow me
not to forget
the Director and the French engineers, upon whom the task of the
survey and the
construction of the line is incumbent. After a period of long
and tedious
exertions, it is but just that on this occasion when they are
starting their
work we should offer them our thanks, since their laborious
efforts have as a
result the ceremony which has called us together today.
THE ADDRESS OF THE
JAPANESE MINISTER.
Mr. President, Your
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
--
It gives me great pleasure
to say a few words of
congratulation upon the inauguration of the work of the railway
between Seoul
and Songdo, and I speak on behalf of my colleagues as well, who
with myself are
present by the kind invitation of the President to take part in
celebrating this
occasion, which will be remembered as a memorable day in the
history of Korea.
I congratulate the wisdom of His Majesty the Emperor of Korea
and His Majesty’s
Ministers in deciding to construct this railway which will
eventually be
prolonged to Wiju, a frontier town on the Yalu and which will
form, together
with the Seoul-Fusan Railway, the main trunk line of the
country. The railway
when completed will traverse districts known for their
agricultural and mineral
resources and will connect with Seoul two old capitals, Songdo
and Pingyang,
comparatively populous and rich towns. The benefit of this
railway is therefore
beyond [page 220] doubt. I also congratulate the Korean
Government upon its
courage in expecting to construct this railway with their own
money.
Considering however the financial condition of the country it is
not an easy
thing to undertake this task which will require some
considerable amount of money.
But I may venture to say that the Korean Government will be able
to spare four
or five hundred thousand yen a year, or even more, for the
purpose, if their
finances are managed cautiously and wisely. Happily we find a
vigorous hand in
the President of this railway, Mr. Yi Yong Ik, who will face any
difficulty, if
there is any, in completing this great work, and I may add that
Mr. Yi is best
situated for financing the construction of this railway because
he has himself
financial control over the income of the Imperial Household
which may be set
aside for the purpose of this railway. As to the engineering of
the work I
rejoice to see that the Korean Government have secured very able
assistance and
support in the persons of able and experienced French engineers.
If their advice
be followed there is little doubt that the railway will be
completed in a way
both scientific and practical. I may also congratulate them upon
being the
engineers of the first Korean railway. We sincerely wish every
success to this
undertaking.”
The Department of
Agriculture, &c. is intending to
make a thorough examination of the gold diggings in Kang-wŭn
Province and to
give licenses to thirty miners to work in each of eight
diggings, the annual fee
being five dollars for each miner.
One day last month
sixty-six criminals were executed,
five of whom were women. The great majority of them were in the
prisons in
Seoul. Some were thieves, some counterfeiters and some
murderers.
In Ch’ung-yang in South
Ch’ŭng-ch’ŭng Province, Yi
Seung-jo has given 40,000,000 cash for the relief of the famine
sufferers.
The people of Ko-yang near
Seoul have asked for the
loan of 2,000 bags of Annam rice, to be paid back next fall.
It is with the keenest
regret that we have to record
the death by typhus fever of Miss Lillian Harris, M. D. in
P’yŭng-yang. She was
one of the most energetic and devoted missionaries that has ever
come to Korea
and her death is a sad loss not only to her friends, of whom
there were many,
but also to the work . She was about to take her first furlough
to America.
Yi Yong-jik, who was
banished for three years, has
been pardoned and has been made special adviser to the Law
Department.
About the end of April the
Japanese Minister intimated
to the Government that Japan would ask Korea to pay an indemnity
on account of Japanese
killed in Korea since 1894. It is to be hoped that both the deb
it and the
credit sides of tne account will receive attention.
During the last three
years the Government tax on rice
boats and ferry-boats has amounted to $58,997.55. Of this
$14286.32 has been
spent in collecting the tax and the remainder goes into the
national exchequer.
The Famine Relief
Commission has recommended that the
taxes of Ha-ju, Whang-ju and P’yung-san in Whang-hă Province be
remitted for the
year and that rice be sent to relieve the distress there.
[page 221] The Governor of
South Chulla Province
reports that 758 houses have been deserted because of the famine
and that the
number of starving people is 2376. Local benefactions have
helped to alleviate
the distress but he asks that the government tax be used to help
these people.
The number of people in
the Seoul prisons now numbers
480.
The Belgian Consul has
recommended to the Government
to send delegates to the medical convention that is to be held
in Kyoto, Japan,
in the ninth moon that they may learn what steps it is necessary
to take to stamp
out that most dreaded of all Korean diseases, typhus.
The New York
Times of Jan. 26 contains the following notice that will
be of interest to
the friends of Mr. E. V. Morgan, formerly Secretary of Legation
in Seoul.
Edwin V. Morgan, Second
Secretary of Embassy in St.
Petersburg, has been selected to fill the vacancy in the State
Department
caused by the death of Thomas Kellar. Mr. Morgan is a native of
New York and has
had considerable experience. The place he assumes is that of
confidential clerk
and secretary to the Third Assistant Secretary, Pierce. A
successor to the
office of Second Secretary at St. Petersburg has been selected
but his name has
not been made public.
We congratulate Mr. Morgan
upon this promotion. We
understand that this is a new office.
The Belgian Representative
has suggested that Korea
send a representative to Brussels to attend a great medical
convention to be
held there during the first week of September, with a special
view to studying the
means for combating the typhus.
The Japanese Minister has
asked the Korean Government
whether it desires to make an exhibit at the Industrial
Exhibition to be held
in Osaka.
In connection with the
recent excitement about the
rumored rise of the Independence Club it is interesting to learn
that certain
incriminating documents were put in evidence bearing the private
seal of Nam Kung-ŭk,
the able Editor of the
Whang sung Sin-mun.
When these were shown him he immediately denounced the seal a
forgery and
challenged a comparison between the impressions on these
documents and that
made by the private seal which he carried on his person. The
comparison showed
conclusively that a false seal had been made with malicious
intent to implicate
him. This changed the whole aspect of the af fair, and Yu
Tong-geun, who was
the perpetrator of the outrage, is to be executed.
The seals of all the heads
of departments are on
record in the palace, but to prevent possible trouble of the
above nature the
Government has ordered all the vice-ministers to put their seals
also on
record.
Koreans know a good thing
when they see it. Sim Hu-t’ăk
the prefect of Sŭng-jin, the new open port in the north-east,
being superseded,
set out to return to Seoul but the people blocked the road and
prevented his
departure saying that we he was too good a prefect to lose. He
went back to his
office but at night made his escape by a less frequented road
and hastened on
his way to Wonsan, but before he reached that place [page 222]
the people
overtook him and carried him back in triumph. They then
telegraphed to Seoul
and urged that they could not think of letting such a man go and
begged that he
be reinstated.
The defalcation of the
clerk in the post-office in
Song-do has led to a general investigation which reveals the
startling fact
that throughout the provinces there is not a single office where
there is not a
shortage ranging from $1000 to $2000.
Seven thousand dollars
have been appropriated for the
purpose of connecting the Korean telegraph line with the Russian
line at
Mukden.
Sim Sang-hun Minister of
Finance has tendered his
resignation on the ground that the treasury is empty, the
prefects do not send
up the Government revenue and an army of officials is clamoring
for pay and cannot
get it.
The material progress of
Korea is mirrored in the
recent formation of a Laundry Company which proposes to do
business outside the
North east Gate. They have applied to the Government for a
charter and offer to
pay an annual license of $200.
The Japanese paper in
Chemulpo announces the arrival
of a Japanese boat from north China bringing a load of
counterfeit nickels,
manufactured in that country.
Three robbers who have
been carrying on active
operations in Po ch’un have been captured and brought to Seoul.
The project of building a
western palace at P’yŭng-yang
was given up once because of lack of funds but it was taken up
again and Min
Yong ch’ul has been sent to that city with $100,000 to begin the
work. The total
cost will be about $600,000 and it is said the balance will be
collected from
the province of P’yŭng-yang.
The stone and timber which
is being so lavishly
prepared in the street beside the palace is being used to
construct a great
Audience Hall. Some of the timbers are truly magnificent.
Some students of the
Normal School who were being
examined at the Educational Office with a view to selecting some
of them for
service in the country were detected in cheating and they were
all refused diplomas.
M. Kato, Esq. who is to
become Adviser to the
Household Department arrived in Seoul on the eighth of May.
A treaty has been arranged
between Korea and Denmark.
For the time being, His Excellency A. Pavloff will assume the
duties of Danish Minister
to Korea.
Spurred on by the offer of
reward the police have been
very active in the search for counterfeiters. One was arrested
in Kwa-ch’un and
he and his machine were brought to Seoul; his machine was
smashed at Chong-no
and he will doubtless be smashed somewhere else. Meanwhile the
policeman who
effected the capture is richer by $200 –his reward.
Sixty-nine houses were
destroyed by fire in On-yang on
the 14th of April. No lives were lost.
Yi Yong-ik the Chief or
Police has driven out of Seoul
all the countrymen who are here merely on pleasure bent.
[page 223] Bible Society
Sunday.
The first Sabbath in May
has come to be the Bible
Sunday in Korea. The fourth of this month was thus observed, not
only in the
capital but throughout the country. It is well to keep in mind
the fact that
the Bible societies are the pioneers of Protestant Christian
work in Korea. The
American Bible Society and the National Bible Society of
Scotland entered from
Japan, the British and Foreign Bible Society by way of Eui-ju,
and this even
before the advent of Protestant missionaries in 1884.
The first
committee on the translation of the Bible was appointed in June
1890; in July
1900 the first complete New Testament prepared in Korea was
published. Up to
1895 the work was superintended by agents of the different
societies, residing
in China or Japan, but that year marked a forward step when the
British and
Foreign Bible Society appointed its first resident agent in
Korea in the person
of Mr. Alex. Kenmure to whom is due much of the success of the
work of
publication.
On the fourth
of this month all the native churches called attention to the
claims of the
Bible to their faith and benevolence. The offerings showed a
considerable
advance over those of previous years. At the Union Church
special services were
held, presided over by Rev. H. O. T. Burkwall the acting agent
of the British
and Foreign Bible Society. Mr. Burkwall’s address was a stirring
one and we
wish that we had space to print it in full. After dwelling upon
the fact that
the “giving of the Word” is the power which brings about unity
among believers
he says:
“Amidst all diversity the place of the
Scriptures in preparing the way of the Lord is the topic upon
which all
followers of Jesus are agreed. We have great cause for rejoicing
for marked
success in Bible work during the past year. By an act of faith,
men who loved
the Lord and
His Word formed the first of those great societies which have
for their object
the giving of the Gospel to every creature in his own mother tongue. And by faith the
work has gone on. When the British and Foreign Bible Society was
founded the
Baptist Missionary Society had already been in existence twelve
years, the London
Missionary Society nine years and the Church Missionary Society
and the
Religious Tract Society five years; and some of the strongest
men in each of
these organizations gave their hearty encouragement to the new
venture. Granville
Sharp, Wm. Wilberforce, Zachary Macauley, are names found n the list
of its founders. From the first it proved to be a power to draw
together
members of different religious denominations. But this is still
more marked
to-day when we look at the noble army of translators scattered
over the
continents of America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Islands of
the Sea.
[page 224] “The aim of the Society is
not merely to provide a Bible in each language but to secure one
Bible in each
language and it is no small gain to escape sectarian
translations in heathen
lands. Within the last century this noble band of translators
have made two
hundred and nineteen languages the vehicles for conveying divine
knowledge,
taking the languages directly from the lips of the people
speaking them. In all
these languages the Gospel was the first book ever printed.”
“Of the 478 ancient and
modern translations of the Bible 456 have been made by
missionaries. The field
is the world, and it is a broad field, and success in any one
part of it brings
encouragement to the laborers in other parts. The Bible Society
during the past
two years has made some marked advances. Russia ever hostile to
missionaries of
other than the Greek Church, has shown much kindness to Bible
colporteurs. Railways
and steamships give free passage or reduced rates to colporteurs
and to Bible
shipments. Bookstalls at large railway stations carry stocks of
Scriptures and
are ordered by the authorities to look well to their sale. Army
officers
encourage sales among the soldiers. In Argentina and Costa Rica
special
privileges have also been granted.
“The Bible has again found entrance to
the Soudan from which it was excluded for thirty years or more
until the battle
of Omdurman.”
“The call for the Thibetan Scriptures
is on the increase and thousands of copies find their way
annually to that
forbidden land.”
“In China the issues of the Scriptures
have increased wonderfully. During the first eight days of this
year 150,000
copies were ordered from the B. & F. Bible Society office
alone, and the
sales for the first quarter were 236,000 copies.”
After a stirring peroration the
speaker gave place to Rev. Jas. S. Gale who followed with a
vigorous defense of
the Scriptures as the Word of God, powerful in these days of
doubt and
hypercriticism to bring salvation to the penitent and humble
believer. The
annual offering was then received, which showed a handsome
advance on previous
donations.
The
following table shows the circulation of the Scripture in Korea
for 1901.
Bible
Circulation in Korea, 1901.
[See images for chart]
[page 225] Korean History.
Medieval
Korea.
All
was instantly in turmoil; the king had all his valuables packed
and was ready
to flee at a moment’s warning. But lo! another messenger
followed hard upon the
heels of the first announcing that Gen. Yi had turned the tide
of battle and
had wrested victory from the teeth of the enemy.
The good will of the Japanese
government was shown when a prefect in western Japan sent sixty
soldiers under the
command of a monk, Sin Hong, to aid in the putting down of the
corsairs. They
made some attempts to check their lawless countrymen but soon
found that they
had undertaken more than they had bargained for, and so returned
to Japan. As
the pirates were ravaging the west coast as far north as
P’yŭng-yang, the king
sent against them Generals Na Se and Sim Tŭk-pu who had been successful before. By the use of
fire-arrows
they succeeded in burning several of the enemy’s boats at Chin-p’o and of course had the
fellows at their mercy, for they had no means of escape.
Late in the autumn of 1379 the
Japanese were again in dangerous proximity to the capital and
the king wanted
to move to a safer place. The geomancers’ book of prophecies indicated
Puk-so San as “A narrow place and good for a king to live in,” but the courtiers opposed
it, saying that there was no large river flowing nearby, on
which the
government rice could be brought by boat to the capital. So it
was given up.
There was a Mongol general named
Ko-ga-no who had become independent of the main body of the
Mongols and had set
up a separate government on his own responsibility in Liao-tung.
He was
wavering between natural ties on the one hand, which bound him
to the Mongols,
and the dictates of common sense on the other, which indicated
the rising fortunes
of the Ming. He chose a middle course by [page 226] coming with his 40,000 men and asking
the privilege of joining Koryŭ. The records do not say whether
permission was
given or not, but we may easily
believe it was.
In 1380 the Japanese government sent
180 soldiers under the command of Gen. Pak Kŭ-sa to aid in driving the pirates
out of Koryŭ. In the midst of these dangers from freebooters,
jealousy was
undermining the government at Song-do. Gen. Yi T’ă-jo had a
friend named Gen.
Yang Păk-yŭn who now under false charges, enviously made by
officials near the
king, was banished and then killed. It was wonderful that the
fame of Gen. Yi
did not bring about his murder.
The Ming emperor thought, and rightly,
that the king was a very fickle individual and sent a letter
asking him why it
was that he had no settled policy but did everything as the
impulse of the
moment led. The king’s reply is not recorded but that he did not
take to heart
the admonitions of the emperor is quite evident, for he plunged
into greater
excesses than ever. His ill-timed hunting expeditions, his
drunkenness and
debauchery were the scandal of the country. The people thought
he ought to be
hunting Japanese pirates rather than wild boar and deer. Even
while the
Japanese were ravaging Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province the king was
trampling down the
people’s rice-fields in the pursuit of game. He stole the
people’s cattle and
horses whenever he needed them and if he chanced to see a good
looking girl anywhere he took means to
possess himself of her person by fair means or foul. He was indeed the son of
Sin-don both by blood and by disposition.
This year the ravages of the
freebooters exceeded anything that had been known before. The
southern
provinces were honeycombed by them. Generals Pă Keuk-yŭm and
Chöng Chi were
sent against them but without result. At last the Japanese
laughingly asserted
that they soon would be in the city of Song-do. They might have
gone there if
Gen. Yi had not been sent in person to direct the campaign
against them.
Hastening south he rallied around him all the available troops
and came to
Un-bong in Chŭl-la province. He ascended Chöng San which lay six
miles from the
camp of the enemy. From this point be perceived that there were
two
[page 227] roads leading to this camp;
one broad and easy and the other narrow and rough. With great
sagacity he
judged that the Japanese would take the narrow road, hoping to
make a counter
march on him. So he sent a considerable force by the broad road
but selected a
band of trusty men to form an ambush on the narrow one. The
Japanese acted
precisely as he had foreseen. When they learned that the Koryŭ
army was
approaching they hastened away by the narrow road and so fell
into the ambush,
where they were severely
handled. Fifty of their number were left dead. The remainder
sought safety in
the mountains but were soon brought to bay. The whole Koryŭ army
was called up
and the attack upon the Japanese position was begun. It was
necessary to attack
up a steep incline and Gen. Yi had two horses shot out from
under him, and an
arrow pierced his leg; but he drew it out and continued the
fight. Among the enemy
was a man stronger and larger than the rest. He stood spear in
hand and danced about,
urging on his comrades. He was encased in armor and on his head
was a copper
helmet. There was no opening for an arrow to enter; so Gen. Yi
said to his
lieutenant, Yi Tu-ran, “Make
ready an arrow
and when I strike off
his helmet do you aim at his face.” Gen. Yi took careful aim and
struck off the
man’s helmet and swift behind his arrow flew that of his
lieutenant which laid
the fellow low. This demoralized the enemy and they were soon
hewn down. It is
said that for days the stream nearby ran red with blood. As the
result of this
victory 1600 horses were taken and a large amount of spoil,
including
implements of war.
When the victorious general returned
to Song-do he was given a triumphal entry and fifty ounces of
gold and other gifts
were distributed among the generals who assisted him. It is said
that, from
that time on, whenever the news came that a Japanese band had
disembarked on
the southern coast the first word that was spoken was, “Where is Gen. Yi T’ă-jo?”
The long-suffering emperor at last
tired of the erratic
course of the Koryŭ king and decided to bring a little pressure
to bear upon
him in order to bring him to his senses. He ordered the king to
send him each
year a thousand horses, a hundred pounds of gold, five thousand
ounces of
silver and [page 228]
five thousand
pieces of cotton cloth. This was beyond the means of the king,
but he succeeded
in sending three hundred ounces of gold, a thousand ounces of
silver, four
hundred and fifty horses and four thousand five hundred pieces
of cotton. This
large amount of tribute was delivered into the hands of the
governor of
Liao-tung to be sent to the imperial court, but the governor
declared that as
the tax was a penal one and not merely for tribute he could not
accept less
than the full amount required. So he drove the envoy away.
In 1382 the government adopted a new
policy in the matter of coast defense. In all the larger seaport
towns generals
were stationed in charge of considerable bodies of troops and in
the smaller
towns garrisons of proportional strength. The constant coming
and going of
these troops was a terrible drain upon the resources of the
people but there
was no help for it. The piratical raids of the Japanese had now
become so
frequent that no attempt was made to keep a record of them. It
would have been
easier for the people to bear had the king showed any of the
characteristics of
manhood, but his feasts and revels saw no abatement. Frequently
he was so
intoxicated that he fell from his horse while hunting. He
peopled the palace
with dancing-girls and it may be said of him as it was of Nero
that he “fiddled while Rome was
burning.”
As the king rode forth to hunt with falcon on wrist the eunuchs
rode behind him
singing ribald Mongol songs. When other pleasures cloyed he
invented a sort of
mock battle in which stones were used as missiles. It is
believed by many that
this was the beginning of the popular “stone-fight,” which is such a unique custom
of Korea today. Once he amused himself by pretending that he was
going to bury
one of his officials alive behind the palace, and he hugely
enjoyed the poor
fellow’s shrieks and struggles. He made this same official put
up his hat as a
target, than which hardly anything could be a greater disgrace,
for the hat in
Korea is the badge of citizenship and is held in such esteem
that no one will
attend to the duties of nature without taking off his hat and
laying it aside.
Being hard pressed by the emperor in
the matter of tribute it is said that in 1383 he sent to the
Ming court a
hundred pounds of gold, ten thousand ounces of silver, ten
thousand
[page 229] pieces of linen and a
thousand horses. The records say
the emperor refused to take it, for it fell short of his
demands. It is
probable that this means not that it was sent back but that the
emperor refused
to give a receipt in full of all demands.
In this same year, 1383, the capital
was again moved to Han-yang.
The reasons alleged were that so many misfortunes overtook the
dynasty that it
seemed as if the site of the capital must be unpropitious. It
was also said
that wild animals entered the city, which was a bad sign. The
water in the
wells had boiled, fish fought with each other, and a number of
other fictions
were invented, all of which made it necessary to move the
capital. It was
effected, however, in the face of great opposition. Meanwhile
the Japanese were
working their will in the south, for Gen. Yi was in the north
repelling an
attack by the Yŭ-jin forces.
In spite of the sending of tribute to
the Ming court, Koryŭ was on good terms with the Mongols. In
1384 the Mongol
chief Nap-t’ap-chul
came with gifts to the king and frequent envoys were exchanged.
Koryŭ was
neither hot nor cold but lukewarm and for this reason it was
that the Mings
finally spewed her out of their mouth. The capricious king now
moved back to
Song-do and the courtiers were put to no end of trouble and
expense. When they
returned to Song-do with the king they burned all their houses
in Hanyang so as
to make it impossible to return.
One of the most disgraceful acts of
this king was his attempt to possess himself of his father’s
wife, or
concubine. Meeting her one day he commented on her beauty and
said she was more
beautiful than any of his wives. He tried to force his way into
her apartments
at night but in some way his plan was frustrated. When one of
the courtiers
took him to task for his irregularities he tried to shoot him
through with an
arrow.
Gen. Yi T’ă-jo was having a lively
time in the north with the Yu-jin people. Their general was
Ho-bal-do. His
helmet was four pounds in weight. He wore a suit of red armor
and he rode a
black horse. Riding forth from the ranks he shouted insulting
words to Gen. Yi
and dared him to single combat. The latter accepted the gage and
soon the two
were [page 230] at work striking blows
that no ordinary man could withstand. Neither could gain the
advantage until by
a lucky chance the horse of Gen. Ho stumbled, and before the
rider could
recover himself Gen. Yi had an arrow in his neck. But the helmet
saved him from
a serious wound. Then Gen. Yi shot his horse under him. At sight
of this Gen.
Ho’s
soldiers rushed up, as did also those of Gen. Yi, and the fight
became general.
The result was an overwhelming victory for Koryŭ. These
flattering statements
about the founder of the present dynasty are probably, in many
cases, the
result of hero-worship but the reader has the privilege of
discounting them at discretion.
The Ming court knew all about Koryŭ’s
coquetting with the Mongols and sent a severe letter warning her
that the consequences
of this would be disastrous. The king was frightened and sent an
envoy in haste
to the Ming court to “make
it right,”
but the emperor cast him into prison and sent demanding five
years’ tribute at once. We may
well believe that this demand was not complied with.
That there were two opinions in Japan
as regards Koryŭ is
shown by the fact that immediately after that government sent
back 200 Koryŭ
citizens, who had been carried away captive, a sanguinary
expedition landed on
the coast of Kangwŭn Province near the town of Kang-neung and
ravaged right
away north as far as Nang-ch’un.
The king, in partial compliance with
the emperor’s demands sent, in the spring of 1385, 2000 horses
to China. It was
the faithful Chöng Mong-ju who accompanied this peace offering,
and when he
arrived in Nanking the emperor saw by the date of his commission
that he had
come in extreme haste. This mollified his resentment to such an
extent that he
gave the envoy a favorable hearing and that careful and
judicious man made such
good use of the opportunity that friendly intercourse was again
established
between China and her wayward vassal.
The state of affairs in Koryŭ was now
beyond description. The kwaga, a literary degree of some
importance, was frequently conferred upon infants still in their
mothers’ arms.
The people, with fine sarcasm, called this the “Pink Baby-powder Degree.”
The king was struggling to pay up [page 231] his arrears of tribute, but
he could not secure the requisite number of horses. In lieu of
these he sent
large quantities of silver and cloth. The pendulum had now swung
to the other
extreme and a Mongol envoy was denied audience with the king.
In 1386, the year following the above
events, the Ming emperor formally recognized the king of Koryŭ.
This event was
hailed with the greatest delight by the court. But it did not
have the effect
of awakening the king to the dignity of his position for he gave
freer rein to
his passions than ever. He seized the daughter of one of his
officials and made
her his concubine although she was already affianced to another.
This is a most
grave offense in the east, for a girl affianced is considered
already the same
as married.
It is a relief to turn from this
picture and see what Gen. Yi was doing to free his country from
Japanese
pirates. He was in the northeast when a band of these men landed
in his vicinity,
near the mouth of the Tu-man River. When they found that Gen. Yi
was nearby
they wanted to make their escape but he forced them into a
position where they
either had to fight or surrender. He informed them that
immediate surrender was
the only thing that could save them. They agreed to his terms
but when they had
thus been thrown off their guard he fell upon them and the
slaughter was so
great that it is said the plain was filled with the dead bodies.
The records
make no attempt to conceal or palliate this act of bad faith on
the part of
this great general. It was not an age when nice distinctions
were made. The
Japanese were not waging a regular warfare against the Koryŭ
government but were
killing helpless women and children and burning their houses.
Their one aim was
plunder and this put them outside the pale of whatever code of
military honor
prevailed.
The king’s vagaries now took a new
turn. Like Haroun al Raschid he went forth at night and roamed
the streets in
disguise accompanied by concubines and eunuchs. Crimes that
cannot be described
and which would have brought instant death upon a common citizen
were committed
with impunity. No man’s honor was safe. Not only so, but other
evil-minded
people masquerading at night and in disguise committed like
indescribable
outrages under the cover [page 232]
of the
king’s name. In his hunting expeditions the king rode forth
preceeded by a host
of harlots and concubines dressed in male attire and wherever he
went the
people lost their horses and cattle and whatever else the royal
escort took a
fancy to.
The continual trouble in Quelpart
arising out of the horse-breeding business grew so annoying that
the king finally
sent Gen. Yi Hang with instructions to bring away every horse
and to do away
entirely with the business. This was done and from that day
Quelpart had peace.
Kim Yu the envoy to Nanking was
closely questioned by the emperor as to the cause of the late
king’s death and
he told that potentate that it was done by Yi In-im, which
indeed was true; but
to the question as to whose son the king might be he returned an
evasive
answer. As a result of his frankness in telling who murdered the
former king he
was banished, for Yi In-im was all-powerful at court. The
sentence of
banishment meant death for he was sent to a distant place of
banishment as such
a break-neck pace that no man could live through it. He died of
fatigue on the
way as was intended. This Yi In-im and his following held the
reins of power at
the capital and they sold all offices and took bribes from all
criminals. They
thus succeeded in defeating the ends of justice and the people “gnashed their teeth” at him. He caused the
death of so many good men that he earned the popular soubriquet
of “O1d Cat.”
The year 1387 was signalized by a
closer union between Koryŭ and her suzerain. The Ming emperor
sent 5000 pieces
of silk to purchase horses but when the animals arrived at his
capital they
were such a sorry lot that he rejected them and charged the king
with bad
faith. The Koryu
officials all adopted the dress and the manners of the Ming
court. This they
had done before but had dropped them again when they turned back
to the
Mongols. From that time on until the present day the clothes of
the Korean have
followed the fashions of the Ming dynasty.
[page 233] Chapter XIII.
King
determines to invade
Liao-tung....
why unwise... the emperor’s letter and
the answer....
preparations. . . .Gen. Yi*s argument... royal threat.... Gen. Yi marches northward.
. . the troops appealed to....
the Rubicon of Korea....
an omen...
advance toward Songdo . . .the capital in Gen. Yi’s hands... popular song... Gen. Yi’s demands.... attempted assassination.... king banished... a new king.... reforms... the “Red Grave”....envoy
to China... Koryŭ takes
the offensive against the Japanese...the emperor’s offer...a real Wang upon the throne... the banished kings
executed....
unsuccessful plot....Gen.
Yi opposes the Buddhists....capital
moved to Han-yang....people
desire Gen. Yi to be made king...he
is reluctant...
his son active...Chöng
Mong-ju assassinated....all enemies silenced....the king’s oath...the king abdicates in favor
of Gen. Yi T’ă-jo.
Koryŭ
was now whirling in the outer circles of the maelstrom that was
destined to
engulf her. So long as the king revelled and hunted only and did
not interfere
with outside affairs he was endured as an necessary evil but now
in the opening
of the year 138S he determined upon an invasion of Liao-tung, a
plan so utterly
foolhardy as to become the laughing-stock of reasonable men. It
was an insane
idea. The constant inroads of the Japanese demanded the presence
of all the
government troops, for the sending of any of them out of the
country would be
the signal for the Japanese to pour in afresh and with impunity.
In the second
place the king could not hope to cope with the great Ming power
that had just
arisen and was now in the first blush of its power. The kingdom
of Koryŭ was
essentially bound to the Mongols and she pursued her destiny to
the bitter end.
In the third place the Ming power had now obtained a firm
foothold in Liao-tung
and an invasion there would look much like a plan to finally
attack that empire
itself. In the fourth place the finances of the country were
utterly
disorganised and the unusual taxes that would be required to
carry out the plan
would take away all popular enthusiasm for it and desertions
would decimate the army. But in
spite of all these drawbacks the stubborn king held to his point
and as a
preliminary measure [page 234]
built a wall about Han-yang where he sent all the women and
children for
safety. By this act he acknowledged the extreme hazard of the
venture. It is
not unlikely that he was so tired of all other forms of
amusement that he decided
to plunge into war in order to make sport for himself.
The emperor seems to have been aware
of the plan for he now sent an envoy to announce to the Koryŭ
court that “All land north of Ch’ŭl-lyŭng belongs to the
Mongols, and I am about to erect a palisade fence between you
and them.” When
this envoy arrived at Song-do the king feigned illness and would not see him.
A letter was sent in reply saying “We own beyond the Ch’ŭl-lyŭng as far as Sang-sŭng, so we trust it will
please you not to erect a barrier there.” He then called in all
the troops from
the provinces in preparation for the invasion. His ostensible
reason was a
great hunting expedition in P’yŭng-an Province for he knew the
people would
rise in revolt if they knew the real purpose. The Japanese were
wasting the
south, the people were fainting under new exactions to cover the expense of
the repairs at Han-yang and it is said the very planting of
crops was dispensed
with, so disheartened were the people.
Having made Ch’oe Yŭng general-in-chief of
the expedition, the king accompanied the army north to Pong-ju,
now Pong-san.
Gen. Ch’oe never divulged the fact that this was an army of
invasion but told
all the troops that they must be strong and brave and ready for
any work that
might be given them to do. Gen. Yi T’ă-jo was made lieutenant-general in connection with
Gen. Ch’oe. He made a powerful plea against the war and the main
points of his
argument are preserved to us. His objections were (1) It is bad for a small
country to attack a powerful on a. (2) It is bad to make a
campaign in summer
when the heavy rains flood the country, rendering the
transporting of troops
almost impossible and decimating them with disease. (3) It is
bad to drain off
all the soldiers from the country when the Japanese are so
constant in their
ravages. (4) The heat and moisture of summer will spoil the bows
and make them break
easily. To all these objections the king replied that having
come thus far the
plan must be carried out. Gen.
Yi hazarded his neck by demurring; still asserting that it would
[page 235] mean the overthrow of the
kingdom. The king in rage exclaimed “The next man that advises against this
war will lose his head.”
This was an end of the debate and as the council of war
dispersed the officers
saw Gen. Yi weeping, and to their questions he answered “It means the destruction of
Koryŭ.”
The Yalu was quickly bridged and Gen.
Yi in company with one other general started north from
P’yŭng-yang with 38,600
troops,
21,000 of whom were mounted. At the same time the king discarded
the Ming
calendar, dress and coiffure. The Mongol clothes were again
adopted and the
hair cut. The Japanese knowing that the troops had gone north,
entered the open
door thus invitingly left ajar and seized forty districts.
But we must follow the fortunes of the
expedition that was to attack the empire of the Mings. When Gen.
Yi arrived at
the Yalu his plans were not laid as to what he should do. For
one thing, he
intended to make no invasion of China. So he crossed over to
Wi-ha island, in
the mouth of the Yalu, and there made his camp. Hundreds of his
troops deserted
and went back home. Some of these the king siezed and beheaded;
but it did not
stop the defection. From that island a general, Hong In-ju, made a dash
into Liao-tung territory and was highly complimented by the king
in
consequence. But Gen. Yi remaind impassive. He sent a letter to
the king
imploring him to listen to reason and recall the army, urging
history, the
flooded condition of the country and the Japanese reasons for
it. But the king
was stubborn. Rumor said that Gen. Yi had fled but when another
general was
sent to ascertain whether this were true or false he was found
at his post. The
two generals wept together over the hopeless condition of
affairs. At last they
summoned the soldiers. “If
we stay here we will all be swept away by the rising flood. The king will
not listen to reason. What can we do to prevent the destruction
of all the
people of Koryŭ? Shall we go back to P’yŭng-yang, depose the
general-in-chief, Ch’oe,
who urges on this unholy war against the Mings?” The soldiers shouted out
acclamations of glad assent. Nothing could please them better.
As Gen. Yi T’ă-jo mounted his white
steed and with his [page 236]
red bow and white arrows stood motionless upon a mound of earth
watching his
soldiers recross the Yalu
to the Koryŭ side
against the mandate of their king and his, we see a new Caesar
watching his army cross the Rubicon, an army as passionately
devoted to their
leader as the Roman legions ever were to Caesar. And Caesar
suffers in the
comparison, for he went back not to restore the integrity of the
state and prevent
the waste of human life, but rather to carry out to its tragic
end a personal
ambition. We have seen how once and again Yi T’ă-jo had plead
with the king and
had risked even his life to prevent this monumental folly; and
we shall see how
he used his power not for personal ends but with loyalty to his
king, until
circumstances thrust him upon the throne.
The records say that no sooner had
Gen. Yi followed his army across the stream than a mighty wave,
fed by mountain
streams, came rolling down the valley and swept clean over the
island he had
just left. The people looked upon this as an omen and a sign of
heaven’s favor,
and they made a song whose refrain runs “The son of wood will become
king.”
This refers to the Chinese character for Gen. Yi’s name. It is
the union of the
two characters “wood”
and “son.” The
whole army then took up its march toward Song-do. A magistrate
in the north
sent a hasty message to the king saying that the army was in
full march back
toward the capital. The king was at this time in Song-ch’un,
north of P’yŭng-yang.
He knew many of the generals were opposed to the war and thought
that they
would obey him better if he were nearby, and so had come thus
for north.
Hearing this startling news he
immediately dispatched Gen. Ch’oe
Yu-gyŭng with whatever force he had, to oppose the march of the
rebellious Gen. Yi. The associate
of the latter urged him to push forward with all speed and seize
the person of
the king, but he was no traitor, and he replied “If we hurry forward and
encounter our county men many will fall . If anyone lays a
finger on the king I
will have no mercy on him. If a single citizen of Koryŭ is
injured in any way I
will never forgive the culprit.” So Gen. Yi came southward
slowly, hunting
along the way in order to give the king time to get back to
Song-do in a
leisurely manner as becomes a king. At last the king arrived at
his capital and
the [page 237]
recalcitrant
army came following slowly. The people along the way hailed them
as the saviors
of the nation and gave them all manner of provisions and supplies, so
that they lacked for nothing.
When Gen. Yi T’ă-jo reached the
neighborhood of Songdo he sent a letter to the king saying, “As General-in-chief Ch’oe-yŭng does not care for
the welfare of the people he must die. Send him to me for
execution.” But Gen. Ch’oe did not intend to give
up without a struggle, however hopeless his case might be; so he took
what troops were left and manned the walls of Song-do. It was a
desperate move,
for all saw what the end must be. Hundreds of soldiers who had
deserted now
flocked again to the standards of Gen. Yi.
When the attack came off, Gen. Yi
stormed the South Gate and Gen. Yu Man-su the West Gate, and
soon an entrance
was effected. It is said that after entering the city the first
attack upon the
royal forces was made by Gen. Yu alone and that he was driven
back. When this
was told Gen. Yi he seemed not to care but sat on his horse and
let it crop the
grass along the path. After a time he partook of some food and
them leisurely
arose, drew up his forces and in full view of them all took a
shot at a small
pine that stood a hundred paces away. The arrow cut it sheer off
and the soldiers
hailed it as a sign of victory, for was not the pine the symbol
of Koryŭ? So
they marched on the palace. The old men and boys mounted the
city walls and
cheered the attacking forces. Gen. Yi did not lead the attack in
person and his
lieutenant was beaten back by the royal forces under Gen. Ch’oe. Gen. Yi thereupon took
in his hand a yellow flag, crossed the Son-juk bridge and
ascended South
Mountain from which point he obtained a full view of the
interior of the
palace. He saw that Gen. Ch’oe
and the king, with a band of soldiers, had taken refuge in the
palace garden. Descending
the mountain he led his troops straight through every obstacle,
entered the
palace and surrounded the royal party. Gen. Ch’oe was ordered to
come out and
surrender but as there was no response the garden gate was burst
open and the king was discovered
holding the hand of Gen. Ch’oe. As there was no longer hope of
rescue the king,
weeping, handed over the loyal general to the soldiers of Gen.
Yi.
[page 238] He stepped forward and said “I had no intention of
proceeding to these extremes, but to fight the Ming power is out
of the
question. It is not only useless but suicidal to attempt such a
thing. I have
come back to the capital in this manner because there was no
other way open to
me, because it was a traitorous act to attack our suzerain, and
because the
people of Koryŭ were suffering in consequence of the withdrawal
of protection.” Gen. Ch’oe was then banished to
Ko-yang and Gen. Yi, as he sent him away, wept and said “Go in peace.” The records
say that long before this the evil-minded Yi In-im had foretold
to Gen. Ch’oe that one day Gen. Yi T’ă-jo
would become king, but at the time Gen. Ch’oe laughed at it. Now he
was forced to grant that the prophecy had been a true one. A
popular song was
composed at this time, whose refrain states that
“Outside the wall of P’yŭng-yang there
is a red light, Outside
the wall of An-ju a snake. Between them comes and goes a
soldier, Yi. May he
help us.”
When Gen. Ch’oe had thus been disposed
of, Gen. Yi turned to the king and said “It was impossible to carry out
the plan of conquest. The only thing left was to come back,
banish the man who
gave such bad advice and make a new start. We must now be firm
in our
allegience to the Ming emperor, and we must change back to the
Ming costume.”
The emperor, hearing of the threatened
invasion, had sent a powerful army into Liao-tung, but now that
the invaders
had retired he recalled the troops.
We can easily imagine how the king,
who had never been balked of his will, hated Gen. Yi. The moment
an opportunity
occurred he called about him eighty of his most trusted eunuchs,
armed them
with swords and sent them to kill the obnoxious dictator. But
they found him so
well guarded that the attempt proved abortive.
It will be remembered that this king
was the son of Sindon and was therefore not of the royal stock.
So now the courtier
Yun So-jŭng told Gen. Yi that they ought to find some blood
relative of the
Wang family, the genuine royal stock, and put him on the throne.
To this the
dictator assented. As a first move all arms were removed from
the
[page 239] palace. The king was left
helpless. He was ordered to send away one of his concubines who
had formerly
been a monk’s slave but he replied “If she goes I go.” The generals went in a
body to the palace and advised the king to leave the capital and
retire into
private life in Kang-wha. This was a polite way of saying that
he was banished.
He plead to be allowed to wait till the next day as it was now
well along toward
night. And so this evil king took his concubines, which he had
always cherished
more than the kingdom, and passed off the stage of history. He it was who most of
all, excepting only his father, helped to bring about the fall
of the dynasty.
Gen. Yi now, in 1388, was determined
to put upon the throne a lineal descendant of the Wang family,
but Cho Minsu
with whom he had before conferred about the matter desired to
put Chang, the
adopted son of the banished king, on the throne. Gen. Yi
demurred, but when he
learned that the celebrated scholar Yi Sak had favored this plan
he acquiesced.
The young king wanted to give Gen. Yi high official position but
he was not
anxious to receive it and it was only by strong pressure that he
was induced to
take it. So the records say, but we must remember in all this
account that hero
worship and desire to show the deeds of the founder of the new
dynasty in the
best light have probably colored many of the facts which
occurred at this time.
As this king was never acknowledged by
the emperor nor invested with the royal insignia, his name is
dropped from the
list of the kings of Koryŭ. Neither he nor his foster-father
were given the
regular posthumous title, but were known, the father as Sin-u
and the son as
Sin Chang.
An envoy was dispatched to Nanking
telling of the banishment of the king and the appointment of his
successor. Cho
Min-su who had been instrumental in putting this new king on the
throne was not
so modest as the records try to make us believe Gen. Yi was. He
now held almost
unlimited power. It spoiled him as it has spoiled many another
good man, and he
gave way to luxury and ere long had to be banished, a victim of
his own
excesses.
Reform now became the order of the
day. First they changed the unjust and shameful manner of
appointing
[page 240] officials that had
prevailed under the banished king. The laws respecting the
division of fields
was changed, making the people more safe in the possession of
their property.
The defenses of the south were also looked to, for Gen. Chong
Chi went south
with a powerful force and scored a signal victory over the
corsairs at Nam-wŭn.
Gen. Yi T’ă-jo was now general-in-chief of all the royal forces.
His first act
was to have the banished king sent further away to the town of Yö-heung; and at the same time the
banished Gen. Ch’oe
Yŭng was executed. The old man died without fear, at the age of
seventy. He was
not a man who had given himself over to luxury and he had many
good qualities,
but he was unlettered and stubborn and his crime in desiring to
attack China
brought him to his death. The records say that when he died he
said “If I am a true man no grass
will grow on my grave”
and the Koreans say that his grave in Ko-yang is bare to this
day and is called
in consequence “The
Red Grave.”
The emperor’s suspicions had been
again roused by the new change of face on the part of Koryŭ. The
celebrated scholar
Yi Săk
stepped forward and offered to go to the emperor’s court and smooth
things over. Gen. Yi praised him highly for this act of
condescension and he
was sent as envoy. He took with him Gen. Yi’s fifth son who is
known posthumously
by his title T’ă-jong. He was destined to become the third king
of the new
dynasty. He was taken to China by Yi Săk because the latter feared
that Gen. Yi might usurp the throne while he was gone and the
son would then be
a sort of hostage for good behavior on the part of the father.
The two great
men of Koryŭ, when it fell, were Chöng Mong-ju and this Yi Săk.
They were both
men of education and experience and were both warm partizans of
the Koryŭ
dynasty. They were loyal to her even through all the disgusting
scenes herein
described, but their great mistake was their adherence to the
Mongol power when
it had plainly retired from active participation in the affairs
of Asia. Yi Săk
now sought the court of China not so much with a view to helping
Koryŭ as to
find means to get Gen. Yi into trouble. But to his chagrin the
emperor never
gave him an opportunity to say what he desired to say about the
great dictator.
THE KOREA REVIEW
Burial
Customs.
In
a short series of papers we propose to discuss the mortuary
customs of Korea.
The material available for such a discussion is so abundant that a
volume might be filled with it but it will be best to select the
main points of
interest and deal with them, at the same time indicating
collateral issues which
may be gone into more fully at another time. The aim is to
present as clear and
concise a description as possible without special reference to
literary
embellishment, believing as we do that the readers of the Review
want the plain
facts in the case, free from all theorizing.
Burial customs are not uniform
throughout Korea, for the poor and the low class people omit
many of the finer
points which are never forgotten in the case of a gentleman of
means. If, then,
we describe the treatment of the dead among the wealthy people
of the upper
class it will be simply a task of elimination to describe that
of any other
class in Korean society. For this purpose let us take a Korean
gentleman of
means, the head of a household, and inquire how he is treated
from the time he
is found to be dying until his funeral obsequies are completed.
When he is found to be desperately ill
he is taken from his own chamber and removed to some other
apartment. The Koreans
have the notion that it is just possible the change may check
the course of the
disease. This is not akin to the custom of putting a dying man
outside the
house on a mat, [page 242]
which many
of us have
observed. This latter is because the dying man will pollute the
house or make
it unlucky.
When this is seen to be ineffectual
and the patient is nearly dead he is taken back to his own
chamber and all his immediate
family come in and sit in perfect silence about the room. A
light piece of
cotton batting is put to the dying man’s mouth that the exact
moment of his
death may be recorded. When the breath ceases to stir the
cotton, death is
supposed to have occurred, though in many cases life is probably
not yet
extinct.
When the man is pronounced dead a
blanket is thrown over the body, but no one begins to wail yet
for it might
disturb the spirit of the dead which may be hovering near. An
hour passes, and
then the family assembles again and the wailing commences.
During this process,
which is audible at some distance, the sentiments given
expression to are
almost all in commiseration of the dead. He is pitied for having
died. His
virtues are not commonly recited on such occasions nor is
reference made to the
survivors, though there is no rule which would forbid such
expressions. In this
wailing no subjective elements appear. The wailers do not complain that they
are bereft nor wonder how they are going to get along without
the presence of
the departed father, husband or brother. This first wailing
lasts about an
hour. At the expiration of this time some near relative, not a
member of the household,
or an intimate friend of the family, remains to watch the body
while all the
rest leave the room.
One of the trusted servants or some
friendly neighbor, not of the upper class, takes in his hands an
inner coat of
the dead man and climbs to the roof of the house, taking his
stand directly
over where the body lies. This coat is made of native cotton,
never of silk or
any imported goods, and has probably been kept for years in the
family wardrobe
to be used for this express purpose. Standing thus the man
grasps the collar of
the coat with his left hand and the bottom hem with his right
and waves it
three times toward the north. At the first shake he cries aloud
the full name
of the deceased, at the second shake the name of the highest
rank to which he
ever attained, and at the third shake he announces the fact that
this man is
dead.
[page 243] The reason for shaking the
garment is that, being something intimately personal to the dead
man, it forms
the credentials of the one who is announcing his death, as if he
were to say, “Here, behold the inner coat
of such and such a man of such and such a rank; him I announce
to be dead.” The
reason for shaking it toward the north is because the shadows
fall to the
north, it is the direction of the shades, its color being black.
This ceremony
is performed not only to announce to others the fact of the
death but also that
the spirit of the dead may hear and be sure that it has been
announced. The
reason for shaking it three times is because of the dead man’s in (*), eui (*) and ye (*)
which may be translated respectively, “orignial nature,” “righteousness” and “etiquette.” This important act
completed, the man brings down the garment and spreads it over
the dead body.
The family now reassembles and wails
for fifteen minutes, after which the body is lifted from the
floor and placed
upon a plank supported by two boxes made specially for the
purpose. The head is
toward the south and is raised slightly higher than the feet,
and a screen is
drawn about the dead.
The next thing in order is to make the
hon-pak-kwe ***) or “Spirit-ghost-box.” This is of wood, about a foot
long by half a foot wide and high. It is supposed to contain in
some way the
spirit of the dead. This box
is neatly papered and inside is put a paper case in the shape of
a box and
inside of this is a piece of paper whereon is written the name
of the dead.
Sometimes only blank paper is put in and rarely the name of the
man and of his
rank are both inserted. This Spirit-ghost-box is laid first
above the head of
the deceased.
After these preliminaries have been
arranged a man is chosen from among the near relatives of the
deceased to have charge
of the ceremonies and one of the trusted servants of the family
is chosen to
have charge of all the funeral expenses.
All the mourners, by which we
mean the members of the household of the deceased, look upon
themselves as in
some sense criminals upon whom rests the responsibility of the
man’s death. They put aside all
colored clothes and all silk and dress in plain linen and
cotton. All jewelry
is put away, and the hair is taken down. No boiled rice is
eaten, but a kind
[page 244] of rice soup takes its
place. Thus habited the mourners now go to the apartment
adjoining the one in
which the body lies. This has been divided by a white cotton
curtain and the
men take their places on one side and the women on the other.
Meanwhile the
master of ceremonies has sent out written notices to the particular
friends of the family, and now they come, both men and women,
and offer their
condolences. The number of notices sent out varies anywhere from
fifty to five hundred. If the
recipient of one of these lives within reasonable distance it is
de rigeur for him to
go and offer his
respects and condolences. It is customary for them to bring
small gifts of
money, rice, linen, paper, candles or tobacco.
The one who is watching beside the
body now takes warm water and washes it, not with a cloth but
with a piece of
white paper, while at the same time the family sit and wail in
the adjoining
room or busy themselves in giving away to needy neighbors the
old clothes of
the dead man. In preparing the body for burial the hair is tied
up loosely, not
in a regular top-knot, and all the combings, which have been
sedulously preserved,
are worked into the hair. All the teeth which have been
extracted from the
mouth of the deceased since his youth have been carefully
preserved together
with all his finger-nail and toe-nail parings. These are now
placed in his
pouch and laid beside him.
Meanwhile others have been busy making
the new garments in which the dead is to be dressed for the
grave. Everything
that goes into the coffin is made new –the mattress, blanket, pillow,
overcoat, coat, waist-coat trousers, socks, wristlets, shoes,
leggings,
headband, etc.
The dead is now removed to a table
specially prepared for the purpose and a full meal of food is
placed before the
body. The relatives have by
this time gathered from far and near and they all assemble in
the room
adjoining the dead and kneeling, the men toward the east and the
women toward the
west, they wail in concert. Relatives to the sixth remove are
represented in
this company. A pillow is brought and placed on the floor and
each of the
mourners comes
forward in turn and bowing with his forehead on the pillow
performs a special
obsequy.
The “spirit-ghost-box” is then placed at the dead
man’s [page 245] head
and under it some of his ordinary garments together with
some of his valuables. The mouth of the dead is opened and in it
is placed some
flour made of gluten rice. This is for the purpose of holding in
place a
certain “jewel” that is then put between
the lips of the dead. This “jewel” is called the mu-gong-ju (***) or “Pearl without a Hole.” It is, in fact, not a real
pearl but is a hard substance found in the shell of the ta-hap (**)
a kind of huge clam that is found only near the mouth of the
Nak-tong river. It
is a rough substance and has no pearl luster. It is extremely
rare. These
shell-fish are taken in a net and only one in about ten thousand
yields a mu-gong-ju.
These “jewels” are not sold but are
handed down from father to son as a most precious heirloom. The
Koreans believe
that one of these stones if laid away has the power of
propagating its species
by a process of division, like certain of the polyps. This
observance is said
to have begun with Che Kal-yang (***), a celebrated astronomer
who flourished in 1372; but, in Kippling parlance, that is
another story.
The regular funeral table has by this
time been prepared, on which the coffin is to be placed. It is
covered with
white silk. On it is placed first the mattress, then a
wide-sleeved overcoat,
an ordinary overcoat, a coat, a waist-coat, a pair of trousers,
and a pair of
linen drawers. Then they are one by one placed upon the dead
body and it is
laid upon the table and a screen drawn around it. Over the
screen is thrown a
banner on which is written the man’s name and honors and on the
table beside
the body are placed some of the little personal effects of the
deceased, such
as his ink-stone, pen and paper, spectacles and seals. This
completes the first
day’s work.
On the morning of the second day the
professional undertaker comes in.
He loosens the clothes on the body and then arranges them again
with great
care; after which he proceeds to tie up the body with cords made
of twisted
paper. One band is put about the shoulders, a second at the
elbows, a third at
the wrists, a fourth at the hips, a fifth at the knees, a sixth
at the calves
and a seventh at the ankles. In tying the waist cord which all
Korean gentlemen
wear he arranges the knot so that the loops resemble the
character sim, (*)
for it is [page 246]
supposed that all the sin-suns
(**) or canonized spirits
arrange them
that way. After this the food is again presented as before and
the wailing is
repeated in the outer room, only the chief mourner entering the
presence of the
dead. This is practically
all that occurs on the second day.
The morning of the third day the
undertaker brings the coffin, which is not nailed together but
carefully
dove-tailed and fastened with wooden pins. The outside is
painted a plain black
without ornamentation. The bottom of the coffin is covered half
an inch deep
with flour of the gluten rice. This is to form a sort of cushion
into which the
body will sink and so be less likely to be moved from side to
side in the coffin
as it is being carried to the grave. Over the flour is spread
one thickness of
white paper and over this are placed extremely thin pieces of
board. Then come
the mattress, pillow and blanket and over all two or three of
the garments which
have been used by the dead man. Everything being ready for
placing the body in
the coffin, the sons of the deceased wash their hands, or
perhaps take a full
bath, and then go in and place the body carefully in the coffin.
The face is
then covered with a very thin film of cotton batting and beside
the body are
placed the finger-nail and toe-nail parings and the teeth before
referred to.
All the remaining space in the coffin is packed tightly with the
clothes of the
dead man so as to prevent the body from moving about, and the
cover is fastened
securely on with wooden pegs. The coffin is invariably made of
pine wood. The
reason is fourfold. The pine, being an evergreen, is to the
Koreans a symbol of
manhood, for it never withers and casts its leaves until it dies. In the
second place serpents and other reptiles will never go near a
pine. In the
third place the pine never rots at the core leaving the trunk a
mere shell. In
the fourth place pine wood when put in the ground rots evenly
and quickly
which, singularly enough, is a prime qualification with the
Koreans. Anything
which tends to retard the process of dissolution is considered
very
unpropitious.
(To
be continued).
THE
WRECK OF
THE KUMA-GAWA MARU. 247
The
Wreck of the Kuma-gawa Maru.
On
the night of the eleventh of June there occurred on the coast of
Korea, about
eighty-five miles south of Chemulpo, one of the most disastrous
wrecks that
even the dangerous coast of Korea has ever witnessed. The Kuma-gawa Maru, a small steamship belonging to
the Osaka Shosen Line came in collision with the Kiso-gawa Maru
of the same
line and sunk in about three minutes. It is too early to give
out anything as
to responsibility for this catastrophe. That will be the work of
a naval court
which will place the responsibility, but the readers of the Review will
be glad to hear the story of Mr. J. F. Bowlby, an American
citizen who was on
board the Kuma-gawa Maru and who narrowly escaped with his life.
The first
class passengers on the boat were Mr. J. F. Bowlby, Rev. H, G.
Appenzeller, and two or three Japanese gentlemen. Mr. Bowlby
says that about
ten o’clock that night he and Mr. Appenzeller partook of a light supper
of tea and biscuits and then retired to their staterooms. Mr.
Bowlby retired to
his berth but did not go to sleep. His stateroom was immediately
opposite that
of Mr. Appenzeller and he could see the latter sitting in his
stateroom
reading. No whistle was blowing and the ship was apparently on
her course.
Only a few minutes elapsed when
without the least warning there came a terrific crash which
brought Mr. Bowlby
to his feet instantly and Mr. Appenzeller cried out, “What’s the matter?” Mr. Bowlby hastily drew on
his trousers and coat and vest without attempting to arrange
them at all and in
about ninety seconds after the collision he was making for the
companion-way,
with Mr. Appenzeller immediately in front of him. Behind him he
saw one or two
Koreans coming out of the second class cabin but he believes
that they never reached
the deck. As Mr. Bowlby set foot on deck he saw that things were
in desperate
shape. The whole forward half of the deck was already submerged
and the stern was lifted high
out of the water. Mr. Appenzeller, who seemed to be laboring
under great
excitement, apparently made no attempt to get away from the ship
but Mr. Bowlby
leaped aft and climbed [page 248]
upon the
rail. He knew there was no possibility of his not being drawn
down by the
suction and he knew that in order to save himself from being
knocked about by
broken rigging and other debris it was necessary to grasp some solid portion of the ship
firmly and wait his chance to come up. He therefore seized hold
of a rope that
formed part of the rigging and as the boat settled he looked
around and saw Mr.
Appenzeller standing about where he was when he reached the
deck, but now up to
his waist in the water and groping vainly for something to take
hold of.
Nothing at all was said so far as our witness knows. All this
had occupied only
about a minute or perhaps less and then the ship went down at an
angle of something
like forty-five degrees. Mr. Bowlby clung desperately to his
rope until he had
been drawn what he believes to have been some twelve or fifteen
feet and then
he felt a shock which he thought to be either the ship striking
bottom or the boilers
bursting. As it appeared later it must have been the latter for
the water was
very deep at that spot. Thinking that the suction would have
subsided Mr.
Bowlby let go his hold in order to rise toward the surface but
he found that
his right foot was entangled in a rope. He reached down and
liberated his foot
and then rose rapidly toward the surface. But when, as he
believes, he had
almost reached air he was sucked down by another eddy and it was
some seconds
before he could get his head above water. Mr. Bowlby has for
many years been an
expert swimmer or he would not have been able to keep his
presence of mind
under such almost desperate circumstances. When he reached the
air he took two
or three gasps and was then caught by another eddy and carried
down again.
While under water the second time he was hit severely in the
back by a piece of
timber but did not attempt to seize it. Upon coming to the
surface again he
began to swim against the current which was rapidly carrying him
away from the
Kiso-gawa Maru which he could dimly see but whose lights shone
out quite plain,
apparently a couple of hundred yards away. When the Kuma-gawa
sank he had
noticed that the Kiso-gawa lay almost alongside, at most not more. than thirty feet away.
But the tide had carried him rapidly away. He was now on the
surface swimming
against the current but nearly exhausted. His hand struck a piece of [page 249] board about two feet long
and eight inches wide and it helped to rest him a little. Then
he found another
piece about the same size. Before long a considerable piece of
timber came floating
down to him and he lay across it and rested quite easily but he
was numb with
cold and he had lost all feeling in his feet.
Meanwhile he was aware of cries for
help from the direction of the wreck and knew that boats were
out picking up survivors
but he did not call out as yet. Soon he became aware that a
life-boat was
floating bottom upwards near him. A large part of the bottom was
ripped off but
it afforded a much better chance than the timber he was on; so
with his little
remaining strength he dragged himself up on the overturned boat
and lay across
it on his stomach. Tangled in some wreckage that was attached to
his boat was
the body of a Korean, evidently dead, with his head hanging down
in the water
and only his back showing. Before long one of the rescue boats
from the
Kiso-gawa came by but seeing that Mr. Bowlby was safe for the moment
they left him in order to help others in worse condition. At
last however they
came to him and took him off the boat. He collapsed, and was
taken to the
Kiso-gawa Maru in a very exhausted condition. They put him to
bed covered him
with many thicknesses of blankets and poured hot sake into him.
Of course, he
saw very little of the other survivors and not being able to speak Japanese had
very little opportunity to gain information. He had been in the
water fully
three quarters of an hour and it was morning before he was
really in condition
to do any clear thinking, owing to the physical exhaustion and
the nervous
strain.
The Kiso-gawa tried to anchor but
could not do so because of the depth of the water. So she kept
steaming about in
the vicinity of the wreck trying to find other survivors, until
one o’clock
p.m. of the next day, when she turned her prow toward Chemulpo.
Mr. Bowlby lost
all his effects including a considerable sum of money in U.S. gold but
when he arrived in Chemulpo and the news was telegraphed to the
American mines
in Un-san where Mr. Bowlby had been working for some years a
purse of six
hundred yen was made up among his friends with the generosity
characteristic of
the mining fraternity. This sum was telegraphed to him and on
[page 250] the sixteenth he sailed on
the Genkai Maru bound for America where his wife and family
await him. His
watch which he had on at the time of the disaster stopped at
half past ten, so
the wreck must have occurred a few moments before that. On the
whole it seems
to have been a remarkable exhibition of coolness, nerve and physical endurance, and Mr.
Bowlby and his family are to be heartily congratulated upon his
escape.
Japanese
Banking in Korea.
Commercially the interests of
Japan in Korea are so great that they stand in a class by
themselves. Of course
American oil, English cotton and Chinese silk play an important
part but these
lines of trade are carried on by comparatively a very small
number of houses
and little retailing is done by the foreign houses. The Japanese
trade, on the
contrary, is carried on by a very large number of retail dealers
all over the
country who come in much closer contact with the Koreans than
the other
foreigners do. To be sure there are a number of Chinese
retailers but in the
country they are mostly mere hawkers or peddlers who carry their
goods on their
backs and in most
cases they are mere agents of a few large houses. With the
Japanese, each
merchant owns his little shop, brings his family to Korea and
becomes more or
less of a fixture. Even the larger Chinese houses are generally
only branches of
firms whose headquarters are in Shanghai or some other Chinese
port. They are
therefore stocked and financed from those points and are so far
independent of
banking facilities in Korea, except for the mere matter of
exchange.
With the Japanese houses it is quite
different. Their sales are more rapid and the business is more “hand to hand” as one might say. Rapidity
of manipulation, keenness of competition and the necessity of
taking instant
advantage of trade opportunities make banking facilities a
matter of prime importance
to them.
The same causes tend to make them more
sensitive to monetary fluctuations in the peninsula. The Chinese
houses being
branches of firms in China hold their goods on consignment [page
251] as it were and they can
sell or wait as they please. But the Japanese merchant, living,
as he does,
from day to day on the daily profits of his business, has no
option. He must
sell, let the balance of profit or loss fall where it may. This
is why the
rapid fall in the value of the Korean currency has worked such
dire results
among the Japanese. Almost all Koreans receive their income in
Korean money and
the amount they receive does not vary with the fluctuations of
exchange;
consequently the depreciation of the Korean money looks to them
like a rise in
value of the yen
and consequently a rise in price of all Japanese goods. This can
have but one result
–damage to
Japanese trade.
Now no one would be so hardy as to
deny that Japanese trade has been of very great value to the
Koreans. No other one
thing is doing so much to bring about a higher standard of
material comfort in
this country. A walk through the Japanese quarter and a very
superficial
examination of the goods displayed there for sale will be enough
to convince
one of the truth of this statement. Such being the case Korea
owes something to
this trade and it is only a shortsighted policy which allows
race prejudice and
political spleen to view with complacency, if not actual
satisfaction, the
decline of Japanese trade in Korea.
Korea owes it to Japan to
establish a reliable circulating medium and one whose recognized
intrinsic
value is so far above suspicion as to render impossible the
almost farcical exhibition
of the last year or two.
Brisk sales on narrow margins, which is the very soul of
successful trade, has
been rendered impossible; for between the time a merchant clears
his goods at
the Chemulpo Custom House and the time he opens them up in Seoul
his profit may
have been wiped out three times over by a jump in the rate of
exchange. The
fact that it sometimes, or even half the time, works the other
way is no
compensation, for it makes business a mere lottery, and profits
depend not upon
business sagacity but upon the mere cast of a die.
Another great evil that this brings
about is a curtailing of the business of the banks. With a
currency running
frantically from one extreme to the other and every nickel
needing to be
scrutinized through a magnifying glass no self-respecting
[page 252] bank will carry on
exchange transactions in it. They will, because they must,
simply ignore it.
The result is that the legitimate business of exchange which
should form part of
the profits of banking industry is handed over to small and
irresponsible
parties who by tricks of the trade are able to push exchange up
or down to suit
their own purposes, and the evil is multiplied. The money broker
thrives on
rapid fluctuations -the
very thing that kills the merchant. If the banks could afford to
do exchange
business
the brokers could do no harm, for the daily quotations of the
conservative
banks would be a check upon the imagination of the brokers. As
we see in
Yokohama for instance. When the bank rate of exchange between yen and U. S. gold is 49 1/2 and you want to buy American
gold the broker is bound to give you an eighth or a quarter
better than the
bank, and if you want to buy yen they are still bound to give
you a little more
than the bank. In other words the broker must always make a
smaller profit than
the bank. But in Korea the brokers are a law unto themselves. It
is plain
however that the remedy does not lie in suppressing the broker
but in providing
such a reliable medium of exchange that the banks can afford to
make daily quotations.
Then the strident voice of the broker would subside to a gentle
peep, and the
banks would acquire a legitimate avenue of profit.
It seems then that the real interests
of Japan and Korea both demand a reliable currency. In order to
secure this one
of two things, it seems to us, must be done. The Korean
government must be
educated up to the point where it will be able to see that there
can be no
possible profit in minting money, if it is done honestly: or on
the other hand
it must be made the subject of firm diplomatic action. The
difficulty of this
latter course is that there can be no united action. There are
powers in treaty
relations with Korea whose commercial interests are practically nil in the
peninsula and whose political interests are not in line with an
overwhelming
commercial supremacy on
the part of Japan. Each power will seek its own interests in
every case and it
would be folly to expect any other power to whom the
rehabilitation of Korea’s finances
is a matter of indifference, to help in a course which would be
of advantage to
Japan.
[page 253] But another difficulty still
besets the Japanese banks in Korea. The Japanese government, for
what reason it
is hard to surmise, decided to withdraw from circulation all the
one yen bills and make the
five-yen piece the unit of measure. Consequently all
transactions smaller than
five yen must be made
in subsidiary coin. Now the Koreans do not take kindly to
Japanese subsidiary
coin. The silver yen was thoroughly acceptable and later the yen
bills attained
a very secure hold upon
the Koreans, but the fifty, twenty and ten sen coins never went
far here. The
withdrawal of the yen bill was therefore a severe blow to
Japanese trade in
Korea and this in turn had a bad effect upon the banks. It was
felt that something
must be done to remedy this difficulty. The matter was taken up
in earnest and
Minister Hayashi in Seoul proposed to his government that the First
National Bank of Japan which has flourishing branches in the
various treaty ports
of Korea be authorized to put out a special one yen bill for use
in Korea. This is not a Japanese
government note but a strictly private bank note; but its
genesis and
authorization and backing render it as safe a medium as the
Japanese government
notes themselves. When
this special bank note appeared bearing on its face clear
evidence of its being
made for
internal use in Korea alone some of the Korean officials
demurred, saying that
this was a trespass upon the prerogatives of the Korean
government whose duty
alone it is to provide
a currency for the Peninsula, The Bank replied that these notes
were not legal
tender and no one was obliged to use
them that did not wish to; moreover that they were not real money but only the
equivalent to notes of hand and backed only by the reserves of
the bank.
We have received from the Dai Ichi
Ginko a statement regarding this suspiciousness on the part of
the government toward
this issue of bank-notes and from the following facts it should
be plain to
anyone that though there are some who still hesitate to handle them, such hesitation
is quite unwarranted.
When the authorization for issuing and
circulating the bank
notes in Korea was granted to the Dai Ichi Ginko, the Department of Finance in
Tokyo asked and empowered the Consuls
stationed at the different ports in Korea to supervise [page 254] the circulation of the
notes in their several localities. At the same time the different
branches of the bank in Korea were instructed to furnish the Japanese
Consulates quarterly reports showing the amount of notes in circulation and also the amount of reserves held for
the redemption
of the notes. After these reports have been carefully examined
by the various
Consuls the General Superintendent of the Korea branches of the Dai Ichi Ginko shall furnish the
Japanese Minister at Seoul a minute report as to the amount of notes in
circulation and
the amount
of the reserves. When this report is approved it will be
published in the various papers in the different ports of
Korea. Since, then, these bil1s
are issued, under
the strict supervision of the Japanese government whose one object naturally is the establishment of a thoroughly trustworthy
currency and since
every note thus
issued is backed
by a gold reserve equivalent to its total face value there can
be no reasonable
doubt as to the trustworthiness of these
notes and their
immediate
acceptance by the Koreans. As a fact the Koreans did accept them
without
hesitation from the very day they were issued and the obstacles
interposed by the
government are rather academic than practical. One foreign
representative has pointedly instructed the
bank not to send
it any of these notes but this will have little influence upon the mass of the
Koreans, whose
confidence in the financial ability of their own countrymen may possibly have been a
little shaken by recent
events.
Memoir
of Rev. Henry G.
Appenzeller.
Rev.
Henry G. Appenzeller, one of the two founders of the Mission of
the Methodist
Episcopal Church
in Korea was born
at Souderton, Pennsylvania, February 6th. 1858. His parents were German Lutherans
and at the age of 20 he entered
Franklin and Marshall college of the Reformed Church located at
Lancaster. He graduated from
this institution in 1882. Having previously joined the Methodist
Episcopal Church,
while in College he was licensed to preach and served very
acceptably a small
mission in connection with the First [page 255] Church of Lancaster. In the
fall of 1882 he entered Drew Theological Seminary and pursued
the regular 3
years course. During the first part of his course he preached at
Bolton and afterwards
at Green Village, the best appointment open to Drew students. In
December 1884
he married Miss Ella J. Dodge; the same month he was appointed
by Bishop Fowler to go as a missionary to
Korea. In January he passed his final examinations at the
Seminary and with his
newly married wife started for their new field of labor. In May while in Japan he was graduated from the Seminary.
In San Francisco he was ordained
deacon and elder in the Methodist ministry by Bishop Fowler.
On Easter Sunday April 5, 1885 he and his wife
arrived at Chemulpo. At this
time on account of the political disturbances and the contest
going on between
the Japanese and Chinese it was considered unsafe for them to
stay so they
reluctantly returned to Japan but in a short time the
difficulties having been
settled came back to Korea,
By the month of August Dr. Scranton and Mr. Appenzeller had each purchased a
native house and lot. Dr.
Scranton began
medical work on his own compound and also assisted in the work
in the Government
Hospital established in April by Dr. H. N. Allen of the
Presbyterian Church.
Two Koreans
came to him desiring to study medicine and he told them that
they must have a knowledge of
English to do so. They
applied to Mr. Appenzeller
and he began to teach them English.
In August
he had four pupils enrolled.. In 1886 the school had a recognized
standing and was formally named by the king Pai Chai Hak Dang (Hall for Training Useful Men.)
It had its first Session June 8, 1886.
In 1887 Mr. Appenzeller erected the brick
building now occupied by the school, the first of its kind ever
erected in the country.
Thus Mr.
Appenzeller was the first
educator to come
to Korea, --------------- *In February Bishop Fowler wrote to
Dr. Maclay, superintendent of the Japan Mission,
appointing him superintendent of Korea and Rev. Appenzeller as assistant
superintendent under his direction. In 1887 upon the return of Dr. Maclay to America Mr. Appenzeller
became superintendent.
[page 256] On Sunday afternoon July
24, 1887,
Mr. Appenzeller baptized one of the
first Koreans who professed conversion to Christianity, and on October 2 a second Korean
convert was baptized.
Shortly afterwards the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was administered. Thus
began the evangelistic work of
the Methodist Episcopal Mission. In the spring of that year Mr. Appenzeller nmde the first journey ever undertaken by a missionary to
Pyeng-yang. After a few days’ stay there he was called back by
the American
Minister by
order of the Government. In 1887 with Rev. H, G. Underwood of
the Presbyterian
Mission he started again for the
far north but before reaching the Chinese border they were called
back by the American Minister.
Later he
made
a trip alone as far north as We-ju, which was very difficult. Between 1888 and 1890 he traveled through
six of the eight provinces, touching at Hai-ju, Kongju and Fusan, covering 1800 miles.
From the time of his appointment until
1892 Mr.
Appenzeller was superintendent of the Methodist Mission; for a large part of that
time he also served as treasurer of the Mission which position he
continued to fill until 1900.
His policy on educational lines was a
very broad one, and his plans included the education of the
youth of the Empire
under
Christian instruction and control. He believed that the Christian Church
ought to
be at the helm of the educational
system and in this way by precept and example inculcate
principles of morality
and nobility. At the same time he saw the possibilities in such
a position for
Christianizing the youth. To that end he planned and worked for
the
aggrandizement of Pai Chai Hak Dang.
Yet not alone in educational work were Mr. Appenzeller’s many gifts applied.
He was devoted to the evangelization of this people. He founded
and cared for the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Chong Dong, Seoul, during the years
of his service, seeking with all his power to make it a mighty
evangelistic
agency for the young. When his congregation had grown beyond the
capacity of
the place of meeting he decided to build a church at once
beautiful,
substantial and serviceable. He therefore adopted that style of
architecture
that is everywhere associated with
the Christian [page 257] church
and erected the first protestant foreign church building in
Korea.
Being one of the pioneer missionaries
and a man of diversified talents Mr. Appenzeller was active in
the founding of nearly
all of the organizations that exist among the foreign community.
Feeling the
need in a heathen land of drawing away occasionally from all
heathen
environments and in union with others of his own race, in his
own tongue
worshiping the Deity he took a large part in founding the Union
Church and
gladly opened the chapel of Pai Chai School for the services.
Several times he
was elected pastor and conscientiously fulfilled the duties of
that position.
In the fore front of missionary
enterprise stands the Bible. When the first missionaries arrived
they found
that Rev. John Ross, in Moukden, had translated the New
Testament into Korean.
They soon found however that this was very imperfect and that
they must have a
better translation. They then formed the Permanent Executive
Bible Committee and
from the first for a number of years Mr. Appenzeller was a
member of this
Committee. The purpose of the committee was to supervise the
translation and
publication of the scriptures. They elected from among the
missionaries certain
ones for the work of translation. Mr. Appenzeller was among the
number first
chosen and has held his position on the Board of Translators
ever since. It was
work in which he took great pleasure and was careful to attend
every session he
possibly could. In fact it was in going to the performance of
this duty that he
lost his life on the ill-fated Kuma-gawa.
Next to the Bible as an evangelistic
agency comes religious literature. For the preparation and
publication of books
and tracts the Korean Religious Tract Society was founded and
Mr. Appenzeller
was elected President. This position he filled for a number of
years and until
very recently. In addition to this he was for a long time the
custodian of the
Sunday School Union and Tract Society of the Methodist Episcopal
Mission. In
these societies he did
considerable work himself in translation and publication of
tracts. He started
and for four years edited and published the church weekly of the Methodist Mission
called the Korean Christian Advocate, carrying it on
successfully in the midst
[page 258] of his other many duties. Prior to the
organization of these societies, that is in the fall of 1888, having experienced
considerable difficulty in the matter of printing the works that
had been
translated and also seeking a legitimate enterprise whereby
employment might be
given to boys
who desired to earn their support while pursuing their studies
at Pai Chai, at the
request of Mr. Appenzeller, Mr. Ohlinger opened the printing
establishment now
called the Methodist Publishing: House. Shortly afterwards Mr.
Appenzeller
began the Pai Chai Bindery as an adjunct to the school. As
publications multiplied
a book depository was needed and Mr. Appenzeller having
purchased property in a
very favorable location at Chong No opened the Chong No Bookstore; at this place a large
number of books and tracts are sold each year.
Although devoting his energies
primarily to a host of missionary enterprises Mr. Appenzeller
found time to
engage in work of a secular nature for the good of the foreign
community. He
was one of the leading spirits among the group of influential
foreigners whose
counsel and example resulted in the widening of the narrow
streets of the city
and the building of good roads. In all such works his influence
as a Christian
missionary was felt after the widening of the road through
Peking pass, at the
ceremonies in connection with the completion of the Independence
Arch, he was
very much pleased at the invitation extended him to offer prayer
in public
acknowledgment of gratitude to God, and thus put the stamp of
Christian
progress on what had been accomplished.
In 1892 Rev. Ohlinger and Mrs.
Ohlinger edited and published a monthly magazine in English
which they called the
Korean Repository. After their departure the need of such a
publication was
felt by the community and in 1895
Rev. Appenzeller and Rev. Geo. Heber Jones began to edit and
publish the Korean
Repository. For four years in the midst of many other weighty
duties they
continued its publication. Its influence was felt throughout all
the east and
it came to be an authority on matters Korean.
In his social duties Mr. Appenzeller
was never lax; during his seventeen years in Korea there were
very few foreigners
whom he did not know personally. To further cement these ties
and afford a
means of recreation and a [page 259]
relief from
close application to duty, he advocated and assisted in the
organization of the
Seoul
Union, an association where the foreigners and their families
occasionally meet
and spend an hour in mental and physical relaxation. The leading
papers and
magazines published in the United States are kept on file and in
the summer
three tennis courts are laid out.
The Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society was founded in 1900. The purpose of the organization is
to investigate
the history, customs and life of the people of the peninsula and
put such
investigations into permanent form for the public. Mr.
Appenzeller has for
several months served the society in the capacity of librarian.
A few years after the arrival of the
first foreigners, upon the death of one of the small company
great difficulty
was experienced in the matter of the burial of the body. The
Korean government
refused permission to bury near the city, and only after much
pressure was
brought to bear did they consent to the burial on this side of
the Han river at
Yang Wha-jin. At this place a large tract of land was purchased
and enclosed for
a Foreigner Cemetery. In all this work Mr. Appenzeller took a
large part and
for a number of years was Treasurer of the Foreign Cemetery
Association. It seems truly a sad comment upon
the frailty of man that he who did so much to secure and
carefully preserve a
burial place for the foreign community should find his final
resting place in the
wide waste of waters: and yet
we know that he would think that it is all right so long as he
was right with
God. For in all the rush of a busy life he always made sure of
his acceptance
with God. A few days before his death after having passed safely
through an
experience in which his life was in danger he remarked that he
had no fear;
that if he had been killed in that trouble it would have been
all right with
him for he had that morning committed himself unto God as he did
every morning.
We have sketched in the barest outline the events and
works in the life of a truly good and great man. In all his
relations with his
fellowmen he was upright and straightforward and he always aimed
by a cheerful, kindly manner
to brighten the lives of those with whom he came in contact,
while at the same
time he had little patience with dishonesty [page 260] or shiftlessness. He was a
loving husband and a kind father, seeking to bring his children
up in the fear
of God. To friends he was true as steel and those who met him
for the first
time found in him a courteous Christian gentleman.
To the public in his many works, he
was a benefactor of high standing and his work in behalf of this
people will go
on producing its beneficial results for many years.
As a missionary he was capable,
faithful and devoted to his work, and holds a high record. He
was
self-sacrificing almost to a fault. Among the Koreans it is said
that he not only
gave many years of service to them but also in the end gave his
life; for they
believe that in attempting to call and arouse the Korean teacher
and the little
girl under his care he could not take sufficient precautions for
his own
safety. In all his efforts he was moved by the highest optimism
and had the
greatest faith in the ultimate triumph of Christ’s church in the
world. All the
distinctive doctrines of evangelical Christianity were accepted
by him. The
immortality of the soul and the glorification of the Christian
in union with “all those who love His
appearing,”
were pleasing themes for thought. Often in our hearing has he
given utterance
in prayer to this couplet:
We
meet, the grace to take Thou hast so freely given;
We
meet on earth for Thy dear sake, that we may meet in heaven.
Perhaps
we can no more fitly close this sketch than by a quotation from
a funeral
address delivered by him not long ago.
“We stop in the rush of our
every-day duties in order to lay in our Machpelah by the river
one more body to
await the resurrection morn. It is well that we should for we
are forcibly
reminded that we are strangers and pilgrims here below. There is
no order in
death. A few weeks ago one slipped from our midst ere many of us
knew of his
illness and now another one from whom we were separated and
whose hearty laugh
we did not hear is called hence. May we not say in the words of
Job, ‘are not my days few before
I go whence I shall not return, without any order.’ “Without any order,” and yet
in God’s order. God doeth all things well and, brethren
concerning them which
are asleep, sorrow [page 261] not,
even as others who have no hope.’ Jesus who died and rose again will
bring them who sleep in him with him. And so shall we be ever
with the Lord.
And truly the last words of our lesson are for our comfort: “God hath not appointed us
to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who
died for us,
that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with
him.’ This is the
will of God and from this point God’s dealings with us his
children must be
viewed.”
Wilbur
C. Swearer,
Odds
and Ends.
A Look Beyond
We
consider the Kobe Chronicle one of the most readable papers in
the far east,
but a recent issue greatly
increased our admiration; for in spite of the fact that it takes
missionaries
so lightly it takes very pronounced and unmistakeable ground on
the question of
a future life. This is seen in its sober repetition of the
report that the
father of the Korean Emperor objects to the boring of a tunnel
through a hill
in southern Korea, “the
view from which he greatly admires.” As the father of the Emperor, the Tai-wun-kan, passed away some years ago
we find in the above statement something much more definite in
regard to an
intermediate state than anything we had expected to learn. This surprising insight leads us to suspect that the
Chronicle’s occasional pleasantries re the missionaries grow out
of its personal
knowledge of the limited character of their theological
training. We sincerely
trust that the Chronicle will develop this line in its columns
for the benefit
of its readers, missionary and otherwise.
Editorial
Comment.
The
foreign community in Seoul, the Methodist Mission and the
Protestant Christian
work in Korea have all suffered a severe loss in the death of
Rev. H. G. Appenzeller. As a
[page 262] husband and father he was
exemplary, as a friend
he was staunch
and loyal,
as a workman be was diligent and self-forgetful,
as a Christian he was sincere and
outspoken. He commanded the respect and
esteem of every element in the foreign community, and very many of the highest
officials in Korea have shown genuine sorrow for his untimely
death. In the
obituary notice will be found the various lines of work which
engaged his
attention showing kis broad public spirit and his active participation in every movement which looked toward the moral,
intellectual, social or economic improvement of the community.
It is with
feelings of poignant regret that the Korea Review records his
death and we
extend our heartiest sympathy to his bereaved family and to the
bereaved Church
in Korea.
--------------------
On
Sunday, June
the first,
Bishop D. H. Moore, Rev. H. G. Appenzeller, Rev. W. C. Swearer,
Miss Melvin and
Miss Moore
started for the little village of Mu-chi-ne where it was
intended they should
hold a service in the Methodist chapeL At one point on the way
the road crosses
the embankment of the new Seoul-Fusan Railway and then about a
hundred yards farther
on recrosses it. When the party reached this point all excepting
Rev. H. G. Appenzeller and one
Korean kept on the regular road but these two, as they were somewhat in the rear,
walked along the railway embankment which formed the chord of an
arc to the
point where the regular road again crossed the embankment. There
was no sign of
any kind warning people not to walk on this embankment nor was there anyone
there to warn people not to go there. These facts have been
proved by ample
witness. When, however, the main body of the party had crossed
the embankment
at both points on the regular
road and Mr. Appenzeller and the Korean had nearly reached the
end of their
short cut along the embankment a Japanese coolie came running
along and without
saying anything to the two who had walked along the embankment
hurried forward
to the jinrikisha occupied by the Bishop and seizing it
prevented the party
from proceeding. Mr. Swearer who was in advance returned to see
what was the matter. Mr. Appenzeller
asked the coolie to desist saying that they were not aware that
they were trespassing
and that [page 263] hereafter
they would
take good care that they all kept to the main road. This he
repeated several
times attempting as best he could to smooth matters over by an
apology although
of course there was not the slightest reason for apologizing. No
fault of any
kind had been committed and the coolie had no more right to detain the party than
any highwayman. So they stood there, the coolie obstinately
refusing to let go
and yet offering no reason for the stoppage of
the road nor suggesting any alternative mode of action. An
apology, though superfluous, had been offered, and
the party
must proceed in order to get to their destination in time. As
the coolie
obstinately refused to release the ricksha Bishop Moore gave his
knuckles a rap
with his walking
stick as a little reminder that a party of perfectly inoffensive citizens cannot be
held up by any
half-naked Japanese coolie on a public highway for an indefinite
period. Bishop
Moore was perfectly justified in this course, but perhaps a wiser course would have been to have left him
entirely alone and waited till his slow brain took in the
absurdity of the
situation. As it was, the slight blow was taken as a declaration
of war and the
coolie screaming to his fellows in camp just beyond a little
hill leaped to the
side of the road
seized a stone as large as
his two fists and hurled it with all his might at the Bishop.
The latter
fortunately had on a thick pith helmet and the stone struck this
and did no injury.
But now Mr.
Appenzeller,
Mr. Swearer and Mun
(a Korean helper) stepped in between the Japanese and the Bishop
in order to
defend the latter. The Japanese coolie was now reinforced by two or three others who were armed with clubs
and things began to look serious. Mr. Appenzeller and Mr.
Swearer were
attempting to hold the Japanese in check at the same time moving
away down the
road as rapidly as possible. Mr. Swearer who is something of an
expert in the “noble art of self defence” refrained from striking
from the shoulder although it would have been easy to have
delivered same
knock-out blows; but he simply attempted to ward off the blows
of the Japanese.
The latter were bent on murder; whatever they may have
considered their
provocation their intentions were plainly homicidal. Nearby,
there lay a pile
of sticks and one of the Japanese ran to it and picked up an ugly weapon.
Mr. Swearer
seeing his intent followed in order to [page 264] wrest the stick away from
him for there would
have been
no chance
against such
a weapon. Just as the coolie picked up the stick Mr. Swearer looked around to
glance at the struggling party he had left and instantly the coolie delivered a murderous
blow which struck Mr. Swearer in the forehead felling him to the
ground and
cutting a deep wound over the eye. He struggled to his feet
again with the
blood streaming down his face and in the distance he saw Mr.
Appenzeller also covered
with blood holding off the Japanese as best he could. But at this point,
for some reason not apparent, the Japanese began to show signs
of letting up.
The party had retreated some distance down the road away from the
Japanese encampment and perhaps the injuries they had already
inflicted made them
conscious that they had laid themselves open to grave charges.
However that may
be they eventually retired and the party made its way back to
Seoul where Mr.
Swearer’s severe
wound was attended to as well as the less dangerous wounds which
Mr.
Appenzeller had sustained.
The matter was promptly reported to
the U. S. Legation and the Japanese authorities were requested
to arrest the
culprits and bring them to trial. This was done and after a
considerable trial
during which one statement after another of the Japanese
witnesses was proven
to be false and so recognized by the Japanese authorities these
coolies, three
in number, were sentenced two of them to two months and one of
them to one month’s
imprisonment with hard labor. It is needless for us to dwell
upon the ludicrous
inadequacy of this sentence. It was a murderous and practically
unprovoked assault
and deserved at least five years imprisonment, and no reasonable
man can doubt
that if the persons attacked had been Japanese gentlemen of
equal standing with
Bishop Moore these scoundrels would have scarcely gotten off
with less than a
life sentence. Nor can anyone doubt
that if the Bishop’s party had drawn arms and shot down every
one of their
assailants in self-defence they would have been exhonerated. Is
any American
citizen to be put in jeopardy of his life whenever a Japanese
coolie takes a
notion to hold him up like a brigand on the public highway? We
believe we are
voicing the sentiment of ninety-nine out of every hundred
European and American
residents of Seoul when we say that the sentence [page 265] pronounced upon these coolies was
such as to make every foreigner consider the propriety of
carrying a weapon to
guard himself against murderous assault.
We take no partisan ground. We commend
the efforts of Japan to extend and strengthen her commercial
relations with Korea;
we believe that Japan is one of Korea’s best friends; we believe
the Japanese
government is thoroughly in sympathy with the idea of an
independent, clean,
progressive government in Korea; we believe that no other can do
for Korea what
Japan can; we believe that Japanese coolies should be protected
in all their
rights; but at the same time we ask that the Japanese
authorities put such
checks upon the lawlessness of a certain class of their subjects
that it will
no longer appear that Koreans and Americans and other foreigners
have no rights
that the Japanese coolie is bound to respect.
---------------------------
It
was with consternation that the foreign Community in Korea
learned of the
illness of His Majesty, King Edward VII. and we shall await most
anxiously the
arrival of further news from London. Meanwhile preparations for the
festivities which were to mark the coronation day have been
postponed. We join
with all others of whatever nationality in the earnest hope that
medical skill
will triumph
and that King Edward will yet be enrolled in the glorious list
of British
sovereigns.
News
Calendar.
The
governor of North Kyung-sang
Province sent a communication to the government urging that the
wall of Kyung-ju be thoroughly
repaired. This is one of the great historical centers of Korea
and for a thousand
years was the capital of the Kingdom of Silla.
The
Educational Department is having considerable trouble with
truants in the
common schools and asks the Law Department to “put on the screws” and collect a fine from
each delinquent of one dollar a month.
The
Household Department has sent to the Department of Agriculture
for permit to
cut some large timber in Ko-yang for use in the new Audience
Hall that is being
built.
The
destitute in Ch’un-an,
Ch’ung-chŭng Province have been given 1,250,000 cash by Yun
Ch’i-so, fifteen
bags of rice by Kim Kyu-hyŭn and 5,000,000 cash by Pak Sang-nă.
[page 266] On the night of the
eleventh of June a collision took place between the Kuma-gawa
Maru and
the Kiso-gawa Maru,
both of the Osaka
Shosen Kaisha,
about eight-five miles south of Chemulpo. Both boats were on their
course at the time and as the Kuma-gawa
did not whistle once till after the collision the officers of
that boat at
least will hardly escape
severe censure, for if the night was foggy she should have been
whistling every
few minutes. There must
have been some extremely careless work. Nothing conclusive will
be known until
the official investigation. The Kuma-gawa was struck on the
starboard bow at an
angle of about twenty degrees and the probability is that both
boats were going
at a speed which
rendered it impossible for the Kuma-gawa
to escape sinking, but no one evidently thought she would go
down almost immediately. In the confusion
of the moment very few of those below deck were able to reach
the deck before
she went down bow first. The loss of life is said to have been
seventeen
Koreans, six Japanese and one American. The latter was Rev. H.
G. Appenzeller
and one of the Koreans was Mr. Cho who has been so many years
Mr. Appenzeller’s helper. Another of the
Koreans was a little girl who was going to Mokpo in charge of
Mr. Appenzeller.
Among those saved were the captain and purser, the former of
whom will have to
make a very full explanation of the affair.
We
have received from Mr. Morsel
the following statement: “It has been said that there is a rumor in Seoul
that the reason of the collision was because there are no
lighthouses along the
coast. As a practical mariner I would like to say that the blame
cannot be thus
shifted from the shoulders of the officers who were running the
vessels. All
evidence so far to hand shows that they lost their heads at the
critical
moment. Even had there been lights these could not have
prevented a collision.
If officers are careless the very presence of lighthouses may be an added source of danger
for it might give them a false feeling of security which would
lead to further
disaster.”
This seems to be to the point. If, as we have always supposed,
lighthouses are
for the purpose of keeping ships on their proper course, ships
coming from
opposite directions would be more likely to come close together
than if there were
no such lights.
Yi
Kön-t’ak, Judge of the Supreme Court, resigned and Kim Chŭnggeun
was appointed
in his place.
Former
prefects and governors to the number of sixteen have recently
been arrested
because of arrears of taxes unpaid and 21,646,000 cash was
collected from them.
Fire
distroyed ninety-three
houses in Yöng-heung and 107 houses in Yö-san, in May.
Cho
Heui-il and over a hundred others joined in a memorial to His Majesty on the 18th inst.
urging that Lady Om be made Empress. This was the second of the same
tenor. On the eighteenth T’ă Myŭng-sik and fifty others
memorialized the
Emperor to the same effect. Yi Munwha and over two hundred
others have prepared
a memorial urging strong’ ly that Lady Om be not elevated to the
position of Empress.
[page 267] Koreans living near Kirin, Manchuria,
have been ordered by a Chinese general to adopt the Chinese
coiffure. The
subject has become a matter for diplomatic action.
The
Anglo-Japanese alliance has recently made a clear statement as
to a few of its
ideas respecting Korean matters. It advises; ( 1 ) That the Korean
government advise with Japan and Great Britain in regard to
important matters
of foreign and domestic policy looking toward the firmer
establishment of
Korean independence; (2) That the army and navy of Korea be put
in proper condition
to give force to the efforts of the government to put the
country on a firm
basis; (3) If there is necessity for a foreign loan, that the
Korean government
place the loan with Japan, England or the United States; (4)
That the
employment of for eign advisers be dispensed with so far as
possible; (5) That
great care be taken to prevent encroachment upon Korean
territory by outside parties.
There
have been riots in Yŭng-an and Sun-ch’un in South Chulla pronnce
but it is not
yet known whether it is of the nature of a seditious uprising or
whether the
people are simply protesting against extortion.
Seven
leaders of robber bands have been seized in Ch’il-wŭn in South Kyongsŭng Province.
A
large number of former prefects from whom the government claims
arrears of
taxes have been confined at the Finance Department pending the
payment of the
money.
The
Seoul-Fusan Railway Company has acceded to the government
request and the
tunnel at Chi-ji-dă in Su-wun will not be built.
The
Seoul terminal station of the Seoul Fusan Railway will be built outside
the South Gate to the east of the main road to Yong-san. About
200 houses will
be pulled down to make room for it.
Four
counterfeiters were caught in the act at A-o-gă outside the West
Gate and $1,000 in nickels seized.
The men will be executed.
An
old woman of eighty years was trampled to death by a military
official’s horse
in front of the Military School on the 19th inst. and the mapu or groom
has been put in the chain gang for three years.
Many
people in the country say that the drought in Korea is caused by
the fact that
foreigners dig in the mountains for gold and the strength (kiun) of the mountains is taken
away and secondly that the smoke from the railway engines dries
up the heavens.
Others say it is because the oppression of the magistrates has
offended Heaven
and others still that it is because of the cutting down of the
forests.
In
Py’ung-yang
there are 126 Japanese subjects residing in sixty two houses.
At
Ku-ri-gi a large business house was burned on the 22nd inst. It
is said that $20,000, worth of foreign cotton
cloth, silk, &c was destroyed .
In
the far north there has been no rain as yet and the people
demand that
sacrifices be made in their behalf.
J.
H. Muhlensteth,
Esq. who has been Acting Adviser to the Foreign [page 268] Department has been made
full Adviser. Mr. Muhlensteth’s loug residence in Korea and his
intimate knowledge of Korea affairs
should make him a valuable addition to the staff of the Foreign Office.
Heng Wun-sup and Chang Cha-sik of Kang-wha put down
17.500.000 cash to help the destitute people there until the
barley crop could
be reaped.
The
Korean Society of Japan with a branch in Seoul have begun an
investigation to
find out the following: -(1) The amount of “cash” circulating in Korea, (2)
The amount of nickels, (3) The amount of copper cents, (4)
Amount of Japanese
silver and paper, (5) Amount of gold product, (6) Amount of
personal notes of
hand, (7) Exports,
imports and Customs receipts, (8) Amount of land tax, (9) Amount
of rice and
beans raised, (10) Population of Korea. The society has laid out
a pretty heavy
piece of work but one whose successful completion would be of
great value.
The
Japanese Government has been requested by a large number of
Japanese traders to
arrange with the Korean Government that Japanese be allowed to
travel anywhere
in Korea without
passport!
Native
papers state that the Emperor has ordered the payment of the $3000, demanded by the
Japanese in payment for certain pieces of wreckage picked up by
Koreans on the
coast and used as firewood. Meanwhile the Koreans have been
unsuccessful in
their attempts to collect from the Japanese $276, the price of sundry bags
of salt which Japanese took from Koreans on Dagelet Island and,
having sold
them, ran away to Japan. It is a poor rule that will not work both ways.
The
name of the new Western Palace in P’yŭng-yang will be P’unggyung Kung (***) or “The palace of Plenty
and Happiness.”
Yi
Kon-t’ak
the Judge of the Supreme Court has resigned and Yi Yu-in has
been appointed to
the place.
The
two parties who have taken opposite sides on the question of
elevating Lady Om
to the position of Empress have been silenced by Imperial order
but another
party has arisen whose idea is to urge that the Emperor to
choose an Empress
from among the Korean peeresses.
The
Japan Gazette informs
us that at the
time of the collision the Kuma-gawa
Maru had forty-six passengers on board of whom eighteen are
missing besides
eight of the crew. One American, fourteen Koreans and three
Japanese passengers
were lost. It is stated that a “dense fog” was the cause of the
collision.
A
treaty between Korea and Denmark was signed on the eighteenth of
May at the
Foreign Office. His excellency A. Pavloff acted on behalf of Denmark
and Yu Keni-whan on behalf of Korea. The terms of the treaty are
practically
the same as the other treaties.
The
Belgian Minister has written inviting Korea to participate in
the great medical
convention to be held in Brussels in September and to send for
exhibit any
special medical or surgical appliances that have been produced
by Koreans.
The
people of Su-wŭn have petitioned the government to prevent the tunneling of P’al-dal Mountain over which
the wall of Su-wun runs, on [page 269] the
ground that on that mountain is the tomb of Chang-jong Whang-je
the
great-great-grandfather of the present Emperor. The government
complied by
asking the railway company to alter their plan, but the matter
has not yet been
settled. The Japanese say that it will be very difficult to make
the change.
The
portrait of His Majesty has lately been painted by a Korean
artist.
The
foundations of the new palace at P’yŭng-yang were begun on the
23rd inst and
the first pillars will be raised on the 27th of August.
Yi
Pom-yun of the Home Department was
sent to inspect the Korean settlements beyond the Tuman River
and to see their
numbers and condition.
We
are pleased to be able to announce that beginning with this
month we shall be
able to give a complete and reliable meteorological report for
Seoul, through
the kindness of Dr. V. Pokrovsky of the Russian Legation. He has
been provided
with a fine set of instruments from the head bureau at St
Petersburg including
a quicksilver barometer with thermometer, an aneroid with
thermometer, a
psychrometer by Reignaul
(consisting of a dry-bulb thermometer and a wet-bulb thermometer
mounted in a
tower twelve feet high and inclosed in a “cage,” a hair
hygrometer and a
minimum thermometer;) also a wind gauge, a pluviometer and a
Benson Chronometer
from London. Such a report has long been desired in Seoul and
the thanks of the
community are due to Dr. Pokrovsky for furnishing it.
The
enterprising young governor of North Kyŭng-sang Province
determined to repair
the two breaches in the wall
of Tă-ku. For this purpose he first levied a tax on all the
forty-one
prefectures of his province and then seized and imprisoned
scores of men in Tă-ku
and vicinity and forced them to “contribute.” No one who had a
spare dollar was
safe. The amount collected is said to be enormous, the most ever
collected for such
an object. The people say that the governor is fixed for the rest of his natural life. He
is the youngest man ever sent there as governor. =
About
the beginning of June the scholars of Tă-ku determined to repair
the building
dedicated to Confucianism, outside the east gate. A large timber
was needed but
could not be procured. The local magistrate ordered the head
carpenter to find
one. He reported that in the Talsung, an old fort noted as the former
residence of the Su clan and now used as a pleasure ground, such
a piece of
timber could be found. The magistrate assented, thinking he
meant one of the
large oak trees on the embankment, but a few hours later he was
horrified to
learn that they had cut down the magnificent pine, over two
hundred years old, which
stood like a tower in the center of the fort, a highly revered
landmark. The
governor was so enraged that the master carpenter and his two
assistants were
thrown into prison and beaten, while others still fled from the
city. The
governor went in person to view the ruin and that night a large
procession of yamen runners, with lanterns
lighted, came from the old fort like a funeral procession and
wailing as if for
the dead.
[page 270] Father Robert of the Roman
Catholic church in Tă-ku and two of the church members gave 300 bags of barley
to the needy of that town this spring. The Roman Catholic church
which is being
built of brick and stone
promises to be second only to the Cathedral in Seoul. The people
of Tă-ku say
that the Japanese promise to complete the railway to that point
in three years.
We wonder from which end.
A
correspondent kindly writes to tell of “another important step in the
line of progress and enlightenment taken by the Koreans. For the
first time a
Korean-owned
steam vessel entered the port of Chinnampo under command of a
Korean Captain.
The Steamer’s name is the Sun-sin. Her captain has served for
some years as
officer aboard the Chang-riong.” Our correspondent hopes,
as also do we, that this is only the first step toward a Korea
for the Koreans.
The
18th of October will be the fortieth anniversary’ of the present
emperor’s
accession to the throne. It will be the occasion of lavish festivities at the
Korean court. Orders have been issued for the striking off of a
thousand gold
medals and a thousand silver ones which will be distributed
among the
diplomatic corps, the foreign employees and guests and the
Korean officials.
A
Japanese Buddhist monk of high standing has come to Korea to
inspect the
monasteries of the country and establish a new one of large
proportions which
will be under special government patronage.
In
Sa-dong, Seoul, a gentleman named T’ak Sun-il set out a feast
for all the
beggars in Seoul, which was well patronized. Hundreds of little
rag-a-muffins
swarmed about the tables and ate to their full capacity.
A
new order has
been promulgated whereby every house in Seoul both large and small must
have a light before it.
Yi
Chöng-no,
lately Minister of the Home Department, has memorialized the
Emperor suggesting
that the title of King be conferred upon Confucius,
posthumously.
The
Korean Minister to Japan urges the government to pay $9500 which
have been
advanced by Japanese to the Korean students in Tokyo for board
and medical
attendance.
Two
years ago a Japanese sailing vessel was wrecked off Ch’ung Chŭng
Province and
pieces of the wreckage floating about in the water were
eventually picked up by
Koreans and used as fire wood. The Japanese authorities asked
that these people
be brought up to Seoul for trial. This was done but they were
acquitted on the ground
that the salvage of abandoned pieces of wreckage constituted no trespass. The Japanese Minister
now says that $3000 will be deducted from the landtax due the
Korean government
in Masanpo to cover the value of this wreckage!!
The
Japanese gold-mining concession in Chik-san has not turned out a paying venture and therefore
the concessionaires have asked the government to give them a
concession at some
other point.
As
the condition of the Finance Department did not permit of the
payment of the
salaries for May, they were paid out of the proceeds from the
sale of Annam rice.
[page 271] It was the intention of the
government to close up the street leading to Chong-dong, or Legation
Street, but the
Japanese Minister urged that as there is a good deal of foreign
property in that vicinity it would not be right to close a main thoroughfare. The other
foreign representatives, who
are still
more interested than the Japanese, made a
united protest; and it seems that the plan cannot be carried
out.
Robbers
in Mi-ryang
burned
thirty houses on May 10th and six people perished in the flames.
The
Seoul Station of the North-western Railway will be situated at the C’hŭn-yŭn-jŭng outside the West Gate
near the
lotus pond. It will be
remembered that this was the site of the first Japanese Legation
in Korea.
Yun
Yong-sŭn, the
prime minister, resigned and Sim Sun-t’ak has been appointed to the position.
The
number of police captains has been increased from thirty to
thirty four as the
former number seemed inadequate to the proper suppression of
crime.
The
contract of the Japanese
Physician, teacher in the medical school, has been renewed for
two years.
A
hundred men joined in a memorial to His Majesty asking that Lady
Om be elevated
to the
position the
Empress.
An
official of the Bureau of Forestry in Japan has been sent to Korea to make a report on the
forests of the
peninsula, after which he will go to China for a similar
purpose.
The
Home Department has appointed two Buddhist monks, Munch’an and Yong-o to have authority over all the monasteries
of Korea.
In
Sŭng-ju robbers burned thirty five houses on the eleventh of
May>
We
have received from the Dai Ichi Ginko in Seoul the eleventh semi-annual report of that
bank which shows that there has been a net profit of $403,990.50
and that a
dividend of nine per cent per annum was ordered paid. At the same
time we received a neat little volume entitled “A Short History of The Dai Ichi Ginko”
which gives interesting information, several pages being devoted
to the
operations of this bank in Korea.
In
this connection we note with pleasure the arrival of Mr.
Masayashi Takalci as
Manager of the Seoul Branch, and this without in any way
reflecting upon the
long and faithful work of Mr. Matsumo Harada who is so well and favorably
known by all foreign residents in Seoul. The work of the bank
has grown to such
proportions through the efforts of Mr. Harada that one man cannot handle it all.
Mr. Harada remains as sub-manager. Mr. Takaki, upon whose arrival we congratutate
ourselves, spent some seven years in America, taking his degree
of A. B. from
Syracuse University
and his Ph. D. from John’s Hopkins, after which he took a short
course in
Columbia University and later at a German University.
Table of Meteorological Observations
Seoul,
Korea, May,
1902.
V.
Pokrovsky, M.D., Observer.
[See images]
KOREAN
HISTORY.
[page 273] MEDIEVAL KOREA
The
year 1389 beheld some interesting and important events. In the
first place Gen. Yi decided to take the
offensive against the Japanese; so a hundred boats were fitted
out. The
expedition arrived first at Tsushima where three hundred of the
enemy’s boats
were burned as well as many houses; and more than a hundred
prisoners were
brought away. Secondly, the emperor, being asked to let the king
go to Nanking
and do obeisance, replied, “This
having a pretender on the throne of Koryŭ is all wrong. If you
will put a real
descendant of the royal family on the throne you need not send
another envoy to
my court for twenty years if you do not wish.” Gen Yi, to show his good
will, sent a messenger to the banished king and gave him a feast
on his birthday.
The king of the Loo Choo Islands sent an envoy to Song-do with
gifts, declaring
his allegiance to Koryŭ. At the same time he sent back some
Koryŭ captives who
had fallen into his hands. Gen, Yi came to the conclusion that
if the dynasty
was to continue, a lineal descendant of the royal family must be
put at the
head of affairs. At this time Gen. Yi was of course the
actuating spirit in the
government and at his desire the young king, who had been on the
throne but a
year and who had not been formally recognised by the emperor,
was sent away to
Kang-wha and the seventh descendant of the seventeenth king of
the line was
elevated to the seat of royalty. His name was Yo and his
posthumous title
Kong-yang. He was forty-five years old. This move on the part of
Gen. Yi was
doubtless on account of the pronounced views of the emperor. A
busybody named
Kang Si told the newly appointed king that Gen. Yi did this not because
he cared for the Wang dynasty
but because he feared the Mings. When Gen. Yi learned of this
the man’s
banishment was demanded but not insisted upon. One of the first
acts of the new
sovereign was to banish Yi Săk and Cho Min-su who had insisted
upon putting the
parvenu Chang [page 274]
upon the throne. An envoy was also dispatched to China
announcing that at last
a genuine Wang was now on the throne of Koryŭ.
The officials urged that the two
banished kings be killed but when the matter was referred to
Gen. Yi he advised
a more lenient policy, saying, “They
have been banished and they can do no more harm. There is no
sense in shedding
useless blood.”
But the king replied, “They
killed many good men and they deserve to die;” so executioners were sent
and the two men were executed at their places of banishment. It
is said that
the wife of the elder of the two took the dead body of her lord
in her arms and
said, as she wept, “This is all my father’s fault, for it was he
who advised
the invasion of China.” The records say that for ten days she
ate nothing and
slept with the corpse in her arms. She also begged rice and with
it sacrificed
before the dead body of the king.
In 1390 a dangerous conspiracy was
gotten up with the view to assassinating Gen. Yi, but it was
discovered in time
and many men were killed in consequence and many more were put
to the torture.
Yi Sak and Cho
Min-su were in some way implicated in this attempt though they were in banishment. It was
advised to put them to death but after torture they were sent
back to prison.
The emperor in some way had the impression that Gen. Yi was
persecuting these two
men because they had prevented his invasion of China. Cho was
executed but when
the executioner approached the cell of Yi Sak, so the records say, a
terrific clap of thunder was heard and a flood of water swept
away part of the
town in which he was imprisoned. For this reason the king dared not kill
him but granted him freedom instead.
Under the supervision of Gen. Yi a
war-office was established and a system of conscription which
secured a
rotation of military duty. The king, true to the instincts of
his family, was a
strong adherent of Buddhism and now proceeded to take a monk as
his teacher.
The whole official class decided that this must not be, and the
monk was
forthwith expelled from the palace. In spite of the suffering it
entailed upon
the people the king decided to move the capital again to
Han-yang and it was
done, but no sooner was the court [page 275] transferred to that place than
the king, with characteristic Wang fickleness, went back to
Song-do. The law
was promulgated that women must not go to visit Buddhist
monasteries. This was
without doubt because the looseness of the morals of the inmates
rendered it
unsafe for respectable women to go to them.
The people throughout the land looked
to Gen. Yi as their protector and it was the almost universal
wish that he should
become king. His friends tried to bring this about but they were
always thwarted
by the aged Chöng Mong-ju, the only great man who now clung to
the expiring
dynasty. He was a man of perfect integrity and was held in much
esteem by Gen.
Yi himself though they differed in politics. Chöng Mong-ju really believed it necessary for
the preservation of the state that Gen. Yi be put out of the way
and he was
always seeking means for accomplishing this end.
When the crown prince came back from
Nanking, whither he had gone as envoy, Gen. Yi went out to meet
him. He went as
far as Whang-ju where he suffered a severe fall from his horse
which for a time
quite disabled him. This was Chöng Mong-ju’s opportunity. He hastened
to have many of Gen. Yi’s friends put out of the way. He had
them accused to
the king and six of the strongest partisans of the general were
banished. Gen.
Yi was at Ha-ju at the time and his son T’ă-jong hastened to him
and imparted
the startling news. The old man did not seem to care very much,
but the son
whose energy and spirit were equal to anything and who foresaw
that prompt
action at this juncture meant life or death to all the family,
had the aged
general carried on the backs of men back to Song-do. When he
arrived, attempts were
being made to have the six banished men put to death, but the
coming of the
great dictator put a stop to this. T’ă-jong urged that something
must be done
immediately to save the family name, but the father did not wish
to proceed to
extremities. The brunt of the whole business fell upon T’ă-jong
and he saw that
if his father was to become king someone must push him on to the
throne. The
first step must be the removal of Chöng Mong-ju. Nothing could
be done until
that was accomplished.
Gen. Yi’s nephew turned traitor to him
and informed Chöng Mong-ju that there was danger. About this
time Gen.
[page 276] Yi gave a dinner to the
officials and Chöng
Mong-ju was invited. The latter decided to go and, by watching
the face of his
host, determine whether the report was true. When T’ajong saw Chöng Mong-ju come
to the banquet he knew the time had come to make the master
move. Five strong
men were placed in hiding beside Sön-juk bridge which Chung had to cross in going
home. There they fell upon him and murdered him with stones,
upon the bridge.
Today that bridge is one of the sacred relics of the kingdom and
is enclosed by
a railing. On the central stone is seen a large brown blotch
which turns to a
dull red when it rains. This is believed to be the blood of the
faithful Chöng
Mong-ju which still remains a mute reproach to his murderers.
This dastardly deed having been
committed, T’ă-jong conferred with his uncle, Wha, and they sent
Gen. Yi’s
eldest living son, who is known by his posthumous title of
Chöngjong, to the
king, to demand the recall of the banished friends of the
general. The king was
in no condition to refuse and the men came back.
Gen. Yi mourned sincerely for the
death of Chong Mong-ju
for he held him to be a loyal and faithful man, but his son saw
to it that the
friends of the murdered man were promptly banished. Even the two
sons of the
king who had sided with the enemies of Gen. Yi were banished.
Gen. Yi was asked
to put some of the friends of Chöng Mong-ju to death but he
sternly refused and
would not
even have them beaten. Yi Săk was again banished to a more
distant point, the
property of Chöng Mong-ju was confiscated and so at last all
opposition was
effectually silenced.
The energetic T’ă-jong next proceeded
to have the king make an agreement or treaty of lasting
friendship with his father.
The officials opposed it on the ground that it was not in
keeping with the
royal office to swear an oath to a subject, but the king who had
doubtless been
well schooled by the young
intriguer agreed to it. Gen. Yi was very loath to go and receive
this honor at
the king’s hand and it was at last decided that the king should
not attend the
function in person but should do it by deputy. The oath was as
follows:--
“If it had not been for vou
I never could have become king. Your goodness and faithfulness
are never to be
[page 277] forgotten. Heaven and earth witness to it
from generation to generation. Let us abjure all harm to each
other. If I ever
forget this promise let this oath witness to my perfidy.”
But soon the king began to see the
ludicrousness of his position. His sons had been bannished, himself without a particle
of power and the voice of the people clamoring to have Gen. Yi
made king. The
pressure was too great, and one day the unhappy king handed over
the seals of
office to the great dictator Gen. Yi T’ai-jo and the Wang dynasty was at an
end. The king retired to private life, first to Wŭn-ju , then to
Kan-Sung and
finally to San-ch’ak
where he died three years after abdicating. The dynasty had
lasted four hundred
and seventy-five years in all.
END
OF PART II.
PART
THREE.
MODERN
KOREA 1392-1897
Chapter
I.
Beginning of the new kingdom... name Cho-sŭn adopted... prophecies ...a man hunt... a royal dream... the wall of Seoul built...
capital
moved... diplomacy
in the north...
Buddhism...
three ports set aside for the Japanese....plot discovered...back to Songdo... king T’ă-jo retires.... death blow to feudalism... Chongjong abdicates...T’ă-jong’s
sweeping reforms...
copper type...
sorcerers’ and
geomancers’ books burned...
T’ă-jong’s claims to greatness...
Se-jong reigns....his habits...
literary work... Japanese
islands attacked....gradual suppression of Buddhism....trials
for capital
offenses...numerous
reforms...
wild tribe punished... the
far north colonised. .. .Japanese settlement in the south....
origin of
Korean alphabet...king
Mun-jong dies from over-devotion to Confucian principles.
It
was on the sixteenth day of the seventh moon of the year 1392
that Gen. Yi
ascended the throne of Koryŭ, now no longer Koryŭ. He was an old
man, far past the age when he could hope to
superintend in person the vigorous “house-cleaning” that the condition of
things demanded. He called about him all the officials whom he
knew to be personally
loyal to himself and placed them in positions of trust and
authority. Those who
had contributed to his rise were rewarded, and a tablet was
erected in the
capital telling of their merits. He liberated many who had been
imprisoned because
of their opposition to the Wang kings and recalled many who had
been banished.
It was not long before a message came
from the emperor saying, “A
man can become king only by the decree of Heaven. How is it then
that the
people of Sam-han have [page 280]
made Yi king?”
In reply the king hastened to send an envoy to explain matters
and to ask the
emperor whether he would prefer to have the new kingdom called
Cho-sŭn, “Morning Freshness,” or Wha-ryŭng, “Peaceful Harmony.” The emperor probably
thought there was a great deal more morning freshness than
peaceful harmony in
the peninsula; at any rate he ordered the former name to be
adopted. It was the
doubtful loyalty of the Wang kings to the Chinese throne that
made it easy for
king T’ă-jo to smoothe over the displeasure of the emperor. The
seals of the Koryŭ
kings were then delivered over to China and new seals received
for the new dynasty.
According to unwritten law, with the
beginning of a new dynasty a new capital must be founded, and
king T’ă-jo began
to look about for a new site. At first he determined to build
his capital at
Kye-ryŭng Mountain in Ch’ung-ch’ung Province, and he went
so far as to begin work on it; but it was found that in the days
of Sil-la a
celebrated priest, To-sun,
had prophesied that in the days to come Yi would found a capital
at Han-yang, and one of the Koryŭ
kings had planted many plum trees at that place and as fast as
they matured had
them mutilated, hoping thus to harm the fortunes of the Yi
family; for the
Chinese character for Yi is the same as that for plum. Tradition
also says that
the king had a dream in which a spirit came and told him that
Kye-ryung San was reserved for the
capital of a future kingdom which should be founded by a member
of the Chöng
family. Two commissioners were thereupon sent to Han-yang to
make surveys for a
palace site. It is said that a monk, Mu-hak, met them at Ha-yang
and told them
that the palace should face toward Pă-gak Mountain and Mong-myŭk
Mountain (the
present Nam-san,) but they persisted in making it face the
south. “Very well” the monk replied, “If you do not listen to my advice you will have
cause to remember it two hundred years from now.” His words were unheeded
but precisely two hundred years later, in the year 1592, the
Japanese hordes of
Hideyoshi landed on the shores of southern Korea. This is a fair
sample of
Korean ex post facto
prophecy.
The courtiers urged the king to
destroy the remaining relatives of the last Koryŭ kings that
there might be no
[page 281] danger of an attempt at
revolt. The royal consent was given and a considerable number of
those
unfortunates were put in a boat, taken out to sea and abandoned,
their boat
being first scuttled. The king thought better of this, however,
before it had
gone far and ordered this man-hunt
to be stopped.
As the emperor still seemed to
entertain suspicions concerning the new kingdom the king was
fain to send bis
eldest son as envoy to the Chinese court where he carefully
explained the whole
situation to the satisfaction of his suzerain.
An interesting prophecy is said to
have been current at the time. The king dreamed that he saw a
hen swallow a silk-worm.
No one could explain the meaning of the dream until at last an
official more
imaginitive than discreet averred that it meant that Kye-ryŭng
would swallow
Cham-du. Kye means “hen” and Cham-du means “silkworm’s head.” But Kye-ryong was the site
of the future capital of the next kingdom according to prophecy,
while “silk-worm’s head” is the name of one
of the spurs of Nam-san in Seoul. So the interpretation was that
the new
dynasty would fall before another founded at Kye-ryong, by
Chöng. The poor
fellow paid for this bright forecast with his life.
Cho Chin was charged with the work of
building the wall of the new capital. To this end, in the spring
of
1391,119,000 men were brought from the provinces of P’yŭng-an
and Whang-hă and
they worked steadily for two months. In the autumn 89,000 men
came from Kang-wŭn,
Chŭl-la and Kyŭngsang Provinces and finished it in a mouth more.
The whole circuit
of the wall was 9,975 double paces. At five feet to the double
pace this would
give us about nine and a half miles, its present length. It was
pierced by
eight gates, the South Gate, or Suk-nye-mun, the East Gate or
Heung-in-mun, the
West Gate, or Ton-eui-mun, the Little West Gate, or So-eui-mun,
the North-east
Gate, or Chang-eui-mun, the Water Mouth Gate, or Kwang-heui-mun,
also called
the Su-gu-muu, and finally the Suk-chang-mun, a private gate at
the north by
which the king may pass in time of danger to the mountain
fortress of Puk-han.
At the same time a law was made that dead bodies could be
carried out of the
city only by way of the Little West
or the Water Mouth Gates. Neither [page 282] of these “dead men’s gates” were roofed at first but
were simply arches.
Immediately upon the completion of the
wall the court was moved from Song-do to the new capital and the
new palace was
named the Kyŭng-bok
Palace. By this time the news of the founding of a new dynasty
had spread, and envoys
came from Japan, the Liu-kiu Islands and from the southern
kingdom of Sam-na.
It will be remembered that the Mongols had absorbed a portion of
the northern
territory of Korea, especially
in Ham-gyŭng Province. This had never come again fully under
Koryŭ control, so
that now the new kingdom extended only as far north as Ma-ch’un Pass. Between that and
the Tu-man River lived people of the Yŭ-jin tribe. The king sent
Yi Tu-ran to
give them a friendly introduction to the newly founded kingdom
of Chosun, and he was so good a
diplomat that soon he was able to form that whole region into a
semi-independent district and in course of time it naturally
became
incorporated into Chosun.
The Koryŭ dynasty left a heavy legacy of priest-craft that was
not at all to
the liking of the new king. The monks had far more power with
the people than
seemed consistent with good government. Monasteries were
constantly in process
of erection and their inmates arrogated to themselves large
powers that they
did not by right possess. Monks were not mendicants then as they
are today.
Each monastery had its complement of slaves to do all menial
work and the law that
declared that the grandson of a slave should be free was a dead
letter. The
first of a
long list of restrictions upon the priesthood was a restatement
and an
enforcement of this salutary law which made hereditary serfdom
impossible.
Before his accession to the throne he
had succeeded in putting down the Japanese pirates, at least for
the time. He now
placed high military and naval officials at all the great
Southern ports, who
offered the people still further protectionHe also set aside the
three ports of
Ch’e-p’o, Yŭm-p’o
and Pu’san-p*o
(Fusan)
as places where Japanese envoys and trading parties might be
entertained. At
these places he built houses for the accommodation of such
guests.
King T’ă-jo had a numerous family. By
his first Queen, Han, he had six sons, of whom the second and
the fifth later [page
283] became Kings of Cho-sŭn, with the
posthumous titles of Chöng-jong and T’ă-jong respectively. By
his second Queen,
Kang, he had two sons,
both of whom aspired to the crown but without hope. They were
named Pang-sŭk
and Pangbon. Their ambition led them astray, for now in the
sixth year of the reign they
conspired to kill their two rival halfbrothers and so prepare
the way for their
own elevation. They secured the services of two assassins who
made the attempt,
but being foiled they lost their heads. It was well known that
the two princes
were at the bottom of the plot, and the king, knowing that even
he could not
protect them from justice, advised them to make good their
escape. They fled but were caught just
outside the West Gate and put to death.
The courtiers were all homesick for
Song-do and the king himself probably missed many of the
comforts which he had
there enjoyed. Merchants had not as yet come in large numbers to
the new
capital and the number of houses was comparatively small. It
must be noticed
that with the change of dynasty it was taken for granted that
the citizens of
the old capital were loyal to the fallen dynasty and so the
people of Song-do
were not allowed to move to Seoul in large numbers. That city
was reserved as
the residence of the friends of the new regime. Song-do has ever
been considered
less loyal than any other city in the country and the rule has
been that no
native of that city could hold an important office under the
present
government. But at first, the new capital was hardly as pleasant
a place to
live as the old, and so the king gave the word and the whole
court moved back
there for a time.
We are told that king T’ă-jo
was heartily tired of the constant strife among his sons as to
who should be
the successor and he decided to resign the office and retire to
his native
Ham-heung. His choice of a successor fell upon his oldest living
son, Prince Yong-an, better known by his
posthumous title Chöng-jong Kong-jŭng Tă-wang. The army and the
people all
desired that his fifth son. Prince Chong-an, who is generally
known as T’ă-jong,
who had been so active ‘ in
helping his father to the throne and who was as energetic and
enterprising as
his brother was slow, should become their [page 284] ruler. When they heard that they could not have their will there
was an angry demonstration
at the palace. This led the retiring king to advise that after
Chöng-jong had
ruled a while he had better resign in favor of his brother, the
people’s choice.
King Chöng-jong’s first act was a
statesman-like one. He commanded the disbanding of the feudal
retainers of all the
officials. A
few who rebelled at this as an encroachment upon their rights
were promptly
banished, and the rest submitted. Thus the death blow was struck
at feudalism
in the peninsula. It never gained the foothold here that it had
in Japan, for
it was thus nipped in the bud. The weakness of the fallen
dynasty had been that
one or more of the officials had gathered about their persons
such large
retinues that they succeeded in overawing the king and making
him a mere puppet. But this was not to be a
feature of the new regime, for King Chöng-jong by this one
decree effectually stamped
it out.
The retired king seemed to be
determined not to be disturbed in his well-earned rest, for when
his sons sent
and begged him to come back to the capital and aid the
government by his
advice, he answered by putting the messenger to death. Later,
however, he
relented and returned to Seoul.
T’ă-jo’s third son, Prince Pang,
was jealous because his younger brother had been selected to
succeed king Chöng-jong, and so he determined to
have him put out of the way. To this end he conspired with one
Pak-po, but the
plot was discovered, Pak Po was killed and the prince banished
to T’osan in Whang-hă Province. T’ă-jong
himself, the prospective king, seems to have chafed at the
delay, for we are told that King Chöng-jong’s
Queen noticed his moody looks and advised her lord to abdicate
in his favor
without delay, before harm came of it. So King Chöng-jong called
his brother
and handed over to him the seals of office and himself retired
to private life
with the title Sang-wang, or “Great king.”
It was in the centennial year 1400
that T’ă-jong, whose full posthumous title is T’ă-jong Kong-jŭng
T’ă-wang, entered upon the
royal office. He was a man of indomitable will, untiring energy
and ready
resource. It was he who really [page 285] entered
upon the work of reform in earnest. T’ă-jo had been too old and
Chöng-jong had
lacked the energy. The year 1401 gave him an opportunity to
begin these
reforms. The land was
suffering from famine, and the king said, “Why is so much grain wasted
in the making of wine? Let it cease for the present.” When he found that the people
would not obey he said, “It
is because I myself have not desisted from the use of wine. Let
no more wine be served in the palace for
the present.”
It is said that this practical appeal was successful and the
people also
desisted. From the earliest times it had been the custom for the
monks to
congregate and pray for the cessation of drought, but now by one
sweep of his
pen the king added another limitation to the prerogatives of the
monks by
forbidding the observance of the custom. Large tracts of land
were also taken
from the monasteries and given back to the people. The king hung
a great bell
in the palace gate and made proclamation that anyone who failed
to have a
grievance righted by the proper tribunals might appeal directly
to the throne,
and whoever struck the drum was given instant audience. This
privilege was
seldom abused for it soon became known that if a man did not
have right clearly
on his side his rash appeal to the king brought severe
punishment.
For many a decade letters had
languished in the peninsula, and now with a view to their
revival the king
ordered the casting of copper types and provided that, as fast
as new characters
were found in the leading Chinese works, they should be
immediately cast and
added to the font. The authenticity of this statement cannot be
called in
question. It is attested by all the great historical works both
public and private.
The method of use was such that the types were practically
indestructible and
large numbers exist and are in active use to this day. So far as
the evidence
goes these were the first metal type ever made, though
xylography had been
known since
the very earliest time.
In 1406 the emperor sent an envoy
asking that a copper Buddha on the island of Quelpart be brought
to Seoul for
the king to do obeisance to it, and that it then be forwarded to
China. The
king, however, refused to bow before it. During this same year
the law was
promulgated forbidding the [page 286] imprisonment of criminals for
long periods of time. It also beheld the execution of all the
brothers of the
Queen. We
are not told the reason of this
but we may surmise that it was because they had been implicated in seditious
proceedings.
In 1409 the Japanese, Wŭn-do-jin, was
sent to the Korean court to present the respects of the Japanese
sovereign. The
kings of Koryŭ had set aside large tracts of land in Whang-hă
Province fur
hunting purposes. These by order of king T’ă-jong were now
restored to the
people and they were ordered to cultivate them. In 1413 the land
suffered from a severe drought and the
courtiers all advised that the monks and the female exorcists
and fortune-tellers be called upon to pray for
rain; but the king replied, “Buddhism
is an empty religion and the exorcists and fortune-tellers are a
worthless lot. If I were only a
better ruler Heaven would not refuse us rain.” He thereupon ordered all
the sorceresses, fortune-tellers, exorcists and geomancers to
deliver up the
books of their craft to the government and a great fire was made
with them in
front of the palace.
King T’ă-jong’s great sorrow was his
son the Crown Prince, Yang-yŭng. This young man was dissolute
and worthless. He
would not pursue the studies prescribed by his tutors but spent
his time in
hunting, gambling and in less reputable pursuits. The people
cried out against
him and made it known that it was not their will that he should
reign over
them. The father saw the justice of the complaint and the young
man was
banished to Kwang-ju
and the fourth son, Prince Ch’ung-nyung, was proclaimed heir to
the throne.
King T’ă-jong retired in 1419 in favor of this
son Ch’ung-nyŭng
who is known by the posthumous title Se-jong Chang-hŭn T’ă-wang.
T’ă-jong had been a radical reformer
and worked a revolution in Korean life similar to that which
Cromwell effected in
England. His greatness is exhibited in three ways. (1) He was
the first king
who dared to break away utterly from customs whose only sanction
was their
antiquity. (2) He was
wise enough not to force all these radical reforms at once, but
spread them
over a period of nearly two decades. (3) He recognised that a
king is the
servant of the people. It may be in place here to call attention
to a peculiar
custom of the east.
[page 287] We refer to the custom of
surrendering the throne to a successor before one’s death. The
benefits of this
custom are soon cited. The retiring sovereign becomes the tutor
of the incoming
one. The young ruler has the benefit of his practical
suggestions and of his
immense influence. He thus does away with much of the danger of
revolution or
rebellion which so often accompanies a change or rulers. If the
new king proves
inefficient or otherwise unsatisfactory it is possible, through
the father’s
influence, to effect a change. In other words the young ruler is
on trial and
he undergoes a probation that is salutary for him and for the
people as well. It
also helps greatly in perpetuating a policy, for in such a case
the father,
knowing that his son is to assume the reins of government while
he still lives,
takes greater pains to initiate him into the secrets of
government and in
forming in his mind settled principles which, while they may not
always perpetuate
the same policy, at least ensure an easy gradation from one
policy to another.
This perhaps was the crowning feat of T’ă-jong’s greatness. He
knew enough to
stop while his
success was at its height and spend some years in teaching his
successor how to
achieve even a greater success. Let us see how these principles
worked in the
case of this new king.
The young king began in a modest way
by consulting with his father in regard to all matters of
importance. The retired
king had taken up his quarters in the “Lotus Pond District” where he was at
all times accessible to the young king and where he took
cognizance of much of
the public business. The new ruler was characterized by great
evenness of
temper, great astuteness and untiring diligence. He is said to
have risen each
morning at dawn.
He ordered the making of musical
instruments, including metal drums and triangles. Under his
supervision a
clypsehydra was made and a work on astronomy was published. It
is said that
with his own hand he prepared works on “The five rules of conduct,”
“The
duties of King, Father and Husband,” “Good Government and Peace,” and a work
on military tactics. The custom of collecting rare flowers and
plants and
growing them in the palace enclosure was done away and it was
decreed that no
more of the public money should be squandered in that way. He
built a little
straw [page 288]
thatched cottage beside the palace and compelled the officials
to attend him
there in council. He put a stop to the evil practice of letting
concubines and
eunuchs meddle with state affairs, for when one of his
concubines asked him to
give one of her relatives official position he promptly banished
her from the
palace.
In the second year of his reign, 1420, the
king showed his partiality for literature and literary pursuits
by founding a
college to which he invited thirteen of the finest scholars that
the kingdom
could furnish, and there they gave themselves up to the pursuit
of letters. In
the early summer the dreaded Japanese again began their ravages
on the coasts
of Korea. Landing at Pi-in, Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province, they easily
overcame the local forces and marched northward along the coast
into Whang-hă
Province. They there informed the Korean generals that they did
not want to
ravage Korea but that they were seeking a way into China. They
lacked provisions
and promised to go immediately if the Koreans would give them
enough rice for
their sustenance, until they should cross the border into China.
Forty bags of
rice were given to them, but when the king learned of it he was
displeased and
said, “When
they return we must destroy them.” The southern provinces were
put into a state
of defense and Gen. Yi Chong-mu was put at the head of a
punitive expedition.
It is said that a fleet of 227 war vessels and an army of
107,285 men
rendezvoused at Ma-san Harbor. They were provided with two
month’s rations.
This powerful flotilla sailed away and soon reached the island
of Tsushima.
There it burned 129 Japanese boats and 1939 houses. Over a
hundred Japanese
were killed, twenty-one prisoners were taken and 131 Chinese and
eight Korean
captives were liberated. The fleet then sailed toward Japan and
arrived at Ni-ro
harbor. There, the records say, they lost 120 men and so
abandoned the
enterprise. This is good evidence that the numbers of the army
are
overestimated, for a loss of a hundred and twenty men from such
an immense
force would not have caused an abandonment of the expedition.
The emperor sent a messenger asking
for the four jewels that are supposed to come from the bodies of
good monks when
they are incinerated.
THE KOREA REVIEW
JULY, 1902
Korean
Fiction.
A
few weeks ago there appeared in a prominent Shanghai paper an
article on Korean
Literature, the first sentence of which reads as follows; “Korea is a land without
novels;” and
further on we read that during the last thousand years there has
been no
regular novelist in Korea.
It is not our purpose to question the literal accuracy of these
statements, but
they are likely to cause a grave misapprehension which would be
unfair to the Korean people.
These statements if unmodified will inevitably leave the
impression that the
art of fiction is unknown in Korea –an impression that would be the
farthest possible from the truth.
To say that Korea has never produced a
regular novelist is quite true if we mean by a novelist a person
who makes his life
work the writing of novels and bases his literary reputation
thereon. If, on
the other hand, a man who,
in the midst of graver literary work, turns aside to write a
successful novel
may be called a novelist then Korea has a great number of them.
If the word
novel is restricted to works of fiction developed in great
detail and covering
at least a certain minimum number of pages Korea cannot be said
to possess many
novels but if on the other hand a work of fiction covering as
[page 290] much ground as, say,
Dickens’ Christmas Carol
may be called a novel then Korea
has thousands of them.
Let us cite a few of the more
celebrated cases and discover if possible whether Korea is
greatly lacking in
the fictional art.
The literary history of Korea cannot
be said to have opened until the days of Ch’oé Ch’i-wŭn (***)in
the seventh
century A.D., the brightest light of
early Korean literature. He is one of the few Koreans whose
literary worth has
been recognized widely beyond the confines of the peninsula. But
even then at
the very dawn of letters we find that he wrote and published a complete novel under the
name of “Kon-yun-san
Keui” (****). This is the fanciful
record of the adventures of a Korean among the Kuen-lun
Mountains on the
borders of Thibet. It forms a complete volume by itself and if
translated into
English would make a book the size of Defoe’s Robinson
Crusoe.
The same man wrote a work in five volumes, entitled Kye-wŭn P’il-gyŭng (****) which is a collection of
stories, poems and miscellaneous writings. Many of the stories
are of a length
to merit at least the name of novelette.
At about the same time Kim Am (**) another of the Silla
literati wrote a story of adventure in Japan which he called
Ha-do Keui (***)This is a one-volume story
and of a length to warrant its classification as a novel.
Coming down to the days of Koryŭ we
find that the well-known
writer Hong Kwan (**)
wrote the Keui-ja jŭn(***)
a collection of stories dealing with the times of Keui-ja. This
of course was
pure fiction though the fragmentary character of the stories
would bar them
from the list of novels proper.
Kim Pu-sik (***) the greatest, perhaps, of
the Koryŭ writers,
to whom we owe the invaluable Sam-guk-sa
(***) wrote
also a complete novel in one volume entitled Puk-changsung (***) or “The story of the Long North
Wall.” This may properly be called an historical novel, for
Korea once boasted
a counterpart to the Great Wall of China and it extended from
the Yellow Sea to
the Japan Sea across the whole of northern Korea.
About the year 1440 a celebrated monk
named Ka-san (**)
wrote a novel called “The
Adventures of Hong Kil-[page 291] dong.” Not long after that
the monk Hă-jong (***)
wrote another entitled “The
Adventures of Im Kyöng-op.”
Coming down to more modern times and
selecting only a few out of many, we might mention the novel by
Yi Munjong (***) written in about 1760 and
bearing the Aristophanean title “The Frogs,” or rather to be strictly
correct “The
Toad.”
Then again in about 1800 Kim Chun-tăk
(***) wrote
four novels entitled respectively Ch’ang-son Kam-eui Rok (*****). Ku-on-mong (***), Keum-san Sa Monghoi-rok
(******),
Sa-si Nam-jŭng Keui (*****), or by
interpretation “The Praise of Virtue and
Righteousness,” “Nine
Men’s Dreams,” “A
Dream at Keum-san Monastery,”
“The Sa
clan in the Southern wars.”
Ten years later we have novel from the pen of Yi U-mun (***) entitled “The Adventures
of Yi Hă-ryong.”
In this enumeration we have but skimmed the surface. A list of
Korean novels
would fill many numbers of this magazine. That they are genuine
romances maybe
seen by the names “The
Golden Jewel,” “The
story of a Clever Woman,” “The Adventures of Sir Rabbit” and the like.
While many of the Korean novels place
the scene of the story in Korea others go far afield, China
being a favorite
setting for Korean tales. In this the Korean writers have but
followed a custom
common enough in western lands, as the works of Bulwer Lytton,
Kingsley, Scott and a host of
others bear witness.
Besides novels written in Chinese,
Korea is filled with fiction written only in the native
character. Nominally
these tales are despised by the literary class, which forms a
small fraction of
the people, but in reality there are very few even of these
literary people who
are not thoroughly conversant with the contents of these novels.
They are on
sale everywhere and in Seoul alone there are at least seven
circulating libraries
where novels both in Chinese and the native character may be
found by the
hundreds. Many of these novels are anonymous, their character
being such that
they would not bring credit upon the morals of the writer. And
yet however
[page 292] debasing they may be they
are a true mirror of the morals of Korea to-day.
The customs which prevail in Korea, as
everywhere else in Asia, make it out of the question for anyone
to produce a “love story” in our sense of the term,
but as the relations of the sexes here as everywhere are of
absorbing interest
we find some explanation of the salacious character of many
Korean novels. And
just as the names of Aspasia and other hetairai
of Greece play such an important part in a certain class of
Greek literature,
just so, and for the same reason, the ki-sang or dancing-girl trips
through the pages of Korean fiction.
So much, in brief, as to written
Korean fiction; but we have by no means exhausted the subject of
fiction in
Korea. There
remains here in full force that ancient custom, which antedates
the making of
books, of handing down stories by word of mouth. If a gentleman
of means wants
to “read” a novel he does not send
out to the book-stall and buy one but he sends for a kwang-da or professional
story-teller who comes with his attendant and drum and recites a
story, often consuming
a whole day and sometimes two days in the recital. Is this not
fiction? Is there
any radical difference between
this and the novel? In truth, it far excels our novel as an
artistic production
for the trained action and intonation of the reciter adds an
histrionic element
that is entirely
lacking when one merely reads a novel. This form of recital
takes the place of
the drama in Korea; for, strange as it may seem, while both
Japan and China
have cultivated the histrionic art for ages, Koreans have never
attempted it.
Fiction in Korea has always taken a
lower place than other literary productions, poetry and history being
considered the two great branches of literature. This is true of
all countries
whose literatures have been largely influenced by China. The use
of the Chinese
character has always made it impossible to write as people
speak. The
vernacular and the written speech have always been widely
different and it is
impossible to write a conversation as it is spoken. This in
itself is a serious
obstacle to the proper development of fiction as an art for when
the
possibility of accurately transcribing a conversation is taken
away the life and vigor of a
story is largely lost. Dialect stories and character sketches
are practically
[page 295] barred. And besides, this
subserviency of Chinese literary ideals to the historical and
poetic forms has
made these people cast their fiction also in these forms and so
we often find
that a genuine romance is hidden under such a title as “The Biography of Cho
Sang-geun” or some other equally tame. It is this limitation of
the power of
written language to transcribe accurately human speech which has
resulted in
the survival of the professional story-teller and it is the same
thing that has
made Korean written fiction inferior and secondary to history
and poetry. In
this as in so many other things Korea shows the evil effects of her subserviency to
Chinese ideals.
But the question may be asked. To what
extent is fiction read in Korea as compared with other literary
productions? There
is a certain small fraction of the Korean people who probably
confine their
reading largely to history and poetry but even among the
so-called educated
classes the large majority have such a rudimentary knowledge of
the Chinese character
that they cannot read with any degree of fluency. There is no
doubt that these
confine their reading to the mixed script of the daily newspaper
or read the
novels written in the native character. But the great mass of
the people, middle
and lower classes, among whom a knowledge of the native
character is extremely
common, read the daily papers which are written in the native
character when
they can afford to buy them or else read the common story-books
in the same
character. It is commonly said that women are the greatest
readers of these
native books. This is said because the men affect to despise the
native
character, but the truth is that a vast majority even of the
supposedly
literate can read nothing else with any degree of fluency, and
so they and the middle
classes are all constant readers of the stories in the native
character. By far
the greater part of what is read today in Korea is fiction in
one form or
another.
It is a hopeful sign that there is
nothing about this native writing which prevents its being used
as
idiomatically and to as good effect as English is used in
fiction to-day and it
is to be hoped that the time will soon come when someone will do
for Korea what
Defoe and other pioneers did for English fiction namely, write a
standard work of
fiction in Korean.
[page 294] Burial Customs.
(second
paper.)
The
fourth day
after the death of a Korean gentleman is called the sŭng-pok (**), “Day for Putting on Mourning.”
By this time all the mourning clothes have been made for the
chief mourner and
others of the family and clan down to the eighth remove. The
only ones who wear
full mourning are the wife, the sons, the daughters and the
daughters-in-law of
the deceased. For the sons this consists of a wide mourner’s hat
made of
bamboo, a headband of coarse linen, a coat of coarse linen, a
waist-cord of
hemp, underclothes of cotton, leggings of coarse linen, shoes of
straw and a po-sun or
facescreen of
coarse linen attached to two sticks which are held in the hands.
For women,
mourning consists in wooden hairpins, clothes of coarse linen,
and straw shoes. The next
degree of mourning is worn by the sons-in-law, brothers and
nephews of the
deceased, and is the same as full mourning, except that the hat,
shoes and
headband are omitted. The string which holds the headband,
however, is white
instead of black. The other male relatives wear only the linen
leggings and perhaps
a hempen waist-cord. All other relatives and often intimate
friends are
scrupulous to use only white clothes, all colors being laid
aside.
These garments being donned, all the
mourners assemble in the room adjoining the casket and bow and
wail, the men facing
the east and the women the west. Only those who are very old may
sit. No
conversation is allowed. From this day on all the mourners, even
the chief, may
return to their usual diet.
The undertaker places the headbands,
combs and other toilet articles of the dead near his coffin as
if he were not
dead but only sleeping and would soon awake and use them. They
also place
fruits, vegetables, meats, nuts, wine, etc., before the dead,
after which all
the mourners come in and bow before the casket and weep. If the
body should be
kept in
the house for three months before burial, as is sometimes the
case, all the
family must come into the room on the first and the [page 295] fifteenth of each moon and bow and
wail. Whenever fresh fruit comes into the market some of it must
be offered the
dead before the family can taste of it.
The interment never takes place before
the fifth day and if not then it takes place on the seventh or
ninth day. If it
is still further delayed the full period of three months
intervenes before
burial. This long delay is only in the case of a high official. The length of delay depends upon the wealth of
the family and the consequent
ability to make more elaborate preparations.
In the case of families of wealth and
position a burial site will long ago have been selected through
the services of
a chi-gwan (**) or geomancer. The
selection of a propitious burial site is a science in itself and
requires the services of a separate
class or guild; but this comes rather under the subject of
geomancy than that
of burial customs, and the readers of the Review are referred to
the pages of
The Korean Repository
for 1896 for a
discussion of Korean geomancy.
The day before the interment is to
take place the geomancer and the chief mourner go to the grave
site and
superintend the marking out of the grave, being careful to drive
stakes at the
four corners of the site and at the head, the foot and the
middle of the grave
plot itself. Later in the day the friends and relatives of the
chief mourner
bring food to the grave site and sacrifice to the spirit of the
mountain announcing
that such and such a man is dead and is to be buried here. The chief mourner
returns home and announces to the dead that a burial place has
been prepared.
Those that have
remained at the burial site dig the grave, making the
measurements very exact
so that the coffin will fit the grave. At the bottom they put
sand mixed with
lime and
pound it down hard so as to form a solid bed for the casket to
rest upon.
Two memorial stones have already been
prepared. They are exact counterparts of each other. One of them
is to be set
up and the other buried in the ground at the foot of the grave. If the one that is set
up is injured or destroyed this buried one can be dug up and erected in its
place. These stones are called the Chi-sŭk (**) or stone descriptive of the
character of the dead.
[page 296] The next work is the preparation of the sang-yo (**)
or “Death
Carriage”
by which is meant the bier or catafalque. In ordinary cases this is
rented for
the occasion but
in extraordinary cases a special one is made. It is supposed to
resemble in
shape the ordinary Korean covered kama, or two men chair, or
litter in which people are carried
about in lieu of wheeled vehicles; but it is made longer to
accommodate the recumbent posture of the dead. It is covered with a rigid canopy
or roof and the sides are inclosed. The whole is painted in the
most gaudy and
fantastic colors, a mixture of the Korean cardinal colors. red, blue, yellow, white and black, and is
supported on
men’s shoulders by a network of poles and ropes. The number of
carriers is
determined by the size of the bier and the splendor of the occasion. Anywhere from eight
to forty men may be employed to carry the “Death Carriage.” They are
all dressed in coarse linen with a tall linen cap.
One of the most important points about
a funeral is the making
of the Sin-ju (**) or “Spirit Master.” It might be better
described as the “Spirit
Tablet”:
for it consists of a plain piece
of chestnut
wood ten inches long, two inches wide and three quarters of an
inch thick. It is left unpainted and nothing
whatever is written
on it, but with it is placed a sheet of paper on which is
written the name and office of the deceased. This piece of wood
is placed, together with the paper, in a little box made specially for it
and painted black. This Sin-ju or
Spirit Tablet, is made of chestnut wood because the
Koreans believe that when a chestnut sprouts and the meat of the nut is used in
feeding the growing sprout,
the shell does not
decay but remains attached to the root of the tree until the latter dies.
Thus they believe the seed is preserved, and this typifies the
long life of the
family. This tablet is kept in the house for three years, until the
period of mourning is past, and then it is placed in the Sa-dang
(**) or “Soul House,”
preferably described as the Ancestral Tablet House. One of these
tablet houses
is found connected
with the residence of every well-to-do gentleman. The use of a
separate tablet
house has of late fallen somewhat into disuse because of the
danger of having
the tablets stolen and held to ransom. To lose the sin-ju is an
unspeakable
calamity.
[page 297] Before burial it was
formerly the custom to carry
the body of the dead to the Ancestral Tablet House to let him “take a look” at it, but of late years it has been considered
sufficient to
carry the hon-păk-kwe
or “Spirit
Box” to the Tablet
House instead; but at the same time the coffin must be moved a
little as if it
were to be taken also.
All is now ready for the funeral
procession, which is a grand spectacular display. On it the heir
sometimes
squanders a half of his patrimony. Korean folklore is full of
stories telling
of how the son, out of filial piety, spent the whole of his
patrimony on his
father’s funeral. Nowadays such devotion is found only in books
and traditions.
The funeral procession forms in the late afternoon and a start
is made just at
twilight. The reason for this is that at this hour the streets
are less likely
to be crowded: it is the quiet time of the day and the spirit of
the dead is
less liable to be disturbed by the street cries and by the
shouts of hucksters.
It seems, from this, as if the Koreans believed that the spirit
of the dead
still accompanies the dead body.
First in the procession come two men
abreast dragging after them huge torches made of brushwood tied
together. The
lighted ends trail on the ground leaving a wake of sparks. Now
and again they
will raise the torches and whirl them about their heads until
they break into flame again. Behind these
comes the procession between two lines of lantern-bearers, each
lantern being
made of an iron framework over which is draped red and blue gauze silk. This
silk prevents the candles being blown out by the wind but it is
quite
diaphanous. First in the procession proper comes the master of
ceremonies mounted
upon a horse, and behind him marches a man bearing aloft the myŭng-jŭng or banner inscribed with
the name and honors of the deceased. Then comes a line of
lanterns across the
street connecting the lines of lanterns on the sides. Then comes
a sort of cabinet or shrine
containing the “Spirit
Box” and the “Spirit
Master.” or tablet. On either side of it march the female slaves
of the
deceased with enormous piles of hair on their heads. They may
number from two
to half a dozen. Then, after another line of lanterns comes the
catafalque
which surges
along slowly upon a mass of writhing shoulders, the bearers
chanting a weird
song which [page 298]
enables them to keep in step. They have been given copious draughts of wine and it is
only their numbers that keeps them on their feet. If the
deceased is of high
rank a man will be standing on the bier at the front of the
casket ringing a bell
and “marking
time” for the bearers, and another stands at the back, for the
same purpose.
Along either side of the catafalque walk a number of
banner-carriers, each
banner recording the merits of the deceased. These are often
sent by the
friends of the dead and correspond to the flowers which friends
send, as
expressions of their love,
in western lands. Immediately behind the catafalque comes the
chief mourner in
a kama or chair
covered with coarse
linen and on either side walk the husbands of his female slaves.
Then come, in
single file, the chairs bearing the other members of the
bereaved family, also
flanked by the husbands of the female slaves of the dead man’s
relatives. After
these comes a long line of more distant relatives and friends
numbering anywhere
from ten to a hundred, all in chairs. The whole is flanked by
lines of lantern
bearers and the rear is brought up by a howling crowd of street
boys who follow
in the wake and add noise if not dignity to the obsequies.
It is of course against the law to
bury a body
inside the gates of Seoul, nor can the dead be carried out by
any of the seven
public gates. Two of them have been reserved for this special
purpose, the Little West Gate and Water-mouth Gate.
When the procession arrives at the
burial place the catafalque is placed under a temporary shelter
and the whole party
spend the night in a neighboring hamlet or in huts erected for
the purpose.
Early in the morning the banner inscribed with the name of the
dead is laid
over the coffin and a little food is offered the dead, and after
all have bowed
and wept the casket is placed on two transverse poles and
carried to the grave
and set down directly over the grave but resting on the poles. A
careful
examination is made to see
that the coffin will exactly fit the grave and then by means of a wide piece
of cloth, let under the coffin, it is lowered to its last
resting-place. As
this is done great care is taken by the help of a compass to
have the coffin
lie in just the direction that has been determined upon. A piece of black silk is then laid over the coffin
and above this a thin board. Lime
is then [page 299] packed
in the sides and laid above the coffin to a depth of two inches,
after which
the grave is filled even full with lime and earth mixed.
The form of a Korean grave plot is
very fine. It is a question whether the shape and appointments
of a Korean grave
are not the finest in the world. The gentle southern slope of a
hill is dug
into and a platform made, the earth being formed into a curved
bank on either
side so that the grave proper lies in the hollow of a crescent.
Then in front
the soil is terraced down to the original slope of the hill.
Nicely turfed and
well taken care of, this grave is simply exquisite in its
simplicity and
neatness. Such a grave requires a space at least sixty feet
square.
The chief mourner now takes his place
on the first terrace below the grave and facing it, while behind him are ranged
all the other mourners and
friends. One of the mourners then announces to the spirit of the
mountain that the
deceased has now been buried here, and a little food and wine is
set out for
the delectation of said mountain spirit. The Chi-suk or memorial
stone of which
mention has been made is then buried at the foot of the grave.
The Sin-ju or
tablet is then brought out and one of the mourners takes a piece
of paper and writes on it with white
ink the name of the deceased together with his rank and also the
name of the
chief mourner. Announcement is made to the dead that the “Spirit Master” and the “Spirit Box” will be duly
deposited in a safe place at home. The different epitaphs and
elegies in praise
of the dead are then recited. This finishes the service at the
grave and the
chief mourner taking the “Spirit Box,” etc., returns to his home
leaving behind
only enough people to see that the earth is heaped high over the
grave in a
circular mound and carefully turfed.
For three years the Sin-ju
is kept in the house, until the days
of mourning are over, and then it is deposited in the Sa-dang. The “Soul-box” has played its
part and after a few weeks is destroyed.
Beside the memorial stone at the grave
it is quite common to set up beside the grave the stone image of
a boy, a sheep,
or a horse, while directly in front of the grave a smooth stone
slab is placed,
to be used in offering the annual sacrifices [page 300] of food to the dead. On
the first terrace below the grave two stone posts may be set up, one on either side, to
represent the approach to the grave.
Not infrequently the grave is dug a
little to one side of the middle leaving room for the wife of
the deceased to
be buried beside him when she dies. In that case they both are
covered by a
single mound of earth.
Korean
Products.
Sesamum
The
first mention of Sesamum, or gă as it is called in Korea,
is during the time of the Eun Dynasty (*) in China 1401-1154 B. C.
At that time, we are told, sesamum oil was used to eat and to
boil criminals
alive. The latter use of it gives the reason why it came to be
mentioned in
history. The rapidity of the spread of the use of sesamum oil
was next only to
that of rice, and animal fat rapidly gave way to this product as
an illuminant.
Its use is said to have begun in Korea at the time of Kija but
there is reason
to believe that the teul-gă or “wild sesamum” had been long in use before
that date. Tradition makes mention of it as far back as the days of
Tangun. The wild tribes which rendered tribute to the great
Ha-u-si (***) are said to have worn
coats oiled with the wild sesamum oil. So there are two
varieties in Korea, the
cultivated and the wild sesamum. Of the wild sesamum only oil is
made and it
forms a very important commodity to the Koreans. With it they
make the oiled
paper with which all better class floors are covered, the universally used
rain-shoes, rain-coats and rain-hats are all protected by this
oil. The Korean
hat is immediately destroyed by
rain and the rain-hat or hat-cover is always carried when the
weather is
threatening. This oil is used in almost all the fans produced in
Korea, while
tobacco pouches,
umbrellas and many other useful articles require the use of this
oil. Images of
Buddha are commonly polished with it and until petroleum was
introduced it was
a common illuminant.
Of the cultivated sesamum there are
two varieties, the black and the white. The oil from these is of
a more
delicate [page 301] quality
and is used very often in foods and in medicines. It is also
ground up into a
meal and is called “Sasamum
Salt” which is
used as a sort of shortening in cakes. Of both the black and
white they make
candy and pastry. Of the black variety they make the little flat
ebony-black
cakes which we see so often hawked about the streets.
Sesamum oil is a prime necessity in
every fairly well-to-do
house. The greatest amount of it is raised in Kyŭng-geui
Province, though of
course it grows practically everywhere in Korea.
Buck-Wheat
Formerly
buck-wheat was considered a mere weed but in the ancient days of
the Angnang
tribe which occupied the present Whang-hă Province it became a
cultivated plant
in the following manner. An old man was working in his field
along whose edge
grew some wild buck-wheat. The birds were eating it with such
gusto that the
old man gathered some of the seeds and ground them up. To his
surprise they
produced a flour similar to that of wheat and practically as
good to the taste.
The chief of the tribe learned of it and named the newly
discovered cereal mo-mil
or “corner wheat” because of
the angular shape of the kernel. This is perhaps the first
mention in history
of anyone getting a corner on wheat.
Buck-wheat flour is used almost
exclusively in the making of a sort of vermicelli which is the
main ingredient
of that favorite Korean dish, kuksu.
It is one of the sights of Korea to see a native get an endless
chain of kuksu
started down his throat. He seldom
“bites it
off” till the bowl is empty. Coarser kinds of buck-wheat flour
are used in
making what is called “dog-bread”
which is too good to feed to dogs but corresponds perhaps to the
coarse rye bread so common in
Europe. Buck-wheat today is raised most largely in this province
and in Kang-wŭn
Province though Pyŭng-yang is the traditional home of the
Korean’s beloved Kuksu.
Potatoes.
So
far as we can discover the potato is indigenous to Korea. Its
name kam-cha is from
the Chinese but while
the Chinese potato is the sweet variety the Korean is the
genuine “Irish” potato. It is
sometimes differentiated
from the Chinese tuber by the name “chestnut potato” because of its
supposed resemblance in shape and [page 302] texture to that nut. The use of the potato in Korea is very ancient
but is confined to the
mountainous districts of the east and northeast. It is
considered a very lowly
diet and is scorned wherever rice can be obtained. In a few
prefectures such as
Kim-sŭng and Whe-yang potatoes form the staple food of the
people and rice can
be found only at the inns whither it is brought with great difficulty for use in feeding
travellers from the capital.
Turnips.
This
humble vegetable, called mu,
plays a
most important part in the Korean larder, but it has never
commanded the
attention of the historian or the poet as have the staple cereals. We have no
data whereon to base a statement as to whether it is indigenous
or exotic but
the fact that the Chinese turnip is generally red while the
Korean is white
might perhaps be taken as an indication that the Korean turnip is indigenous. It is used from
one end of Korea to the other, generally in the form of a pickle.
The insipidity of boiled rice has led, here as elsewhere, to the
use of all sorts of condiments
whereby to make it “go
down.” And
of these various side dishes the turnip preserved in brine is
the most common. It is also eaten raw when fresh, and
occasionally is used in a soup. As a pickle it forms one of the
forms of kim-chi. Cut
in thin slices, dried and
mixed with a salty sauce it makes another condiment called Changa-ji. Mixed with chopped shrimps and cayenne it is called Chŭt-mu or “milk
turnip.”
From the ingredients it would seem to lack the mildness of milk.
The best turnips are grown in Kyŭng-sang
Province where they sometimes attain a length of twenty inches
and a diameter
of four inches. These are brought to Seoul only for use in the
palace.
Cabbage
This
is a sort of cross between
cabbage and lettuce but possessing neither the flavor of the one
nor the delicacy of the
other. Next to the turnip it forms the most important base of
the ubiquitous kim-chi,
the proximity of which is
detected not by the eye alone. This vegetable is called pă-chu and the kim-chi
made from it is rather more delicate than that made with
turnips. Whatever else
a Korean table may or may not contain it will always contain a
bowl of kim-chi of
one kind or the other. The
[page 303] cabbage kim-chi, is used
more in and about large centers like Seoul while in the country
turnips are
most used. At the present time both kinds are almost universally
used in Korea.
The best pă-chu is
grown in and near
the city of Seoul, though in P’yŭng-yang a very fine quality is
grown.
Onions.
This
vegetable is of such importance in Korea that it takes a leading
place among
the secondary food products. The Koreans believe that the onions
grown north of
the Im-jin River are of Chinese origin, having been introduced
in very ancient
times, while those grown south of that river are a native
product. This is a
reasonable supposition, for in very ancient times Northern and
Southern Korea were
completely separated from each other, the people of these two
sections having
an entirely different
origin. And besides this, the northern and southern onions are
very different;
the northern is smaller and “stronger” than the southern. The northern
onion is supposed to have originated at Ch’ong-yŭng (**) “Onion Pass” in northwestern China.
The onion is used by the Korean the
year round. The seed is sown in the spring and while the plants
are still very young
some of them are pulled. The bulb itself is too small to be of
much use so the
tops are eaten; At this stage the leaves are about six inches
long. Later a
second stage is reached and at this time too the tops are eaten. A
third stage produces a fair sized
bulb. In the fourth stage the onions are dried for use in
winter. In the fifth
stage the onions, having sprouted in the late winter, are used
until the new
spring onions begin to grow.
They are never eaten alone, as with
us, but are cut up and used as a flavoring with other food. In
this way they form
a necessary ingredient in a vast number of Korean dishes. In
fact there are very few dishes in which they do not
figure. The Koreans are well aware of the medicinal virtues of
the onion and they believe that this
vegetable is an
antidote against many evil humors
which float in the air. Onions are also used in certain
medicines.
Cayenne.
The
Koreans believe that red-peppers are never used in China. True
it is that there
is no Chinese Character for red-pepper. There is a Korean
tradition that in
ancient times the Chinese got hold of some red-pepper [page 304] seed but having no use for
it they sent . it to their fierce neighbors the Koreans hoping
that the fiery
pod might help to tame the wildness of the Korean nature. This
is mere fancy but
is firmly believed throughout the peninsula. The fact is that
the red-pepper is
a product of Southern Korea. The Southern Koreans were probably
of far southern
origin and it is not unlikely that their ancestors brought the
seeds of this
plant from the tropics. The very existence of this plant, and
its universal
use, would help to determine the fact of the southern origin of
this people,
for the red-pepper is essentially a tropical product. The
Koreans value cayenne
because (1) they believe it is an
antidote against poisonous exhalations; (2) because it induces
warmth in winter;
(3) because it preserves food; and (4) because it prevents
sickness from “high” fish or meat. The
red-pepper grows best in Chŭl-la Province, the town of Sun-ch’on being celebrated as the
place where the finest is grown.
One of the prettiest sights in Korea
is that of the thatched roofs of country houses covered with the
vivid red of peppers
placed there to dry in the sun. Sometimes whole hill-sides are
covered with
them, spread out to dry; and are visible many miles away.
Review.
In
the New England Magazine
for June,
Rev. W. E. Griffis, D. D., has an article on “Korea, the Pigmy Empire.” It is profusely
illustrated with reproductions of photographs most of which are
familiar to
residents of Korea but which are doubtless new to the readers of
the New
England. The article is written in the finished style of all of
Dr. Griffis’ work
and touches upon geographical, historical, political, social,
industrial and
economic questions. Whatever comes from his pen is sure to be
entertaining,
while his familiarity with his subject vouches for the
trustworthiness of his
statements. We do not quite grasp the significance of the title
of his article;
for as Korea has an area equal to that of France and a
population once and a
half as great as that of Spain the [page 305] term “Pigmy” must be understood to
refer either to Korea’s intellectual or physical power. Dr.
Griffis gives a careful description of Korea’s geographical
position and
topographical structure but perpetuates that mistaken idea that
the lake on Pak-tu San is the source of
both the Amnok
and Tuman
rivers. He refers here again to the interesting tradition that
Arab traders
came to Southern Korea in the days of Silla. As we have pointed
out before,
there seems to be some difficulty in accepting this as
historical, first
because there is no mention of the fact in the very full records
of Silla,
second because, although an Arab geographer mentions Silla, we find in the Scriptures
the name of Silla as a town
somewhere in Syria; third because of the articles said to have been exported from Silla,
Ginseng is a product of the north and has never been cultivated
until within
comparatively recent years; aloes
and camphor have never existed in Korea and satin has never been
manufactured
here even in Korea’s palmiest day’s. The breed of Korean horses is
extremely small and that Arabs should have exported saddles to
Arabia seems
quite beyond the bounds of reason.
In his descriptions of Korean customs,
dress, etc. Dr. Griffis is specially interesting and true to
life. His
portrayal of particular phases of social life could not be
improved upon. Now
and then, however, we have to disagree with him; as, for
instance, where he
says: “Another phase of life is the skill
of the burglar who becomes a sapper and miner, often removing
without noise the
foundation stones and getting up through the flue into the house.” This is
an extremely unusual method of house-breaking. In fact we have
never before
heard of it; but, upon inquiring, find that it is sometimes
mentioned in Korean stories. It
is, however, hardly true to life to say that this is a common occurrance.
The historical utterances of Dr.
Griffis show careful research but it is a question whether
historical and
geographical names should be given according to Japanese
spelling. There is no
such place as Chosen, Chosŭn being the proper term. Shinra never
existed with
that name, Silla being the proper name. No foreigner in Korea would recognize Păk-je under the
Japanese pronunciation of Hiaksi. Neither the Chinese Gowli
northe Japanese
Korai properly represents the Korean [page 306] name Koguryu. But all these are, of
course, minor matters. Dr.
Griffis’
description of Korea’s
opening and her present political status is very brilliant and
shows that he
has watched with great care her metamorphosis from a hermit state.
This excellent article forms a
striking contrast to that of Mr. Alfred Stead. It is as reliable and adequate as
that was superficial and misleading; and this too in spite of the fact that while Mr. Stead
visited Korea and described it as an eye-witness Dr. Griffis has never
enjoyed that opportunity.
Odds
and Ends.
A Government Stock
Farm.
On the
southern slope of
Nam San not far from the South Gate there is a magnificent site
for a grave,
according to Korean ideas; but it has never been used because in
the days of
the founder of this dynasty, five centuries ago, the celebrated
monk To Sun prophesied of this spot
that if anyone should be buried there his family would be very
prosperous for a
time but at last the head of the house would be executed and his
body cut in
six pieces and sent about the country as warning against
treason. When the
question came up as to where the government should establish a
stock-raising
farm to supply animals for sacrifice, this spot was determined
upon; for as the
sheep and pigs raised here would be cut in pieces and sent away it
would fit in well with the prophecy. This place is called the Chon-sang-so or “Office for keeping the animals.”
Cave Feline.
‘Beware
the Cat” is the moral of
the following anecdote which is vouched for by all the
scrupulousness which
characterizes the Korean story-teller. A man once had a pet cat
which, as he
was a bachelor, shared his bed and board. In this he was perhaps
more fortunate
than some of his married neighbors and he should have been willing
to overlook certain small shortcomings in his feline companion.
Like all Korean
cats, this one had learned the fatal truth that stolen sweets
are sweeter for
the theft; with the result that one day she found a watery grave
in the river at the hand of
her irate master.
The following day the [page 307] man
took his fish-line and betook himself to the river’s bank to
fish. It was not
long before he “got
a bite”
and landed a fine big fish. He took it home in triumph and
prepared for a
feast. The old woman who acted as his cook eyed the fish
suspiciously and
advised him not to eat it, but he would not listen. She made a
tempting stew
but still averred the fish was
bad. He ate his fill but was immediately taken with awful cramps
and fell to
the floor
in his death agony. From his mouth there came tufts of cat’s
fur, verifying too
truly the old woman’s
suspicions.
The
Goose that
laid the golden Egg.
His
name was Yi, which by interpretation means Plumtree. Now Mr.
Plumtree was a
Korean of a nomadic turn of mind. He spent his time wandering
about the country
seeing the sights and enjoying himself generally. He was not
encumbered with
superfluous wealth but he had enough to keep him on the road.
Having travelled over all the “eight provinces” he crossed
the border into China and worked his way south till he
approached Nanking, then
the capital of China. One afternoon as he was approaching a
village he saw a
magpie seated on the cross-beam of a gateway but on coming near
he found that
if was only a painting of a magpie, but done so skilfully as to
deceive the eye
at a little distance. Wondering who the artist could be he called out
to the gateman but instead of that a girl came out and asked
what he wanted.
The girl was the most beautiful he had ever met. He asked who
the artist might
be and she said, “I
painted the magpie. You see, I am an orphan and have not enough
money to pay the funeral
expenses of my mother. So I painted the magpie hoping that
someone might come
along to whom I would sell myself as a slave for a single day
and thus gain the
necessary money to bury my mother.”
Young Plumtree was a good-hearted
fellow and pitied the girl so much that he then and there put in
her hands all
the money he had about him and told her to go into business and
earn enough to
bury her mother. Her gratitude exceeded all bounds for he had
saved her from an
awful fate. She took the money and Plumtree went on his way a beggar.
[page 308] A year later as he was
waudenng about the streets of Nanking he met this same girl and
she gladly told
him that she had succeeded and that she would like to reward
him; but the only
thing she had was a screen on which was a magpie that she had embroidered. She told
him to carry it home, put it in a closet and look at it only once
a day. He
wondered at this injunction but obeyed. Reaching home at last he
put the
embroidery away and would have forgotten all about it had not
poverty driven
him to think of pawning it. When he opened the box in which it lay
he was astonished to see a little bar of silver drop from the
beak of the
embroidered bird. Was ever such a thing seen before! He took the
money and
bought rice and wood.
The next day he looked again and another bar of silver rewarded
him. And so it
went on day after day until he was a very wealthy man. At last the time came for him to
die and calling his son he told him the secret and charged him
to look at the
bird only once a day.
The boy promised to obey but after the
three years of mourning were over he became a spend-thrift and
forgetting his father’s
words began to take a peep at the bird two or three times a day. This
made him reckless and one day he kept looking every few minutes
all day long
and each time was rewarded by a silver bar.
But the next day when he opened the
box the bird looked tired and sick and instead Of silver, tears
dropped. The
young man then remembered his father’s words and was struck with
remorse. That
night a beautiful young girl came in his dreams and chided him
for his folly
and said his good fortune had flown. And so it proved, for when
he went to see
the bird
the next day it was gone and the silk panel on which it was
embroidered was a
blank.
So Plumtree Jr. died of starvation.
Question
and Answer.
Question, Why do Koreans prize so
highly the old water-worn stones that we see in their gardens,
placed upon pedestals?
[page 309] Answer, The Koreans suppose that
some of these stones were originally clay through which ran the
roots of a
tree. In the course of time the clay hardened into stone and the
roots died and
fell away leaving those curious holes. For this reason they are
monuments of
great antiquity. A gentleman arranges a mound in his garden and
on top plants
one of these curious stones and the latter gives to the garden a
look of extreme
antiquity. If moss be growing on the stone or, better still, if
a little pine
tree be growing from a crevice in it, the value is greatly
enhanced. A good
specimen will bring anywhere from forty to two hundred dollars.
Such stones are
not considered beautiful but they are curious and interesting
and stimulate the
fancy. Many a Korean poem has been written about the Ko-sŭk (**) or “‘Ancient Stone” as it is called. One of
the best of these compares a certain stone to Mu-san (**) a great mountain in western
China which has twelve peaks. Addressing the stone the poet asks
“Why, since Mu-san has twelve peaks, do
you have only eight?” and
the stone answers “Do
you not see? I am using four of them as legs to stand upon.” If the reader fails to see
any poetry in this we will refer him to the original Chinese
where he will
perhaps find it.
The
Korean fancy for the “Ancient
Stone” is simply another illustration of the fact that the
element, of the
grotesque enters largely
into his idea of art. The dragon, the phoenix, the fabulous tortoise or
that hybrid monstrosity which,
Polonius-like,
is variously described as a dog or as a lion is the favorite
motif in Korean art. Nature as she
shows herself every day is not bizarre enough to awaken his
enthusiasm. The
Korean’s art, like his literature, is filled with the uncouth,
the fanciful.
Question, Can you tell us about the
famous women of Korea, or do not Korean traditions bring the
fair sex to the front?
Answer, We have before us now a
book in which a very few (or, to be exact, 131) of the most
famous women of
Korea are portrayed. This will indicate
how difficult it would be to do the subject justice in this
department. We
shall soon begin a series of articles on the famous women of Korea and we beg the questioner’s
patience until thy appear.
[page 310] Editorial Comment.
It
was with consternation
that the foreign community in Korea learned of the illness of
His Majesty, King
Edward VII, and we shall await most anxiously the arrival of
further news from London. Meanwhile
preparations for the festivities which were to mark the
coronation day have
been postponed. We join with all others of whatever nationality
in the earnest hope
that medical skill will triumph and that King Edward will yet be
enrolled in
the glorious list of British sovereigns.
The
fact of main importance during the month is the copious fall of
rain on the 12th and 13th. Things were
beginning to look very dark for the Koreans. Another week of dry
weather would
have been disastrous for the rice. The rain came most
opportunely and has
changed the whole aspect of things. It is thus that every
rice-growing country
is kept on the tenter-hooks every summer. Rains must come “just so” or else the whole system
is upset. On Friday Koreans were in distress because it did not
rain. On the
following Tuesday they wore long faces and shook their heads and
said, “If this rain keeps up it
will mean disaster, for it will wash out the rice fields.” In
other words, to
grow rice and be sure of a fairly steady success the farmer
himself must have
his hand on the spigot; but as things are not arranged that way, the
Koreans have a good rice crop about once in three years. A
magnificent crop of
barley, which has already been harvested, together with full
rice fields will
put Koreans in an enviable position.
There is always a market for their surplus product and it will
mean a much
freer circulation of money than we have seen for several years.
Has
the time not come when the foreigners in Seoul will select some
one of the many
beautiful places within five miles of Seoul as a summer retreat?
There is no
place in the east that lends itself more perfectly to such a
plan. It is this very wide range
of choice which makes it hard to decide. The monasteries among
the mountains
back of Seoul are the only places at present where foreigners in
Seoul can go
and find accommodations. The monks hustle their Buddhist [page
311]
paraphernalia
out of sight and rent their buildings at very reasonable rates.
But after all
what is there to do in such a place? It is so high that during
the rains it is
a constant vapor bath and when the sun shines it is too hot to
climb the steep
paths. The time will come when Seoul will have its summer place
in the hills
just as Nagasaki has its Onzen or Kobe its Arima. The
desirability of having a
common place of rendezvous for the summer is very great. At
present we scatter
in all directions and live more or less like hermits during the
summer but if
we could have a common sanatorium
we could enjoy
the clean air of the country and at the same time have a
much greater variety of amusement than we have now. Some would
enjoy various
kinds of meetings during summer
if enough people could
congregate at
a certain place. A summer vacation should be a mental as well as
physical rest, and a certain degree
of social amusement would help materially toward that end.
The acceptance, by His Majesty, of the
invitation to send a Korean
government exhibit to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition shows a
laudable
determination to take advantage of an excellent opportunity to
keep Korea in
line with the other treaty powers. A failure to take part in
this exposition
would probably be interpreted as a failure to “toe the mark,” though of course no power
is in duty bound to exhibit. Such a country as Japan has much
more at stake in
such an exhibition than Korea
and could expect to reap material benefits proportionate to the
outlay, because
America is a heavy importer from Japan. The benefit that Korea
would gain from it
is of another kind and yet no less real. The peculiar position
which Korea
holds in the Far East warrants her in seizing every opportunity to impress upon
her sister powers the fact of her complete autonomy, for the
more firmly this
fact is established in the minds
of those powers the greater will be the moral obstacles in the
way of possible
disintegrating elements. An ancient prophecy in Korea states
that when white pines
grow in Korea all the territory north of the Im-jin
river will go to the Tartar and all to the south of it to the
Shrimp. The
shrimp is a term which for many centuries has been applied to
Japan, because of
a fancied resemblance between the shape of the Japanese islands
and the shrimp.
Now Koreans [page 312]
are interpreting the prophecy by saying that the “white pines” are telegraph poles and
that the concession for a railway from Seoul northward to one
syndicate and
another for a railway south from Seoul to Fusan to another is
the beginning of
the fulfillment of the prophecy. Of course this is fanciful, and
yet it must be confessed that this
interpretation is a rather clever one.
We believe that Korea can get together
an exhibit that will do credit to her and we trust the matter
will be pushed vigorously.
We
have received a letter from a Japanese gentleman criticizing our
attitude in
regard to the attack on Bishop Moore and his party last month.
He claims that
the Bishop was to blame
for the whole thing. Well, as the Bishop and his ricksha had
merely crossed the
railway embankment on the public highway, and as there was nothing to show
that this was prohibited, we would like to know why he was under
arrest at the
hands of a Japanese coolie? Until this question is answered and
the right of that coolie to
violently detain the Bishop
on a Korean public road is demonstrated, we decline to discuss
the question. So
long as our correspondent assumes that any Japanese coolie is
provided with constabulary
powers and can hold up an American citizen on the highway even
for a single
minute, there is no common ground for discussion.
The
government cannot be too highly commended for the formation of a
Board of Health is Seoul looking toward the
taking of preventative measures against an outbreak of cholera
in this country.
It is all about us in China and in Japan and already the dread
infection has
attacked the frontier town of Eui-ju on the Yalu. It is hard to
see how its spread
can be confined to the northern border. We realize how difficult
it would be to
effectively quarantine any one town or district in Korea but the
attempt itself
would be a very laudable thing and would demonstrate at least
the desire of the
government to save the people from a recurrence of this awful
scourge.
The
appointment of a separate U. S. Consul-General in Korea ill the
person of
Mr.Gordon
Paddock is a recognition on the part of the American government
of the growing
importance [page 313] of
American interests in Korea. A list of all the western
foreigners in Korea would show that Americans far
out-number any other nationality and a comparative estimate of
the amount of
western capital invested here would show the same thing. The last five years have seen
a very rapid growth in American enterprise in this country. The
opening of the
mines at Un-san, the building of an electric railway and an
electric lighting
plant and the establishment of an agency of the Standard Oil
Company are among
the most striking material developments, while the rapid growth
in the number
of Christian missionaries and their establishment in many new
points in the
interior points to another important line of development.
News
Calendar.
Gordon
Paddock, Esq., by appointment of President Roosevelt and
approved by the
Congress, has been promoted to the position of United States Consul-General
to Korea; in addition to the position he already held as
Secretary of Legation.
He took the oath of office July 1st.
The
14th of July, the great French holiday, was signalized by a
reception at the
French Legation which in spite of the very inclement weather was
a brilliant
affair.
Hon.
John Barrett, Comissioner-general to Asia for the Louisiana
Purchase Exposition
to be held in St Louis, U. S. A., in 1904, arrived in Korea on
the 11th inst. and was presented
to His Majesty, the Emperor. From the Directors of the
Exposition he presented
the Emperor with an invitation to attend the Exposition in
person and to appoint a commission to
make a Korean Government exhibit. This invitation was engraved
on a handsome
plate of solid silver fourteen inches long by twelve inched wide. It is
a counterpart of the piece of plate presented to the Emperor of Japan. The Emperor
accepted the invitation and signified his intention to send an
exhibit to St.
Louis.
Kim
Man-su, who has lately returned from Europe where he was Korean Minister to France,
has been Appointed Minister to the United States.
Cho
Keui-ha has been relieved of his position as Governor of North
Kyŭng-sang
Province. We have private advices from Tă-ku, the capital of that
province, that never within the memory of living man has that
province been so
grossly oppressed as by this young man. His extortions are
indescribable and
his removal takes place just
in time to save
him from
physical violence. But though he has resigned he is not yet
[page 314] out of danger; the people
of Ta-ku and the province say that he shall not go before he has
paid roundly
for the beatings and imprisonments which he has imposed upon men
of wealth
there. The native papers say that one day a gentleman came into
the presence of
this governor and the latter admired the man’s hat and asked to
see it. The man
took it off and instantly the governor called for the guards and
had the man bound and thrown in jail on
the charge of having taken off his hat preparatory to attacking the governor’s
person. The result was a few more bags of rice in the governor’s
private
store-house. Yi Hön-yong has been appointed governor in his
place.
The
prefect of Kim-p’o
near Seoul remitted the taxes in his district because of great
distress through
famine but now that the Finance Department is using such
stringent measures to force the prefects to
produce the money the people of that district have made the
utmost exertions
and have raised the necessary amount to free their prefect.
The
Famine Relief Bureau has announced that all Koreans in the
County who have
given a million cash from their private funds to aid the
destitute will be
given the honorary title of secretary of the Famine Relief
Bureau while those
who have given lesser sums will be given presents.
Yun
Chi-ho, the Superintendent of
Trade at
Wonsan has sent a letter to the Foreign Office asking that the
Chinese
Government be asked to appoint a Consul to that port to look
after their
nationals who amount to upwards of 200.
The
P’yŭng-yang Regiment which has come to relieve the Regiment that
has been sent
back north are being housed at the Independent Club house near
the arch until
barracks can be prepared for them.
Heretofore
the Home Office has had
charge of all business relating to Monasteries in Korea but now
a Monastery
Bureau has been established outside the East Gate at Wun-hung-sa which will have charge
of all matters relating to Buddhism .
The
rainy season opened with
a small deluge on Saturday night the 12th inst. and for two days we were well-nigh under
water. The rice fields in western Korea are all full and
indications point
toward a heavy crop. The river rose about fourteen feet. Great
masses of drift
wood and the
debris of houses was swept down the stream. The bodies of
animals floated down
in considerable numbers. One man came astride of his roof
calling lustily for
help. Reports have already begun to come in of the accidents
caused by the
rapid rise of the water.
In
spite of famine conditions last year two hundred ex-prefects,
are to be
deprived of their rank because the full amount of taxes has not been
collected.
The
memorial service
to Rev. H. G. Appenzeller was held in the Chong-dong Church on
Sunday the 29th of June and there was a very large attendance on
the part of
foreigners of all nationalities in Seoul. The biographical sketch of Mr.
Appenzeller’s career was delivered by Rev. W. C. Swearer. The
memorial address
was delivered by H. B. Hulbert. Hon. H. N. Allen, the U. S.
Minister, followed
with very [page 315]
appropriate remarks. It is the universal
feeling throughout Korea that in the death of Mr. Appenzeller Korea suffers
an inestimable loss. Koreans of all ranks of society from the
highest to the
lowest have been hearty and sincere in their expressions of
sorrow over this
sad event.
The
trial of fourteen Koreans arrested on the charge of conspiring
to revive the
Independence Club is evidently near at hand for they have
been removed from the common prison to the jail connected with
the Supreme
Court.
A
water-carrier of Sal-yim
Dong near Chin-ko-gă
in Seoul is in luck. In dipping for water in a neighborhood well
he “got a bite” and drawing up
his cord found that
he had hooked a counterfeiting machine. Someone had evidently
thrown it there
to avoid complications. The Police Department rewarded the
water-carrier with
forty dollars.
The
notorious governor of Whanghai Province, Yun Tŭk-yŭng, whom the
people charged
with such gross indirection, has resigned and Yi Young-jik has
been appointed
in his place.
A
report recently made from P’yŭng-yang to the Korean society
in Tokyo shows how slowly the Koreans take up with changes in
the monetary
standard. According to this report there are still $30,000 in copper cash in
that city. Of nickels there are $500,000 of copper cents $3,000, of Japanese silver
$190,000 and of Japanese paper money only $350. The first and
last items are
the significant ones,
for copper cash has nearly disappeared from Seoul and paper yen
are everywhere.
We
note with pleasure the return of Misses Pash and Perry to the Home for Destitute
Children in Seoul. This is a genuinely charitable institution and is deserving of
the hearty
support of both foreigners and Koreans.
Min
Young-sun
has secured property in the vicinity
of Yong-tongp’o where the Seoul-Chemulpo and Seoul-Fusan
Railways meet, with the
purpose
of opening a large trade market.
The
name of the new Western Palace in P’yŭng-yang will be P’unggyŭng Kung (***) or the “The Palace of Plenty and
Happiness.”
Yi
Kon-t’ăk, the Judge of the Supreme Court, has resigned and Yi Yu-in has been appointed to
the place.
The
two parties who have taken opposite sides on the question of
elevating Lady Om
to the position of Empress have been silenced by Imperial order
but another
party has arisen
whose idea is to urge that the Emperor
choose an Empress from among the Korean peeresses.
The
Japan Gazette informs
us that at the
time of the collision
the Kuma-gawa Maru had forty-six passengers on board of whom eighteen are missing besides
eight of the crew. One American, fourteen Koreans and three
Japanese passengers
were lost. It is stated that a “dense fog” was the cause of the
collision.
The
Home Office has appointed a boundary commission in the person of
Yi Pom-yun who has started for
the north to inspect the northern
boundary.
Korean
islanders off the coast of Chung-ch’ŭng
Province are greatly distressed because they ignorantly suppose that the surveys of the [page
316] Japanese and the setting up of
stones to be used as landmarks are a sign of war. Many have left
their homes
and sought security among the hills. The governor asks that
messengers be sent from Seoul to assure
these people that their fears are groundless.
A
report on the output of native placer mines in South. P’yŭng-an
Province gives the following
figures as a year’s output: From Sun-an, 20,000 ounces; from Suk-ch’ŭn, 600 oz; from Cha-san,
700 oz; from Anju, 700 oz; from Sŭng-ch’ŭn, 500 oz; from Yŭng-Wŭn, 200 oz; from Kang-sö, 100
oz; from Kang-dong,
30 oz;
from Yŭng-yu,
200 oz; from Tuk-ch’ŭn,
50 oz; from Kă-ch’ŭn, 100 oz. From North Pyŭng-an Province the returns are
as follows: From Yŭng-byŭn, 1,000 oz; from Sŭnch’ŭn, 15,000 oz; from T’a-chŭn, 1,000 oz; from
Sak-ju, 1,000 oz; from Chŭng-ju, 100 oz; from Kwak-san, 100 oz; from Ch’ang-sŭng, 1,000 oz; from Eui-ju, 500 oz; from Ch’o-San
400 oz; from Kang-gye,
1,000 oz; from Pak-ch’ŭn, 200 oz; from Un-san, 200 oz; from
Heui-ch’un 300 oz. In
all the amount is 44,880
oz. On this amount the government tax is $112,000.
The
prefect of Pu-yŭ has given a large amount of seed rice to the
people of his
district in order to enable them to plant their rice fields.
The
Foreign Office has paid the $3,000 demanded by the Japanese as
payment for
floating wreckage picked up by Koreans and used for firewood.
But the Foreign
Office protests that the demand is illegal and says that such
demands will not
be complied with in future.
Those
men who memorialized the Emperor, opposing the elevation of Lady
Om to the
position of Empress, have been arrested and thrown into prison.
Min
Yŭng-ch’an.
the Korean Minister to France and Belgium, arrived in Brussels
on May 8th and
copies of the ratified treaty were exchanged.
Yi
Cha-gak, the
Imperial Commissioner to the Coronation of King Edward VII,
telegraphed for
instructions as to whether he should remain in London till the
deferred
coronation should take place or whether he and his suite should
return
immediately. The government cabled him to return immediately.
The
Surveying Bureau has sent out a call for young men to act as
clerks and writers
in connection with the important work of making out new deeds
for all the
landed property in Korea.
Americans
are having
difficulty in securing their treaty rights in Seoul because of
the action of
the government in arresting Koreans who act as agents for the
purpose of buying
real estate. The U. S. authorities have had to make strong
representations in
order to secure the release of such agents and the recognition
of definite
treaty rights.
The
Russian Minister to Korea, A. Pavloff, is about to leave Seoul
on furlough.
A
Bureau for the equalization of weights and measures has been
formed and it is
intended to prepare an exact standard for different kinds of
measures and
arrange for its adoption throughout the country.
The
Korean Society of Tokyo has estimated the amount of money
[page 317] in circulation in Korea as follows.
Copper cash $6,000,000, nickels $14,000,000, copper cents
$890,000, brass
cash $90,000,
Japanese coins $1,550,000,
Japanese paper, $870,000, Korean silver dollars $530,000, Kor
rean silver 30
cent pieces $150,000. The Korean silver has probably all been
withdrawn from
circulation and hoarded.
In
the severe wind storm
that raged on the night of 18th
inst. twelve Japanese fishing-boats were wrecked at Chemulpo.
Yi
Kön-yung has gone to Peking to purchase a large quantity of
edibles together
with dishes and other things to be used at the celebration of
the entrance upon
the fifth lustrum of this reign, which takes place early in October.
A
Korean named Yi Heui-ch’ul
has taken a large amount of Korean goods such as screens,
embroideries, tiger
skins, pottery, decorated
cabinets, etc., etc., to the United States, bent on trade.
Two
hundred students of the Military school have been promoted to
the grade of
Captain.
Yi
Seung-op has applied to the Department of Agriculture, Commerce,
etc., for a
permit to mine coal in Mu-an in Chulla Province, in the vicinity of Mokpo. It is said
to be a fine anthracite.
Burglars
set fire to and looted the house of a wealthy man in Chădong in Seoul on the 7th
inst.
P’yŭng-yang
became so overrun with counterfeit nickels that the governor
issued the order
that anyone bringing
counterfeit nickels through the gates of the city would be
considered the
counterfeiter and punished accordingly.
Four
hundred dollars’
worth of newly printed postage stamps were recently lost at the
new mint near
Yong San and all the officials connected with the mint are to
undergo
examination.
A
Japanese claims that the government cannot grant a permit to a
Korean to mine
coal at
Mu-an, on the ground that the prefect of Mu-an has already
granted him the
concession. It will remain to be shown that a country prefect
can make such a
concession.
An
interesting discovery was made by some Korean coolies who were
bringing down
bags of grain from Whang-hă Province for some Japanese. The bags
were
abnormally heavy and at last one of the coolies made an
examination and found a
large package of counterfeit nickels in the middle of the grain.
They reported
the matter to the customs authorities at Chemulpo and the grain
was seized. The
counterfeiters made good their escape.
Ten
Chinese fishing boats
that came within the prescribed limits of the Korean coast have
paid each a
fine of ten dollars.
The
government telegraphed the Korean Minister in Tokyo to secure
the return to
Korea of Yun Ch’i-o
the cousin of Yun Chi-ho of Won san. This was not on any charge
of wrong-doing
but because the government desired to ask him some questions.
A
man in Tŭk-won
(or Won san) sent a letter to the Bureau of Ceremonies
complaining that some
men had desecrated the
grave of
Ik-jo Tă-wang, an ancestor of the founder of this dynasty, by
cutting thirty
[page 318] pine trees near it and by burying a body in the vicinity. The
government deprived the Governor of the province Sö Chŭng-soon and the
Superintendent of Trade Yun Ch’i-ho of their rank. Yun Ch’i-ho replies that this is something that
occurred nine years ago, that the bodies were buried further
than the prescribed limit of 630 paces from the royal grave and
that the men who cut the trees have been punished long ago. He
refuses to
accept any responsibility, as the affair was settled long ago by
a former
incumbent. The government thereupon exonerated both the Governor
and the Superintendent of Trade and censured
the men who were evidently bent upon getting these
two officials into trouble.
Work
on the North-western Railway has been suspended for the summer
but it is said
that work will
be resumed in the autumn.
In
reply to the request of the Japanese merchants that the
restrictions to Japanese emigration to Korea be
removed the Japanese government is said to have replied that the
securing of
passports to Korea will he made very easy and that if there is
any sudden
necessity a passport will not be required. It is a well-known fact that Japan does
not send the best elements of Japanese society to Korea. In fact it has
been Korea’s standing complaint that questionable characters
have been allowed to
come to Korea who by their treatment of Koreans have helped to
intensify the
national and
traditional prejudice of Koreans against the Japanese, to the
great detriment
of harmonious relations between the two countries. If,
therefore, the above
statement is true, as reported, it cannot but prove hurtful both to Korea and
to Japan.
Sim
Sun-t’ăk, Cho Pyung-se and Yun Yong-sun have been honored with
the Kwa-jang which
means the privilege to
sit in the presence of His Majesty or to come into his presence
staff in hand.
The
government has determined to call to Seoul a body of troops from
Tă-ku, Kang-wha, Wŭn-ju and Chŭn-ju
in the same manner as heretofore they have been brought from
P’yŭng-yang. This
means a much greater concentration of the Korean army at the
capital.
A
portion of the “Old
Palace” or
Ch’ang-dŭk
Kung, called OngPu-yŭ-dong, is to be repaired with a view to having certain festivities there in connection
with the celebration of the beginning of the fifth decade of the reign,
which is to be held this autumn.
Lately,
gold coins have been minted at the Government Mint at the rate
of $20,000 a
day. In all some $2,000,000 worth liave been minted.
The
government has ordered the discontinuance of all tolls on boats
running on the
Nak-tong River in the South.
J.
L Chalmers, Esq., and Mrs. Chalmers are arranging for a handicap
tennis tournament
to be held soon in Seoul. There are to be three classes,
gentlemen’s singles, gentlemen’s fours and
mixed fours. We trust that this will mean a revival of tennis in
Seoul, as it
is by all means the best and most available form of out-door sport that has ever been attempted
in the capital. If it should lead to interport tournaments the
stalwart players
of Chemulpo would have an opportunity to increase their already
formidable
reputation.
There
have been two fatal cases of cholera in P’yŭng-yang. It is [page
319]
evidently
travelling southward with great rapidity. The Board of Health
which has lately
been formed in Seoul is printing a circular instructing the
people how to
escape the dread disease, or
having
contracted it how to combat it. If all would take the necessary precautions it would not
be long before the disease would die out.
In
the port of Kunsan
there are about 1,100 Japanese residents. This port is evidently growing in
importance. It is the outlet for the rich produce of Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province.
Col.
Kim Wŭn-gye in Ham-gyŭng Province writes to the Palace War Office saying
that as the thirty border guard stations have been doing such
good work for the
past three years it is advisable that the Emperor recognize
these faithful
services by substantial rewards.
A
fine piece of irony is found in a telegram from Ta-ku in the name of a number
of socalled gentlemen who assert
that the notorious rascal who has just resigned the governorship
of that
province is a model of magisterial dignity and that his rule has
been beyond
reproach .
Native
reports say that Russian agents are buying cattle in Hamgyung Province and sending
them to Siberia at the rate of io,ooo a year the average price
paid being $38 a
head.
Om
Sŭk-cho, lately secretary in the Home Department, has been
banished for ten
years to Ch’ul Island off Whang-hă Province for having buried a
body near the
Queen’s Tomb.
Philip
Gillett, the Secretary for Korea of the U.S. Young Men’s
Christian Association,
has lately returned from a Y.
M. C. A; Convention in Shanghai.
Mr.
Sands, Adviser to the Household Department, has gone to
P’yŭng-yang to see
enforced the regulations adopted by the Board of Health. A
determined fight is to be made
against the spread of cholera. It may not be possible to stamp it out entirely
this season but a campaign of education will result in much good and many lives will
be saved. We wish Mr. Sands all success in this important
matter.
In
response to the united opposition of the Foreign Representatives to
the closing of the
thoroughfare through Chong-dong, the Foreign Office has
replied that the difficulty
may be obviated by the building of a viaduct from the palace to
the grounds
formerly occupied by the German Consulate. This would afford
private access
from the palace to the newly acquired property across the street
and still
leave the street itself open to traffic.
Hong
Pong-san in Seoul lost an eight year old daughter early in the
month and could
find her nowhere.
A boy of seven
years in the neighborhood was enticed into Hong’s house and by
gifts of fruit
and candy was wheedled into saying that his mother had stolen
the girl. Hong
sent and seized the woman and tortured her cruelly and she
promised to find the
girl if Hong would give her three days to do it in. As soon as
she was released she informed the police and
Hong was arrested and will get ten years in the chain-gang for
torturing the
woman.
The
newly appointed governor of North Kyung Sang Province, realizing the
difficulties before him in view of the execrable oppression [page 320] practiced by his
predecessor, has asked four times to be released from the
position. He has not
yet gone down to his post.
Mr.
Kato, who came to Korea recently to occupy the position of
Adviser to the
Household Department, has been made Adviser to the Department of
Agriculture,
Commerce and Public Works.
There can
be no doubt that there is here a wide field for the exercise of
his undoubted ability.
Native
papers state that Japanese subjects have seized rafts of lumber in the Yalu River and
the Korean authorities ask the Japanese Representative to adjust the matter.
Kim
Ch’un-gyŭng has gotten together a company of men to memorialize
the throne,
requesting that a monument be raised in honor of Yi Yong-ik for
his valuable
services.
On
July 2nd Rev. E. C. Sharp of Seoul and Miss Howell of P’yungvang
were married
at the residence of Dr. C. C. Vinton. Rev. F. S. Miller
officiated. During the
festivities which followed the bride and groom slipped away so
quietly that no
one had an opportunity to throw any rice or old shoes. The
company voted to
forgive the guilty parties owing to their youth and
inexperience.
Rev.
and Mrs. D. A. Bunker are absent
on a trip to Peking and Shanghai.
We
are glad to learn that the Presbyterian Mission has secured a
site for their
new hospital outside the South Gate. Mr. Gordon, the architect,
has returned from
China and we hope that rapid progress will be made.
There
are persistent rumors of Japanese soldiers landing on Kokeum Island off Kunsan.
[Page 321] Korean History.
These
were said to be kept at Heung-ch’ŭn monastery at Song-do. King Se-jong
replied that there were no such jewels in the peninsula. He
ordered the
discontinuance of the custom of building monasteries at the
graves of kings, and
the people were commanded not to pray to Buddha in be-’ half of
the king. The
great expense incurred in providing for the huge stone that
covered the
sarcophagus of a king
made him change the custom and it was decreed that thereafter
four smaller ones
should be used instead of the one great one. One of his most statesmanlike
acts was to decree that every In the fourth year of his reign,
his father died.
It is said that at the time of his death there was a severe
drought, and on his
deathbed he said, “When
I die I will go and ask Heaven to send rain,” and the story goes that on
the very day he died the welcome rain came. To this day it is
said that it is
sure to rain on the tenth day of the fifth moon, and this is
called the “T’ă-jong rain.” We see that under that
father’s tutelage he had continued the policy of reform, but
what he had done was
only the beginning. The law was made that if a prefect died the
prefects along
the road should furnish transport for his body up to the
capital. The eunuchs
were enjoined not to interfere in any way with the affairs of state. The term of office
of the country prefects was lengthened, owing to the expense
entailed upon the
people by frequent changes. It was made a crime to delay the
interment of a
corpse simply because the geomancers could not find an
auspicious spot for the
burial, and all geomancers’
books were ordered burned. Every adult male was required to
carry on his person
a wooden
tag bearing his name. This was for the purpose of identification
to prevent the
evasion of taxes and of military service. It is but right to say
that this law
was never strictly carried out. Korea has always suffered from
the existence of
armies on paper. The king edited a book on agriculture telling in what
districts and in what kinds of soil different species of grains
and vegetables
would thrive best. He paid attention to penal laws as [page 322] well. Beating was to be
administered on the legs rather than on the back; no murderers were to be
bound in prison who were under fifteen years or over seventy; no
prisoner under
ten or over eighty was to suffer under the rod; even the king’s
relatives, if
guilty of crime, were not to be exempt from punishment.
These important reforms occupied the
attention of the king up to the year 1432, the fourteenth of his
reign, but now
the border wars in the north claimed his attention. At this time
the wild
tribes across the Ya-lu were known under the collective name of
Ya-in. These
savages were ravaging back and forth across the border, now
successful and now
defeated. King Se-jong decided that the peace of the north was
worth the outlay
of some life and treasure; so, early in the year 1433 an
expedition under Gen.
Ch’oé
Yun-dok crossed the Ya-lu in six divisions, each consisting of a
thousand men
or more. These had agreed to make a common attack on Ta-ram-no,
the stronghold
of the robbers, on the nineteenth of the fourth moon. This was
successfully
done with the result that 176 of the enemy were left dead, and
236 captives and
270 head of cattle were taken. All of this was at the cost of
just four men.
The northern portion of Ham-gyŭng
province was as yet but sparsely settled, and reports came in
that the Ming
people were coming in great numbers and settling there; so the
king felt it
necessary to do something to assert his rights. A great scheme for colonisation was made and people
from the southern part of the province were sent north to occupy
the land. But
there were two powerful Yu-jin
chiefs across the Tu-man river
who were constantly crossing and harrying the people along that
border line.
These were Ol-yang-t’ap
and Hol-jaon. It was not until the year 1436 that they were
really silenced and
then only after repeated and overwhelming victories on the part
of the Korean
forces. During these years thousands of people from the southern
provinces were
brought north by the government and given land in this border
country.
About this time a Japanese named Chŭng
Seung was Daimyo of Tsushima. He sent fifty
boats across to the Korean shore and the trade relations were
revived which we
may feel sure had been sadly interrupted by the long period of piratical
[page 323] raids. The government made these people a present of
200 bags of rice and beans. Sixty “houses” of people also came from
that island and asked to be allowed to live in the three ports,
Ch’ep’o, Yŭm-p’o and Pu-san-p’o. The
king gave his assent and from that time until about the present
day, with only
temporary intermissions, the Japanese have resided in one or
other of these
three places, although Pu-san (Fusan) has always been the most
important of
them. In the year 1443 the custom of giving the Daimyo of
Tsushima a bonus of 200 bags of grain a
year was instituted. The number of trading boats that could come
was strictly
limited by the Korean government
to fifty, but in extreme cases where sudden need arose through
piratical raids
or other cause the number could be increased. This custom
continued without
interruption until 1510.
The most striking feat that King
Se-jong accomplished and the one that had the most far-reaching
and lasting
effect upon the people was the invention of a pure phonetic
alphabet. This
alphabet scarcely has its equal in the world for simplicity and
phonetic power.
He was not the first one to see the vast disadvantage under
which the people
labored in being obliged to master the Chinese character before
being able to
read. We will remember that in the days of Sil-la the scholar
Sŭl-chong had
invented a rough way of indicating the grammatical endings in a
Chinese text by
inserting certain diacritical marks, but this had of course been
very
cumbersome and only the ajuns
or “clerks” were acquainted
with it. Another similar attempt had been made near the end of
the Koryŭ
dynasty but it too had proved a failure so far as general use by
the people was
concerned. King Se-jong
was the first man to dare to face the difficulty and overcome it
by the use not
of modifications of the Chinese characters but by an entirely
new and different
system, a phonetic alphabet. It can scarcely be said that he had
the genius of
a Cadmus,
for he probably knew of the existence of phonetic alphabets, but
when we
remember that the Chinese character is considered in a sense
sacred and that it
had been in use in the peninsula exclusively for more than two
thousand years
we can place him but little lower than the great Phoenician.
Korean histories are almost a unit in
affirming that the [page 224] alphabet is drawn from the Sanscrit and from the
ancient seal character
of China. Where then did King Se-jong have access to the
Sanscrit? Some have
argued that his envoys came in contact with it at the court of
the Emperor at
Nanking. This is possible but it is extremely unlikely that they
gained such a
knowledge of it in this way to make
it of use in evolving their own alphabet. On the other hand it is well
known that the monasteries of Korea were filled with books written in
the Sanscrit or the Thibetan (which is an offshoot of the
Sanscrit) character.
It is believed by some that Buddhism was entirely crushed in the
very first years of the dynasty, but
this is a great blunder. Buddhism had begun to wane, but long
after the end of
King Se-jong’s
reign it was still the predominant religion in Korea. Most of
the officials,
following the lead of royalty, had given it up, but the masses
were as good
Buddhists as ever. The probabilities are therefore overwhelming
that when the
histories refer to the Sanscrit they mean the Sanscrit contained
in these
Buddhist books and which had been a common feature of Korean
religious life for
centuries.
Comparison reveals the fact that the
Korean consonants are mere simplifications of the Sanscrit
consonants. On the
other hand there are no similarities between the Korean and
Sanscrit vowels.
King Se-jong’s genius lay in his recognition of the fact that
the vowel lies at
the basis of articulate speech, and in this he was in advance of
every other
purely Asiatic alphabet. Each syllable was made up of the “mother and child” the mother being the vowel
and the child being the consonant. If we examine the ancient
seal character of
China with a view to ascertaining the source from which the
Koreans drew their symbols
for the vowels we shall find at a glance that they consist in
the simplest
strokes of those ideographs. Every Korean vowel is found among
the simpler
radicals of the Chinese. What more need be added to prove that
the statements
of the Korean histories are correct?
In this work the king made use of the
two distinguished scholars Sin Suk-ju and Sŭng Sam-mun. Thirteen
times the latter
was sent with others to Liao-tung to consult with a celebrated
Chinese scholar
Whang Ch’an,
who was in banishment in
that place. For the prosecution of this literary plan and
[page 325] the work growing out of it
the king erected a separate building in the palace enclosure.
There he caused
to be compiled and printed the dictionary of the Korean language
in the new alphabet
which was called the on-mun. This celebrated dictionary
is called the Hun-min Chong-eum.
King Se-jong died in 1450 and was
succeeded by his son Hyun whose posthumous title is Mun-jong
Kong-sun Tăwang. His brief reign of two
years is a good sample of what Confucianism will do for a man if
carried to
excess. Upon his father’s death he refused to be comforted and
neglected the necessary
precautions for preserving his health. Long nights he lay out in
the cold thinking that by so doing he was showing respect for
the memory of his
father. Such excesses joined with the lack of a proper diet soon
made it clear
that his health was permanently undermined. This was a source of
great anxiety
to the officials and to the people, for the heir to the throne
was a young boy
and the king’s brother, Prince Su-yang, was a powerful and
ambitious man. The
king himself entertained grave fears for his son and shortly
before he died he
called together the leading officials and made them solemnly
promise to uphold
the boy through every vicissitude. Then he turned to the wall
and died.
Chapter
II.
Tan-jong
becomes king...
“The Tiger”.... conspiracy... king’s uncle virtual ruler... sericulture encouraged...king abdicates...
people mourn...king banished... a royal captive’s song... king strangled... the
usurper’s dream...character
of the new king.... reforms.... trouble with the emperor.... policy in the north....more reforms...official history of the
land...medicine...hostility
to Buddhism....king’s concern for the people...army cared for.... literary
work... a
standing Buddha...
a voluminous work . . . dangerous rebellion in the
north....emperor pleased... king retires ....Great Bell hung.... The Pyo-sin... a new king... foreign
relations....Buddhists driven from
Seoul....examinations....convents broken up... war against Buddhism... a termagant... a prosperous land...law
against
the marriage of widows...
military operations in the north....celebrated history
written....king reproved... a foe to
Buddhism....reform in music.
[page 326] It was in 1452 that king
Mun-jong died and his little son Hong-wi ascended the throne.
The title of the
latter is Tanjong Kong-eui Tă-wang, and of all the kings of
Korea, whether of
this dynasty or of any other, his fate is the most calculated to
excite the
pity of the reader.
His uncle, Prince Su-yang, was a bold,
unscrupulous man with whom natural affection did not affect the
balance by a
feather weight. He was at the head of a powerful faction and it
was only the
jealous vigilance of the Prime Minister, Kim Chong-so, that the
boy ever came
to the throne at all. The people said that “The Tiger” must be killed before the boy
could come to his rights. Prince Su-yang saw that the people
were with the
young prince to a man and he knew that he must brush from his
path these
powerful friends of the young king before he ever could come to
the throne
himself. To this end he conspired with Kwŭn Nam, Han Myongwhe
and some thirty
others. The Prime Minister was the first object of attack for he
was the most
strenuous supporter of the king. Prince Su-yang, in company with
one Im Un, armed
with iron bludgeons, went to the house of the Prime Minister and
there the
former feigned to have lost one of the wings from his palace hat
and asked the
Minister to lend him one for the day. The Minister could not
refuse and sent
his little son to bring one, but ere the lad returned the father
was laid dead
by a blow from the bludgeon in the hands of Im Un. The prince
then hastened to
the palace and told the boy-king that the Prime Minister had
been conspiring
against the government
and so it had been necessary to put him to death. Boy though he
was, King
Tanjong saw straight through this falsehood and his first words
were, “I beg of you to spare my life.” From that moment all power
slipped from the hands of the king and the Prince Uncle was
virtual ruler of
the land. Placing heavy guards at the palace gates, he sent
messengers summoning
the king’s best friends, and as soon as they appeared they were
cut down. In
this manner Whang Po-in, Cho Keuk-gwan, Yi Yang, Yun Cho-gong
and Min Si were killed.
Besides these many others were banished, so that soon the court
was deprived of
almost every supporter of the king except the aged Sung Sam-mun who was such a
venerable man and held in such esteem by the whole nation that
[page 327] even this bold prince did
not dare to lay hands on him. This done, Prince Su-yang began to center in
himself all the high offices of the realm and became an
autocrat, dispensing
offices and regulating the affairs of the country according to
his own ideas.
Yi Cheung-ok, the governor of Ham-gyŭng Province, was a strong
supporter of the
king and so, though far from the scene of this intrigue,
emissaries were sent
who murdered him in cold blood.
The only important act of this short
and unfortunate reign was the encouragement given to
sericulture. The young
king sent large numbers of silk worms to various districts and
rewarded those
who did well with them and punished those who made a failure of
it.
All the time the wily prince had been
urging upon the king the necessity of abdicating in his favor.
We know not what
threats and cajolery were used, but true it is that early in
1456, after all
the other uncles of the king had been banished to distant parts
to get them
away from the person of the king, that unhappy boy, as yet but
fifteen years
old, bereft of every friend he had ever known, hedged in by the
threats of his
unnatural uncle, finally called the officials to a council and
repeated the
lesson he had been undoubtedly taught. “I am too young to govern
the realm rightly and I desire to put the reins of government
into the hands of
my uncle Prince Su-yang.”
As in duty bound they all went through the formality of
demurring at this but
the king was firm and ordered the seals to be handed to the
prince. Among these
officials there were two who looked with disfavor upon this.
They were Pak P’ang-yun and Sung Sammun. The
former stepped forward as if to give the seals to the prince,
but when they
were once in his hands he made a dash for the door and tried to
throw himself
into a lotus pond. Sung Sam-mun caught him by the garments and
whispered in his
ear, “Wait,
all this will be righted, but we must live to see it done.” So the young king Tan-jong
stepped down from the throne. The usurper is known by his
posthumous title
Se-jo Hye-jang Tă-wang.
After King Tan-jong had abdicated he
was held under strict surveillance in the palace and was
practically a
prisoner. It is said the people congregated at the Great Bell in
the [page
328] center of the city and wailed
over this fulfillment of their worst fears.
But the dethroned king was not left
entirely without help. Six of the officials conspired to
assassinate the
usurper at a dinner given to a Chinese envoy, but someone
betrayed them to him
and they were seized, tortured with red-hot irons, decapitated
and dismembered.
These six men were Pak P’ăng-yŭn, Sŭng Sam-mun, Yi Gă. Ha Wi-ji, Yu Sŭng-wŭn and Yu Eung-bu. Their
wives, parents and children perished with them.
Chöng In-ji, one of the new king’s creatures, memorialized
the throne as follows:-”A11
this difficulty arose about the ex-king. He should therefore be
put to death.” This was rather more than
the king dared to do but the unfortunate boy was banished to
Yong-wŭl in Kang-wŭn
Province. His brother Yu was also banished at the same time. The
banished king
lived beside a mountain stream and is said to have sung this
plaintive song to
it:
A
long, long road, a long good-bye. I know not which way to turn.
I sit beside
the stream and its waters, like me, mourn. And together we weep
without
ceasing.
At
last when the time seemed ripe, another of Tan-jong’s uncles
memorialized the
throne urging that the banished boy be put to death so that
there might be no
more cause for conspiracy on the part of any of the officials.
With apparent
reluctance the king gave orders that Gen. Wang Pang-yŭn be
detailed to go and
administer poison to the boy. When that official arrived at the
place of
banishment his hardihood, failed him and instead of giving the
boy the poison
he prostrated himself before him. The ex-king exclaimed, “What brings you here?” but before answer could be
given a man named Kong Sang came up behind the banished king and
strangled him
with a cord. The story runs that as the murderer turned to leave
the room blood
burst from his ears, eyes, nose and mouth and that he fell dead
beside the body
of his victim.
The few palace women who remained in
the suite of the banished king threw themselves into the stream
and perished.
The body of the young king would have remained unburied had not
a man named Om
Heung-do taken pity on the [page 329] murdered
boy and buried him in Tong-eul-ji. The night the boy was
murdered the usurper
dreamed that the dead mother of his victim came from the grave,
and, standing
beside his couch, pronounced the following malediction: “You have stolen the throne
and killed my son. Your’s too shall die.” It is said that when
he awoke he
found that the prophecy had already been fulfilled. He therefore
dug up the
bones of this prophetess of evil and scattered them upon the
water of the river.
Tradition says that the next seven
magistrates who were appointed to the district where this foul
murder was
perpetrated died on the very night of their arrival. The eighth made
it his first duty to go to the grave of the murdered king and
sacrifice before
it and write an elegy upon him. From that time there was no more
trouble.
In spite of the way in which King
Se-jo obtained the throne he is not held in ill repute among the
people of
Korea. The unpardonable crime which attended his usurpation of
the throne
augured ill for the reign, but the truth is there have been few
kings of the
dynasty who have done
so much for the advancement of the interests of the people as
this same Sejo.
Tradition says that when a boy
he was looked upon with wonder because of his skill with the
bow, and he used
to climb the mountains blindfold
where others dared not follow with open eyes. One story tells
how once, when he
went to China with the embassy, eight elephants that stood before the palace gate
knelt as he approched,
thus foretelling his future greatness. He was a temperate man
and hated luxury and
effeminacy. He would not use gold upon his table and when his
little son asked
for a silver cup it was refused him.
He took up the policy of reform at the
very point where his father, King Se-jong, had laid it down five
years before. He
established pleasant relations with the people of the Liu Kiu
islands and of
the wild northern tribes, by treating their envoys with special
attention.
Those who were obstinately unfriendly he crushed; with a heavy
hand. Among the
latter was an able chieftain, Yi mah-su, who had formerly lived
in Seoul and
had married a Korean woman but later had fled back to the Yu-in tribes
and raised the standard of revolt. The Korean generals were in
some trepidation
on this account [page 330]
but Gen. Sin Suk-ju marched against him and soon drove him back
to his retreat.
By giving rank to a man of the
Keuni-ju tribe in Manchuria without the previous permission of
the Emperor the king
came near getting into serious trouble with his suzerain, but as
it was a first
offense it was overlooked. The Emperor sent word however that a
repetition of
the offense would bring down upon the king serious trouble.
The power of the central government
was but weakly felt along the northern border and so the king paid special attention to that
portion of
the country, founding prefectures all along the north-eastern
border. It was
doubtless because of this active policy that the Yŭ-jin tribe
came the
following year and swore allegiance to Cho-sŭn. Among the
reforms which were
effected during the early part of this reign the following
suffice to show the
energy and wisdom of this king Se-jo. Fruit trees were planted in the
palace enclosure so that the people might not be burdened with the duty
of providing the king’s table with fruit. Mulberry trees were
planted in all
available places in the grounds of the different government
offices, and even
in the palace, where the queen engaged in weaving, together with
the palace
women. Dress reform was carried on to the extent of shortening
the skirts of
women’s dresses so that they could
be more easily distinguished from men in the street. A school
was founded for the
study of the Chinese vernacular. The criminal court was ordered
to present the
king each month with a written account of its proceedings. The
king saw in
person every official who came up to Seoul from the country on
business. A hospital
was founded for the dispensing of medicine for indigestion.
These were but the beginning of his
reforms. He punished at one time over a hundred prefects who had been
oppressing the people. The palace inclosure was sown with grain
when there was
prospect of scarcity. In this reign we find the first reference
to the Kuk-cho
Po-gam or the official annals
of the dynasty. The great bell which hangs in the center of the
city of Seoul
today was cast in his reign and hung at first outside the South
Gate. A medical
government bureau was founded and medical works were published.
The king
[page 331] was actively interested in
military matters and called together all the soldiers who could wield
a bow of 120 pounds weight. This was with a view to the invasion
of the
territory of the troublesome wild tribes of the north. A census
of the people was
taken for the purpose of making army estimates, and during the
whole reign the
soldiers were practiced in sham fights both in the palace
enclosure and outside
the city walls. His attitude toward Buddhism was one of distinct
hostility. One
of his earliest edicts was that no monk should attend or pray at
a funeral. He
invented the use of the split bamboo as a sign between himself
and the general
upon the field. He kept half and the general kept the other half
and if it was
necessary’’ to send a messenger he would take the piece of wood, which, if it fitted the
piece in the hands of the receiver of the message, showed that
the messenger
was properly accredited. He seems to have been much concerned
for the welfare
of the people for we find that in the fourth year of his reign
he caused the
publication of a book on weaving and had it extensively
distributed among the
people, together with another on military matters and another
still on women’s
manners.
King Se-jo was the first of the
descendants of the great Tă-jo to observe carefully the precept
laid down by
the founder of the dynasty -namely,
to take good care of the army; this is evinced by the fact that
at one time he distributed large quantities
of medicine among the soldiers on the northern border and made generous
gifts of land to the troops, thus fostering the military spirit
among the
people. As a result we see them successful on every side. The
tribe of
Ol-yang-hap was destroyed, the tribes of I-man-ju, Ol-jok-heup and Yan-ba a-gan
came and swore allegiance.
In his fifth year he codified the laws
and published them. He also extended his medical work and
published a book on
veterinary surgery, and he published works on astronomy,
geology, music,
writing, the signs of the times, agriculture, live-stock,
foreign relations and
arithmetic. In other words this versatile man was actively
interested in military,
political, social, scientific and artistic matters and caused
books to be
written about these subjects for the enlightenment of the
people.
It is said that in 1465 he caused the
erection of a monastery [page 332]
in Seoul
but he made the Buddha a standing one rather than a sitting one.
Evidently he
had little faith in the inanity of the sleepy sitting Buddha,
who with folded
hands let the years slip by unheeded. He wanted something more
lifelike. So he
set the Buddha on his legs. This image was carried through the
streets at
periodic intervals accompanied by a crowd of musicians and monks. A Japanese envoy was horrified at
what he called sacrilege and
foretold that it could not endure. He was right, not because the
Buddha had gotten
on its feet but because the people
of Korea had begun
to cast off the shackles of Buddhism and, following in the wake
of the court, were learning to take advantage of their
emancipation. This
making of a standing Buddha and the occasional festivals seem to
have been more by way of sport
than through any
serious intentions on the king and this in itself, accounts for
the speedy down fall of the custom. Its
novelty, which was all it had to recommend it, soon wore off.
In 1467 he ordered the two
monks Sin Mi and Chuk Hŭn to cut wooden blocks for a book to be called the Tă-janggyung. The love of
exaggeration in the Korean temperament finds play in the
statement that this
book contained 8,888,900 pages. The historian evidently did not
have his abacus
at hand, for he continues by saying that each of the fifty volumes contained 7,078
pages, while the above figure would require 167,778 pages to the
volume.
The last year of King Se-jo’s reign,
1468, witnessed a serious disturbance in Ham-gyŭng Province. A
man named Yi Si-a gathered about him a
strong body of soldiers and sent word to Seoul that it was
simply with a view
to defending his district from the incursions of the northern
barbarians. The
provincial general went in person to investigate, but he was
murdered bv the
followers of Yi Si-ă
who were aided by
a courtezan who occupied the general’s room with him and who at
dead of night
opened the
window and gave ingress to the revolutionists. A messenger, Sŭl Kyŭng-sin was then sent to Seoul to
say that the general had been killed because he had been
conspiring against the
king. At the same time the king was asked to make Yi Si-ă the general of the
northeast.
This man told the king that the three Prime Ministers were
implicated in the
plot against him. The king was suspicious [page 333] but did not dare to let
matters progress without investigation.
He put the Prime Ministers in prison and at the same time raised
a large army
to go and oppose the too ambitious Yi. Generals Yi Chun, Cho Sŭk-mun and Hŭ Chŭng were
put in charge. The last of these three was one of the great
soldiers of Korea.
Tradition says that he was of gigantic stature, that he ate a
bag of rice a day
and drank wine by the bucketful. A doughty man indeed, at least
by the
trencher. But his feats on the battlefield were commensurate
with his
gastronomic prowess for we are told that the sight of his face
struck fear into
the stoutest enemy.
This army found the enemy before
Ham-heung whose governor they had killed. The royal forces soon
had the enemy
on the run and at last brought them to bay on Mannyang Mountain which projects
into the sea and is impregnable
from the land side. The royal forces took boat and stormed it
from the sea
while part of the
force engaged the enemy from the landward side. The head of Yi
Si-ă was taken
and forwarded to Seoul. In this fight it is said that Gen. Hŭ
Chŭng found his
sword too small, so throwing it aside he tore up by the roots a
pine tree
twelve inches in girth (?) and swept all before him with this
titanic weapon. Of
course the king then set free the three Prime Ministers and
confessed his
mistake.
The emperor called upon Korea to help
in the castigation of the Keum-ju tribe beyond the Ya-lu, so the king
sent a large
force and accomplished it without the help of Chinese arms.
Having destroyed
the tribe the Korean general cut a broad space on the side of a
great pine and there
inscribed the fact of the victory. The emperor was highly pleased and sent handsome
presents to the generals engaged.
This same year the king resigned in
favor of his son and retired to a separate palace to prosecute a
line of study
in which he was greatly interested, namely the art of estimating
distances by
the eye, a subject of importance to all military engineers and
one in which
Napoleon Bonaparte
is said to have been an adept. But before the end of the year he
died.
His successor Prince Hă-yang, is known by his
posthumous title Ye-jong Yang-do Tă-wang. He was so young at
[page 334] the time that his mother
acted as regent. During the single
year 1469 that this king reigned the Great Bell was brought into
the city and
hung at the central spot called Chong-no or “Bell Street.” He also made the law that
the palace gates should never be opened at night unless the one
so ordering
showed the royal signet or token, called the su-gŭl. This was a round piece of ivory half an
inch thick and
three inches in diameter with the word sun-jun
on one side and the king’s private mark on the other. To it are
appended straps
of deer skin and it is used when the king wishes to accredit a
man to a certain
work. The mere showing of this is accepted as the royal command.
It is commonly
called also the
pyo-sin “The Sign to be Believed.”
This reign saw the division of the
city into north, east, south, west and central districts. It
also saw the
promulgation of the Kyŭng-guk Tă-jŭn
or “The Great
Laws for Governing the Country.”
The system had been inaugurated at the beginning of the dynasty
but now for the
first time it was difinitely adopted and written out in full for
the guidance
of the official classes. It dealt with the minute divisions of
communities,
each having an overseer.
This same year 1469 the young king
died and his mother calling the Ministers together, nominated to
the throne
PrinceCha-san the cousin of the deceased king. As he was only
thirteen years
old the Queen Mother acted as regent during the first years of
his reign. His posthumous title is Sŭngjong Kang-jung Tă-wang.
Under the regency of the Queen Mother
the first act was the abrogation of the law requiring the people
to wear the ho-pa or
wooden identification tag,
which King T’ă-jong had promulgated. It had become a mere matter
of form and was
found quite useless for the purpose intended, namely a
preventative against the
evasion of the taxes.
This reign was marked by increased
activity in the field of foreign relations. First an envoy came
from Quelpart
with a gift of pearls. Another came from the town of Ku-ju Si-so
in the
province of Kwan-sŭ (Japan) and still another, Chöng Sŭng-hong
from the town of
Wŭn-ju ng on the islands of Tsushima. One embassy from the Liu
Kiu Islands came
with a gift of monkeys. The Japanese on the island of Salma
[page 335] sent an envoy who presented
gifts of
red pepper, incense and
white silk. He asked for Buddhist books but was refused. Envoys
came also from
the northern tribes swearing allegiance to Chosŭn.
In 1472 all the sorceresses,
fortune-tellers and Buddhist monks were driven from Seoul and
and forbidden to enter
it again. In the following year an envoy arrived from Japan
saying “When Se-jo was king I
painted his portrait and carried it to Japan, but at night a
great light would
stream from the picture’s face. So I brought it back and have
left it at Che-p’o in Chŭl-la Province.” The
king immediately sent word to the governor to build an altar and
burn the
picture thereon, as it had been defiled by being carried to Japan.
Special attention was given by King Sŭng-jong
to the matter of government examinations. He sent to the
provinces and
commanded the governors to hold preliminary examinations and to
send the
successful men up to Seoul to attend the grand examinations held
on the third
day of the third moon and the ninth of the ninth moon. Three men
were to be
sent up from each of the provinces except Kyungsang, Chŭll-la
and Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Provinces from
which five each were allowed to come. This shows that then as
today the largest
part of the population of Korea was in the south.
An important change was effected in
the matter of criminal procedure. The king commanded that all
men of scholarly
rank who offended against the laws should be arraigned not before the
common tribunal of justice but before the college of scholars.
Thus another
barrier was built up between the common people and the nobility.
King Sŭng-jong was also a patron of letters, for
besides publishing a work called Che-wang Myŭng-gan or “The King’s clear Mirror,” and
the O-ye-eui or “Five Rules of Conduct.” He also built a library
and collected
in it all the different books that could be found. He was the
determined foe of
Buddhism and, having driven out the monks, he now proceeded
against the
Buddhist convents in Seoul. He broke them up and made them
remove to the
country. There were twenty-three of these convents in Seoul at
the time.
[page 336] The Queen Mother retired
from the regency in 1477 and
the king, assuming his full authority, continued the work of
demolishing
Buddhistic influence. He sequestered a monastery at Yong-san and
made a school
of it, after throwing out the image
of Buddha. He seems to have been also a moral reformer, for he
made a law
against dancing-girls and commanded that boys be taught to dance
and to take
the place of those unfortunate women. It had been the custom on
the king’s
birth-day to have prayers offered in Buddhist temples for the
safety and peace
of the kingdom, but now this was abrogated, for the king said, “What does Buddha know? It is
a worthless custom and must be stopped.” More than this, he
compelled the monks
in the country to refund to a man
large sums of money which had been paid for prayers which were
intended to ward
off harm from the man’s son. The boy died and the father sued
the monks for
breach of contract^ and the king upheld the claim.
In 1478 the queen died and a concubine
named Yun was
raised to the position of royal consort. This was destined to
bring dire
disaster to the realm. She was a woman of jealous disposition
and violent
temper and her hatred of the other concubines led her into
trouble. On one
occasion her passions overcame her and in an angry altercation
with the king
she scratched his face severely. The king desired to treat her
offense
leniently but he was overruled by the officials and the woman
was driven from
the palace. She had one son who is commonly known by his
posthumous title Prince
Yun-san.
When the disgraced woman was dying she charged this son to avenge
her disgrace, when he should come to the throne; for he was the
heir apparent.
The reign saw many reforms of a social
character. It was decreed that grave-plots must not be allowed
to interfere with
the making of fields. This indicates that during the years of
prosperity the
population had been rapidly increasing and that it was found
necessary to
increase the area of arable land in like proportion. The people
were reaping
the reward of many years of peace and good government. Nothing could show more plainly the
relation between King Sŭng-jong and the people than the custom
he inaugurated
of helping those to marry who were too poor to do so.
Table
of Meteorological Observations^
Seoul, Korea, June, 1902.
V. Pokrovsky, M.D., Observer.
[see images for chart]
THE KOREA REVIEW
AUGUST, 1902
Korean
Currency.
The
history of Korean currency is beset with peculiar difficulties.
The historical
records deal rather indefinitely with the subject. The term
money frequently
occurs but it is not easy to tell always what form the money
took. From time to
time, however, there are intimations given which make certain
inferences
possible and there are coins existing to-day which have come
down from medieval
times, and when these different threads of evidence are drawn
together it is possible
to form at least a very good guess at the development of Korean
currency.
Before the days of Ki-ja, 1122 B.C., we are safe in saying
that Korea possessed nothing in the shape of money. Barter
sufficed for that
very primitive period, nor can we believe that this barter was
more than merely
local, for it is matter of definite historical statement that in
193 B.C. North and south Korea had
no commercial dealings with each other, did not understand each
other’s language and in fact were
practically as unaware of each other’s existence as Columbus was of the
existence of the North American Indian.
With the advent of Ki-ja things took
on a very different appearance. Society was more fully
organized. The
civilization of China spread with great rapidity throughout the
north and we
naturally
begin to look for evidence, of
the
existence [page 338]
of some medium of exchange. At the time of Kija’s advent there
existed in China
a certain form of coinage. Authorities are not agreed entirely
as to its form
but it is possible that these coins were in the shape of a
knife-blade. Such
coins exist to-day
in great numbers and can be found in any good numismatic
collection. Whatever
may have been its form it is more than likely that among the
company of men
which came with Ki-ja to Korea a considerable quantity of this
money was to be
found. They had been accustomed to the use of such a medium of
exchange and
could hardly go back to the primitive form of barter. But as yet
the mineral
resources of Korea were untouched and the metal necessary for
coinage was not
to be found. Now Korean tradition, supported by references in a
great many
books extant to-day,
affirms that Ki-ja took hempen cloth, which was a common article
in Korea at
that time, and placed his stamp or seal upon pieces of it,
ranging in size from
six inches to twenty inches square. On each piece was written
its promissory
value in terms of the coinage brought from China. They were the
equivalent of
our government notes and were nominally redeemable at the option
of the holder,
but practically they were not redeemable in coin, for Ki-ja
could not have held
sufficient coin to do this. So long, however, as the people had
faith in them
and they passed freely as legal tender they served their purpose. We cannot
imagine that the use of such a currency became general except
after the lapse
of many years, during which the people were educated up to it.
It may
reasonably be asked what Korean books refer to this hempen money of Ki-ja’s time. It is impossible to
give a full list of them here but among others there is the
Ki-ja-jŭn (***) which is a collection of
stories about Ki-ja and his times written during the early days
of the Koryŭ
dynasty. The writer has
taken the evidence of various Korean scholars who affirm that many writers refer
to the p’o-mun (**) or “hempen money.” The common Korean proverb po-munsŭng-jŭn (****) or “hempen money, star money,” is a synonym for very
ancient. The term “star money” here refers to
a coin of Silla times which bore the device of a star. It Is
quite impossible
to say that we have indisputable evidence that such money existed, for
we are not even able to [page 339]
affirm that
Ki-ja was an actual historical character. We can merely say that
the statement
has been handed
down from ancient times, and leave it there.
Nothing more is said of money during
the Ki-ja dynasty which ended 193 B.C. There are coins shown
to-day, several of which are in the possession of the writer,
which bear the legend
Cho-sŭn-tong-bo (****) or “Chosŭn Eastern Treasure.” These are said to have
come down from Ki-ja’s
time for the name Chosŭn was not used between 193 B.C. and 1392 A.D., but as
these coins are inscribed with the square character which did
not come into use
until several centuries after Christ it is quite evident that
the coins were
made at least 1300 years after the end of the Ki-ja dynasty. In
fact history states
that the founder of the present dynasty made them. These coins are used bv
fortune-tellers in their incantations and the statement that
they come down
from Ki-ja*s time is made simply to add impressiveness to the
ceremony.
We now come down to the days of Silla,
57 B.C. to
918 A.D. The best historical evidence we have says that in Silla
there was a strong
Chinese element made up of fugitives from the iron rule of
Chin-si-whang (***) the builder of the Great
Wall of China. They doubtless brought coins with them, and as
Silla rapidly
rose to a very high state of civilization in which the arts and
sciences were
fostered, it seems certain that they must have seized upon the
idea of a metal
coinage either modelled from the Chinese coins or invented by
themselves; the
former theory being the more credible. The earliest Silla coins
are said to
have been octagonal in shape and to have been stamped with the
p’al-gwă (**) or the “Eight Diagrams” seen upon the Korean flag
to-day. The writer has not seen any of these coins. It had a
round hole in the center
and the eight diagrams are arranged around it. On the reverse
are the seal
characters. (********)
Another Silla coin was the sŭng-jŭn (***) or “Star Money.” This the
writer has seen. It is a round cash with a round hole and the
impress of two
stars; on the reverse is the
legend (****) “Heaven sanctioned eastern treasure.”
A third Silla coin was the tong-ja-jŭn (***) or “Boy child coin.” This the
writer has seen. It is in the shape of two boys standing side by
side. There is
no hole in this coin. [page 340]
It bears the inscription (****)
which means “From
Childhood to Manhood”
referring to the fact that money is necessary in every stage of
life. A fourth
kind is the yong-jun
(**) or “Dragon Coin” a round coin
with a square hole, around which a dragon is carved. This we
have not seen and we
do not know what inscription it bore.
Then comes the sip chang săng
jŭn (****) or “ten long leaves coins.” These were ten different
styles bearing respectively the counterfeit presentment of a
sun, a moon, a cloud,
water, a rock, a pine-tree, “evergreen” grass, a tortoise, a deer
and a crane. Among these the only one seen by the writer is the
tortoise coin
which is shaped like a tortoise, with a square hole in the
center. The
inscription is (*** *),
meaning, “Exchange
for ancient and modern goods.” This
coin was used in ancient Păk-je.
Most of these coins are very hard to
procure and are almost all in the hands of fortune-tellers. No
one can say that
these are actual Silla coins but as the people of Silla were
able to cast one
of the largest bells in the world, which hangs today in the
southern town of Kyöng-ju
, they doubtless had coins; and as these which we have seen and
described are
said to be Silla, or at least Sam-guk, coins we may reasonably
infer that we
have here the actual thing.
We have before us also a large coin
called (***)
meaning, “seven
star money.”
It is made in imitation of a Silla coin. It bears a picture of
the Great Bear
constellation on the edge and a cloud in the center, the latter
being the
national emblem of Silla, as the plum blossom is of this
dynasty. On the
reverse is the inscription (*********) a free
translation of which would be “as faithful as the stars.”
In the early days of the Koryŭ dynasty
beginning 918 A.D. no coins were minted. But
a few years later a government “bank
note” was
issued. It was made of heavy brown hempen cloth about as large
as a man’s hand
and the stamp or seal was red. This was called the Ch’u-po or “Dirty linen,” not what we
would call a nice name for such a nice thing as money. Of course
there was
considerable Silla money lying about, but in this country it has
never been
customary to use money coined during a former dynasty.
After nearly seventy years had passed
since the founding [page 341] of
Koryŭ, the kings Sŭng-jong and Mok-jong minted cash called Koryŭ
tong-bo or “Eastern treasure” but the people preferred
the hempen money;
Mok-jong however seized all the hempen cloth money he could and
destroyed it.
In defiance of this the people made linen cloth itself a medium
of exchange,
going a step back toward the days of barter. This mixed state of
affairs
continued for nearly a century. When king Suk-jong came to the
throne be began
minting cash again. Its name is lost. Of this cash 1,500 kwan,
or bunches of a thousand pieces, were cast. The people did not
like it but it
was forced upon them and its use gradually became general. To
make this cash,
all the previous coinage of king Mok-jong was melted down.
(To
be continued).
Korean
Products.
Persimmons
The
persimmon, called kam,
is perhaps the
most distinctive of the fruits of Korea. There is no country
that produces a
finer quality of this delicious fruit. The Japanese and Chinese varieties are
distinctly inferior. Both for size and flavor the Korean
persimmon is the best
to be found. The Koreans believe that the persimmon came from
the west, perhaps
from Persia. There is a small and bitter kind of persimmon that
grows wild in Korea
which is
supposed to be indigenous but even this is questionable. This
kind is called
Ko-yum or “dry persimmon.” The reason which the
Korean assign for their belief in the western origin of the
fruit is that the
persimmon
does not
mature well with an eastern exposure but grows best on the west
side of a hill
where the afternoon sun strikes it full. Because of this they
say it looks to
the west!
The Koreans recognize about a dozen
different species of persimmon. The best is the su-si or “water
persimmon.” This species has the shape of a flattened sphere and
is a deep orange
color. As its name indicates, the contents when ripe is very
soft, about the
consistency of cream. It averages about two and a half inches in
diameter. Next
we have the [page 342]
hong-su-si, “red-water-persimmon.” This species is smaller than
the former, darker in color and in shape an elongated sphere or
oval. Then
comes the ye-gye-su-si or “waterpersimmon like the kye
tree fruit.”
This is a large variety and in shape a much flattened sphere,
the greater
diameter being twice as great as the smaller. This kind is not
so soft as the “water” varieties. Next
comes the ch’am-su-si or “True water persimmon.” This
is considered the finest looking of all the different varieties
and in shape it
is a slightly flattened sphere but divided into four more or
less distinctly
separated lobes. Of all the “water”
persimmons this is the sweetest. The chang-jun-si or “firm large persimmon.” This
kind has a hard firm meat and is a much elongated sphere but
slightly lobed so
that when looked at end on it appears somewhat square. The pang-yŭl or “fragrant warm persimmon” or otherwise
“hot
eliminate persimmon,” so called because by immersion in hot
water the
astringency is entirely removed or eliminated. This is the
hardest of all the
different species and is eaten as one would eat an apple. The ch’un-si or “dropping persimmon” is so
called because it is dropped into hot water. This kind is eaten
while it is
still green, the astringency being taken away by immersing or
“dropping” in hot
water. The kŭn-si or
“dry persimmon” is commonly called
kok-kam or “angular persimmon” because
like figs they are dried and pressed together, thus causing
angles and corners
on them. They are spitted on sticks and put together in bunches
of a hundred.
It is a special kind that is put up in this way. The white dust
on these is the
natural sugar from the fruit and is called si-sŭl
or “persimmon
snow.” This has come to be used for the “bloom” on other fruit
such as plums or
apples. The chun-si or “sitting persimmon” is
so called because of its shape which is a flattened sphere and
is supposed to
resemble the collapsed position of a Korean when
he sits down. This is used late in the winter, dried, but not
impaled on sticks like the kok-kam.!
These are the most important varieties and it will be seen what an important part they
play in Korea. The best persimmons are grown in the south where
the climate is
mild. P’ung-keui and Ko-ryŭng are the districts most noted for
their persimmons.
[page 343] Persimmons are grown in
Korea solely by grafting, which art has been known here for many
centuries. The
methods of grafting and budding are practically the same as
those of the west
but instead of using grafting wax they use rice paste or simply
black earth
bound tightly with a cloth and the whole smeared with clay.
Persimmons are
eaten mostly in their natural state or simply dried but also in
a sort of
batter made with rice flour or wheat flour. Green persimmons are
used to rub on steel, such
as swords, knives, etc., and the astringent juice turns the
metal black and
gives it a coating that prevents rust.
Pears
In
striking contrast to the magnificent persimmons of Korea the
pear is a very inferior
fruit from the western standpoint. The Koreans value them
highly, but like
native pears throughout the east they strike the western palate
like slightly
sweetened and thoroughly
water-soaked saw-dust. There is practically none of the genuine
pear flavor.
This fruit is however such a favorite
in Korea that it deserves special mention. The special quality
which renders it
valuable is the ease with which it is preserved. It can be kept
in perfect
condition for twelve months.
Koreans recognize a multitude of
varieties such as ch’ampă of “true pear,” whang’su-ri or “yellow water pear,” ch’ŭng-suri
or “green
water pear,” ko-sal-ri
or “The Kosan pear,” pong-san-pă or “Pong-san pear,” mun-pă or “preserved pear,” p’at-pă or “bean pear,” tol-pă
or “spurious pear.” The best is the “true pear.” It grows best
in Whangha Province and often attains
a size of about two inches in diameter. The largest are grown in
Kyung-sang Province and are
often four inches in diameter and a pound in weight. The color
is always approximately
the same, being that of a russet apple. Foreigners have
frequently been cruelly
deceived by this resemblance. The Ko-san pear and Pong-san pear
are the only
indigenous kinds, the other having come either from Japan or
China. The pear is
invariably produced by grafting.
The Korean pear is eaten usually in
its natural state but besides this the juice is sometimes
expressed, mixed with
honey and used as a medicine to prevent indigestion. With pears
they also make chong-gwa
or “straight fruit” by boiling
pears and
cooling with ice.
[page 344] Peaches.
The
Korean peach or pok-sa
is of large
size and the meat is usually of a dark red color, approaching to
black on the
side exposed to the sun. They are always picked too early, and
by the Koreans
are usually eaten when half ripe. This may be because if left on
the tree they will
be destroyed by worms. A ripe Korean peach of the best quality
is a very
tempting delicacy. They are all “clingstone” rather than “free stone.” Peaches are never raised
by grafting. There are two kinds of peaches the second of which
is in reality a
sort of nectarine. The real peach is called t’ŭl-pok-sa or “hair peach” because of the heavy bloom
or fuzz on the surface. The nectarine is called the seung-do or “monk
peach” because it has no “hair.”
One peculiarity of the peach is that it is never used on the
sacrificial table
like other fruits.
They say there are five kinds of evil spirits corresponding to
the north,
south, east, west and middle. Each of these kinds can be
exorcised by a
particular kind of wood or fruit. The east spirits are exorcised
by the peach,
and as Korea is called the East Country the peach is in some
sense in disgrace.
The Koreans are very fond of the peach blossom and they say that
just to stand
beneath a peach tree in bloom and take a cup of wine is to
imbibe the whole
beauty of nature. Koreans believe that peaches are an antidote
against the evil
effects of
excessive smoking. The “monk
peach” is considered very “strong”
and it is believed that if one eats a wormy one he will be
afflicted with
goitre.
Apricots.
Of
this fruit there are several varieties called respecting tan-hăng or sweet apricot, mil-salgu or “honey apricot,” Kol-mu-sal-gu or “thimble apricot,” pă-sal’gu or “pear apricot,” kă-sal-gu or “dog apricot” and ch’ŭng-mă or “green plum (apricot.)” Of
these the first four are described by their names. The “dog apricot” is simply an
inferior variety and the “green
plum apricot” is so called because of its color and shape. Of
these six
varieties the “dog
apricot” is indigenous while the others come from China by
grafting. The
apricot is the third fruit to blossom but the first to mature,
though it must
be confessed that the worms get the lion’s share of them. The “sweet” and the “honey” apricots are used
for sacrifice. The “dog
apricot” is recognized as dangerous because of its astringent
properties
[page 345] which induce a disease of
the bowels called kwak-nan.
The “green
plum” apricot
is used in making chong-gwa or “true fruit,” a sweet preserve. The
seeds of the apricot are used in certain medicines. The seeds
also are ground
and used in a kind of soup. A fine glue is made from the sap of
the apricot,
which exudes from the bark.
Crab
apples.
This
fruit is called neung-keum but the written name is im-geum or apple grove. This name sounds so
much like the common word for “king” that the sound was changed
to neung-geum. In
China all apples are called im-geum but in Korea only the crab
apple is so called,
the true apple being called sa-gwa
which is a corruption of su-gwa or “west fruit” because of its origin in
China, to the west of Korea. All crab-apples are grown by
grafting, in Korea.
There are only two varieties, called Kyŭng-neunggeum
or “Seoul
crab-apple,”
which are the best, and the “crab-apple” which abounds everywhere.
This fruit is used in sacrifice. They are always eaten fresh. It
is said that
there are 200,000 crab-apple trees on the hills between the
northwest gate of
Seoul and Puk-han. The best fruit is said to be produced from
young trees.
Plums.
There
are two distinct varieties of plums in Korea and these are
considered different kinds of fruit, one
being the cha-do or “Brown peach” and the other the oyat, a native word of which the
Chinese equivalent is (*)
Yi, the family name of the reigning dynasty. Cha-do is larger than the o-yat
and the latter is a deep violet color. The flower of the o-yat is the national emblem corresponding to the
chrysanthemum in
Japan, the rose of England and the lily of France. These are
never grown by
grafting. A Korean proverb says “never straighten your hat when passing
under a plum tree nor fix your shoe when passing a melon patch,” the idea being that such a
motion of the hand might be mistaken for an effort to pluck the
fruit.
An
Aesculapian Episode.
He
was only five years old when his father died and left him heir
to a large
property, and by the time he was twelve his relatives had
succeeded in
absorbing the whole estate. [page 346]
Cast upon his own resources he wandered away in search of
something to do to
keep body and soul together. In course of time he came to the
great salt works
at Ul-san and hired himself out to one of the foremen there.
Down beside the
sea about on a level with tide water were scores of little
thatched hovels. In
each of them was a huge vat for holding salt water, with a
fire-place beneath.
Across the top of the vats heavy ropes were hung and these being
dipped
frequently in the boiling brine became covered with crystals of
salt which were
removed and sent to market. In one of these hovels our hero,
Che-gal, was
employed in bringing up sea water in buckets and in feeding the
fires.
It was not long before his only suit
of clothes became so saturated with salt that they formed a true
barometer;
for. as salt attracts moisture, he could tell whenever it was
going to rain, by
the dampness of his clothes. When it was dry his clothes were
always stiff with
the dry salt.
One bright morning when everyone was
putting out his rice in the sun to dry Che-gal begged his master
not to do so
as it was sure to rain. His master laughed at him but complied
and in a short
time a heavy rain came on which wet the other people’s rice and
caused a heavy
loss. His master was astonished and asked Che-gal how he knew it
was going to
rain, but the boy kept his secret. In time everybody in that
district found it
well to wait for Che-gal’s master to act before they would sow
or reap their
crops or put out their damp rice to dry. The boy’s reputation
spread throughout
all the country side and he was looked upon as a genuine
prophet.
One day news came that the king had
been attacked by a very mysterious malady which none of the
court physicians could
cure. Everything was done for him that human skill could do but
still he sank.
At last royal messengers came to Ul-san saying that the king had
heard of
Che-gal and wanted him to come up to Seoul and prescribe for
him. The boy
protested that he could do nothing, but they urged and commanded
until he could
do nothing but comply. When the road to Seoul had been half
covered and the way
led up the steeps of Bird Pass, three brothers intercepted the
party and begged
that the boy Che-gal turn aside to their house among the hills
and prescribe
for their mother who was at the point of death. [page 347] The royal attendants
protested but the three brothers carried sharper arguments than
words; so the
whole party turned aside and followed the brothers to their
house, a
magnificent building hidden among the hills.
What was Che-gal to do? He did not
know the use of a single drug. To gain time he said that he
could do nothing for
the patient till the following morning. In the middle of the
night he heard a
voice outside the gate calling softly, “0, Mr. Hinge, Mr. Hinge.” A voice from within
replied and the visitors asked eagerly, “Can’t we come in now?” The person addressed as “Mr. Hinge” replied in the negative
and the visitors reluctantly departed. Now who could “Mr. Hinge” be? Che-gal had never
heard such a queer name before; so he investigated. Going to the
gate he
called, “Mr.
Hinge, Mr. Hinge.”
“Well, what do you want?” came from one of the iron hinges
of the door.
“Who was it that just called?” asked the boy.
“To tell the truth,” answered the hinge, “the
visitors were three white foxes masquerading as men. They have
bewitched the
old lady who is sick and came to kill her but I would not let
them in.”
“But you surely are not in
league with these rogues. Tell me how I can save the old lady
from them.”
The Hinge complied and gave the boy
explicit directions how to act upon the morrow, and at dawn the three
brothers came to take his orders. He commanded that three large
kettles of oil
should be heated hot and that six men with three saws and six
pairs of tongs
should be secured. These things having been done he led the way
down the path
till he reached three aged oak trees standing by themselves.
These he had the
men saw off six feet from the ground. They all proved to be
hollow. Then two
men stood upon each stump and reaching down with the tongs
lifted the kettles
of hot oil and poured it down the hollow stumps. Two of the
white foxes were
scalded to death but the third one with nine tails leaped out
and made its
escape. When the party got back to the house the old lady
appeared to be in articulo mortis but a good dose of ginseng tea
brought her around and in an hour she was perfectly well.
[page 348] The three brothers, and in
fact the whole party including the royal attendants, were amazed
and delighted
with this exhibition of medical skill; and the brothers urged
him to name his
fee. He replied that the only thing he wanted was a certain old
rusty hinge on
one of the doors beside the gate. They expostulated with him but
he firmly
refused any other reward. The hinge was drawn out, and with this
strange talisman
safely in his pouch Che-gal fared gaily toward the capital,
feeling sure that
he held the key to the situation.
Late one afternoon he was ushered into
the presence of his royal patient. He felt of his pulse and
examined the symptoms
in a knowing way and then said that the next morning he would
prescribe. At
dead of night he took out the hinge and held a long consultation
with it, the
result of which was that in the morning he ordered six kettles
of hot oil and
five men with a kară, or “power-shovel,” as it might be called. Leading the way
to a secluded spot behind the king’s private apartments he
ordered the men to
dig at a certain point. Half an hour’s work revealed a hole
about eight inches
in diameter. The oil was poured down this hole and to the consternation of
all the witnesses the earth began to heave and fall above the
spot and there
emerged, struggling in his death agonies, an angle-worm eight
feet long and
eight inches thick. When this loathsome object expired they all
hurried in to
the king who seemed to be breathing his last, but a good drink
of ginseng soup
brought him round again and he was entirely recovered. Che-gal
said that the
symptoms plainly pointed toward angle-worm enchantment due to
the fact that the
worm had tasted of the king’s bath-water.
Honors were heaped upon the young “physician” and he became
the pet of the court. This might have finished his medical career had not
news come from China that the Erapress was the victim of some
occult disease
which defied the leeches of Peking, and the King of Korea was ordered to
send his most distinguished physician to the Chinese court. Of
course Dr.
Che-gal was the one to go.
The rich cavalcade crossed the Yalu
river and were half way across Manchuria when Che-gal felt the
hinge stirring
in his pouch. He took it out and had a consultation with it, in
the course of
which the hinge said:
[page 349] “When you come to the next
parting in the road make your whole company take the right hand
road and take
the left yourself alone. Before you have gone far you will come
to a little hut
and call for a cup of wine. The old man in charge will offer you
three bowls of
a most offensive liquor but you must drink them down without
hesitation and
then ask as your reward his dog and his falcon.”
The young man followed these queer
directions but when the old man offered him the three bowls he
found them
filled with a whitish liquid streaked with blood. He knew the
hinge must be
obeyed, however, and so he gulped down the horrible mixture
without stopping to
think. No sooner was it down than the old man overwhelmed him
with thanks and
called him all sorts of good names. It appeared that the old man
had been a
spirit in Heaven but for some fault had been banished to earth
and ordered to
stay there till he could find someone to drink those three bowls
of nauseating
liquid. He had been waiting two hundred years for the chance
which had now come
and released him from his bondage. He offered Che-gal any gift
he might wish
but the young man refused everything except the dog and the
falcon. These the
old man readily gave and with dog at heel and bird on wrist the
young
practitioner fared on, meeting his cavalcade a few miles further
along the
road.
At last the gates of Peking loomed up
in the distance and the young physician was led into the
forbidden city by a
brilliant escort. It was dusk as he entered and he was taken first to his apartments for
some refreshment. Meanwhile the ailing Empress was suffering
from intense
excitement and demanding with screaming insistence that the
physician from Korea
should not be allowed to enter the palace but should be executed
at once. Of
course this was considered the raving of a disordered mind and
was not listened
to. The Empress declared that the Korean doctor should not come
near her, but the
following morning he was conducted to her apartment where he was
separated from
her only by a screen. Che-gal declared that if a string were
tied about her
wrist and passed through a hole in the screen he could diagnose
the case by holding
the other end. It was done but the Empress who seemed to be in
the very extreme
of terror fought against it [page 350]
with all her might. Che-gal held the string a moment as if some
telepathic
power were passing from the patient to himself, but only for a moment. Dropping the
string he gave the screen a push which sent it crashing to the
floor and at the
same instant he rolled out from one of his flowing sleeves the
little dog and
from the other the hawk. The former flew at the Empress’ throat
and the latter
at her eyes while the Emperor, who stood by, was struck dumb
with amazement at this
sort of treatment. A sort of free fight followed in which
Emperors, Empresses,
dogs and falcons were indiscriminately mixed but the animals
conquered and the
Empress lay dead before them. The Emperor denounced Che-gal as a
murderer but
he stood perfectly still with folded arms and said only,
“Watch the body.”
The Emperor turned to the corpse and
to his horror saw it slowly change its form to that of an
enormous white fox with
nine tails. Then he knew the truth –that his Empress had been destroyed
and this beast had assumed her shape.
“But where then is the
Empress gone?”
he cried.
“Take up the boards of the
floor and see,”
the young man replied. It was done and there they found the
bones of the unfortunate
Empress, who had been devoured by the fox. Deep as was the
Emperor’s grief he
knew that a heavy load had been lifted from the Middle Kingdom
and he sent
Chegal back home loaded with honors and with wealth.
As he came to the Yalu river he felt
the hinge moving in his pouch and took it out. The rusty bit of
iron said,
“Let me have a look at this
beautiful river.” Che-gal held it up with thumb and finger over
the swift
current of the stream and with one leap it wrenched itself from
his hand and sank
in the water. At the same moment a sort of mist came before
Che-gal’s eyes and
from that hour he was blind. For a time he could not guess the
enigma but at
last it came to him. The
hinge’s work was
done and it must go back to its own, but in order that Che-gal might not be called
upon to exercise the physician’s office again he was made blind.
So back to Seoul he went, where he
lived till old age, an
object of reverence to all the court and all the common people
of Korea,
[page 351] Odds and Ends.
The Marks of Royalty.
According
to Korean Tradition the marks of royalty are (1) the possession of thirty six teeth; (2) a very
prominent nose; (3) prominent cheek bones; (4) long narrow eyes;
(5) a white complexion;
(6) greater length from hip to crown than from hip to heel; (7)
ears so
prominent that the man can see them without a looking-glass; (8)
a prominent
forehead; (9) arms so long that the fingers reach to the knee.
It is probable that this idea comes
down from the days of Silla, for tradition tells us that when
Nam-ha, the second king of Silla,
died his son Yu-ri insisted that Suk-t’al-ha the prime minister
become king,
but Suk-t’al-ha insisted that Yuri
become king. At last they settled the matter by agreeing that
they would hunt
up a man who had thirty-six teeth and make him king. Having
searched a long
time in vain it was at last discovered that Yu-ri himself was
the possessor of
the extra four teeth and he could no longer refuse. It is also
true that the people
of Kyŭng-sang Province, the site of ancient Silla, are to-day
gifted with more
prominent noses than the average Korean. They are the lineal
descendants of the
Silla people.
Dr. Baeltz of Tokyo University visited
Korea some years ago with the special purpose of comparing the
Korean
physiognomy with that of the Japanese and he expressed the
opinion that among
the higher classes of Koreans, very many of whom can trace their
descent from
Silla times, there are many faces that resemble strikingly the
features of the
Yamato race in Japan which may be called the representatives of
an ancient
dominant people in those islands. The question arises, what
connection may
there have been between the people of Silla and that ancient
ruling race in
Japan?
Tadpoles
This
interesting stage in the metamorphosis of the frog has passed
into proverb in
Korea. If a poor man becomes rich and he refuses to help his
indigent friends,
they say of him 올창이세눈이저버리고지고리세만 [page 352]
생각한다 or “He has forgotten his
tadpole days and thinks only of his frog state.” In this connection it may
be as well to explain the origin of the mimetic word mang-kong which means “frog” and is a close
imitation of the sound of frogs answering each other; a sound
unpleasantly
familiar to foreign residents of Korea. If a person holds his
nose and says mak-k’o, which means “stopped-up nose,” he will
approximate the usual cry of the frog. So the frog has come, to
be called măng-kong. The Koreans also have a curious
saying which may illustrate their knowledge of natural depravity
of the human
heart. They say, “If
you see a tadpole you know it will become a full grown frog; but
if you see a
child you cannot tell whether it will become a genuine man (vir as distinguished from homo) or a monster.”
A Jade Bowl.
On the 15th of August a man from Ku-chang named Yi Chong-muk
brought to the Home Department a green jade, covered bowl and
offered it as a
present to the Minister. When asked how he obtained it he said:
“I am a farmer, and as I was
on Chi-ri Mountain gathering wood I lay down and went to sleep.
I had a dream
in which an old man came and said that if I would go up the
mountain I would
find a valuable treasure. I obeyed the command and in a defile
in the mountain
found this bowl.”
On the cover was carved the words “Let the Emperor bathe and
then open this,” and on the bottom were the words “The gift of the people of
Chi-ri Mountain.” The bowl was sent in to His Majesty.
The Doom Deferred.
Yi
Hang-bok and his friend Kim were inseperable. From boyhood they
played, studied, travelled and worked together. One day Kim was
taken violently
sick and sent immediately for his bosom friend Yi who hurried to
his house and
found him far gone. As he sat beside the sick man there came a
loud call at the
door and someone demanded entrance. The sick man roused himself
from his stupor
and cried, “You’ve come too late. There’s no use in your coming
in now.” The
friend Yi asked who the visitor might be and Kim replied, “He is
my chŭn-săng,” which by literal
translation means “Former Life.” In fact it was a spirit whose
enmity he had
excited [page 353] during
a former state of existence and who had now come to take
vengeance by depriving
him of life. The spirit clamored for admission but Kim only
laughed and said, “I have someone with me here
who will not let you touch me.” “I don’t believe it,” screamed the vengeful
spirit.
“Well, let him in,” said Kim. “He can’t do any hurt anyway.”
So the door was thrown open and in came the spirit. He looked
like a man except
that the whole lower half of the body was entirely wanting. When
Kim saw this apparition
he laughed and said, “You
can’t have me this time. I dreamed last night that my house
spirit came to me
and said that if Mr. Yi was at my side when you came you could
not take me.”
The avenging spirit balked of his prey
turned an evil eye on Yi and said:
“It is true you have
thwarted me, but I now affirm that you shall pay for it by dying
far from your
own home.” Then he slunk away.
Ten, twenty, forty years passed and Yi
Hang-bok was still in the land
of the living. The Japanese Invasion had come and gone and had
raised Yi
Hang-bok to the pinnacle of fame. The country had fallen upon
the evil days of
Kwanghă Kun. On some trumped-up charge Yi was banished to
Puk-ch’ŭng in the far
north and there expired far from his home.
Question
and Answer.
Question, What is the significance
of sacrificing when the city gates are repaired?
Answer, This brings up the whole
question of gate sacrifices. When the city was built sacrifice
was offered at
the site of each of the gates before the work commenced, and
again at the
conclusion of the work. As to the exact meaning of it we can
learn little
beyond the fact that the points of entrance to the capital are
of prime
importance. The form of invocation used at such a time and place
is to call
upon the spirit of the ground at the spot to witness that a gate
is being erected
and to ask him to be its patron spirit, to bless those [page 354] who come in and go out and
to make the gate a useful thing for the kingdom.
Whenever the gate is repaired a
similar sacrifice takes place, the spirit being called upon to
sanction the
repair and to bless the people who pass in and out.
At these sacrifices the food consists
of dried beef, oats or barley and certain kinds of fruit. The
sacrifice is
neither Buddhistic nor Confucian but is called Chang-ja-kyo, by the Koreans. This is
another name for Taoism.
Question. Are the Koreans
acquainted with the fact that the male and female principles are found in
plants as well as in animals?
Answer. The Koreans have been
very close students of nature in certain lines. This great fact
has by no means
escaped their notice. They have known for centuries that single
flowers contain
the two principles in the stamens and pistils, that a tree may
have a female
branch and a male branch and that a certain species may have one
tree entirely female
and the other entirely male. This matter is thoroughly worked out in the
San-yim Kyŭng-je (****)
or “Mountain-forest Economy,” a work on Korean botany,
horticulture and agriculture. It was published over a hundred
years ago. The
Koreans knowledge that of two trees of the same species one may
be female and
the other male is brought out in the saying “Eun-hăng
na-mu kyun it-ta,” “It has the nature of the
Eun-hang
tree.” This proverb is used to describe the relation between too
inseperable
friends who seem absolutely necessary to each other’s happiness.
The Eun-hăng tree commonly known as the Ginko is
one of those species in which the male and female principles are
developed in
separate trees. Neither is complete without the other. This fact makes the simile very
apposite.
Question, How can we account for
the fact that feudalism has not flourished in Korea as it has in
Japan?
Answer, It is hard to give a
succinct answer to this question. The reasons are doubtless many
and diverse,
but the following may help toward explaining this fact.
Many
years before Christ, while Korea was still in a semi-savage
state and society
had become but little organized, Ki-ja the Chinese noble came to
the north and
gave the [page 355]
people the first taste of
genuine government. But China was already a despotic monarchy
with highly
centralized institutions and so the principles which Ki-ja
brought bridged for
the Korean people that whole intermediate stage between
barbarism and civilization
during which the feudal spirit would be the surest to develop.
Again, when the
southern kingdom of Silla arose there was a strong Chinese
element who
doubtless exerted a moulding influence upon the new state and
helped to cast it
in the strictly monarchic mould. Silla gained control of the
whole peninsula
and imposed her own ideals upon the people, and from that time
to this the
power of a central government has never been successfully
questioned. Another
thing that has worked against a feudal spirit is the wide
scattering of the
principal families in ancient Korea. We find for instance that
there are half a
dozen places where Kim families “originated” and as many more where Yi
families began. Special districts were not known as the special
home of single
families to the exclusion of others and the clan spirit did not
spring up until
about 1550 when it was of course too late to think of opposing a
thoroughly
centralized government.
Whatever feudalism Korea contains is summed up in the four
political parties
which have as their main object the obtaining of political
preferment.
In Japan, on the contrary, the people
emerged more gradually from the savage state. No finished
civilization like that
of Ki-ja was imposed upon them, and they took on the garb of
civilization by an
evolutionary process in which feudalism was an inevitable step.
The scattered
topography of Japan helped the segregating influence of
feudalism and retarded
the centralization of power.
Editorial
Comment.
The
past month has witnessed another anniversary of His Majesty’s
birthday. The
event was fittingly celebrated in the capital, where every shop
blossomed out
with the national colors and the electric cars were all
decorated in honor of
the event. Whatever strictures may or may not be passed upon the
administration
of government in Korea there can be no question as to the
loyalty and affection
with which the [page 356]
general population look upon their sovereign. If things go wrong
the people
conclude, and generally rightly, that the fault lies in their
sovereign
advisers rather than in the sovereign himself. In all these Asiatic countries the position
of royalty is so hedged about that designing people can
generally succeed in
obtaining whatever decrees they wish by misrepresentation. If it
be true that
the happiness of Kings lies in the welfare of their subjects the
greatest cause
for congratulation
this year is the splendid crop of grain which is coming on and
which will
counteract the evil effects of a great deal of petty official
indirection.
***
Those
who are interested in the cause of general education in China
are seeking for
some phonetic system to take the place of the ideograph. Is has
long been
recognized that the intellectual awakening of the common people
in that empire
depends upon finding a substitute
for the ideograph. In searching
for a practical solution of this important problem, it seems to
us that two or
three points should be kept steadily in view, the most important
of which is
that a phonetic system should be adopted which will combat as
little as
possible the prejudices of the Chinese people. If we apply the
rule we will see
that the use of the English alphabet is the farthest possible
from what is
desired; for (1)
In order to use the English characters the whole system of
writing must be revolutionized.
English cannot be written with the brushpen; it cannot be
written in vertical
columns; ink cannot be used on the present quality of Chinese
paper. These are
some of the most obvious objections. The conservatism of the
Chinese will make
the general use of such a system impossible for a great many
years to come.
On the other hand, there exists in Korea a pure
phonetic alphabet which could be introduced into China with
greatest ease;
because (1)
The writing is done with a brush-pen; (2) the same quality of
paper as the
Chinese can be used; (3) the writing is in vertical lines; (4)
the syllables
are arranged somewhat in the manner of Chinese syllables so that
a page of it looks
something like a page of simple Chinese ideographs while still
being alphabetic
and remarkably easy to learn; (5) this alphabet would appeal
historically to
the Chinese for a [page 357] Chinese
scholar helped to perfect it and it was adopted for a few years
in the Chinese capital
itself. There is every
reason to believe that China would receive such a system much
more readily from
Korea than from the hated West. We call this to the attention of
those who have
the matter in hand and ask that they investigate it before committing
themselves and the Chinese people
to a system
that is sure to retard the cause of general education in China,
***
It
is a matter for congratulation that a beginning has been made
toward
inaugurating inter-port athletic contests in Korea. Chemulpo has the honor of
taking the lead in challenging the Seoul tennis players to a
tournament. So far
as we can see the two ports are very evenly matched and the
contest bids fair
to be an exciting one, Chemulpo has the advantage of already
possessing a
regular tennis club while the Seoul players are somewhat lacking in
organization. If Chemulpo wins the
challenge cup it will of course go to ornament the new club
building but some
Seoul parties have been asking where it would be put in case the
Seoul players
should win. It will be time enough to discuss that question when
Seoul has won
the tournament; for this cup is no exception to the rule that – “There’s many a slip, etc.”
If Seoul wins she will find a place to put the cup, even if she
has to build a
house for it.
***
It
was with great pleasure that we saw ground broken for the new
Severance
Memorial Hospital of the Presbyterian Mission of U. S. A. early
in August, on a
fine site outside the South Gate. The success of the so-called
Government Hospital
has been very remarkable considering the untoward conditions
under which it has
been compelled to work during the past ten years. But now that a
thoroughly
good building is to be erected on a high and beautiful site and
all connection with the government
severed we shall look for something approaching a genuine hospital. We
have examined the plans for the new building and, while not
competent to judge
as to their excellence, we believe that the building to be
erected is the best
that can be made with the money.
[page 358] The Seoul Handicap Tennis
Tournament.
The
following is the complete score of the Seoul handicap tennis
tournament,
arranged for through the great kindness of Mr. and Mrs.
Chalmers, on whose
courts the games were played,
and to whom the community owes very much for arousing fresh
enthusiasm in the
best out-door game in the world. The winners were presented with
pretty souvenirs of the
tournament.
[See images for list of
full results]
[page 359] News Calendar
Dr. Wells of Pyeng Yang
writes that they had a single case of cholera there on the 18th inst. The caae was cured though the
symptoms were
very severe.
He says, “We
have the old Independence building open and ready for patients (it can accommodate fifty or more) and
two other places,
larger still, with plenty of hot kan
space. I lay the most stress however on stamping out each case
as it appears.
Up to Aug. 7th there had been twenty-seven cases at the American
Mines with
twelve [page 360]
deaths. No figures from San-chun but the epidemic is not violent. Barricades
were erected around the American Mines but they have been taken down.”
For
the military review
at the festivities in October 3,500
of the best
soldiers in the army will be chosen. They will be commanded by
Gen. Pak Sung-geui.
News
comes that five Japanese have been attacked by cholera in Pusan
and that two of
them have died.
The
native papers state that the Military School now situated near
the gate of the “Mulberry Palace” will
shortly be moved to the barracks at PA-o-gă in the eastern part of the city.
On
the 29th of August we received a letter from Dr. Wells of Pyeng
Yang in which
he says, “The cholera is now here.
The type seems to be severe but the epidemic nature of it does
not. A severe
form of epidemic diarrhoea was at the British mines weeks ago
but Dr. Toyabe, an expert in bacteriology
failed to find the bacillus. Dr. Palmer of the American Mines
reported twenty-seven
cases and twelve deaths up to Ang. 7 and said, ‘It may be that there is
cholera’ showing in his mind a doubt as to its true nature. I
have seen but two
cases and they were not of the type I saw in ‘95. One of these
died to-day.
There was none of the typical loss of flesh and copious
discharge. Up to date
(Aug. 25) we have had four
cases that I know of (and two more reported some five li outside
the gate) and three deaths. One died
after he had passed out of our hands as cured.”
The
large hall being built in the palace is the Chung-wha-jun and is
to be the Main
Audience Hall. Its cost is $200,000. Other repairs in the
palace will cost $70,033. The festivities connected
with the Imperia birthday were $52,353.
The cost of transporting the goods bought in Peking for the
October festivities
was $2,754.
The entire cost of the October festivities is estimated at $1,000,000. The cost of
sacrifices for rain in the early summer was $8,840.
It
is said that the government contemplates fortifying Roze Island
in Chemulpo
Harbor. Funds have been appropriated to cover the cost of the
preliminary
arrangements.
The
conditions of the Challenge Cup Tennis Tournament between Seoul
and Chemulpo
have been definitely arrangement. The four best pairs in Seoul
play the four
best pairs in Chemulpo in order of excellence and the four best
single players
in Seoul play the four best single players in Chemulpo. Each
contest will be
decided by winning two sets out of three. Each of the eight
contests will
constitute a point and the winners of a majority of points will
win the cup. In
case of a tie
the winners of the larger number of sets will win the cup. As yet the Seoul players suffer from lack of
organization and it will probably be a couple of weeks before
the contest will
come off. The players selected from the Chemulpo Club are, in
pairs, Mr.
Wallace and Mr. McConnell, Mr. Fox and Mr. Sabatin, Mr. Walter
and Mr. Bennett
and Mr. Henkel and Mr. Remedios.
The players from Seoul have not yet been selected. This will be
done after a
preliminary trial contest.
[page 361] A defaulting yamen-runner at
Kwang-ju committed suicide by hanging himself.
On
His Majesty’s
birthday the 2Sth of August the usual audience was granted the
Diplomatic Corps, the officers of the
Japanese guard and the foreign employees of the government.
Advices
from Fusan say that between the 15th and 19th of August there
were eight cases
of cholera there six of which proved fatal, and since that date six
more have died.
On
the 26th of August Yu Keui-whan, one of the prominent men of
Korea, died.
We
have received from a subscriber the following question but as it
came too late
to go into the question and answer department of this issue we
answer it here
rather than wait till next mouth.
Question. Is there not in Chinese
or Korean literature any information about the date of the last
eruption of Păk-tu-san (White Head Mountain) on the northern
border, which was evidently a volcano?
Answer. Korea does not lie
directly in the great line of volcanic action which extends from
Cape Horn
northward through the two Americas through the Aleutian Islands
and down the
coast of Asia through Japan; so that the probability is that Pak-tu-satl has not been
active for many thousands of years. The whole geological structure of Korea also indicates
the same. Whether Chinese literature says anything about the
volcanic nature of
that mountain we cannot tell but judging from the fact that
Koreans were never
aware of the fact until a Japanese traveller ascended the
mountain some seventeen years ago and
brought back the report that it is an extinct volcano, is seems
probable that Chinese literature is silent on the subject. In
the reign of Sejo Tă-wang (14551468) a man named Nam Yi ascended
the mountain
and on his return described the white rocks, which give the
mountain its name,
as being very soft like the stone used for grind-stones in Korea. Some
time later Kim Yuk argued in a work named Yu-wŭn Ch’ong-bo, (****) “Thesaurus of Literary
Gems,” that as Pak-tu-san
is very high the rock which forms it would presumably be very
hard; but that
judging Nam Yi’s statement the stone must have been rendered
soft by the action
of fire. Also at the time of the Japanese Invasion 1592 a famous
monk named Song-un
Hong-je Tă sa who had
made a special study of the mountain systems of Korea affirmed that there were
two “fire
mountains”
in Korea namely Pak-tu-san
and Kwan-ak-san,
the latter of which Is visible a few miles south of Seoul. But
he did not grasp
the fact that they had ever been active volcanoes for the latter
mountain
presents no special volcanic features and it was more a guess
than anything
else. With these unimportant exceptions we know of nothing in
Korean literature
bearing on the subject.
The statement by the monk above quoted is from a book named
Tong-guk In-mul T’ong-go
(******).
On
September 1st
a son was born to Mr. and Mrs. Stein and a daughter to Mr. and
Mrs. Price.
This
number of the Review
has been delayed
three days in order to include the score of the Seoul tennis
tournament.
[page 362] The
people of P’yŭng-an Province will have to pay for the
honor of having a Western Palace at Pyŭng-yang. It is said that
a special
impost is to be levied upon the more prosperous portion of the
population, the wealthiest
men giving $200 apiece and others lesser sums down to $30.
A
boatload of Korean pirates at Chu-ja Island off the west coast of Korea met a well deserved fate when they were
repulsed by several fishing boats losing thirteen of their
number killed, four
captured and nine sunk with their boats.
Ch’oe Si-myŭng lately went to
China and secured a book on Taoism, written by Chang Cha-bang
one of the
leading exponents of that religion, and brought it to Korea with the intention
of teaching its tenets to the Koreans. He is building a school
for this sect at
Ka-p’yung.
Yi
Chă-wan is
chief of the commission appointed
to equalize the standards of measurement throughout Korea. It has been determined that
any merchant using
a yard stick, a rice measure or a pair of scales that does not
bear the
government stamp will be guilty of a felony and punished
accordingly.
Official
salaries for July were paid on August twenty-fourth, owing to
lack of funds in
the Finance Department.
Foreigners
who have been away on their summer vacations are returning to
resume their
work. Prof. Martel from China, Prof. Framp ton from Kang-wha, Prof.
Bunker and Mrs. Bunker from China, Mr. Vinton and family from
Puk-han,
Dr. Avison
and family from Han-kang and Prof. Hulbert and
family from the same place. The phenomenally cool summer has
made it hardly
necessary to get out of Seoul.
The
native papers of
the 26th August say that the town of Sŭngjin the newly opened
port north of
Wonsan has been suffering from a severe epidemic of cholera and
asks that a
foreign physician be sent from Seoul to render aid. He does not
state the
proportion of deaths but it is to be hoped that it is as light
as in the
northwest where the mortality was scarcely fifty per cent.
The
Chemulpo paper states that cholera has appeared in the town of
Chin-ha on South
Kyŭng-sang coast near Masanpo and eight Japanese fishermen have
died. Fears are
expressed that the epidemic will appear at Masanpo and funds are
asked for the
purchase of lime. Up to the 28th inst, the cholera had made its
appearance in
ten large towns in Korea.
Min
P’yŭng-suk resigned the presidency of the Memorial Commission,
in charge of the
October festivities, and Yun Chŭng-gu was appointed in his
place.
A
portrait of His Majesty was painted last spring and placed in a
building
especially constructed for the purpose.
The
commission, sent to Peking to purchase various vessels and
utensils for use in
the coming celebration of the beginning of the fifth decade of
the reign,
returned to Seoul on the 28th of July, having secured the things
ordered.
Rather
late in July the rainy season
arrived, having failed to visit Korea for two successive years.
It came just in
time to save the rice [page 363] crop,
which now bids fair to be unusually good. The severe rainfall of
the 28th ult.
caused considerable damage to Korean houses. Six kan of the market
inside the South
Gate fell, but no one was injured.
Pong
Si-myŭng of Păk-ch’ŭn,
Whang-hă Province, petitions the Agricultural Department for a franchise for a company
which intends to reclaim valuable farming land in that district.
The
Mayor of Seoul, Yi Han-yŭng resigned and Om Chu-ik succeeded
him.
The
Presbyterian Mission has secured
a large piece of property outside the South Gate as a site for
the new
Severance Memorial Hospital and the grading of the land was
begun the middle of August; but government
interference stopped the work for a time. It is to be hoped that
the local
authorities will read-over the treaties carefully and bear in
mind that
foreigners have a perfect right to buy and build anywhere in
Seoul.
Ch’oe Sŭn-il of Ch’ŭngju had a
grudge against Sŭ
Sang-mo and murdered him about the middle of last month. The
relatives of the murdered
man pursued the criminal and caught him in Yang-yang and after
receiving
instructions from Seoul the governor executed him.
The
governor of South Ham-gyŭng Province informs the government that
Chinese
bandits have so terrorized the districts of Kap-san and Sam-su
on the northern
border, that the people are deserting that section. He asks that
a company of l00
tiger hunters
be organized and stationed there to prevent a recurrence of the
trouble.
The
prefect of Tong-nă near Pusan informs the government that owing
to the likin
station at Sam-nang-p’o on the Nak-tong
River the traffic by boat is falling off and he urges that the
boat dues he
discontinued in order to encourage this important trade route.
The
Japanese authorities have asked
the privilege of using the grounds at the Hun-yun-wun inside the
East Gate as a
drill ground for the Japanese Guard.
According
to the Japan papers a gang
of Japanese counterfeiters of Korean nickels was discovered in
Kobe and were
arrested and their
stock in trade confiscated. It is hardly to be expected that
Japanese trade in
Korea will flourish while Japanese themselves are doing so much
to injure the
currency of the country.
When
the news arrived that cholera was prevalent in Eui-ju on the
border the Board
of Health in Seoul issued a circular in Korean for distribution
throughout
Seoul instructing the people how to avoid the disease. Mr. Sands
the Adviser to
the Household Department showed a most commendable energy in
fighting the
spread of the disease in the north. Early in Aug. he went overland to
Pyeng Yang to consult with the authorities there in regard to
preventive plans.
The people of Pyeng Yang were put on their guard and Dr. Wells
with his force
of native
helpers prepared to put up a good fight against the dreaded
scourge. So far as we can learn the
cholera did not make rapid progress southward overland from
Eui-ju though some
places off the main
road were attacked. Dr. Sharrocks of Sŭn-Ch’ŭn reports that a panic [page
364] occurred in that town owing
to the arrival of the cholera there and that many of the people
have fled to
the hills. The streets in which most of the cases occurred were
barricaded by
the people and ingress and egress was prevented. At this point the mortality while
great was not extremely high, nearly half the cases recovering.
The next news was that cholera had
appeared in Chinnampo. The Japanese physician in charge
telegraphed to Seoul
for medicines which were promptly sent from the government
hospital in charge
of Dr. Avison. Meanwhile the plans of the foreign physicians on
the Board of
Health in Seoul were frustrated by the apathy of the local
authorities who seem
to have concluded that it is too late in the season for the
cholera to reach
Seoul and therefore have lost interest in the preventive
measures. It is to be
regretted that the opinion should so generally prevail in
government circles
that the country was made for Seoul and not Seoul for the
country.
The
prisons of Seoul have been full to overflowing and their crowded
condition in
such warm weather has been fortunately recognized by the
authorities as a
dangerous state of affairs and many of the prisoners have been
liberated on
parole.
The
bureau which has in charge the festivities connected with the
celebration next
October consists of 157 officials. Their duties are divided into
thirteen
classes, (1)
finances; (2) police; (3) entertainment; (4) introduction; (5)
records; (6)
equipage; (7) festival grounds; (8) military review; (9) arrangements;
(10) food; (11) tea and fruit; (12) tobacco; (13) furniture. For
these purposes
$500,000
have been appropriated.
The
native papers state that O Seung-mo
of An-ju in the north has been brought to Seoul and executed,
charged with
being implicated in a plot with Korean refugees in Japan to
overthrow the
present government.
The
governor of South Ch’ung-chŭng Province announces that the
recent rains flooded
large tracts of rice land and destroyed many houses in fifteen
districts along
the coast, and asks that the taxes be remitted.
On
August 1st forty criminals were executed in Seoul. They included
thieves,
counterfeiters and seditious persons. Strangulation was the
method employed.
The United States Minister
informed the Foreign Ofiice on the first inst. that the mortgage
on the electric
railway and electric light plant, held by Collbran, Bostwick
& Co.,
amounting to Y 51,500,000,
would fall due on August 15th and that in case the government
failed to pay the
mortgage would be foreclosed.
The
coronation of King Edward VII of England took place on August
9th. The event
was celebrated in Seoul by a reception at the British Legation.
In spite of the
fact that at this season many foreigners are absent from Seoul a
large and
representative company assembled at the legation to congratulate the British Minister,
and through him the government and people whom he represents,
upon this glad
event. The threatening rain kindly held off and gave the company
an opportunity
to witness some very pretty fire-works, which we understand were
made
[page 365] for the occasion by Dr. B. H. Baldock. They
did both him and the event great credit. The climax of the
evening came when
the Minister J. N. Jordan, Esq., proposed the health of THE KING
which was
responded to in a silence that was impressive. The company
dispersed at
midnight.
A
Korean brings word from Kim-ch’un
that a boat capsized in the Chotan
River and twenty people were drowned.
The
Japanese Minister
requested the government to grant fishing permits to fifteen
Japanese boats in
Chinnampo but the government declined to do so.
The
contract of Franz Eckert, Dr. Mus.
has been renewed for a period of three years. The remarkable
success that he
has achieved in the training of a Korean band is deserving of
the highest
commendation.
On
the third instant a serious affray occurred in Seoul. A Japanese
had opened a “show” at Kyo-dong near the
pagoda, but would not allow Korean soldiers to enter. A soldier
being refused
entrance got into a quarrel with the door keeper and a scuffle
occurred during
which several other Japanese employed on the place appeared and
together they seized
the Korean soldier and bound him to one of the house posts. The
Koreans seeing
this quickly formed a mob and attacked the place with stones.
One of the
Japanese drew a revolver and fired at the crowd. The bullet took
effect and one
of the Koreans was struck in the forehead and was killed. Korean
policemen and
soldiers hurried up, dispersed the mob and arrested the soldier
who had tried
to force an entrance and the Japanese who fired the shot. It is
said that the
Japanese was put in the chain gang by the Japanese authorities.
A few days
later the owner of the “show” attempted to reopen
business at the old stand, but as the stones began to fly he
decided to remove
to a more congenial location.
An
American citizen named Johnson came down to Chemulpo from the
English mines at
Eun-san en route
for America, suffering from tuberculosis of the bowels. He hoped
to reach home
before he died. We are sorry to record the fact that he
succumbed to the
disease in Chemulpo.
On
the 4th inst. the Crown Prince Imperial memorialized the Emperor
suggesting
that the birthday of the King which occurs on the 28th be
celebrated by a feast
in the palace. To this request permission was granted.
The
number of Japanese fishing boats on the coast of Korea are 381, manned by 1602 men.
Early
in August a Japanese fell between the cars on the SeoulChemulpo
Railway about
half way between Seoul and Yong-san and was instantly killed.
Two
hundred more ex-prefects who are 1,000,000 cash in arrears of taxes
are ordered arrested in order to force payment.
The
Governor of North P’yŭng-an Province telegraphed on the 7th
inst. that cholera
had disappeared from Eui-ju and Yong-ch’un where it had been been
most severe
Dr.
Wells of P’yŭng-yang announced about the 28th inst. that a single
authentic case of cholera had appeared at that place and was being treated
at the hospital in his charge.
[page 366] On the 6th the government
reconsidered its refusal to allow Japanese fishermen to ply their trade
off Chin’ampo.
In
T’ă-an
seventeen men headed by Yi T’a-gyung raised a fund of 1,500,000
cash to help the destitute of that district.
On
August 3rd Nam-kung Ok the popular
editor of the Whang-sun Sin-mun was released from prison
after an incarceration of three months. His assistant Na Su-yun
was liberated
on the next day.
The
superintendent of trade at Kyung-heung on the Russian border
announces that a
severe rain storm on the 28th of July caused the Tuman River to overflow its
banks, and twenty-five houses were destroyed and many rice
fields.
A
Korean constable did good work on the 28th ult. by capturing Kim
Wha-sun a noted robber in Wheug-sŭng,
in Kang-wŭn Province, who had been committing great depredation
in company with
thirty other robbers. The band in now broken up.
In
spite of the fine prospects for a rice crop this Autumn the
price of rice has
not fallen in Seoul. The best rice still sells for eight hundred
and fifty cash
a measure.
Repairs
on the West Gate and South Gate began on the 24th inst. They are
being
repainted and retiled. This is always preceded by a sacrifice.
The
government has determined to pierce the city wall at a point about half way between
the Little West
and the South Gate and build a new “Dead man’s Gate.” This is
because the
present Little West Gate is too near the Palace to be used
longer as an exit
for dead bodies from the city,
Min
Yong-whan has resigned from the presidency of the Memorial Bureau
which has charge of the October festivities and Min Pyung-suk takes his place.
The
new “Westem
Palace” at Pyŭng-yang is being built upon the supposed site of
Keui-ja’s
ancient palace of 3,000
years ago. It is 150 kan long and 100 kan wide, a kan being
approximately eight
feet.
A
project is on foot among Korean friends of Rev. H. G.
Appenzeller to raise
funds for the erection of a monument to his memory.
Yi
Yong-ik proposes to sell government rice to the people at three
cents less than
the market prices; 30,000 bags will be so sold. The merchants
who handle it
will be given a margin of one cent a measure.
One
hundred and
twenty houses fell on account of heavy rains in Eun-jin
Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province.
In
Sun-ch’ŭn twenty-three houses burned last month and an old man
and his wife
perished in the flames.
On
the 12th
inst. Sim Sang-hun resigned the portfolio of the Finance
department and Yi
Yong-ik became acting minister.
Rice
grading machines of Japanese make have been introduced into
Fusan at $1.80 apiece. They are quite
popular.
Among
the various decorations which are being prepared by the
government for
distribution at the October celebration the first three are in
the form of (1) a plum blossom (2) a star
and (3) a yard stick.
[page 367] The great stone drum which
is to form part of the monument in honor of the achievements of
the present
reign is being cut at Nam-p’o in Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province, as the
best stone in Korea is found
there. It will be brought up to Seoul by cart and so many rice
fields will be damaged
in the process that it will be done next Spring when the fields
are empty.
In
Ch’ang-yung
and Eui-ryŭng seven men were killed in the floods resulting from
excessive
rain.
The
contract of M. Kato, Esq., as Adviser to the Department of Agriculture, etc., was
ratified and signed on the 15th inst. It is for three years.
Following
up the policy of issuing bank notes, the Dai Ichi Ginko began
issuing five yen
notes on the 20th inst. and ten yen notes will be issued in
October.
The
tennis players of Chemulpo have challenged the
players of Seoul to a tennis tournament to be held early in
September. A purse
has been made up and a challenge cup is being procured from
Shanghai.
On
the 18th inst. twenty Koreans and three Japanese raided a
ginseng farm in
Song-do and stole a large amount of ginseng. They were chased to
the city
Song-do and there seven of the Koreans and all the Japanese were
arrested. It
was a very disgraceful affair and it is to be hoped that the
rascals will be
severely handled.
A
company of officials have again memorialized the throne asking
that Lady Om be
made empress.
So
Sang-jip has resigned the Superintendency of Trade at Chemulpo
and Ha Sang-geui
fills the vacant post.
Yi
Chai-gak the Envoy to the Coronation of King Edward VII arrived
in Seoul on the
24th inst.
The
native papers state that on the 16th inst. 4,530 bags of rice and $149,000
worth of gold were shipped to Japan from Chemulpo.
It
is reported that C. Waeber, Esq., former Russian Minister to
Korea is to come
to Korea as Envoy to the celebration of the beginning of the
fifth decade of
the reign in October and further that he will succeed A.
Pavloff, Esq., as
Russian Minister to Korea. Mr. Waeber’s many friends will be
delighted to see
him back in Seoul.
The
Educational Department has applied to the Finance Department for
$9,576.4o necessary to pay the
expenses of the Korean students in Tokyo, but Yi Yong-ik makes
use of a
technicality to refuse to give more than $1,620.
The
tax arrears of twenty-five ex-prefects aggregates the neat sum
of 200.000,000
cash or $80,000.
It
is rumored that a viaduct is soon to be built between the
present palace grounds
and what is known as the “Mulberry Palace.”
The
government has ordered that the celebration of October be
observed in each
prefecture and in each port. The government tax and customs
revenue to be used
to cover the expense.
They
say a “rainbow Bridge”
is to be built from the palace grounds to the grounds of the
former German
Consulate.
Table
of Meteorological Observations
Seoul,
Korea, July, 1902.
V. Pokrovsky, M.D., Observer.
[see images]
[page 369] KOREAN HISTORY.
MODERN KOREA.
The
only books he caused to be published
were four; on marriage, funerals, ancestor worship and “On Reaching Manhood.” He seems to have been an
ardent Confucianist
for among other things he ordered that widows should not be
allowed to
re-marry. This striking feature of Korean life dates from the
days of this
king. Before this there had been a certain amount of sentiment
against the
practice but it had been common even among ladies of the higher
classes up to
this time. His refusal to give books to the Japanese envoys
would also lead us
to believe that he was an active
Confucianist of silk, gold thread and cotton cloth.
In the latter years of his reign the
King had the Kuk-cho Po-gam written
up to date, and he successfully withstood an invasion of the
wild tribes of the
north. One of his last acts was to order that all impurity and
obscenity should
be dropped from
the songs and poems.
In 1482 the King built two forts on
the Ya-lu near the town of Kang-gye because of threatened
outbreaks of tribes living
on the further side. In 1484
he built the Ch’anggyŭng Palace east of what is now known as the
“Old Palace” In this same year the great
historical work called the Tongguk T’ong-gam or “Complete Mirror of the
Eastern Kingdom,” probably the most
celebrated of Korean histories, was published. It brought the
annals of the
peninsula down to the beginning of the present dynasty. Its
author was Sŭ Saga.
better known by his pseudonym Sŭ Ko-gan. He was a thorough master of
Korean history.
A little glimpse of this King’s
disposition is given in a memorial addressed to him in 1486 when, after a certain
royal tomb had been struck by lightning he, in terror, asked his
[page 370] officials to mention his
faults that he might mend them and so ward off the judgment of Heaven.
One official brought four charges against him. (1) Love of money; (2) The
selling of offices; (3) Cruel beating of criminals; (4)
Unwillingness to be
reproved. Two years later he ordered a remeasurement of the fields in
Ham-gyŭng Province as he believed there was much taxable
property there that
was yielding no revenue.
The year 1489 was marked by a
terrible scourge of cholera and one of the officials advised
that the King pray
to Buddha to stop it. The King promptly banished him. This man
apparently
thought that because the King’s
mother was an ardent Buddhist this advice would not meet with
punishment. But
in this case even filial duty did not stand in the way of stern
opposition to
Buddhism. Soon a still more striking example was given. The
Queen Mother had a
Buddha made and placed in a monastery outside the East Gate,
called Chöng-ok-wŭn.
A man named Yi Pyŭk, passing by, asked what they were doing with
the image and
when he learned that the Queen Mother had ordered it set up he
struck it and broke
it in pieces. He finished the good work by burning the
fragments. It can be
imagined how angry the Queen Mother was and how she urged the
King to destroy
the contumacious subject, but in reply the King said “Instead of death he
deserves a gift”, and there the matter dropped.
In 1490 one Kwŭn Chu memorialized the
throne declaring that the musical instruments in use were those
made by the corrupt
Sin-don and that they were destructive of good manners. At his
advice the
instruments were destroyed and others were made. The style of
music also was
changed and it became purer and more serious. At this time the
instrument of war
called the so-ni, a kind of catapult, was
invented.
The years 1491 and 1492 were occupied
in border wars in Ham-gyŭng province, Gen. Hŭ Chŭng at last
succeeding in clearing
the northern borders of the enemy. The King died in 1494.
Chapter
III.
Consternation
upon the
accession of Prince Yun-san... his character... avenges his mother’s
disgrace. .. .reign of terror. .. .concubines of [page 371] former King killed
...sporting proclivities...
noble women dishonored...
carnival of crime....plot against the King ...prisons opened... King banished...royal proclamation....a sad
parting ....abuses
corrected...
revolt of Japanese residents in the south ....diplomatic
relations with Japan
severed.... reforms...money for army made from Buddhist image... literature....mistake in a
Chinese history...
puritan simplicity...
color of clothes...
military activity....Japanese pirates captured... the first compass....
caste... a Korean-Chinese
dictionary....an extreme Confucianist ....a dangerous regency....evil advisers...good men
murdered ....Japanese return to the southern ports... omens.... a Buddhist
regent...conscription....invasions
north and south...signal victory over the Japanese . .
.rebellion.
It
was in 1494 that Korea had the misfortune to come under the
baneful rule of
Prince Yŭn-san.
As we have seen, he was the son
of the discarded Queen. He inherited her evil disposition and he
had sworn to
her that he would avenge the stigma that had been cast upon her
name. He was
twenty years old when the load of empire was placed upon his
unworthy
shoulders.
No sooner had his accession been
ratified by the Emperor
than the Prime Minister resigned his position and hastened away
to his country
home. When asked his reason for such precipitation he replied, “Look” at the pupil of his eye; with such a
King it is difficult
to keep the head on the shoulders. So I have come to the
country.” Many tales are told
illustrative of his character. Some time before the last King’s
death, while he
was walking in the palace grounds with his son, a tame deer had
come and rubbed
its nose on his arm. The youth in wanton cruelty had brutally
kicked the animal
and was sharply reprimanded for it by his father. Now that he
had become King
he sent for the harmless beast and drove a spear through it with
his own hand. Beholding
this vindictive act, and rightly gauging the evil mind that lay
behind it, a
high official, Pak Yŏng, immediately left the court and retired
to the country.
The next act of this King was to behead his old tutor, Cho
Chi-sŭ, whom he had
learned to hate when a boy, because the faithful instructor had
tried to curb his
wild excesses.
The year 1496 began with a demand for
more revenue from Chŭl-la
Province, and a consequent remeasurement of the land under
cultivation. It is
said that his mother, dying, [page 372]
had left a napkin, dyed with her blood, and had said, “When my son becomes King, give this to him and tell
him not to forget his vow to avenge my death.” In pursuance of
this injunction
the young King now gathered together all the men in any way
connected with the
banishment and death of his mother, all those who recorded the
facts, all the
messengers who carried the hateful commands. In all there were
several hundred
people. These he decapitated and dismembered. He also dug up the
bodies of
those who had been implicated but had died in the interval,
broke their bones
in pieces and flung them into the river or ground them to powder
and scattered
them to the winds. The King wanted to have his mother’s picture
hung in the
ancestral temple and when he proposed it all the officials
assented to it but
three, who said, “She
was a criminal and died a felon’s
death; her picture cannot hang in the ancestral hall.” The King in a rage ordered
their instant execution. Their families like wise perished and
their houses
were razed to the ground.
We have seen that Kim Chong-jik, the
Prime Minister, had fled to the country. His enemies now accused
him to the King
asserting that he had said that, as King Se-jo had killed King
Tan-jong, how
could the son of the former become King. This story was believed
and Kim and
many of his friends were seized and beheaded. This was the
signal for an exodus
of the better class of the people from the city. The schools
were all closed
and a deadly silence reigned for the most part. No one knew who
was to be taken
next. As the years passed the reign of terror did not abate.
Debauchery, oppression and theft were
the daily practices of the court and the people were ground to
the very lowest
point. So much so, in fact, that in 1504 the people printed
placards in the
native character declaring the baseness of the King, and posted
them throughout
the city. “These
must be the friends of the people whom I have banished” said the
King. So he
brought them back from exile and beheaded, poisoned or beat them
all to death. The
people of the eight provinces besought the King to do away with
the native
script which had brought such disaster.
Two concubines of the deceased King
were still living and when they were accused to the King of having brought about his
mother’s death, he sent for them and killed them [page 373] on the spot. For this he
was blamed by the widow of the dead King; so the wretch went
into her
apartments, ran at her and butted her with his head, knocking
her to the
ground. She said they might kill her if they wished; she did not
care. Having
stolen the beautiful wife of Whang Yun-hun the King could not induce
her to smile upon him. So he said, “It is because her husband is still
living.” He therefore sent and had the man killed.
The King placed dancing girls in all
the 369 prefectures of the country and reserved three hundred of
the fairest
for the palace. For these he built sumptuous pavilions and a
hospital for their
treatment when ill. A special office was erected for the care of
the dogs,
falcons, nets and other instruments
of the chase. The royal stables were in Chongdong wheie the
United States
Legation now stands. Agents were sent into all the provinces to
hunt for fair
women and swift horses. Others were sent to wring from the
people special
taxes. The King thought the officials were blaming him behind
his back, so he
gave each of them a wooden tag on which was written, “The mouth is the avenue to
misery. The tongue is a sword which may pierce the body. Watch
the mouth and
guard well the tongue; so shalt thou dwell in safety.” He changed the Confucian
temple into a play-house, drove out all the students from the
dormitories and
put diviners and sorceresses in their
places. When his grandmother died he did not assume mourning,
but as two of the
officials dared to do so he killed them. He wiped out the three
districts of Ko-yang, P’a-ju and Yang-ju to make a
hunting ground, and forbade anyone to settle there. Those who
disobeyed were killed.
This hunting park was then stocked
with all manner of wild beasts. He stole the people’s boats to
use in sport on the
palace ponds and restricted the people to the use of a single
ferry-boat on the
river. This lessened the traffic to such an extent that the
people of Seoul suffered severely and many
inn-keepers were ruined. An aged eunuch remonstrated, but the
King caught up a
bow and shot him through. He taxed the people of the south a
bolt of cotton a
head, and they paid it only by taking the cotton out of their
clothes and weaving
it. He invited the wives of the courtiers to a feast and had each of them
wear upon the breast the name of her [page 374] husband. Of these he
dishonored whom he would and gave the husbands official
position. His uncle’s
wife was enticed into his net, in consequence of which she
committed suicide.
Such were a few of the acts of this
depraved monarch. We need not multiply details of his execrable
career. It was one
long carnival of murder, lust and oppression. The people were simply the
instrument by which the spendthrift King could fill his coffers.
It was in the twelfth year of his
reign, 1506, that the people were brought to the limit of their
patience. Three
men, Song
Heui-an, Pak Wŭn-jong
and Yu Sŭn-Jong, conferred together and agreed that unless there
was a change the
destruction of the kingdom was inevitable. They determined to
drive the corrupt
King from the throne and put in his place Prince Chin-sŭng, the
second son of
King Songjong. One dark night they met at the Hun-yun-wun, near the East Gate, with
a number of others who had been let into the dangerous secret.
Not a light was
to be seen, and they prepared to act. With a small band of
picked soldiers whom
they knew to be faithful they formed a line in front of the
palace. The two
Prime Ministers came out and joined them and soon a crowd of
people gathered.
Powerful men with iron bars soon forced an entrance and six of
the King’s favorites
were seized and beheaded. As a next move the prisons were all
opened and crowds
of innocent people were liberated. They thirsted for revenge
and, finding
weapons as best they could, joined the revolutionists. It soon
appeared that there
was to be no resistance for even the King’s friends were aghast
at his
enormities. The revolutionists proceeded to the Kyong-bok Palace
where the King’s
step-mother lived, the one whom he had treated so brutally, and
said to her, “The King is a wild debauchee.
The people are scattered. The ancestral temple has been
desecrated. The people
desire to make your son King.” She modestly replied, “How can my son become King?
The King’s son is old enough to assume the crown.” At this there
was a general
cry of dissent and all demanded that she comply and let her son
become King. At
last she consented and the youth was brought out. The assembled
multitude bowed
before him and swore fealty to him. They then crowned him and
brought him to
the [page 375] palace. The deposed King
was banished with his son to Kyo-dong Island. The honorary
posthumous title was
never conferred upon him but he is known as Yun-san-ju, or “Lord of Yun-san.”
Throughout the country there was
universal holiday. The first proclamation of this new King who
is known by his posthumous
title Chung-jong
Kong-eui Tă-wang, gave the keynote of his reign. “The most important thing in
any country is the common people. If the people prosper the
country prospers,
if they suffer the country suffers. The late King was cruel and
lawless, and so
by the
people’s will I have become King. I have ordered the
discontinuance of the evil
customs that have prevailed and I shall do all in my power for
the people. Let
everyone rejoice.”
But a sad event marred the happiness
of the new King. His queen’s father had been on intimate terms
with the deposed
King and had been killed upon the day of his banishment. The
officials
therefore insisted that the Queen be put away and that another be selected. She was innocent
of any crime, and the King said, “She is the wife of my youth and I cannot put her away.” But
they insisted until finally he was forced to comply and he
tearfully parted
from her. One
of his first acts was to do away with the “Dog and Falcon. Bureau.”
which had in charge the implements of the chase. He abolished
the “Woman Bureau” which looked after
the procuring of concubines for the King. He gave back to their
owners many
houses that they had been despoiled of. He revived the law by
which a written
report of the proceedings of the criminal court should be
submitted to him every
ten days.
Years before this in the days of King
Sŭ-jong Japanese had been permitted to settle in the three
harbors, namely Ch’e-p’o
Yŭm-p’o and Pu-san-p’o. They were now having a difficult time.
The prefects
were oppressing them sadly, forcing them to work without wages
and stealing
their fish or game. This they could not endure; so two of their
number,
Ko-jo-mo and Ko-su-jang passed over to the islands of Tsushima and raised an
expedition against the oppressive prefects. Two hundred boat
loads of them
crossed the straits and
fell upon Fusan, killed its prefect, attacked Ch’e Harbor
[page 376] and took its prefect
alive. They carried fire and sword into all that region. They
ravaged the prefectures
of Ung-ch’ŭn and Tong-nă. The King sent a strong force by land
and sea who cut
off the retreat of the invaders and then attacked them. Three
thousand were
soon put hors de combat
and many
hundreds were chased into the sea where they were drowned. From
this time,
1512, until 1572 diplomatic relations with Japan were
practically suspended,
though an occasional envoy came. A small number of Japanese
boats were however
allowed to come to the three harbors for the purpose of trade.
Access to the
court was strictly denied them.
King Chung-jong was as active in
matters of reform as had
been his
father or grandfather. He put an end to the cruel custom of
houghing robbers.
He limited the number of blows that could be administered in the
cross-examination of criminals. He published 2940 volumes of the
Sam-ganghăng-sil and circulated them
among the people as well as another work on filial piety. He
made a foundling
asylum, or at least made provision for the support of abandoned
children. The
custom of punishing by striking the legs with short, thick clubs
was done away,
for this process was almost sure to shatter the bone.
In the seventh year of his reign,
1512, he turned his attention to the army and sent out an edict
that arms
should all be put in good order and should be ready for use at an
instant’s warning. We are not told whether this was because of
any expedition
that he was contemplating or any hostile invasion that he
feared. Whichever it
was it was unrealized, for the army under his rule engaged in no
offensive or
defensive warfare. It was probably with a view simply of
carrying out the
policy so wisely begun by his ancestors of keeping the army in
good order. He
sent down to the town of Kyöng-ju in the province of Kyŭng-sang,
which had once
been the site of the capital of Sil-la, and brought up a great
copper Buddha and
broke it up in order to use the metal in making new arms for the
soldiers. It
was the common belief that if anyone prayed to this image
barrenness might be
cured. The people cried out against its being broken up, but the
King said “Do not fear. I will take
the blame.”
Nothing could show us more clearly the position that Buddhism
held at this
[page 377] time It had reached its low
water mark in Korea, and while it can scarcely be said to have
strengthened its
position up to the present time, it is very doubtful whether an
emergency could
arise so great as to induce a King of Korea in these days to
break up an image
of Buddha.
The reign of this king was marked by
severe disturbances at different times. In his thirteenth year,
1518, there
were severe earthquake shocks extending over a period of four
days and causing
much loss of life and property.
During his reign literature was on the
increase. He ordered the publication of various books and
established a headquarters
for books at Seoul, a sort of central depot or depository. The
only relations
that he had with outside countries was the reception of a
Japanese envoy who
brought a gift of mirrors. They were considered very valuable.
In 1518 a historical work came from
China in which it was asserted that king Ta-jo was not the son of
Whang-jo but of Yi Im-in, a traitor, and that he had founded the
new kingdom as
a result of treachery. The king sent an envoy immediately to the
court of China
asking that the mistake be corrected. The Emperor replied that
it would be done
in the next edition.
The king’s teacher, Cho Kwang-jo,
called “The
Confucius of Korea,” told his master that Buddhism and sorcery
were alike
useless and urged him to do away with the headquarters of the
diviners and
sorcerers. It was done and the teacher was given the title of “Guardian of Public Morals.” We are told that this reign
was the golden age of Korean morals. The people revolting from
the excesses of
the deposed king took on a puritan simplicity. Men and women
walked on opposite
sides of the street. If any article was dropped in the road no
one would touch
it, but would leave it for the owner to recover. No one had to
lock his doors
at night. When the wild Ya-in of the north ravaged the border
and one advised
that a force be sent disguised as laborers to chastise them, the
king decided
that it was beneath his dignity to have recourse to trickery,
and so sent the
troops openly. The important decennial examination called the Hyin-yang-gwa was now
established.
At this time white clothes were not
largely worn. That [page 378]
custom did not come in till about 1800. Blue, red and black predominated.
The king now established the custom of wearing very light blue
at the time of
ancestral worship.
This reign saw some notable advances
along certain lines. Bows were made which were shot by putting
the feet against
the bow and drawing the string with both hands. They were to be
used by women
in defending walls while the men might be away. A small powerful
bow was made
which shot metal arrows called “needle
arrows.” They carried four times as far as the ordinary bow, and
an arrow from
one of them would penetrate three men. A kind of bomb was also
invented. It was
probably projected from a catapult of some kind. A spring trap
was made whose
arrow weighed a a hundred and twenty pounds.
In 1521 a Japanese So I-jön sent an
envoy named Songgong Pu-su-choa with a curious gift of three
stones that
resembled mirrors. The king, however, declined to accept them.
The following
year a Japanese named Teung Wŭn-ju ng went to the Chinese
district of Yŭng-p’a
and ravaged, and on his way home landed with his booty on the
coast of Whang-hă Province in Korea. He was
there captured by a Korean and his whole company were sent to
China much to the
delight of the Emperor.
In 1524 P’yŭng-yang was decimated by
the cholera. It is said that there were 7700 deaths. The
following year the envoy
to Nanking, Yi Sun, brought back with him the first compass ever
seen in Korea.
In 1532 a royal concubine desired to have her son become king
instead of the
Crown Prince. In order to accomplish the destruction of the
latter she took a
dead rat, wrote his name on its belly and put it under the
Prince’s room. This
is a common way of attempting to do an enemy to death by
witchery. She was
discovered in the act and she and her son were put to death.
Some three years
later a great mock naval battle was fought on the river and the
king went out
and witnessed it.
The year 1536 beheld an important
event in the bringing of the official history of the dynasty up to date. In the next year
an important law was made, the one which commanded that the
people of the upper
class should be distinguished from the lower class by a
difference in the
clothes. Heretofore [page 379] the
style bad been the same for both classes, but from this time on
the lower class
was not allowed to wear the long flowing sleeves which until
recent years have distinguished the
Korean gentleman.
In 1541 Chu Se-bung a noted scholar of
Kyŭng-sang Province founded a school at P’ung-geui in honor of a
noted sage An
Yu who had lived there during the Koryŭ dynasty. In digging the
foundations he
had found a bar of copper of three hundred pounds weight. With
the profits of
the sale he bought books for the school library.
The last recorded act of this monarch
casts into the shade all his other work and tells us more by
implication about
the condition of the people than any other words could do. That
act was the
making of the Ok-pyŭn or Korean-Chinese dictionary, arranged in
the order of
the Chinese radicals. This important publication shows first a
great advance
all along the line of literature. The demand for such a work
argues a constant
pressure along literary lines that finally made it an absolute
necessity. In
the second place it showed that the native character, whatever
may be said to
the contrary, had taken a firm hold upon the people and had
begun to bring
forth substantial fruit. A standard for transliterating Chinese
characters was
demanded and the demand could have sprung from nothing less than
a large and
constant use of the native character. The publication of this
work marks an era
in the literary life of the peninsula. It fixed the native
character firmly
upon the people and made it a factor that can neither be ignored
nor evaded.
The Chinese character is still a favorite in Korea but it will
go out before
the native phonetic character as surely as the Latin tongue went
out from
England before the English.
It was in 1544 that King Chungjong closed his long and
eventful career. Forty years upon the throne had seen the
country lifted out of
the mire into which it had been trodden by his predecessor, and
brought to the
highest point of morals, of literature and of general culture
that it has ever reached.
He was succeeded by his son Yi-ho who is known by his posthumus
title In-jong Yung-jung Tă-wang.
The career of this monarch affords
another illustration of what Confucianism in its extremer moods
can do. When
his [page 380] father died he fasted six
days and became so
weak that he could hardly stand even with the aid of a staff. He
continued to refuse sufficient
food and mourned continually for his father. He would sit on the
bare ground
all night long even in winter, asking Heaven to kill him or else
give him back his father. He
refused medicine saying that his trouble was one that drugs
could not reach.
Seeing that his end was approaching he asked that his half
brother Prince Kyön-wŭn be made king after
him. When he died the whole land resounded with wailing. It is
said that in a
single day the news travelled by the sound of wailing caught up from village to village,
even to the limits of the kingdom. The new king is called
Myŭng-jong Kong-hön Tă-wang.
This king at his accession was a lad
twelve years old and consequently the regency devolved upon his
mother. This
was most unfortunate for she was a wholly unscrupulous woman and
ere the king
was old enough to assume the duties of his high office inflicted
serious
injuries upon the state. She had a brother, Yun Wŭn-hyŭng, who
was her equal in
daring and intrigue. Yun Im the uncle of the deceased king
In-jong was holding
office at this time. He was a faithful and honest man. Being the
brother of the
late king’s mother he formed a natural as well as moral antithesis to the
brother of
the new king’s mother. Yun Wŭn-hyŭng had a younger brother Yun
Wŭn-no who was
his equal in chicanery. They could not but be enemies and so the
elder banished
the younger to Ha-nam in the south.
From the time when King Chung-jong
died the two rival leaders Yun Wŭn-hyŭng and Yun Im, the
trickster and the statesman,
had been wooing fortune for the premiership. The people called
Yun Im the “Big Yun” and Yun Wunhyung the “Little Yun.” The people are
not seldom the best judges of their rulers. During the short
reign of King In-jong
the friends of Yun Im had been in power and they had sedulously
kept all
evil-minded men, including Yun Wun-hyung, out of office. For this
reason it was that when the latter came into power he found
himself at the head
of a crowd of malcontents who thirsted first for the sweets of
office and
secondly for the sweets of revenge. Before King la-jong died “Little Yun” had poisoned
the mind of the [page 381]
incoming king’s
mother against “Big Yun” by asserting that he and
his friends were conspiring to prevent the accession of her son.
The Queen
Mother, as soon as she came to the regency sent word to “Little Yun” to put “Big Yun” and his associates to
death. He called the Chief of Police and gave orders to that effect but that careful
individual said that the men he was ordered to kill were honest
men and that he
would have nothing to do with it. “Little Yun” then sought audience with
the boy king and urged the matter, the Queen Mother adding her
voice to his
arguments. The courtiers said that it was mere heresay and so
long as the new
king had ascended the throne without any attempt at sedition the
matter ought
to be dropped; whereupon the Queen Mother flew into a passion
and screamed, “Do you want my son to sit
here and be murdered? I will have those men killed like snakes
in the fire.” She then ordered the courtiers
to retire, and the bowl of poison was sent to “Big Yun” and his friends. A
relative of the king, whom the Regent believed they intended to
make king
instead of her son, fled to Su-gwang
Monastery and hid in a cave behind it, but he was tracked down
and seized. They
brought him to Seoul and killed him by searing his body all over
with red hot
irons. “Little
Yun” was now the royal favorite, or at least the Regent’s
favorite, and the men
who had opposed the appointment of himself and his friends to
official position
were banished right and left or else killed.
We will remember that the Japanese
settlers had been driven from the three southern ports during
the reign of King
Chung-jong. An envoy now came saying that the Japanese settlers
were not to
blame for that uprising but that it was done by a band of
ruffians from the
islands, and they asked
to be allowed to resume the old friendly relations. Consent was
given but on
condition that twice a year tribute should be brought to Fusan
from Tsushima.
The Japanese who headed this embassy was called So-i Jön-sa.
This occurred in
the year 1548. The same year saw the famous books Kang-mok Chŭn-p’yŭng and Sok-kang-mok,
dealing with
Chinese history, and the military works Pal-myŭng Kang-eui, and
Mu-gyŭng Ch’ong-yo copied in Korea and
disseminated throughout the country. These are among the
[page 382] best known works in Korea
today. The common people execrated the favorite Yun Wŭn-kyŭng
and chafed under the
regency of the Queen Mother. They went so far as to put out
posters stating
that “We
are ruled by a woman, and her creatures are fattening off the
revenues of the
land. It means the destruction of the kingdom.” So far from learning a
lesson from this, the Regent said, “It is because we did not make thorough
work with the followers of ‘Big
Yun’.” She
therefore seized and killed above seventy more of them, all good
and honest
men.
It is generally believed that the
hardships endured by the people during this reign, because of
famines,
pestilences and other calamities, were a forerunner of the
terrible cataclysm
that swept over the land
during the following reign, in the great Japanese invasion.
These calamities
had begun in the very first year of the reign when a pestilence
swept the
province of Ham-gyŭng. The same year an enormous mass of rock
became detached
from the side of Samgak mountain back of Seoul and fell with
such a tremendous crash
that it was heard and felt in all the adjourning prefectures.
This was followed
by disastrous floods in various parts of the country whereby thousands of people
perished and vast amounts of property were destroyed. In the city of P’yungy’ang alone 720 houses fell
and 209 lives were lost.
It was in 1550 that and astronomical
instument was made, called the Sŭn-gi-ok-hyŭng or “Heaven Measure.” We are not
told the exact nature of the instrument, but it implies a
considerable degree
of intellectual activity and an inclination toward scientific
pursuits that is
rare in Korea.
The Queen Mother, as seems
to have been common with women of high degree in Korea, became a
confirmed
Buddhist. This tendency became so strong that in 1552 she had a
law made
requiring government sanction for a man to enter the priesthood,
and special
examinations were also required. A monk named Po U, an
unscrupulous but capable
man,
exercised immense influence at the palace. The courtiers
besought the king to
drive him away but as yet the Regent was too strong.
The following year the custom of
filling the ranks of the army by conscription was inaugurated.
All men over
fifteen years of age were supposed to give two or three years’ service.
[page 383] But it was not a success.
The military spirit has never been really strong in Korea since
the downfall of
ancient Ko-kuryu. The profession of arms has always been looked
down upon as an
inferior calling and so long as a living could be gained some
other way the
army has been shunned. The law of conscription was soon modified
so that the
payment of a modest sum, three hundred and fifty cash a year,
bought exemption from
service. Later the sum was raised to 10,000 cash and even to
20,000 in some
cases, but this included a large “squeeze” on the part of the officials.
The Queen Mother’s power came to an
end in 1554 when the king reached his twenty-first year. From
that point matters
began to mend. The ex-Regent and her minions lost a large part
of their power,
but other difficulties came up which took the place of those
which were thus
overcome. The wild tribe of Kol-gan-bul crossed the northern
border and harried
the border towns. When sixty of them had been caught and
beheaded the remainder
retired. A Japanese marauding band, returning from the coast of
China laden with
booty, landed on the Korean coast and were there captured and
sent to Nanking.
The next year seventy boat-loads of Japanese landed on the
Chŭl-la coast and
killed several prefects but the governor called about him a band
of soldiers and
routed the invaders. A hundred and twenty Japanese were killed
and all their
arms were captured.
One of the most signal victories the
Koreans ever scored over the pirates occurred in 1556. A
thousand or more of these
unwelcome neighbors landed at Tal-yang in Chŭl-la Province and
besieged the
town. Government troops were sent against them but were driven
back with great
loss. The O-ran,
Ma-do and Ka-ri harbor forts were besieged and taken and the
towns of
Chang-heung and Kang-jin were swept by the remorseless foe. Kim
Pin the admiral
of Chŭl-la Province, and the prefect of Kwang-ju were both badly
defeated in
their attempts to check this hostile advance.
Yi Yun-gyŭng, the prefect of Chŭn-ju
raised a force of 2000 men and marched toward the seat of war. An experienced
general warned him that he could do nothing but he replied “Then let my head pay the
price.”
He gave a written promise that if any of his men deserted he
would [page
384] forfeit his life, so great was
his confidence in the quality of his soldiers. Pushing rapidly
forward he first
encountered the Japanese at Hyang-gyo where he threw up
breastworks. He was to
have been reinforced by his brother but the latter sent, warning
him that it
was a hopeless case and urging him to retreat. He replied by
decapitating the
messenger and attacking the enemy single-handed. He warned his
men that the first
one to retreat would lose his head.
The leader of the Japanese rode a
powerful white horse and bore in his hand a yellow flag, and he
kept beating
his sword against the flagstaff with terrible clamor. Gen. Yi
began the attack
not by shooting at the Japanese themselves but by shooting fire
arrows into
their camp and among their baggage. When this was seen to be
well ablaze he
ordered a charge and singling out the conspicuous Japanese
leader soon laid him
low with one of the famous “needle
arrows.”
The enemy was soon in full retreat but their progress was
stopped by a high
ledge of rocks and there
they were brought to bay. It is said that 1800 Japanese perished
at this point.
This is but another sample of what Korean soldiery can do when
properly led.
The brilliant young leader was made governor of the province.
The Japanese who
escaped made their way across the straits into the island of
Quelpart, where
they demanded arms of the prefect, for they had cast away theirs
in their
precipitate flight. Instead of complying the prefect attacked
them, brandishing
an enormous battle-club. The victory was complete and the plain
was strewed
with the dead bodies of the foe.
When the king heard of these victories
he praised the troops and remitted all the revenue from the
prefectures where
the Japanese had created the disturbance.
A serious rebellion occupied public
attention in the year 1563. A butcher of Yang-ju named Im
Ko-jung gathered about
him a band of desperate highwaymen and began to plunder and burn in that
and the neighboring prefectures. Government troops chased them
into Ku-wŭl
Mountains where they were tracked with difficulty owing to the
fact that they
wore their shoes reversed in order to deceive their pursuers.
But the army surrounded
the whole mountain and, gradually working their way up, at last
brought the
offenders to bay and cut them down.
THE KOREA REVIEW
SEPTEMBER 1902
The
Treasures of Kyong-ju
.
From
the archaeological standpoint, the city of Kyöngju in Southern
Korea is
probably the most interesting point in Korea. It is not so old
as P’yŭng-yang but the northern city
goes back to such
an ancient time that it antedates the beginning of the real
historical period
and the common use of any written language; so that while, other
things being equal,
the northern city would be the more interesting, we know so much
less about it
than about the southern city that the latter takes the leading
place. To this
must be added the fact that Kyöng-ju
was the capital of ancient Silla, the first kingdom to assert
its sway over the
whole peninsula
and that it was during the days of Silla that Korea reached the
zenith of her skill in the
arts and sciences.
This southern city and its environs
are rich in historical remains but it is our purpose to speak
here only of the
six “Treasures
of Kyöng-ju,”
the heirlooms of the ancient realm. They were The Golden
Measure, The Twin Jade
Flutes. The Great Bell, The Jade Belt, The Golden Buddha and The
Nine-story
Pagoda.
The
GoIden
Measure
This
treasure has been lost. Pak Hyŭk-kŭse, the first king of Silla is said to have
dreamed that a spirit came to him and gave him a golden measure,
like an
ordinary yard-stick, and promised that if he should touch a sick
person with it
he would be [page 386] instantly cured and that even the
dead could be raised to life. When he awoke he found the measure
lying on the floor beside his bed. His first
act was to try it on the body of a man who had died that same
night. The spirit’s
words came true and the dead man was recalled to earth. One of
the Emperors of
the Han dynasty in China sent a special envoy asking that the
marvelous measure
be sent to him that he might look upon it and test its virtues;
but King Pak was naturally suspicious and
instead of complying he took the measure secretly and carried it
to a place
thirty li west of the capital and buried
it in the ground. The place is known to this day as
Keum-chŭk-dong (***) or “Place of the Golden
Measure.” The
secret of its exact location King Pak carried with him to his
grave, thinking,
perhaps, that it would be just as well that men should not have
the power to
reverse the laws of nature and call back the dead. It was
because of this
tradition that when the government, four years ago, was looking for
models for decorations it selected the Golden Measure as one;
and it is said
that some of the decorations to be conferred in October, 1902,
at the time of
the Jubilee in Seoul will be of this form.
The twin Jade Flutes
These
two instruments
are supposed to be, the one male and the other female. They are
not in reality
made of jade but of the leg-bone of the hak, a species of large white crane. The term
jade came to be used merely out of compliment and because the
color of the
flutes somewhat resembles that of jade. The “female” instrument presents a
mottled appearance being covered with green, black and yellow
spots. It is one
foot, seven and three-tenths inches long and three and four-tenths inches
in circumference. It is carved in the semblance of three joints
of bamboo. It
has nine
holes, five of which are now covered with silver. When the late
Regent, the Tăwŭn-kun,
was in power he caused both of the flutes to be brought to
Seoul. It has long
been believed that no sound could be made in these flutes except
in their own
city of Kyöng-ju. Whether this be true or not it was discovered
that in Seoul
not a note could be produced upon them. While these valuable
relics were in the
keeping of the regent one of the flutes, the “female” one, was accidentally
dropped and [page 387] broken and he had it mended with
silver, thus closing five of the nine holes. We know at least
one Korean who
saw these flutes while they were in Seoul.
The “male” flute is of a yellowish
color covered with black spots. Its length is one foot and five
and one-tenth inches.
It has eight holes, and four other small ones, besides, near the
end. Tradition
says that this twin treasure was the gift of the Dragon King of
the Eastern
Sea. It is preserved in the archives of the magistracy at Kyöng-ju.
The
Great Bell.
This
is the monster bell that
for centuries
tolled for
the opening and shutting of the gates of Kyöng-ju, or as it was then
called, Sŭ-ya-bŭl, from which by contraction is probably derived
the modern word
Seoul. At the height of the Silla power that capital contained
upwards of
178,900 houses giving an approximate population of 900,000
people. In its
immediate vicinity were forty-eight royal tombs. The whole list
of Silla Kings
is fifty-six, forty-eight of whom were buried and the rest were
cremated. This
great city was far greater than the present town. The great bell
hangs to-day
at a point fully a mile south of the city, at a place called
Pong-whang-dă (***)
or “ Phoenix Terrace.” The height of the bell is nine feet and three
inches. The diameter at its lip is seven feet, three and
seven-tenths inches.
Nearer the top its diameter is five feet. The thickness of the
metal is six and
three-tenths inches. It is made of what the Koreans call “green copper” and they say it weighs 120,000 pounds. The bell is so old that the
characters written on its side cannot be deciphered. History
says it was cast
by King Hyo-jong, the thirty-sixth of the dynasty, 765 that it
was originally
intended as a monastery bell and was placed at Pong-dŭk
Monastery a short
distance to the east of the town but that King Chŭn-sun in his
fourth year
moved it to its present site. This bell which is in actual
existence and has
been seen by a number of foreigners is slightly larger than the
great bell of
Seoul and is an unanswerable argument in favor of the theory
that Silla had made
very great
advance in the useful arts. The ability to cast such a bell
argues ability
along many other parallel lines.
The Jade Belt
This
precious heirloom of the Silla dynasty was lost many centuries
ago. Very little
[page 388] is known as to its origin
or as to the circumstances under which it disappeared, but
history tells us how
one of the later kings of Silla was chided by his suzerain of
China for having let
it be lost.
The Golden Buddha
This image
was made for Pun-whang Monastery, one li
outside the
east gate of Kyöng-ju but originally inside the Silla capital.
Its weight is
said to be 307,700 pounds! It stands–or rather sits—ten feet high. It is not
made of gold but of some other yellowish metal. It was
originally covered with
gold-leaf, at least we may so surmise from its name. It is still
to be seen,
seated among the ruins of a former splendid capital.
The Nine-story Pagoda
This
is another of the relics of the flowery days of Buddhism in
Korea. The
monastery at which this pagoda was built has long since
mouldered to dust but
the remains of the pagoda can still be seen a little outside the
present city
of Kyöng-ju.
It appears to have been built of black brick. The lower story is
five kan square or
about forty feet. Of the
nine original stories, each ten feet high, only the lower two
are now standing.
The interior is filled with earth and debris.
Such
are the six Treasures of Kyöng-ju,
but this by no means ends the list of curious relics. The people
of that city are
very proud of
what is called the Ch’ŭm-sŭng-dă (***) or “Astronomical Observatory Terrace.”‘ This is about a mile and
a half east of the city and was built by the twenty-seventh king of Silla, who,
by the way, was not a king but a queen, the first woman ruler
Korea ever saw.
This observatory is in the form of a well, built entirely above
ground. It is
built of stone thirty feet high and about ten feet across with a
small door at
the bottom to enter. The Koreans say that it was built like this
so that the
astronomers could watch the stars in the daytime. The Koreans
seem to have known
for many centuries that the stars are visible in the daytime
from the bottom of
a well.
Another ancient remain, whose original
use no one knows, is the Pan-wŭl-sŭng (***) or “Half Moon Wall.” This lies eight li
south-east of the city. It was built by the fifth king, P’a-sa (**) but during the reign of
the fourteenth king, Yu-rye, a great rain broke it down and [page
389]
today only a crescent
shaped bank remains. If the circle were completed it would be
3,023 feet in
circumference.
Korean
Currency.
Second
Paper
We
saw how King Suk-jong of the Koryŭ dynasty in about 1100 A. D.
forced upon the
people a new coinage whose name is lost. But the people had no
confidence in
it, both because of natural conservatism and because it had
little intrinsic
value. A man named Yun Whan (**)
said it would be necessary to mint silver money in which the
people could recognize
real value. The king complied and minted a flat silver coin in
the shape of a
bottle with the outline of the Korean Peninsula on it. In the
center was an
oblong hole. This was probably about an ounce in weight and was
called Whalgu (**) meaning “Wide Mouth,” referring to the oblong hole.
Very many Korean histories refer to this coin; such as the
Tong.guk Yŭk-sa(****). the Yŭ-sa Ch’an-yo (* ***) and the Yŭ-sa Che-gang (****)This money which is now
referred to as “bottle
money”
was received by the people with great reluctance but it slowly
made its way and
a century later it was in very common use. It was used very
feely in trade with
China which is a good indication of its intrinsic value. After
it had been in
vogue for some 160 years it suffered from the common Korean
cause. It was mixed
with copper, lead or nickel and the intrinsic value dropped many
degrees. By
the time Ch’ung-yŭl
came to the throne the proportion of silver put in the coins was
not more than
one third. The king therefore called in the degenerated coins
and melted down
or stored away those containing the largest percentage of base
metal, and with
the better portion bought from China, then in the hands of the
Mongols, a large
amount of discarded copper cash called Chiwŭn Pu-ch’o and Chungt’ong Pu-ch’o. At first the people took
to this money very kindly and it was used from 1275 to 1314 A.
d. when King Ch’ung-suk came to the throne.
His accession was the signal for the beginning of numerous
repairs upon the
palaces and [page 390]
the building of a new palace. The result was that the money in
circulation was
not sufficient, and in order to make up the deficit a
considerable amount of
the old debased silver money that had been preserved was put in
circulation at
a greatly reduced valuation. The next king, however, recalled
all this silver
currency and in place of it made a new issue of silver coin
whose quality was
fairly good. So things went on until the reign of King Kong-min
in 1538 by
which time all this silver money had disappeared, having
doubtless been hoarded
by the wealthier of the people. He therefore had to supplement
the currency in
some way. This he did by an issue of the old time linen government notes but
it was soon so torn and filthy that in the days of King Kong-yang, 1388, a new issue of
silver money was made.
The dynasty was now drawing to its
close. The trade relations with the Mongols who had been driven
from Peking were
still very strong and Mongol paper money passed freely in the
Koryŭ capital. At
the advice of General Yi, who held practically all the power at
court, and who
later became the founder of the present dynasty, the king issued
a paper currency
after the style of the Mongol; but many of the officials
objected strongly,
with the result that the entire issue was laid aside.
When Yi T’ă-jo founded the present
dynasty in 1392 he did not do away with the existing monetary
system but
silver, copper, and linen money continued in circulation. In the
ninth year of
his reign, 1401, he brought out the paper money that had been
stored up at his
advice and put it on the market. But it was not long before this
unsubstantial
medium was worn out and disappeared. And then came the first
regular coinage of
the present dynasty in the shape of a copper coin bearing
the words Cho-sŭn T’ong-bo (****). This is the coin now
sometimes picked up from fortune-tellers who claim that it has
come down from
the days of ancient Cho-sŭn, years before Christ. This of course
cannot be
true, for various reasons, among which the strongest is that the
writing on
these coins is in the square character which was not used till
long after the
fall of Ancient Cho-sŭn,
In the second year of King
Hyo-jong’s
reign, 1650, a second issue of coin was made bearing the legend
Sang-p’yŭng
[page 391] T’ong-bo ( ****). Some were made of
copper, some of nickel, some of brass and some of a mixture of
zinc. Some was
made at a government mint at Seoul, some was made at Kang-wha,
some was made at
Song-do and some was made within the precincts of the Finance
Department, then
called the Hojo ( **).
There were two other places in Seoul where cash was minted, one
of them being
at the site of the barracks inside the Little West Gate.
This money was called yŭp-jŭn (**) or “Leaf-money,” the idea being that, like a
leaf of a tree, each piece was complete in itself, a unit. It
was in continuous
use from 1650 till 1866, shortly after the present ruler
ascended the throne
with the late Tă-wŭn-kun as Regent. The elevation to power of the Regent was the signal for
the rebuilding of the Kyöngbok Palace which had lain in ashes
since the
Japanese invasion of 1592. He found the main difficulty in this
scheme to be
the lack of a sufficient circulating medium and what there was
did not seem to
come readily into the government coffers. He made a startling
departure from
the ancient customs by minting what was called the Tang-băk-jŭn
(***) or “Equivalent-of-a-hundred
money.”
It purported to be a hundred-cash piece but in reality it was
something like
one sixteenth the value of a hundred cash in yŭp-jun. These
pieces were paid to
laborers on the new palace at their face value, but the public
was well aware
of the discrepancy and the price of all commodities immediately
soared to a
point that seemed ruinous. It soon became evident to all that
this state of
things could not continue. As a second attempt, the Regent sent
to China and
purchased an enormous amount of discarded Manchu cash and
brought it by way of Eui-ju in carts. This was
put in circulation and was recognized as being a relief from the
former state
of things although far from being setisfactory. The inscription
being in Manchu
made the money a sort of joke on the Korean people and it was
evident that it
was only a temporary makeshift. It was in 1872, after Japan had
begun to bring
the influence of her new status to bear upon Korea, that a five
cash piece was
determined upon at Seoul. It was intended as an equivalent of
the Japanese one
sen piece. This cash was called Tang-o (**) “Equal to Five.” But it is hardly necessary
to say [page 392]
that one of them was not equivalent to five of the good old yup. The system of
minting did not
conduce to the best quality of money for the custom was to grant
a license to a
man to erect a certain number of forges and to run them at full
blast on
condition that for each day he should turn over to the
government a certain
amount of cash. From time to time he had to send in to the
palace a sample of
the coin he was making, to insure the quality, but, as is well
known, goods are
not always up to sample in quality, and the pressure would
always be toward a
deterioration iu the quality of the money. Almost immediately
the exchange value
of this Tang-o began to fall, until in 1890 it was worth only
half its face
value in yup. It was only three years later that it fell to one
fifth its face
value and was exactly equivalent to the Yŭp, piece for piece.
Meanwhile, in 1886 a crude silver coin
in three sizes was made. It bore the device of a blue enamelled
Tă-geuk in the center, the being
the circular figure in the center of the Korean flag. We are not
aware that
this was ever put into actual circulation, though about 1890
they were not at
all difficult to procure for a little above their face value.
Then again in 1889 a
thoroughly good silver dollar was issued. It was done with the
help of the
Japanese and was equivalent in quality and finish to the
Japanese silver yen. This
was put in circulation but very soon disappeared. It is
impossible to learn how
great the issue was but it was evidently small for within two
years it was all
hoarded by thrifty Koreans, one of whom, to our knowledge, is
credited with having
a water-crock full of them, burial in the ground some where.
This was followed
in 1892 by an issue of twentycent silver coins but these were
seized upon with
even greater avidity and five years later not one was to been
seen in circulation,
They were
evidently considered by Koreans too nice to be knocking about
from pillar to
post; so they were put away safely. At the same time a one-cent
copper piece
and a five-cent nickel piece were issued. These were of too
small intrinsic
value to be worth hoarding and have become the common medium of
exchange in all the large centers
in Korea, though a little off the main roads the people will
handle nothing but
the old time copper cash.
[page 393] The Products of Korea.
Chestnuts
Koreans
believe that this tree is not indigenous but came from Western
China at Eumsan
(**). The
Chinese character for chestnuts is the character for “west” with “tree” beneath. The Koreans call
it pam. It grows all over Korea but the best
are said to come from Yang-ju a few miles out the East gate of
Seoul. It must
be confessed that in point of size the Korean chestnut is as
fine as can be
found. It is commonly about the size of our “horse chestnut.” The very smallest one
would be larger than the largest in America, but it is not as
sweet. Chestnuts
are eaten either fresh or boiled or roasted or dried. One of the
commonest
sights along the streets in Korea is that of a boy sitting
beside a little
hollow, scooped in the ground and lined with clay, turning
chestnuts in a
charcoal fire with a pair of bamboo tongs, while with the other
hand he fans
the fire. Boiled and roasted chestnuts are ground up into flour
and used with
honey making cakes called ta-sik,
“tea-cakes.” Fresh chestnuts are
commonly eaten and are much used in sacrifices. The juice is
sometimes
expressed and used as a lotion for centipede bites. The wood of
the chestnut
tree is used in making ancestral tablets and various kinds of
furniture.
The Koreans do not take chestnuts
seriously as a food product, as so many of the Italians do but
they are eaten rather
as a delicacy.
Walnuts.
This
is what we call the English Walnut and grows commonly throughout
Korea. It goes
under three names, ho-do,
kang-do and
ha-do, the first two meaning “wild peach” and the third “seed peach.” The idea of peach comes
from the resemblance in size and shape of the walnut husk to a
peach. The ho and the
kang both mean “wild,” but while ho
means any wild tribe, kang
refers to the western wild tribes.
The ha-do or
seed-peach is so called
because while it resembles a peach when in the husk, only the seed is eaten. They say
that during the
former Han [page 394]
dynasty in China a man named Chang-gön brought the first walnuts
from the
extreme south-west near the borders of Persia and since that
time they have
become common in China and Korea. They came to Korea about 1500
years ago during
the days of Silla. To-day they are most plentiful at Hap-chŭn on
the Nak-tong
River in Kyönig-sang
Province. There are only three of these trees in Seoul. One at
the Ancestral
Temple, one at the Chang-dŭk Palace and one in the present
German Consulate
grounds. Koreans say that if a hungry person eats walnuts they
will make him
still hungrier. For this reason the children have a conundrum
which says “What do you eat when the
stomach is already full? “ The
answer is “walnuts.” A person who is
pock-marked is called “walnut-faced,” referring to the roughness
of the walnut meat. These nuts are eaten fresh but the oil is
sometimes expressed
and used as a medicine, as we use castor oil.
Jujubes
The
Korean name for this common fruit is tacho,
“great
jujube,”
but in the north there is a variety that is called ho-ch’o or “wild
jujube.”
This northern variety is said to have come from China during the
days of Koguryŭ, 36 A.D.-672 A. D. The ordinary jujube is
smaller but sweeter than the northern variety and is said to
have come from
Southern China in the days of Silla. The very best ones, to-day,
come from Ch’ŭng-san
and Po-eun in Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province. They are eaten fresh or
cut up and put in
a kind of batter, just as peanuts are put in candy at home. They
are used to
sweeten certain sauces and medicines as well. They are offered
in sacrifices
and when a girl marries she presents a dish of them to her
husband’s father. They
are often used in making confectionery. This fruit, tă-ch’o, is
the one so
often mistakenly called “date” by the foreigner; but it
has no relation to that fruit. It is the black-thorn or jujube.
Tizyphus jujuba. The
regular tă-ch’o of
Korea is of three varieties (1)
mil-ch’o or “honey jujube;” (2) pak’ch’o or “white
jujube;” and (3) hong-ch’o
or “red
jujube”
These three terms are self-descriptive. The ho-ch’o of the north is of two kinds (1) ma-ch’o or “plum-jujube” and (2) chung-ch’o or “blue jujube.” The jujube wood is very hard and is often used for mallet heads. Koreans believe that
the jujube
tree has a peculiar affinity for
electricity [page 395] and
therefore if a man wears
a piece of the wood on his person evil spirits will not dare to
come near him
for fear of being struck by lightning. The jujube is supposed to flower on
the first of the dog days and if it rains the flowers will fall
and spoil the crop: so they say, “If it rains on the first of
the dog days the unmarried girls will all cry,” because there will be no
jujubes to offer their fathers-in-law.
Ginko
This
tree grows to a great
size in
Korea and attains an age of seven or eight hundred years. Its
Korean name is eun-hang or “Silver Apricot” because its white nuts
though small are shaped something like an apricot. This species
of tree was
introduced into Korea during the early days of the Koryŭ dynasty
or about a
thousand years ago. The nuts are baked and eaten. In South China
this tree is
called Yŭng-an or “bright
eyes” because the white nuts
bear a remote resemblance to an eyeball. In North China it is
called păk-kwa or “white fruit.” Both these names are used
in Korea. This is one of the trees in which the male and female
principles are
developed in different individuals. One tree will be a female
tree and another
one will be a male. Unless trees of both sexes grow near
together there will be
no fruit. The Koreans say they must be within view of each
other, though the
reflection in a pond is sufficient. The Koreans cherish the
peculiar notion
that if a piece be cut out of the side of a female tree and a
corresponding piece from a male tree be inserted in the wound
and fastened with
grafting wax the tree will ever after be fertile, even though
there be no male
tree in the vicinity. The nuts are supposed to be slightly toxic
in quality and
injurious to children. They are used in medicines and
confectionery of
different kinds, as well as in sacrifices. Koreans declare that
the flowers of
this tree open only at night and it is so unusual for a person
to see the
flower that it is supposed to be a sign of death to see one.
Hazel nut.
This
is called ka-yam and
is supposed to
have come from the mountains of Manchuria. It is believed to be
very healthful,
and is eaten fresh, or ground into a meal and made into a soup.
The name of the
hazelnut has been enshrined in the traditions of Korea by what
is known as the “Hazel-nut Battle.” In the days of Koryŭ an
[page 396] army crossed the Yalu and penetrated Liao-tung
to punish an enemy. While these troops were stopping in a walled
town they were
surrounded and besieged by a miscellaneous array of bandits,
free-lances and
adventurers. Their food gave out and it seemed as if they must
surrender. But
as a last resort one of the generals ordered three bags of
hazel-nuts to be
distributed among the soldiers on the wall. They were then
ordered to begin
cracking the nuts with their teeth all at once. The common
Korean is a fairly
noisy eater, anyway, but when the sound of cracking nuts was
added, the noise penetrated
the camp of the besieging force and demonstrated that the Korean
soldiers were
not at all pressed
for food. So, at least, it seemed. The siege was raised, but as
the besiegers started
away the Korean army
made a sortie, struck them in the rear and put them to
ignominious flight.
Pine nuts
These
nuts are the fruit of a common species of pine called chat-namu, It is closely allied to the
PinusPinea of Southern Europe, if
indeed it be not identical with that tree. This tree grows best in central Korea and is
said by
Koreans to
be common also in western China. It appears to be an indigenous
variety.
Tradition says that pine nuts were first eaten in China at the
time of the Chu dynasty, 1122-255 B.C. The date of its adoption
as an article of food in Korea is not known but it must have
been at an early
date for the pine nut is mentioned as a constituent element in
certain Silla
dishes. The story is told that when as yet the use of the pine
nut as food was
unknown a boy while cracking apricot seeds picked up a pine nut from the
ground and cracked it. He found the kernel much to his taste and
from that time
the nut rapidly became a favorite with the Korean. They are used
in cakes and
candy and the oil is expressed and used in mixing the red ink
used for seals
and stamps, and also for other purposes.
The
Korean Telegraph and Postal Services.
We have received a neat brochure
entitled Notice sur le Service Postal et
Telegraphique de l’Empire de Corée par J. H. Muhlensteth,
Conseiller Inspecteur des Telegraphes Impériaux, [page 397] et E. Clemencet, Conseiller Inspecteur des Postes
Impériales; avec l’approbation de son Excellence le
Colonel Ho Sang Min,Directeur Général des Communications.” It is divided into four
chapters, the first dealing with the Central Organization, the
second with
Telegraphs, the third with the Telephone and the fourth with the
Post Office. It will be impossible to
give it in full but that portion which gives the history of the
beginning and
progress of the telegraphic and postal systems are of such
interest that we
have translated them for the readers of the Review,
This we give below.
THE
TELEGRAPH SERVICE.
Up
to the year 1883 Korea was without telegraphic communication. At
that time the
Japanese laid a submarine cable from Nagasaki to the Korean port
of Fusan with
an intermediate station at Tsushima islands. A little later, in
1885, China, taking advantage
of her Suzerain
rights, deputed Mr. J. H. Muhlensteth,
a telegraph engineer who had been in her service many years ani
who formerly
had been
an employee of the Danish Telegraph System, to construct a land
telegraph line
from Chemulpo by way of Seoul and P’yŭng-yang to Eui-ju on the Yalu
River opposite the Chinese frontier post of An-tong-chyen, which
had connection
with the general system of Chinese telegraphs. This line toward
the north-west
was for many years the only means of telegraphic communication
between the
capital of Korea and the outside world. It was worked at the
expense and under
the control of the Chinese government and it was not until the
time of the Japan-China
war, in the course of which the line was almost entirely
destroyed, that it was
reconstructed by the Korean government.
In 1889 the Korean government built a line from Seoul to Fusan.
After the Japan-China war lines were also run between Seoul and
Wonsan and
between Seoul
and Mokpo.
After that, and notably during recent
years, continuous progress has been made in the extension of the
system of domestic
telegraphs. The total development in the interior has reached
3500 kilometers,
divided into twenty-seven bureaus and employing 113 men as
directors,
engineers, secretaries and operators and 303 as subalterns. The
Morse system is
[page 398] in
use. The electricity is generated by the use of the Leclanche batteries.
Horse relays are kept at different telegraph centers in the
interior to
facilitate communication with points far distant from the
capital.
Telegrams may be sent either in the
native Korean script
or in Chinese, or in the code used by the Chinese administration
or in the
different foreign languages authorized by the International
Telegraph
Agreement.
The
proof of the prosperity of the Korean Telegraph Service is seen
in the progress
made year by year in the number of telegrams sent and the
receipts as shown in
the following table:
1899
Telegrams sent
112,450; receipts
$50,686.89 1900
125,410;
72,443.26
1901
152,485;
86,830.86
THE POSTAL SERVICE.
The
establishment of the Imperial Postal System in Korea is
comparatively recent.
For many years, in fact for many centuries, Korea had no postal service as we
conceive of it. An official courier service was maintained by
the King in order
to carry on correspondence with different provincial
governments. These
couriers travelled by horse relays established at various points
in the
country. But only the King and high officials could use it. It
was an expensive
affair employing 5000 post horses and an army of employees of
all grades which
had to be paid and supported without any profit to the treasury.
Private
correspondence was carried on through the medium of travellers or pedlars, the
sender having to arrange privately with the carrier in each
instance.
In 1877, Japan, who had entered the
Postal Union and had concluded a treaty with Korea, established
postal bureaus at
Fusan. Wonsan and Chemulpo for the needs of her nationals, who
were already
quite numerous in Korea. In 1882 the Customs Administration also
established a
sort of postal system between the different open ports and
between Korea and
China. But these organisations were limited to correspondence
between open
ports, and whoever wished to send a letter into the interior had
to make
private arrangements.
In 1884 the government of Korea made a
first attempt to [page 399] establish
an official postal system accessible to all. The loss of public
documents makes
it impossible
for us to give the details of the genesis of this unsuccessful
attempt. The official
appointed to direct the postal service became a mark for the
animosity of the
party in power which, on the very day the service was
inaugurated, raised an
emeute in the course of which the new post office was looted and
burned and the Director-general
badly wounded.
It was not until 1895, after the close of the
Japan-China war and the return
of tranquility and security, that the Korean Postal Service was
at last
established under the direction of a Japanese. For several years
this service
was confined to Korea herself and did not undertake any foreign
business. This
condition of things rendered very complicated the exchange of
international
correspondence which could not leave the country without adding
the
international postage to the domestic, nor come in without
adding the domestic to
the international postage.
In 1897 the Korean government determined to join the Postal Union
and to this end sent two representatives to the Universal Postal
Congress held
at Washington in May and June of that year. They signed the
international
agreement. Finally in preparation for this new state of things,
the government
secured the services of H. Clemencet,
Esq., in 1898,
as adviser and instructor to the Postal Bureau. He had been a
member of the
Postal and Telegraph Bureau of France and his mission in Korea
was to arrange
for the introduction of reforms, to modify existing plans so as
to harmonize
them with the exigencies of the situation and to form and
instruct a class of
young men and prepare them to fulfil the general obligations of
their
profession according to the rules adopted by all the countries
in the Postal
Union.
January 1st, 1900, the date of Korea’s
entrance into the Postal Union, marked the definite existence of
a Korean Postal
Service.
The Service comprises, in addition to
the central bureau at Seoul, thirty-seven postal stations in
full operation and
326 sub-stations open to the exchange of ordinary or registered
correspondence,
whether domestic or foreign. Seven hundred and forty-seven letter boxes have been distributed throughout [page 400] postal circuits in charge
of these
stations Only the stations in full operation are carried on by
agents or
sub-agents under the control of the Director-general of
Communications to the number
of 756, of which 114 are agents and secretaries and 642 are
couriers, watchmen,
etc. The management of secondary offices is in the hands of
local country
magistrates under the control of the Ministry of the Interior
and has no connection
with Department of Communications except in so far as the
control and
management of the postal system is directly affected.
A network of land postal routes,
starting out from Seoul along seven main highways, is run daily
in both
directions by postal couriers. Each of the large country offices controls a courier
service among a network of secondary routes which in turn
connect it with the
smaller country offices. These secondary offices are served
three times a week
by unmounted postal couriers. This land courier service is
carried on by 472 foot
couriers whose employment occasions one of the heaviest charges
that figure in
the Annual Korean Postal Budget.
Each foot courier carries on his back
a maximum load of twenty kilograms. When the mail matter exceeds
this limit extra
men or pack horses are employed. He has to cover daily a minimum distance of
forty kilometers. Each
man’s route is back and forth between two of the large centers.
His lodging
places between the two points are as near as possible at places
where there are
secondary offices or letter boxes. In central Korea and in the
south and the
north-west each route is covered, back and forth, in five days.
In the north
and north-east eight days are required for each round trip.
The dispatch of postal couriers to the
interior will be greatly facilitated by the construction, (soon,
it is to be
hoped) of railway lines from Seoul to Fusan in the south-east and to Song-do to the north
and ultimately to Eui-ju. The work of construction on both these
lines has been
begun and is being pushed without interruption. Connection
between Seoul and the
port of Chemulpo has been rendered easy and rapid by means of
the railroad over
which five or six trains run daily each way. This trip, which
formerly took at
least eight hours now takes but an hour and three quarters. A
special clause in
the contracts between the government and the concessionaries [page 401] of all these roads
stipulates that all mail matter be carried free on each regular
train, together
with a postal agent.
Besides these land courier services
the Postal administration has made use, since Korea joined the
Postal Union, of
various maritime services for forwarding mail matter to the
different Korean
ports and also the dispatch of foreign mail. The different
steamship companies
which carry Korean mail are (1)
The Nippon Yuseu Kaisha whose boats touch at Kobe, Nagasaki,
Fusan, Mokpo
(occasionally), Chemulpo, Chefoo, Taku, Wonsan and Vladivostock. (2)
The Osaka Shosen Kaisha boats which touch at Fusan, Masanpo,
Mokpo, Kunsan,
Chemulpo and Chinnampo. The last port is closed by ice from
December to March.
(3) The Chinese Eastern Railway Seagoing Company, whose boats
ply between
Vladivostock and Shanghai by way of Nagasaki, Chemulpo, Port
Arthur, and Chefoo
(4) Various regular coastwise vessels both Korean and Japanese.
The total length of the different
interior postal routes is as follows. . Railway 40 kilometers;
land routes 7382
kilo.; coastwise routes 3200 kilo, making a total of 10622
kilometers. The
total annual amount of ground covered by these different methods
is about
2,311,900 kilometers. The following table shows the amount of
mail matter
carried and the receipts from 1895 to 1 90 1 inclusive.
Year
Pieces of mail matter
Receipts.
1895
192,000
$2, 200 1896
415,000
6,300
1897
636,000
8,400
1898
763,000
9,900
1899
970,000
12,700
1900 (EnteredPostal Union) 1, 300,000 20,600 1901 1,703,000
27,130
Odds
and Ends.
Cats and the Dead
About
two centuries and a half ago a boy, who later became the great scholar Sa Chă, went to bed one
night after a hard day’s work on his [page 402] Chinese. He had not been
asleep long when he awoke with a start. The moon was shining in
at the window
and dimly lighting the room. Something was moving just outside
the door. He lay
still and listened. The door swung of its own accord and a tall
black object
came gliding
into the room and took its place in the corner silently. The boy
mastered his fear and continued
gazing into the darkness at his ominous visitor. He was a very
strong-minded
lad and after a while, seeing that the black ghost made no
movement, he turned over
and went to sleep. The moment he awoke in the morning he turned
his eyes to the
corner and there stood his visitor still. It was a great black
coffin standing
on end with the lid nailed on and evidently containing its
intended occupant.
The boy gazed at it a long while and
at last a look of relief came over his face. He called in his
servant and said:
“Go down to the village and
find out who has lost a corpse.”
Soon the servant came running back
with the news that the whole village was in an uproar. A funeral
had been in progress
but the watchers by the coffin
had fallen asleep and when they awoke coffin and corpse had disappeared.
“Go and tell the chief
mourner to come here.”
When that excited individual appeared
the boy called him into the room and, pointing to the corner,
said quietly --
“What is that?”
The hemp-clad mourner gazed in wonder and
consternation. “That? That’s my father’s coffin. What have you
been doing? You’ve
stolen my father’s body and disgraced me forever.”
The boy smiled and said, “How could I
bring it here? It came of its own accord. I awoke in the night
and saw it
enter.”*
The mourner was incredulous and angry.
“Now I will tell you why it came here,” said
the boy.
“You have a cat in your house and it must be that it jumped over
the coffin. This was such an offense
to the dead that by some occult power, coffin, corpse and all
came here to be
safe from further insult. If you don’t believe it send for your
cat and we will
see.” The challenge was too direct to refuse and a servant was
sent for the
cat. Meanwhile the mourner tried to lay the coffin down on its
side, but, with
all his strength, [page 403] he
could not
budge it an inch. The boy came up to it and gave it three
strokes with his hand
on the left side and a gentle push. The dead recognized the
master hand and the
coffin was easily laid on its side. When the cat arrived and was
placed in the
room the coffin of its own accord rose on end again, a position in which it was
impossible for the cat to jump over it. The wondering mourner
accepted the
explanation and that day the corpse was laid safely in the ground. But to this
day the watchers beside the dead are particularly careful to see
that no cat
enters the mortuary chamber lest it disturb the peace of the deceased.
Crow-talk.
This
same Sa Chă
had a
younger brother, Mo Chă. One dav Sa Chă said “There’s some meat
somewhere. Let’s go and get some.” Mo Cha looked at him and
laughed. “How do you know there’s some meat?”
“Why,
two crows just passed over our heads and I heard one of them
tell the other
that there was some good meat over yonder.” So the two of them
went to find the
meat. They neared
a house and there in front of it lay a dead man. Sa Chă was disgusted. “The miserable crow!
So this is the meat he meant.
I might have known as much.”
As they turned to leave a man came
rushing out of the house and accused them of being
body-snatchers. They
protested their innocence but the man leaped upon them and bound
them. They
were taken to the
magistrate’s jail and the next morning came up for trial. To the
serious charge
of body-stealing Sa Chă answered:
“It is all a mistake. I heard a crow
say there was some meat over there and so went to find it, but
came upon a
corpse. That is all.”
The mngistrate looked at him curiously
and exclaimed “You’re
crazy. What do you mean by saying you can understand the language of the
birds?”
“It’s true, nevertheless;
give me a trial if you do not believe it.” Just then a little
boy was playing
with a young sparrow that he had caught in the court yard. The
magistrate
ordered it brought in and shut up in a closet. The mother bird
and her mates
were clamoring outside.
“What are they saying?” demanded the magistrate. [page
404] Sa Chă was in a quandary. He could understand crows
but not chattering sparrows. Yet he put on a bold face and said:
“The parent bird is saying “What is the use of
capturing my little fledgling? You cannot use its feathers, you
cannot use its
flesh, you cannot use its bones. You had better give it back.” The magistrate recognized
the parallel, for Sa Chă meant
by this interpretation that he himself had neither money, goods
nor land and
there was nothing to be gotten by shutting him up. The
magistrate gave a laugh
and discharged the case,
A Convert to Buddhism
A
great scholar of Chulla Province named Kim, of chinsa rank was on his way to Seoul to take the
great national
examination, called Whe-si, which is the highest kind
of examination. As he was passing Chi-ri San he turned aside for
a day to climb
this celebrated mountain whose praises he had often heard sung.
While tramping
among the fastnesses of the mountain he came to a great
monastery whose
occupants were diligently studying the Buddhist classics. He
fell into
conversation with one of the monks.
“Your religion,” said he, “if it became universal
would depopulate the earth in a few years,” referring to its
monastic tendency.
“Not so,” answered the monk,
“Buddhism
does not enjoin universal celibacy but only moderation and self
control; so
that although it would doubtless retard the multiplication of
the race it would
not stop it.”
“But your law against eating
meat is all wrong. It flies in the face of the natural laws of nature.”
“But just think a moment,”
replied the monk. “Every
man when born into the world is sent here to perform some work.
Heaven designs
him to accomplish some specific task; and so with the animals,
they have
intelligence and are sent to do work. The ox plows, the dog
watches, the cat
catches mice. If I then eat these creatures I am contravening
the plan of my Maker and theirs.
“But we eat oxen when they
have gotten so old that they cannot work any more,* and not to
do so would be
to re fuse one of the best gifts of Heaven.” ----------------
[*We vouch for the truth of this. (Ed. K. R.)]
[page 405] “You think so? Well, how
about the words of your great
sage Mencius
where he says
“It is all
right for a man to eat beef that someone else has slaughtered
but no one would think
of slaughtering the animal himself? If you were all Menciuses
you never would
get any beef to eat--eh?”
Kim thought a moment and then tearing
off his hat cried, “Bring
a pair of shears and take my hair off. Your argument is
conclusive. From this
hour I am a
monk.”
They gave him the tonsure and he
plunged into the study of the mystic philosophy of Buddhism.
Before long he had
mastered its profoundest tenets; even the depths of the
Keum-gang-gyŭng or “The Diamond Sutra.” His fame spread through
the eight Provinces.
His relatives were scandalized and
sought every means to shame him out of his new rôle. They hit
upon a plan which
seemed to promise success. They invited him to come and enjoy a
boating party
with them at No-dol Ferry where the Han bridge now stands. He
complied, and
during the festivities they pressed upon him some boiled fish
thinking that if they
could tempt him to eat it they could afterward shame him out of
his Buddhist
pretensions by showing that he had broken the law against eating
flesh. He
seemed to fall into the trap and partook of the fish but soon
after he
pretended to be sick and went to the prow of the boat where he
vomited into the
water. The matter ejected from his stomach sank into the water
and immediately
turned into a great shoal of fish. He called to the boatmen to
cast their
fish-lines and soon the whole company were feasting on a new and
delicious species
of fish –all
but the monk. Then after the wine cup had commenced to circulate they began to
make ready to banter him upon his breaking the Buddhist law, but
at that point
he sprang to the bank and called back:
“Gentlemen I must leave you now. You thought to entrap
me but I think the tables have been turned, for the fish of
which you have been
partaking so avidly came from the refuse which I ejected from my
stomach.”
They never thought to question the truth of this
and went home sadly crestfallen. The fish whose species originated
on that day is called the Kong-ji and still is found at
Nodol Naru, but nowhere else in Korea.
[page 406] Editorial Comment.
In
reviewing the events of the past month the one that stands forth
most
prominently is the outbreak of cholera in Seoul. It worked its
way slowly down
from the north presenting many features which were new to the
medical
profession but showing unmistakeable signs of its true nature.
It seems to be a
mild type in that it spreads very slowly and jumps from place to
place
selecting, it would seem, those who are physically weak or unable to
withstand the germ. A very
large part of those attacked have recovered. For a time the
ordinary death rate
has been increased seven
fold but this is nothing compared with the summer of 1886 which is still looked
back to with a shudder by the Koreans, nor even compared with
1895 when so many
of the foreigners in Seoul put their shoulder to the wheel and
labored through
the hot summer at the improvised cholera hospital near the East
gate. Nor has
the attack been wide spread. The country districts generally have net been infected. The
curious notion prevails in the country that Seoul is being
decimated and that
five or six thousand deaths are occurring each day. There is no
doubt that a
good many people in Seoul have been badly frightened for a
gentleman coming in
from the
country reports that he met great numbers of people making their way to the
country
to escape the pestilence.
This attack has been very unfortunate
for the government. All the arrangements had been made for the
Jubilee which
was to begin the middle of October and many foreign envoys and
guests were on
their way from distant points. This calamity therefore fell upon
Korea much as
the illness of King Edward
did upon England,
only in lesser degree. The government acted with great good sense in
postponing the festivities for it is certain that such a great
concourse of people
at Seoul, as would have been inevitable, would have greatly increased the danger
of spreading the cholera. It is needless to say that the
withdrawal of
government support from the Board of Health was most
shortsighted as the event proved.
Had that board been heartily supported and had [page 407] careful and vigilant
measures been taken Seoul might have been spared this visitation
and the
government spared the mortification of having to withdraw its
invitations to
the Jubilee. The brunt
of the responsiblity rests upon the shoulders of a single Korean
official whom
it is not necessary for us to name.
Another important event has been the
forgathering of protestant missionaries from all parts of Korea
to attend
annual meetings of various kinds. First came the Council of
Presbyterian Missions at which a
common creed, a common church and a common hymnal were decided
upon. This is a long
step in the direction of church union and as such is of far-reaching importance. Next
came the Annual Meeting of the Southern Presbyterian Mission
with its small but
earnest band of workers every one of whom was in
attendance. Then came the Annual Meeting of the Northern
Presbyterian Mission
which is able to point to upwards of 20,000 Koreans won to
active and energetic
Christian life. Rev. Mr. Soper of Japan in a recent issue of The Evangelist said
that unless Japan is
Christianized Korea and China cannot be. To this we must object.
The Korean
temperament is widely different from the Japanese and events
that are now
happening point to the rapid evangelization of Korea. The Korean
church will
rejoice at every success which the Gospel achieves in Japan but
it is not possible that Korea
should wait for the light until Japan is reclaimed from
darkness.
At the same time the Southern
Methodist Mission is holding its Annual Meeting in Seoul under
the presidency
of Bishop Galloway. Aggressive work is planned along every avenue of approach and the
coming year will be one of intense activity in evangelistic and
educational
lines.
It was ten years ago that the P’yŭng-yang station of the Presbyterian
Mission was established. To-day it is has 135 churches and
chapels built and
paid for almost wholly out of native funds; 185 places of
regular meeting, all
self-supporting; 21 unordained native preachers; 3100
communicants, of whom 642
were received during the past year; 121 22 adherents including
communicants and
catechumens; 41 schools; 740 scholars; 14 churches built during
the past year;
and [page 408] native contributions to
the extent of $8800
during the year, or about $3000 in U. S. gold. It looks very
much as if
Christianity were to form the main civilizing agent in Korea
rather than follow
in the footsteps of commerce.
The
Seoul Chemulpo Challenge Cup Tennis Tournament has been fought
to a finish and
the challengers have won fairly and squarely by superior play.
It is hardly
necessary to attempt an explanation of the causes for Seoul’s
failure, since the
fact is patent that she was outplayed. If we ask why she was
outplayed there is
only one reply --lack
of careful and persistent practice. In the first match, for
instance, it was not
the superior individual play of the Chemulpo pair that won the
event but
careful team play. The Seoul players have been practicing with
balls of half a
dozen different
qualities and on various courts, while the Chemulpo players have
had uniform
balls and one
court. The lack of systematic practice on the part of the Seoul
players is a
thing that can be remedied and when Seoul challenges Chemulpo
next Spring there
should be no such one-sided
play as we have seen this Autumn.
We
confess that we have little sympathy with the methods that
certain journals in
Japan have adopted in trying to throw contempt upon the mission
of Hon. John
Barrett, Commissioner General to Asia for the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition of
1904. He was appointed to bring the matter clearly and strongly
before the
people of the Far East. To this end certain things were
necessary. His was not
a diplomatic position and yet the successful accomplishment of
it required that
his name and office should be brought as prominently before the
people and
governments of the East as that of an important diplomat. It is
not a position
that every man would envy. It carried with it the necessity of
standing full in
the public eye and demanded the use of all the prestige that
could be brought
to bear. If in the prosecution of this work Mr. Barrett has
bulked larger in
the public eye than seems compatible with the modest and
retiring disposition
of the Kobe Chronicle
or any other
journal, some other method of attack should be adopted than to
insinuate,
without the [page 409] fullest
proof, that Mr. Barrett was practically the author of the personal notices
that have appeared. This method of attack reflects severely upon
those who have
used it. There are few things more ungenerous or unfair than to
impute evil motives
when the facts are easily susceptible of a fair and creditable
explanation. In
Japan Mr. Barrett was eminently successful. By his efforts the
amount of money
to be invested by the Japanese government was multiplied many
fold. Whether
this is a wise expenditure we do not know, though we believe it
is; but whether
it be wise or not it is the work Mr. Barrett came to do and he
seems to have
done it well. In doing it a large degree of personal notoriety
was inevitable; but
that this was Mr. Barrett’s main purpose is simply ungenerous
and unworthy surmise.
News
Calendar.
On
the last day of August Nam Kung-uk, the energetic and capable
editor of the Whang-sung Sin-mun, resigned from that position
together with Na Su-yŭn, the assistant editor. The editorship
was placed in the
hands of Chang Chi-yŭn. whose sympathies are quite in line with
those of the
former editor.
Kim
Keui-jun ex-prefect of Ha-dong formed what he thought to be an
excellent plan for catching
bandits. He sought
to obtain an opportunity to present the plan to His Majesty in
person, but
being denied en trance to the palace he went at night and built a fire on Nam-san, and thus secured
his own
arrest. This gave him an opportunity to bring himself to the notice of the
officials and his written plan was, according to a curious unwritten law
of the land,
carried in to His Majesty.
Two
hundred men were selected on August 31 to form a Cavalry company called the
Keui-pyung-dă or “Riding
Soldiers.” This makes a total of 400 cavalry in the Korean Army.
A
Chinese magistrate across the Yalu tried to make Koreans living
in his district
assume Chinese clothes and grow a queue, but the Foreign Office
in Seoul
protested to the Chinese Minister that as Chinese residents in
Korea are allowed to retain their own
dress and coiffure,
Korean residents in China should be accorded the same privilege.
The
government detail 200 soldiers to form an escort for the funeral
procession of
Yu Keui-whan, former Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Two
hundred soldiers have been ordered up to Seoul from each of the
three
provincial centers,
Tă-gu, Chŭn-ju and Kong-ju, in view of the Jubilee in October.
[page 410]
It was
intended by the government to pull down one of the large merchant houses at
Chongno to make a site for the monument in commemoration of the
October Jubilee, but the high cost of the building changed the
plan and the
place lately occupied by the office of the Whang-sŭng Sin-mun
has been bought
for this purpose. Min Pyŭng-suk has the work in charge.
In
November the removal of the late Queen’s Tomb to Keum-gok,
fifteen miles from
Seoul, will take place. Keum-gok lies to the northwest of the
present Tomb. The
Home Office has ordered the prefect of Yang-ju to see that the
new road to
Keum-gok is completed promptly.
On
Aug. 24th, 168 houses in Kim-hă were swept away by a flood
caused by heavy
rains. Kim-hă is in the extreme south.
A
plague of locusts is reported from north Ch’ung-ch’ŭng, North
and South Chulla, North Kyöng-sang and South Ham-gyŭng
Provinces.
Prof.
E. Martel has been appointed adviser and secretary to the Korean
Legation to
Peking and on Sept. 23rd departed for his new post in company
with the
Minister, Pak Chă-sun, and secretary Kim Pil-heui.
On
account of the prevalence of cholera in Seoul strict orders have
been issued
against the admission into the palace of any official who has
had sickness in
his family or among his immediate relatives. This has resulted
in an almost
entire suspension of government business in the palace for the
time being.
Col.
Buck, U. S Minister to Japan, who was appointed special envoy to
the Jubilee in
Seoul in October, arrived in Seoul on the 24th of September but
on account of
the cholera all festivities were “off” and Col. Buck immediately returned to his post in
Tokyo.
The
Home Department has been active in efforts to relieve sufferers
from cholera
and has distributed Korean physicians about Seoul to attempt to
fight the
disease. A grant has been made from the palace, at the instance
of Lady Om, of three dollars for
every fatal case of cholera, to be used in providing burial
necessaries.
Simultaneous
with the cholera trouble conies the cattle disease which is said
to be very
severe and there is a scarcity of bullocks to bring wood and
rice into Seoul.
As a consequence the cost of a load of wood is in the
neighborhood of l0000 cash and a measure of rice
is about 1000
cash.
Ten
prisoners committed for minor offences
were liberated on the 28th inst. The reason is not given but it
is probable
that it is to lessen the danger of cholera in the prison.
The
official count shows that the number of dead bodies taken from the city on the
28th was 146. In ordinary times the number would be about 20
which shows that
the cholera is responsible for about 126 deaths a day.
About
the middle of September all military officials cut off their hair by order of
His Majesty. The civil officials will shortly follow suite, it
is said.
The
presence of such a large number of outsiders made it possible to
arrange for a
game of base-ball on Saturday the 20th in which Seoul [page 411] played the Provinces. The
Provinces proved too many for us and after seven innings the
game closed with a score of fourteen to
seven in favor of the “countrymen.” A considerable number of
ladies loyally
attended and lent enthusiasm to the players. Another game was
played on the 27th
by two nines selected at random from the whole number of
players. But one side
was composed entirely of Seoul players and succeeded in pulling
off the event to the score of
thirteen to six. The local nine enjoyed the help of several
gentlemen connected
with the Electric Railway Company.
The
Seoul-Chemulpo Challenge Cup tennis tournament opened in
Chenmlpo with Mr.
Wallace and Mr. McConnell for Chemulpo and Mr. Davidson and Mr.
Hulbert for
Seoul. The team play of the Chemulpo pair proved too much for the Seoul players
and the first set proved an easy victory for Chemulpo by a score of 6-3,
The second set was very evenly contested and the score mounted
to 6-6, but the
Chemulpo
players drew ahead and won by a score of 8-6. The second contest
was also at
Chemulpo between Mr. Wolter and Mr. Bennett for Chemulpo and Mr.
Bunker and Mr.
Gillett for Seoul. Chemulpo won the first set by a score of 6-3;
the second was
won by Seoul, 6-4; the third was won by Chemulpo to the tune of
6-4. The third
contest was in Seoul beween Mr. Smith and Mr. Teissier for Seoul
and Mr.
Remedios and
Mr. Henkel for Chemulpo. The score stood 6-2 for Seoul in the
first set 6-1 for
Chemulpo in the second and 6-3 for Chenmlpo in the third. The
fourth contest
was in Chemulpo between Mr. Wallace for Chemulpo and Mr. Hulbert
for Seoul. In
this event Seoul won two straight sets 6-4,6-4. The fifth
contest was in Seoul
between Mr. Chalmers and Dr. Baldock for Stoul and Mr. Fox and
Mr. Sabatin for
Chemulpo. Chenmlpo won too straight sets with a score of
6-3,6-2. The sixth
contest was in Chemulpo between Mr. McConnell for Chemulpo and
Mr. Davidson for
Seoul which
resulted in two straight sets for Chemulpo, 6-2,6-1. The seventh contest was
in Seoul between Mr. Chalmers for Seoul and Mr. Sabatin for Chemulpo the
first set was won by Mr. Chalmers 6-4 and the second and third
by Mr. Sabatin,
6-1, 6-3. The eighth contest was in Seoul between Dr. Baldock
for Seoul and Mr.
McConnell for Chemulpo. The first set went to Dr. Baldock, 6-4.
The second went
to Mr. McConnell 6-2 and the third to Dr. Baldock, 6-4.
Out
of the eight contests therefore, Chemulpo won six and secured the Challenge
Cup. According to agreement Chemulpo must hold the cup three consecutive
years before it will be her property. The Seoul players should
pull themselves
together and make a hard fight next year to reverse the verdict
of 1902 by
bringing the
cup to Seoul.
The
Presbyterian Mission (north) was to have met in Pyŭng-yang in
annual meeting
but many
of the members of that mission were in Seoul attending the
Council meeting and
as news came that cholera was prevalent in the northern city it
was decided to hold the annual meeting in
Seoul. A very full representation of the different stations was present. In fact every male
member of the mission was present excepting Dr. [page 412] Johnson of Tăku and Dr.
Underwood and Dr. Irvin who are in America. The reports were
highly encouraging
especially from the north where the phenomenal successes of the
past few years
have been repeated.
The
month of September has been a fairly busy time in SeoulThree
Missionary bodies
have held their annual meetings in the capital. First the
Southern Presbyterian
Mission, whose members foregathered from the southern towns of
Mokpo, Kunsan
and Chŭn-ju. In spite of reduced members they reported progress
along many
lines and evinced a spirit of hopefulness
and determination which are prime requisites in evangelistic
work . One of the
most important questions decided upon was the removal of Rev. W. D. Reynolds to Seoul
where he is to devote his whole time to the work of Bible
translation in
company with other
members of the board.
On
the 25th of September a memorial service in honor of the late
Queen of Belgium
was held at the R. C. Cathedral in Seoul.
Om
Chun-wun resigned the mayoralty of Seoul and was succeeded by
Kwun Chong-suk on the 14th of Sept.
In
view of the cholera all government schools were closed the middle of September
by order of the Minister of Education.
The
question of establishing a naval school is now under discussion
by the
government.
The
Jubilee which was to have been held in October has been
postponed till next
Spring because of the cholera.
A
twenty-three kan flower conservatory is being built in the
palace. The
site for the terminal station of
the Seoul-Fusan Railway
has been staked out. It is outside the
South gate on the East side of the main road. A hundred houses
or more will
have to be demolished.
For
some days the Electric cars were blocked by the building of the
viaduct across
the street near the west gate. The company has asked for an
indemnity from the
government on this account.
On
account of the scarcity of rice in Seoul and the high price, the
Police
Department has ordered the wholesale dealers at the river to
send up 300 bags a
day and offer it for sale. This will force the price down.
The
removal of the Queen’s grave to Keum-gok is to take place in October. The committee of
arrangements fears that the broad street in the center of the city will not be wide enough
for the procession owing to the presence of the electric railway
poles. The
company has offered to remove them for a few days for a
consideration of $ 16,000.
Three
thousand seven hundred people in P’yŭng-yang have been forcibly
presented with
yangbanship at a uniform price of
$61.20 a head. This will furnish funds for work on the new
Western Palace.
One
of the main changes proposed in the revision of the treaty
between Korea and
the United
States is the insertion of a clause giving Americans the right to buy and hold property anywhere
in Korea.
It
is rumored that Prince Eui-wha has been summoned back to Korea frcm America and that
amnesty has been
granted to Yi Chun-yong, Pak Yŭng-hyo and Cho Heui-yŭn who have been
several years in Japan; and they
have been invited
to return to Korea.
[page 413] The foreign representatives
have again intimated that the continued minting of nickel coins
is a mistake
but the government replies that it cannot well be stopped till
the nickel
blanks brought from America are put in circulation.
Early
in September excessive rains in Kă-ryŭng destroyed many fields,
overthrew
fourteen houses and killed two women.
On
September 3rd the Mayor of Seoul gave four dollars to each of
the 420 prisoners
in Seoul. This money was given in view of sickness and suffering
in the prison
and was accompanied with certain
delicacies to be eaten with their food.
Heavy
rains in Sam-su in the extreme north near Păk tu San carried
away fifty-seven
houses and drowned two people between the 6th and the 9th of September.
The
Koreans seem to have become alarmed at the competition of American ginseng in the
Chinese market. Since the scientific culture of ginseng is being
recognized as
a lucrative occupation in America it seems likely that the fears
of Korean
growers of this plant may be well founded, for it is only a
matter of time when
the careful study of this plant will bring about improvements in
the size and
quality of the American product such as will capture the Chinese
market.
The
prefect of Kyo-dong asks the Finance Department what should be
done about the
taxes from 177 houses that were deserted in that district by
famine sufferers.
The
native papers state that the French Minister has addressed a note to the
Foreign Office complaining of the treatment which country
prefects accord to
the French priests and to the Roman
Catholic converts, that this is not showing a friendly spirit
toward a friendly
power. It is also said that Min Yung-chan the Korean Minister to
France has also
sent a telegram to his government asking that the suggestions of
the French
Minister be followed.
During
the big blow which occurred early in September four Korean boats
were wrecked
and four Koreans were severely injured but were saved. Japanese
boats to the
number of six were also wrecked.
Counterfeiters
successfully passed a number of ten yen Japanese bank notes in
Seoul and
Chemulpo early in September. They may be detected by the fact: (1) that the paper is coarse,
oily and yellowish, and the engraving is crude and the printing
indistinct; (2)
that the “10 yen” on the border reads “IHYFN” instead; (3) that
the picture on
it is very indistinct; (4) that the open line below the top
border of the
scroll at the bottom of the central panel is wanting.
In
September Mr. J. H. Muhlensteth’s contract as director of the
Korean Telegraphs
was renewed.
Choa
Ku-suk the former magistrate of Tă-jŭng on Quelpart who failed
to put down the
riot there at the time the R. C. church was burned, has been
lying in prison
without trial for nearly two years. A short time ago when many
men were
pardoned out Hong Chong-ok who had authority in the case let out
this man Choă. The French Minister
entered a [page 414]
complaint in regard to it on the ground that the man had not
been punished. As
a result Hong was fined one month’s salary and Choă was recommitted for
trial.
Ninety-nine
houses were overthrown by heavy rains in Im-pi during the last
rainy season,
and fifty-five in Yong-dam and thirty-five in Kosan. Three people were
drowned.
In
order to provide bearers for the Imperial Catafalque when the
body of the late
Queen is moved to its new resting place at Keum-gok the Police
officials have
summoned each householder in Seoul to send one man. The police
are canvassing
the city and in lieu of a man from each house they levy a
subscription
proportioned to the means of the occupant.
We
regret to say that Count U. Francisetti di Malgra, the Italian
Representative
in Seoul has been suffering from a rather severe attack of typhoid fever, but we
are glad to report that he is now convalescent.
The
Japanese local
paper reports that $500,000 worth of silver half dollar pieces have been struck off at the
mint. They have not yet been put in circulation, and it appears
that there is a
plan to put out first a paper currency. Whether the public will
accept a paper
currency backed by the Korean government is impossible to say, but doubts
are expressed in certain quarters.
At
the gate
of the
Japanese barracks is placed a receptacle containing a powerful
disinfectant
into which every soldier has to dip his shoes before entering
the enclosure. This is a wize precaution against the cholera.
The
only foreigner attacked by the cholera in Korea is a French
priest in
Fusan. After suffering
from violent purging and vomiting he went to the house of Rev. Mr. Adamson and spent two
hours walking up and down the verandah evidently suffering
greatly but not
seeming to desire any
help. He then left for his home and soon after this must have
gone into a
collapse for when shortly after Mr. Adamson was summoned he
found the priest
already dead. The native R. C. adherents refused to allow the
body to be
touched till a priest should arrive from Tăku but the Japanese
authorities so
far prevailed as to see that the body was packed in lime in a
coffin to await
the arrival of the priest.
We
are in receipt of a supplement to M. Courant’s Bibliography of Korea, containing
122 pages and giving important additions to the excellent work
which has proved
so valuable to all close students of Korea. This supplement
brings the
completed work down to the beginning of the present century,
namely Dec. 31, 1899.
We
have received a letter from Dr. Palmer at the American Mines
informing us that
in quoting Dr. Wells as implying that he (Dr. Palmer) was in
doubt as to the
nature of the disease on the American concession there was a
mistake, for Dr.
Palmer says, “There was never any doubt as to the nature of the disease
here.”
The
Annual Council of Presbyterian Missions in Korea met in Seoul
[page 415] about the middle of
September. Some very important measures were discussed and a
long step was
taken toward church unity in the adoption of a common creed,
hymnal and church
name.
On
Sunday Sept. 28th Bishop Galloway preached a stirring sermon in
the First
Methodist Church in Seoul . The audience was the largest foreign
one ever seen
in Seoul. One hundred and twenty-five people were present. The
Bishop is to
preach again on October 5th at the same place.
Korea
is sending a considerable exhibit to the Hanoi Exhibition. A French
man-of-war transported the exhibit
from Chemulpo.
The
Southern Methodist Mission met
in annual session in Seoul during the latter days of September
with Bishop
Galloway in the chair. Reports from the various stations of the
Mission were
encouraging. An encouraging step in the direction of church
unity was seen in
the combination of the educational interests of the Southern and
Northern
Methodist Missions in Korea. The Pai Chai School is to represent
both Missions
and Rev. Mr. Hounshell of the Southern mission has been
appointed to teach in
this flourishing institution which is now under the presidency
of Rev. D. A.
Bunker. We believe this school is entering upon a new era of
usefulness and
that this new movement will prove of great benefit to the cause
of Christian
education.
The
ranks of Presbyterian missionaries in Korea has been swelled by
the arrival of
Rev. and Mrs. Clark and of Rev. and Mrs. Kearns from. America. We
welcome them to this country and wish them all sorts of success. We
learn through the mails that Rev. H. G. Underwood D. D, has been
actively
engaged in securing in America new recruits for the Korea
Mission and that
several men have been
secured together with the promise of money for their support. We
understand
that Dr. Underwood is to start for Korea on October 15th.
Table of Meteorological
Observations
Seoul,
Korea, August, 1902.
V.
Pokrovsky, M.D., Observer.
[see image files]
[page 417]
KOREAN
HISTORY.
MODERN KOREA.
Chapter
IV.
King
Sŭn-Jo takes the throne...
a memorable reign...
reforms... northern
invasion...
a prophecy... mourning
costume...
rise of the political parties...
party strife...
literature...
border war... . condition of affairs in Korea... charge of effeminacy
untrue....
condition of Japan...
Japanese envoy Hideyoshi...
his demands refused....second envoy... delay . . . Korea’s condition acceded
to ....renegades
executed...
conspiracy...
a coward envoy...
Hideyoshi’s ultimatum ... Korea refuses ...Tairano... the King’s answer to
Hideyoshi...
the King informs the Emperor...
preparations for war....generals commissioned . . .the army of invasion. .
.lands on Korean soil...
Japanese firearms . . the cowardly provincial general... the fall of Tong-nă . . .a
faithful defender. . . .cowardly officers. . . .the Japanese
move northward. .
. .a martinet.
ln 1568, as King Myŭng-jong
lay dying, his Queen summoned the officials to consult about the
succession but
ere they arrived the King expired. They asked her to nominate a successor
and she nnmed Prince Hă-sŭng
a youth of seventeen, second cousin to the deceased King. He is known by his
posthumous title Sŭn-Jo So-gyŭng
Tă-wang. The Queen who nominated him acted as regent until he should reach
his majority.
This reign is perhaps the most
memorable of any in this dynasty,
for in it occurred the great Japanese invasion which brought the land to
the verge of destruction and which has ever since colored the
Korean conception
of the Japanese.
The first years of the reign were
spent in correcting the abuses brought about by “Little Yun” and in removing from office all those who had been connected
in any way with him.
The whole kingdom was canvassed for wise and scholarly men to put in the places
of those who had been removed. Books [page 418] intended for the instruction and
elevation of the people were published and distributed far and
wide.
The wild Ya-in across the Ya-lu were
crossing that river and taking possession of fields in Korea
proper, near the
town oi Kang-gye. The King sent a force under Gen. Kim Tongyung to dislodge them. The
intruders were chased across the river and into a narrow defile
where they turned on their pursuers.
Taken thus by surprise the Korean forces were thrown into
confusion and were
put to flight, but not till after their general had fallen. A
second expedition
chased the intruders to
their villages, and burned them out.
In the following year the Prime
Minister Yi Chun-gyŭng died, but before he expired he gave voice
to a prophecy which
has become historic. He said – “Since
I have begun to examine men’s minds I find that opposing
factions will arise
and that in their train great evils will follow. The king should
studiously
avoid showing favoritism to either of these factions. The first
symptom of the
rise of such factions should be met with stern resistance.”
In the year 1572, the relations with
the Japanese were as follows: -Since
the seventh year of King Chöng-jong, when the Japanese in the
three ports
revolted, there had been little communication between the two
countries, but a
few Japanese had been allowed to live in. the three settlements
by sufferance. But
now the Japanese sent a friendly message asking that the old
relations be
resumed. The prefect of Fusan added his influence in favour of
granting the
request, and the Japanese were allowed to resume operations at
Fusan alone, three
li below the
prefecture, which means
about half way down
the bay from the present village of Fusan. From that time the
former relations
seem to have been renewed, but no envoys went from Korea to Japan. It was
decreed by the Korean government that should a Japanese land
anywhere upon the
coast except at Fusan he should be dealt with as a pirate.
Officials were set
to watch the Japanese and see to it that they did not overstep
the strict
regulations.
It had not been customary for the
people to assume mourning on the death of a royal personage, but
when the Queen
Regent died in 1575 the custom was begun, and each citizen wore
a white hat,
belt, and shoes.
[page
419] This year, 1575, was
signalized by another event of far-reaching importance and one which
exerted a powerful influence over all subsequent Korean history.
It was the formation
of the great political parties. At first there were only two but
soon they
split into four, which are known as the No-ron, So-ron, Nam-in,
and Puk-in.
These mean “The
Old Men’s Party,” “The
Young Men’s
Prty,” “The
Southerners,” and “The
Northerners.” These terms are not at all descriptive of the
composition of the
various parties but arose from trivial circumstances. These
parties have never represented
any principles whatever. They have never had any “platforms,” but have been,
and are, simply political clans each bent upon securing the
royal favour and
the offices and emoluments that go therewith. The story of their
rise shows how
frivolous were the causes which called them into being, and the
remainder of
these annals will show how they have cursed the country.
During the palmy days of the odious “Little Yun” of the preceding
reign, a man by the name of Sim Eui-gyŭm happening to see a
blanket in the
reception room of the universally hated favorite, asked to whom
it belonged.
When he was told that it belonged to one Kim Hyo-wŭn, he
exclaimed “He is called a good man,
but if so how can he sleep in the house of such a man as Little
Yun.”. So he
opposed this Kim with all his might and was opposed by him in
like manner. The
matter grew into a family feud and kept on increasing until at
the time of
which we are writing two hostile clans had arisen, the one
called Sŭ-in or “ Westerners,” because their
leader lived in the western part of Seoul. The other was at first called
Tong-in or “Easterners,” perhaps because their leader lived in
the eastern part
of the city. The two men through whom the quarrel first arose
had now left the
field of active politics and the Sŭ-in and Tong-in parties were
led respectively
by Pak Sun and Hŭ Yŭp. It is said that from this time
impartiality in the
distribution of offices was a thing unknown in Korea. A Sŭ-in
would help a Sŭ-in
and a Tongin would help a Tong-in, right or wrong.
The long fight was immediately begun.
A slave in Whang-hă province was accused of murder and was held
in prison
waiting the decision of Pak Sun, the leader of the party [page 420] in power. He did not
believe the man guilty and delay followed. Hŭ Yŭp, the leader of
the
opposition, took advantage of this and accused his rival of
neglect of duty.
Then followed a running fire of charge and counter-charge
between the leaders and
between their partisans. The Tong-in,
or So-ron as it soon came to be called, won in this first
encounter and two of
the opposing faction were banished. The Prime Minister urged
that this fight
was utterly useless and would cause endless trouble. The king
agreed and
determined to stamp out the cause of the disturbance; so he
banished the two
men Kim and Sim who had originated the factions. This had no
effect however
upon the now thoroughly organized parties and affairs kept going
from bad to
worse.
In 1579 Păk In-gŭl said to the king, “All the people have taken
sides in this senseless war and even though a man be a criminal
there are
plenty who will defend him. This means the ultimate destruction
of the kingdom,
and the King should act as a peacemaker between the factions.”
Others urged the
same point before the king, but they were unaware that it was
beyond the power
of any king to lay the evil spirit of factional strife. In the
fifteenth year
of his reign the king threw himself into the cause of
literature. He believed
that neglect of the classics was the cause of the factional
strife in hie
kingdom. He ordered the publication of the “Religion in the Mind,” “Ticture of the Good and
Evil Will,” and “The
Legacy of Kim Si-seup.” He called together a large congress of
scholars, and in
company with them threw himself into the study of the classics.
The year 1583 beheld a fierce invasion
on the part of the northern savages under Pon-ho. The prefecture
of Kyöngwŭn,
in Ham-gyŭng Province, was taken by them, but SilYip, the
prefect of On-sŭng,
went to its succour, and after a desperate fight before the
town, broke the
back of the invasion, drove the marauders back across the Tu-man
and burned
their villages.
A novel method was adopted for raising
recruits for the army on the border.
A law was made that sons of concubines, who had always been
excluded from
official position, might
again become
eligible by giving
a certain amount of rice or by going themselves and giving three
years’ time to
border guard [page 421] duty
along the Ya-lu or Tu-man. Two chieftains, Yul Po-ri and Yi
T’ang-ga, advanced
bj’ separate roads upon Kyöngsŭng with 10,000 mounted followers,
but the little
garrison of 100 men fought so stubbornly that the siege was
raised and the two
chieftains marched on to attack Pang-wŭn. Fortunately government
troops arrived
just in time to drive the invaders back.
The Minister of War was working
faithfully forwarding troops as fast as they could be gotten ready, but the
opposition made charges against him on the ground of the neglect
of some
trifling technicality and he forthwith laid down his portfolio
and retired in
disgust. When the king asked the Prime Minister about it, that
careful
individual, fearing to compromise himself, would give no
definite answer and
the king consequently said, “If
my Prime Minister will not tell me the facts in the case it is
time he retired,” so he too lost footing and
fell from royal favor.
Having reached now the threshold of
the great Japanese invasion of Korea it will be necessary for us
to pause and examine the state of
affairs in Japan and institute a comparison between that country
and Korea in
order to discover if possible the causes of Japan’s early
success and
subsequent defeat.
Korea and Japan may be said to have
been at two opposite poles. Beginning with Korea, we notice,
first, that her
relations with the Ming dynasty were eminently peaceful. Unlike
the Mongols of
an earlier date and the Manchus of a later date the Mings did
not have their
origin in the north, and therefore were brought less into
contact with Korea along
her northern border. They belonged to central China and were not
a horde of
brutal pillagers as were the Mongols and Manchus. Hence it was
that so long as
Korea was friendly and held her own way quietly the Ming
emperors concerned
themselves very little about her. To this day Korea looks back
to the Ming
dynasty as her true patron and realizes that the Manchu
supremacy is an alien
one. Korea had been strongly unified by the statesmanship of the
first kings of
the Cho-sŭn dynasty, the present one, and had been ruled so well
as a general
thing that there was no sense of insecurity and no particular
fear from the
outside except [page 422]
such as arose from the occasional irruption of a northern tribe
or a piratical
raid of a few boatloads of Japanese. The only need of a standing
army was to
guard herself from such attacks. The arts of peace flourished,
the country was
peaceful, there is little reason to believe that she was sunken,
as many have
averred, into a state of shameful effeminacy. In fact there is
much to indicate
the opposite, for almost up to the very year in which the
invasion occurred the
policy of reform instituted by king Se-jong was adhered to and
the rulers,
however unwarlike they may have been, surely did much for the
sake of
literature, art and public morals. You will scarcely find in the
annals of
history that the kings who ruled during times of great public
degeneracy, when luxury sapped the vital power of the nation,
spent their time
in giving to the people treatises on moral, scientific, social
and literary
topics as these kings unquestionably did even up to the day when
the Japanese
cataclysm swept the country. It had not been a hundred years
since an unworthy
king had been driven from the throne by his disgusted people and
been refused
the posthumous title. That king was succeeded by one who made
the land even
puritanic in the severity of its morals, who fostered the arts
and sciences as
hardly any other had done and who crowned his work by publishing
the Ok-pyŭn,
which marked an era in the literary life of the people. He had
been followed in
turn by a king who continued the work of progress and among
other things caused
the construction of a complicated astronomical instrument. The
following reign
was the one in which the invasion occurred. No candid reader can
believe that
the country was steeped in such absolute degeneracy as the
Japanese annalists
would have us believe, and which other writers who had not
access to the Korean
annals have described. But some may say that the good work of
Korean kings does
not necessarily argue a good people. This again is a mistake,
for there could
scarcely be found a people that has taken their cue more
directly from the
court than have the Korean people. When the kings have been lax
the people have
followed the example and when the kings have been true men the
people have been
brought back to honest living. The refutation of this calumny
then needs but a
[page 423] careful perusal of the
Korean annals; not those which have been written under
government sanction and
are therefore unreliable but those which, like these, have been
drawn from the
private and popular histories of the dynasty and are presumably
reliable. For
centuries Korea had been at peace, except for insignificant
uprisings on the
border, and the arts of peace had gradually taken the place of
martial prowess.
A man is not an object of contempt simply because he is not a
warrior. If he
is, then let us go back to the peat-smoke of our ancestral
hovels.
Having shown this reason for Korea’s
inability to hold the Japanese in check to have been a false one
it will be
necessary to account for it in some other way. This can easily
be done. The
reason was threefold. In the first place the Korean people,
having no use for a
large standing army, had not been trained in large numbers to
military life. Secondly
the Japanese were armed with firearms while the Koreans had
absolutely none.
The first firearm that was ever seen in Korea was given the king
by a Japanese
envoy just at the outbreak of the invasion, as we shall see.
This alone would
account for Korea’s inability to cope with the islanders. In the
third place
the rise of the political parties had brought in a spirit of
jealousy which
made it impossible for any
man to reach celebrity without calling down upon himself the
hatred of the
opposing party and his consequent ruin. This we deem the main
cause of Korea’s
weakness. The following pages will show whether this view is
upheld by facts or
not. It was the mutual jealousies of opposing parties that
proved the bane of
the land and not the supineness and effeminacy of the people.
We must now glance at Japan and see of
what stuff the invaders were made. Unlike the Korean people, the
Japanese had
never been welded into a homogeneous mass. Feudalism was the
most marked
feature of Japanese life. It has been but thirty years since
Japan became a
unit. It was feudalism and its consequent spirit of liberty (for
feudalism is
liberty in embryo) that made possible Japan’s phenomenal
development during the
past three decades. Her feudalism is therefore not to be
decried, but one of
its necessary evils was a state of almost continual civil war.
For two
centuries [page 424]
preceding
the invasion of Korea Japan had been one great battlefield. War
was the great
occupation of the people. While Korea had been busy producing
Japan had been
busy destroying and when at last Hideyoshi, the great Shogun,
found himself the
virtual ruler of a temporarily quiet kingdom he had on hand an
enormous army
which must either be given occupation or must be disbanded. The
latter he dared
not do and the former he could not do without finding a field a
field of
operation abroad. But we are anticipating.
It is well known that the government of Japan was not administered
by the emperor in person but by an official called the Taiko, or
Kwan-băk as the Koreans say. For about two centuries
this office had been in the hands of a family named Wŭn.
Hideyoshi had been a
retainer in the family
of the Taiko. Being a bold
and successful fighter he won his way to a generalship and from
this point of vantage killed the Taiko
and assumed that title himself. It had been the dream of his
life to strike at
China. He had tried it once unsuccessfully by boat, attacking
her at Chŭl-gang.
He now changed his plan and decided to make Korea a stepping
stone to the conquest
of the Ming empire. His initial move was based on his statement
“Year after year our envoys have gone to Korea but
they never send one in return.”
In pursuance of this policy a Japanese
envoy named Yasuhiro appeared at the Korean court in 1587 bearing a harshly worded
and insulting letter demanding that the king send an envoy to
Japan. The only
notice taken
of this demand was a polite note in which the king stated that
as the journey
by sea was a long one and the Koreans were not good sailors he
would have to be
excused from complying with the demand. Wen Yasuhiro placed this
missive in the
hands of his master he was promptly ordered into the hands of
the executioner.
The opening of the year 1588 found
Korea still suffering from outbreaks of the far northern border and Gen. Yi Il took a small force of men,
crossed the Tuman
River on the ice and attacked the Chin-do tribe. Being
successful in this he took 2000 men, crossed the
same river at four different points simultaneosly and attacked
the Si-jun tribe
by night, burning 200 houses and killing 300 people.
[page 425] In the spring of this year
there arrived from Japan a second
envoy, or rather three envoys, Yoshitoshi, Tairano Tsnginobu and
a monk Gensho,
Of these Yoshitoshi was the chief. He is described by the
Koreans as being a
young man but coarse and violent and of such a fierce nature
that the other
members of his suite dared come into his presence only on their
knees. They dared
not look him in the face. Yoshitoshi and his suite were
comfortably quartered
at the Tong-p’ŭng-gwan near the present Japanese settlement in
Seoul, and
having renewed the demand that
Korea send an envoy to Japan, he waited month after month hoping
that the king
would accede to the demand and fearing to go back without
success lest he
should meet the same fate that Yasuhiro the former envoy had
suffered.
At last the king announced that he
would send an envoy to Japan on one condition, namely that the
Japanese
government seize
and send back to Korea a number of Korean renegades who, under
the leadership
of one Sa Wha-dong, had run away to Japan and had since led marauding bands of Japanese
against the southern seaboard of Korea. To this condition the
Japanese envoy
gladly consented and Tairano was despatched to Japan to carry it
out. But it
was not till the seventh moon of the following year, 1589, that
the pirate Sa
Wha-dong and three Japanese freebooters together with certain
other Koreans
were brought back from Japan and delivered up to justice. With
them came a
letter from the Japanese government saying “We are not responsible for
the evil deeds of these men. The Korean Sa Wha-dong is the cause
of this
trouble; so we send them all to you and you must mete out to
them such
punishment as you see fit.” The culprits were immediately
decapitated outside
the West Gate. This seems to have thawed somewhat the reserve of
the king and
Yoshitoshi was called to the palace for the first time, where he
was presented by
the king with a handsome steed while he in turn gave the king a
peacock and
some firearms,
the first that had ever been seen in Korea.
Late in the year a dangerous
conspiracy was discovered, the prime mover being Chong Yo-rip of
Chŭl-la
Province. He had arranged a plan by which he and several friends
of his in Whang-hă
Province should rise simultaneously and [page 426] overthrow the government.
A certain monk in Ku-wŭl
mountain in Whang-hă Province discovered that a certain man, Cho
Ku, was
working diligently among the people, taking names, sending
numerous letters and
in other ways acting in a suspicious manner. He believed the man
was a traitor
and told the prefect of An-ak to be on the lookout. The latter
arrested the man
and examined him. It was then elicited that a widespread
rebellion was being gotten up. When the news was
told the king secretly he called together his officials and
asked “What sort of a man is this
Chöng Yo-rip?.” Some said they did not know but the Prime
Minister said that he
was a good scholar and an exemplary
man. The king them threw upon the floor the letter telling about
the plot and
exclaimed “‘Read
that and see what sort of a man he is.”
The traitor Chong had gotten wind of
the discovery and had fled with his son to Chi-nan Mountain in Chŭl-la
Province but he was pursued and surrounded. Rather than be taken
he cut his own
throat and expired. His son and his nephew were taken back to
Seoul and
executed. The nephew under torture affirmed that the Prime
Minister and a large
number of other officials were privy to the plot. This was the
more easily
believed because the Prime Minister had insisted that Chong was
a good man. So
he and two others were banished. It is affirmed on good
authority that the
Prime Minister and the other who suffered were innocent of the
charge, and that
it was simply one of the deplorable results of party jealousy
and strife. We
here have a striking instance of the cause of Korea’s weakness.
All momentous events in Korea are
believed to be foretold in some way. It is said that in this
year 1589 a good man
named Cho Höa went to the monastery at Köm-san ai\d when rice was set before him
said “Whoever eats with me will
die next year, for the Japanese are coming with 200,000 men.
Those here who do
not eat with me will live.” Three only are said to have taken up the
challenge and eaten with
him.
In the third moon of the following year 1590 the king redeemed
his promise by sending to Japan three envoys, Whang Yun-gil, Kim
Sŭng-il and Ho
Sŭng. They were [page 427]
accompanied by
the Japanese envoy who had waited a year for them. Whang Yunn-gil was chief of the Korean
embassy, but he was a weak, timid man who hardly dared speak
when a Japanese
addressed him. The other members of the embassy realizing how such action would
bring Korea into contempt at the Japanese court, tried to stir
him up and make him speak out
fearlessly, but to no avail. After wasting a year at the Japanese
court the embassy returned, accompanied by Tairano who was
charged with an
important mission to the king but the minute this embassy landed
at Tongăn
Whang Yun-gil the cowardly envoy sent a letter post haste to
Seoul saying that war with Japan was
certain. When they all arrived at Seoul the king called them
into audience and questioned
them about their experiences
in Japan. His first question was “Did you see Hideyoshi? How did he look?”
Whang replied “His
eyes flashed fire. He is a fearsome man.” but Kim Sŭng il said “There is nothing fearsome
about him. His eyes are like rats’ eyes.”
The important letter of which Tairano
was the bearer was now handed to the King and it lay bare the
mind of
Hidevoshi. It read as follows: --
“Our
country consists of sixty-six kingdoms. They all revolted from
the Emperor but
for four years I fought them and succeeded in bringing them all
to their knees
until even the remote islands lay mastered in my hand. When my
mother conceived
me it was by a beam of sunlight that entered her bosom in a
dream. After my
birth a fortune teller said that all the land the sun shone on
would be mine
when I became a man, and that my fame would spread beyond the
four seas. I have
never fought without conquering and when I strike I always win.
Man cannot
outlive his hundred years, so why should I sit chafing on this
island? I will
make a leap and land in China and lay my laws upon her. I shall
go by way of Korea and if Your soldiers will join me
in this invasion you will have shown your neighborly spirit. I
am determined
that my name shall pervade the three kingdoms.”
At
a feast given in honor of the Japanese embassy, Hyŭn So the
Japanese monk who
seems to have accompanied Tairano to the Korean court, whispered
to Whang
Yun-gil and
said, “The
reason why Hideyoshi wants to attack China [page 428] is because the Emperor refuses to
receive a Japanese envoy.
If Korea leaves us but a clear road to China we will ask nothing
else. No
troops need be given.”
To this Whang replied. “That
can never be. China is our Mother
Country and we cannot so desert her as to give a road to an
invading army.” The monk returned to the attack
but this time from another standpoint. “Long ago the Mongol hordes desired to invade Japan
and you
gave them a road through Korea
for that purpose. Now when we seek revenge you should do the same by us.” This was
considered too preposterous a thing to be even discussed and the
matter
suddenly dropped and the Japanese envoys’ started straight back
to their own
country. It was this envoy Tairano who while on his way up from
Fusan insulted
the aged governor of Tă-gu
by saying, “For
ten years I
have followed war and thus my beard is gray; why should you grow
old?” Also
calling for a Korean spear he said, “Your spears are too long.” meaning that only
cowards use long spears. He it was also who threw the basket of
oranges to the
dancing girls and, when they scrambled for them, uttered his
ironical criticism,
“Your nation is doomed. You have no manners.”
When this embassy went back to Japan
he carried an answer to Hideyoshi’s letter, in which the King
said: --
“Two letters have already passed
between us and the matter has been sufficiently discussed. What
talk is this of
our joining you against China? From the earliest times we have
followed law and
right. From within and from without all lands are subject to
China. If you have
desired to send your envoys to China how much more should we.
When we have been
fortunate
China has rejoiced and when we have been unfortunate she has
helped us. The
relations which subsist between
us are those of parent
and child. This you well
know. Can we desert both emperor and parent and join with you? You doubtless will be angry at this
and it is because you have
not been admitted to the court of China. Why is it that you are
not willing to
admit the suzerainty of the emperor instead of harboring such
hostile intents
against him? This truly passes our comprehension.”
The emperor hearing a rumor of a
Korean Japanese alliance sent and enquired about it but the king replied
[page 429] through an envoy telling
the facts of the case exactly as they had occurred. It was well understood in
Korea that an
invasion was all but inevitable and active preparations were
going on all the
year in view of this contingency. Three able men were sent as
the governors of
Kyŭng-sang, Chŭl-la
and Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Provinces respectively,
namely Kim Su,
Yi Kwang, and Yun Sŭng-gak. They were so energetic in repairing
fortresses and
accumulating arms that the people complained loudly. Someone
told the king that
Yi Sun-sin, a
man as yet
unknown, had in him
the making of the greatest general in the world, and for this
reason the king
made him admiral of all the naval forces of the kingdom.
Chapter
V.
The
army of invasion...
lands on Korean soil ....Japanese fire-arms. . . fall of Fusan
...a cowardly
provincial governor ... .the fall of Tong-nă.. . a faithful defender
...cowardly officers...
the Japanese move northward. .. .a martinet. .. .braver soldiers
than leaders .
. the news reaches Seoul .. .the three roads guarded .. .a
comical predicament
...a good shot... Cho-ryŭng (Pass) left
undefended...
an army disbands for lack of leaders. . . .Gen. Yi Il’s fiasco ... Gen Sil Yip wants to fight in
the plain . . . reconnoitering
... the
Korean army in a trap...
overwhelming defeat.
We
have now arrived at the year 1592 A. D. the two hundredth
anniversary of the
founding of the dynasty,
the year that was destined to see the country swept by the
Japanese hordes. The
Koreans call it the Im-jim year and the mere pronunciation of
that word today
brings up in the Korean’s mind the tales of horror and suffering
which his
mother told him when a boy, and which have determined the whole
attitude of the
Korean mind toward Japan.
Before spring opened the king took an
inventory of all the arms that were available, and apointed Gen.
Sil Yip to the
command of the forces in Kang-Wŭn and Ham-gyŭng Provinces, and
Gen. Yi II to
the command of those in the south. In the third moon the
officials worshiped at
the tomb of King T’ă-jo the founder of the dynasty. Korean
tradition
[page 430] says that wailings were
heard proceeding from this tomb for three or four days preceding
the landing of
the Japanese.
Hideyoshi had gotten together an
enormous force from all parts of the kingdom and the expedition
rendezvoused at
the islands of Iki. They were led by thirty-six generals, the
general-in-chief
being Hideyi.
As to the numbers in the invading army
the Korean account
agrees so well
with the Japanese that there can be little doubt of its
correctness. The Korean
accounts say that the regular army consisted of 160,000 men, that
there was a “‘body-guard” of 80,000 men, perhaps
meaning the personal body guard of Hideyoshi and that there were 1500 heavy armed
cavalry. This says nothing about a reserve force of 60,000 men which is mentioned by
some authorities, and from this we conclude that these did not
come with the
main army but waited and came later as reinforcements. The best Japanese accounts make
the total 250,000 while the
Korean records say 241,500. Either of these numbers is
approximately correct,
but the Japanese accounts divide the estimate differently,
saying that the main
army was 150,000 while Hideyoshi’s personal command was 100,000. But
this discrepancy is of course unessential.
As to armament we find that this army
was provided with 5000 battle axes, 100,000 long swords, 100,000
spears, 100,000
short swords, 500.000 daggers, 300,000 firearms large and small,
and that there
were in the whole army 50,000 horses.
The flotilla which brought this
immense army to the shores
of Korea consisted of between three and four thousand boats.
This gives us an
intimation as to the capacity of the boats used in those days.
According to
this enumeration each boat carried sixty men. They were probably
undecked, or
at most but partially decked, boats of about forty or fifty feet
in length by
ten in breadth.
We learn from Japanese sources that
the whole fleet did not weigh anchor from Iki at the same time.
Kato, who was in command of one
division of the army, managed to give the rest of the fleet the
slip and was
away with his Command
by night, while his rival Konishi was compelled to wait several days longer at anchor because
of adverse winds. [page 431] These
two men, Kato and Konishi figure so prominently in the first
years of the war
that a word of description is necessary. Kato
was an old warrior who had fought
for many years
behind the great commander. He was an ardent Buddhist and a firm
believer in the old regime. Konishi on the other hand was a young and
brilliant general who had gained his place not so much by long and
faithful service as by his uncommon skill in military affairs. He was a convert to Roman
Catholicism, having been baptized
by the Portugese missionaries in 1584. He seems to have been a personal
favorite with the
great Taiko. It is in the Korean accounts that we find the
statement that Hideyi was made the General-in-chief
of all the army of invasion. From the Japanese accounts which
naturally would
be supposed to be more reliable m this matter it would seem that
Kato and
Konishi divided between them the honor of supreme command. But
we must remember
that Hideyoshi was an old soldier and well acquainted with the natural
jealousies that spring up between officers in an army, and it is
almost
inconceivable that he should have put this army in joint command
of two men whom
he must have
known to be bitter enemies and who would doubtless work at cross
purposes in
the peninsula. We incline therefore to the opinion that the
Koreans were right
and that there was a nominal head in the person of Hideyi, but it is
quite true that the brunt of the work fell upon the two rivals,
Kato and
Konishi.
When day broke on the morning of the
thirteenth of the fourth moon of 1592 a dense fog rested on the
sea and hid from
the eyes of the Koreans the vast fleet that was working across
the straits.
Curiously enough, the commander of the Korean forces in Fusan
happened to be
hunting that day on Deer Island at the entrance to the harbor.
He was the first
to descry the invading host. Hastening back to the
fortifications he prepared
for the worst.
Before many hours had passed the Japanese host had landed, surrounded the fort
and poured in upon its doomed defenders such a destructive fire that it is said the
bullets fell like rain.
The garrison fought till their arrows were gone and then fell at
their post,
not one escaping. It would be difficult to overestimate the
immense advantage
which the Japanese enjoyed in the possession of firearms,
[page 432] a weapon with which the
Koreans were not acquainted and to whose natural destructiveness
as a machine
of war must be added the terror which it naturally inspired. It
was Cortez and
the Mexican over again, only in somewhat lesser degree. What
seemed to the
Japanese and what has passed down in history as cowardice can
scarcely be
called by so strong a term when we consider that bows and arrows
were pitted
against muskets and men who were trained in their use.
Without delay the invaders marched
around the bay to the ancient city of Tong-nă, the remains of
whose ancient fortress
still greet the eye and interest the imagination of the
traveller. Its prefect,
Song Sang-hyŭn, hurriedly gathered all the town-people and what
soldiers he
could find. Gen. Yi Kak, the commander of all the forces in the
province, was
approaching from the north; but, hearing of the fate of the
garrison of Fusan,
he halted abruptly and said “As
commander of all the provincial forces I must not risk my life
in actual battle
but must stand outside where I can direct affairs.” So he turned
about and put
six miles between his precious person and the beleagured town of
Tong-nă,
encamping at Sosan. The next day the Japanese completed the
investment of the
town and prepared to storm the fortress. The brave prefect took
up his position
in the upper storey of the great gate of the fortress where, in
accordance with
the Korean custom,
he beat upon a great drum and urged on his soldiers in the
fight. For eight
hours the gallant defenders fought before the enemy effected an
entrance over
their dead bodies. Seeing that all was lost, the prefect called
for his
official robes and seated himself in state in the upper gateway.
The ruthless Japanese
rushed in and seized him by his garments and attempted to make
him bow before
them, but the first one received such a kick in the stomach that
he rolled over
on the floor. An instant latter the prefect was struck down by
their swords.
Just before the enemy entered he had bitten his finger till the
blood came and
with it he wrote on his fan “The
duty of a subject to his King comes before that of a son to his
father, so here
I die without seeing you again.” This he delivered to a trusty
servant to give
to his father. To his trusty friend, Sin Yŭ-go, he said, “There is no need of your staying
here to die, make good your escape while you can.”
THE KOREA REVIEW
The
Korean Language.
The
Korean language belongs to that widely disseminated family to which the
term Turanian has sometimes been applied. This term is
sufficiently indefinite
to match the subject, for scholarship has not as yet determined
with any degree of exactitude the
limits of its dispersion. At its widest reach it includes
Turkish, Hungarian,
Basque, Lappish, Finnish, Ouigour,
Ostiak, Samoiyed, Mordwin, Manchu, Mongol (and the other Tartar
and Siberian
dialects) Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Telugu, Canarese, Malayalam, (and the other
Dravidian dialects) Malay and a great number of the Polynesian
and Australasian
dialects reaching north along the coast of Asia through the
Philippine Islands
and Formosa and south and east into New Guinea, New Hebrides and
Australia.
The main point which differentiates this whole
family of languages from the Aryan and Shemitic stocks is the agglutinative
principle, whereby declension and conjugation are effected by the addition of
positions and suffixes and, not by a modification of the stem.
In all these
different languages the stem of a word remains as a rule intact
through every
form of grammatical manipulation. That Korean belongs to this
family of
languages is seen in its strictly agglutinative character. There
has been
absolutely no deviation from this principle. There are no
exceptions. Any
typical Korean verb can
be conjugated through its one thousand different forms [page 434] without finding the least
change in the stem. A comparison of Korean with Manchu discloses
at once a
family likeness and at the same time a comparison of Korean and
any one of the
Dravidian
dialects discloses a still closer kinship. It is an interesting
fact that not
one of the Chinese dialects possesses any of the distinctive
features of this
Turanian family. There is more similarity between Chinese and
English than between
Chinese and any one of the Turanian
languages. In other words China has been even more thoroughly
isolated linguistically
than she has socially; and
the evidence goes to prove that at some period enormously remote, after the
original Chinese had effected an entrance to the mighty
amphitheater between
the Central Asian mountains on the one hand and the Pacific on
the other, they
were surrounded by a subsequent race who impinged upon them at
every point and
conquered them not
once or twice but who never succeeded in leaving a single trace
upon her unique
and primitive language. This surrounding family was the
Turanian, and Korean
forms one link in the chain. Korean bears almost precisely the
same relation to
Chinese that English does to Latin. English has retained its own
distinct
grammatical structure while drawing an immense number of words
from the romance
dialects for the purposes of embellishment and precision. The
same holds true
of Korean. She has never surrendered a single point to Chinese grammar
and yet has borrowed eagerly from the Chinese glossary as
convenience or
necessity has required. Chinese is the Latin of the Far East,
for just as Rome,
through her higher civilization, lent thousands of words to the
semi-savages hovering along her
borders, so China has furnished all the surrounding peoples with
their
scientific, legal, philosophical and religious terminology. The
development of
Chinese grammar
was early checked by the influence of the ideograph and so she
never has had
anything to lend her neighbors in the way of grammatical
inflection.
The grammars of Korea and Japan are
practically identical, and yet,
strange to
say, with the exception of the words they have both borrowed
from China their
glossaries are marvelously dissimilar. This forms one of the
most obscure philological
problems of
the Far East. The identity in grammatical structure, however,
stamps them as
sister languages.
[page 435] The study of Korean grammar
is rendered interesting by the fact that in the surrounding of
China by
Turanian peoples Korea was the place where the two surrounding
branches met and
completed the circuit. Northern Korea was settled from the north
by Turanian
people. Southern
Korea was
settled from the south by Turanian
people. It
was not until 193
B. C. that
each became definitely aware of the presence of the other. At
first they
refused to acknowledge the relationship, but the fact that when
in 690 A. D. the southern kingdom of Silla
assumed control of the whole peninsula there remained no such
line of social
cleavage as that which obtained between the English and the
Norman after 1066,
shows that an intrinsic similarity of language and of racial
aptitude quickly
closed the breach and made Korea the unit that she is to-day.
Korean is au agglutinative,
polysyllabic language whose development is marvelously complete
and at the same
time marvelously symmetrical. We find no such long list of
exceptions as that
which entangles in its web the student of the Indo-European
languages. In
Korean as in most of the Turanian languages the idea of gender
is very imperfectly
developed, which argues perhaps a lack of imagination. The ideas
of person and
number are largely left to the context for determination, but in
the matter of
logical sequence the Korean verb is carried to the extreme of
development.
The Korean’s keen sense of social
distinctions has given rise to a complete system of honorifics
whose proper use
is essential to a rational use of the language. And yet numerous
as these may
be their use is so regulated by unwritten law and there are so
few exceptions that
they are far easier to master than the personal terminations of
Indo-European
verbs. The grammatical superiority of Korean over many of the
western languages
is that while in the latter differences of gender number and
person, which
would usually be perfectly clear from the context, are carefully
noted, in the
Korean these are left to the speaker’s and the hearer’s
perspicacity and
attention is concentrated upon a terse and luminous collocation
of ideas; which
is often secured in the west only by a tedious circumlocution.
The
genius of the language has led the Korean to express [page 436] every possible verbal
relation by a separate modal form. The extent to which this has
been carried
can be shown only by illustration. Besides having simple forms
to express the
different tenses and the different modes, indicative, potential
conditional,
imperative, infinitive, it has simple forms to express all those
more delicate
verbal relations which in English require a circumlocution or
the use of
various adverbs. For instance the Korean has a special mode to
express
necessity, contingency, surprise, reproof, antithesis,
conjunction, temporal
sequence, logical sequence, interruption, duration of time,
limit of time,
acquiescence, expostulation, interrogation, promise,
exhortation, imprecation,
desire, doubt, hypothesis, satisfaction, propriety, concession,
intention,
decision, probability, possibility, prohibition, simultaneity,
continuity,
repetition, infrequency, hearsay, agency, contempt, ability, and
many other relations.
Each one of these ideas can be expressed in connection with any
active verb by
the simple addition of one or more inseparable suffixes. By far the
greater number of these
suffixes are monosyllabic.
To illustrate the delicate shades of
thought that can be expressed
by the addition of a suffix let us take the English expression “I was going along the road,
when suddenly --!” This,
without anything more, implies that the act of going was
interrupted by some
unforeseen circumstance. This would be expressed in Korean by
three little
words năga = “I,” kil-e = “along the road, ka-ta-ga = “was going, when suddenly--.” The stem of the verb is ka and the sudden
interruption of the
action is expressed by the ending taga; and, what is more, this
ending has absolutely no other use. It is reserved solely for
the purpose of
expressing succinctly this shade of thought The little word kal-ka of which ka is the stem, meaning “go,” contains all the
meaning that we put
into the words “I
wonder now whether he will really go or not.” Someone asks you if you are
going, and all you need to say is “ka-na” to express the complete
idea of “What
in the world would I be going for? Absurd!”
Another thing which differentiates
Korean from the languages of the west is the wide difference
between book
language and spoken language. Many of the grammatical forms are
the same in
both, but besides these there is a full set of [page 437] grammatical endings used in
books only while at the same time there are many endings in the
vernacular that
could never be put in print. The result is very unfortunate, for
of necessity
no conversation can be written down verbatim.
It must all be changed into indirect discourse, and the
vernacular endings must
largely be changed to the book endings. This must not be charged
up against the
Korean, for it came in with the Chinese and is but one of the
thousand ways in which
their overpowering influence,
in spite of all it has done for Korea, has stunted her
intellectual
development. We would not imply that these literary endings are
borrowed from the
Chinese for such is rarely the case; but as Korea has little
literature except
such as has grown up beneath the wing of China, it was
inevitable that certain
endings would be reserved for the formal writing of books while
others were considered
good enough only to be bandied from mouth to mouth. It is of
course impossible
to say what Korea would have accomplished had she been given a
free rein to
evolve a literature for herself but we cannot doubt that it
would have been
infinitely more spontaneous and lifelike than that which now
obtains.
From a linguistic standpoint the
Koreans are probably far more homogeneous than any portion of
the Chinese
people lying between
equal extremes of latitude. There are in Korea no such things as
dialects.
There are different
“brogues” in the peninsula, and the
Seoul man can generally tell the province from which a
countryman comes, from his speech. But it would be wide of
the truth to assert that Koreans from different parts of the country
cannot easily understand each other. To be sure there are some
few words peculiar to individual
provinces but these are mutually known just as the four words: guess, “reckon,” “allow” and “calculate,” while peculiar to certain
definite sections of the United States, are universally understood.
A word in conclusion must be said
regarding the laws of Korean euphony. No people have followed
more implicitly nature’s
law in the matter of euphony. It has not been done in the
careless manner that
changed the magnificent name Caesar
Augustus to the slovenly Sarago sa,
but the incomparable law of the convertibility of surds and
sonants which is
[page 438] characteristic of the Turanian
languages is worked out to its ultimate end in Korean. The nice
adjustment of
the organs of speech whereby conflicting sounds are so modified
as to blend
harmoniously is one of the unconscious Korean arts. Who told
them to change the
labial
surd p of Ap-nok to its corresponding
labial nasal m before
the following
nasal, which leaves the euphonious
word amnok;
or to change the lingual nasal n of in-pi to its corresponding labial
nasal m before the
labial surd p giving
the phonetically correct
impi? The evidence goes to show that
the euphonic tendency in Korea has not broken down the
vocabulary as is sometimes the case. Prof. Max
Müller speaks of the law of phonetic decay; and rightly so, when
the Romance
languages are under discussion, but in Korea this law would
better be called
one of phonetic adjustment. When rough stones are put together
to form a roadbed, if they are of good
quality they work down together, get their corners knocked off,
and form a
solid and durable surface; but if the stone is poor the pieces
will mutually
pulverize each other and the road will be worthless. The former
of these
processes represents phonetic adjustment while the latter
represents phonetic
decay. The comparative virility
of French and Italian speech, in spite of phonetic decay, is
brought about by
the compensating law of dialectic regeneration, but the
Portugese language, for
instance, shows no: such vitality. Cross breeding is as
necessary to the
vitality of i a language as grafting is to the production of
good fruit.
Another feature which specially
characterizes Korean speech is the great number of mimetic
words, or, as they
are sometimes called, onomatopoeia. As Korean colors are drawn
directly from
nature so a great number of its words are phonetic descriptions.
And the reason
why such primitive nature-words are still found intact in a
language so highly developed
as the Korean is because the principle of reduplication, common
in all the
Turanian languages, is carried to the extreme in Korean. A
reduplicated mimetic
word carries on its very face its mimetic quality and
consequently the very conspicuousness
of this quality has prevented change. Its very raison
d’etre
being its phonetic description of the object or the act, a
change in the sound
is rendered very unlikely. For instance the Korean word t’ŭl-bŭk
t’ŭl-bŭk means
precisely [page 439] what
an English or American boy
would express by the word “Ker-splash!” which is itself keenly
mimetic. In Korean the syllabic t’ŭl, and in English the “ker,” represent the sharp spat with which a heavy body strikes the
surface of the water and the Korean bŭk
represents the heavy sound which follows when the water comes
together over the
object. In English the splash represents rather the spray thrown
up by the impact on the water. It will
readily be seen that the reduplication of the tŭl-bŭk would tend to secure
permanency in the pronunciation. Mimetic words in English haveso
often lost
their evident mimetic
quality; as in
the word “sword” which was originally
pronounced with the w, in imitation of the sound of the weapon sweeping through
the air, but having lost the w sound it now has no phonetic
significance. One hardly
needs a dictionary to learn the meaning of Korean onomatopoeia.
What could
jing-geu-rŭng jăng-geu-rŭng mean but the jingle-jangle of bells
or of the steel
rings on the horses’ bridles?
So again
mulsin mulsin means soft to the touch, based on the same idea as
our word “mellow” in which the softest
sounds of human speech, m and l,
are used. On the other hand bak-bak means hard, stiff,
unyielding, after the analogy
of our own word “brittle” which is doubtless
mimetic. The Korean word
whose stem is ch’i means to strike or hit and is the phonetic
equivalent of our
vulgar word “chug” whose mimetic origin cannot
be doubted. One must conclude that the prevalence of mimetic
words in all
languages forms a serious obstacle to the study of philology,
for attempts on the part of widely
separated people to produce a phonetic description of an object,
quality or act
that is common to them both is most likely to result in similar
sounds. And
these, later, form dangerous traps into which the eager but
unwary philologue
is prone to fall.
It may be asked whether the Korean
language is adapted to public speaking. We would answer that it
is eminently so.
For, in the first place, it is a sonorous, vocal language. The
Koreans say that in any syllable the
vowel is the “mother” and the consonant is the “child.” showing that they
have grasped the essential idea that vowel sounds form the basis
of human speech.
The sibillant element is much
less conspicuous in Korean than in Japanese and one needs
[page 440] only to hear a public speech in
Japanese and one in Korean to discover the vast advantage which
Korean enjoys.
Then again,
the almost total lack of accent in Japanese words is a serious
drawback from
the point of view of oratory. So far as we can see there is
nothing in Korean
speech that makes it less adapted to oratory than English or any other western
tongue. In common with the language of Cicero and Demosthenes,
Korean is
composed of periodic sentences, by which we mean that each
sentence reaches its
climax in the verb, which comes at the end; and there are no
weakening addenda
such as often make the English sentence an anticlimax. In this
respect the
Korean surpasses English as a medium for public speaking.
Correspondence.
The
Origin of the
Korean People.
Dear
Sir: --
With
the greatest interest I have read your History of Korea, in the
Korea Review,
and feel immensely grateful to you for the vast amount of
information which you
have made accessible to outsiders like myself.
What interests me particularly, is the
old history and everything relating to the origin of the
Koreans. For that very
reason I take the liberty to make some remarks about what you
say on that
point. Quite independently of historical and philological
researches and
relying on the physical characteristics of the people only, I
have come to the
same conclusion as you, viz, that there must have been
an immigration from the south into southern Korea. Only, I dare
not go so far
as to trace it to India; but I am satisfied with the fact that
the immigrants
or conquerors must have come from some of the large islands east
and south of
Korea, or
it maybe from southern China. The accompanying map, showing the
sea currents and
the distribution of race-types will illustrate my opinion.
But it appears to me, that what
you call “cumulative evidence of the southern origin of the
three Han” (Korea Review, 1901, No.
2, p. 92) is not quite as conclusive as you take it, at least
not as proving an
Indian origin.
[page 441] Your first argument, the language
and vocabulary, I dare not discuss, as I have no knowledge in
that field; but I
acknowledge
that what you say in the article about “The Korean Pronouns” is very striking. You go
on quoting (2)
“the non-intercourse with the people
of northern Korea.” Now that such a non-intercourse should have existed
for many centuries, appears quite incredible to me, whatever the chronicles may
put into the mouth
of Ki-jun, when he came to Mahan. At that time the civilized country of old Chosen
had existed for a thousand years; the capital was at
P’yŭng-yang, not far from the Mahan people. And
during all that time the Chosen people you say never came into
contact with or even knew the existence of another race close to
them? No, sir,
that I cannot believe, and it would contradict every
experience in Eastern Asia and in all the world. A civilized nation will always by
peaceful or warlike ways influence neighbouring barbarians and
will encroach on
them, and barbarians will always be attracted by civilized
nations, where they
can obtain commodities not to be had in their own country. And
on the other
hand, is it probable that the Mahan people, after having
traversed enormous
lands and islands, and after having crossed (in primitive
vessels), wide and
dangerous seas, is it probable that they should be stopped in
their progress by
rivers and plains easy to traverse? Again I say: No, sir, that I
cannot
believe.
(3) The custom of tattooing. Tattooing
is a substitute for dress in Japan only, and here it is
therefore relegated to the
very lowest class of society. The poorest peasant in Japan would
have resented
as an insult the suggestion of tattooing. Nobody but the coolies
on the high
roads ever used tattooing. In every other country tattooing is
on the contrary
a sign of distinction and rank, or it is a cosmetic operation.
The South Sea
people,
who never knew what dress means, tattoo their faces more than
any other part of
their bodies. The northern Aino
women in an arctic climate tattoo their faces and their hands,
and so do, in a
tropic climate, the women of Formosa who do not tattoo their
breasts or arms,
which they expose. We know that the inhabitants of Old Britain
tattooed although
they did not care much for
dress. If the Mahan people came from the south into a cold
country, where they
[page 442] needed a dress, they would naturally have given
up its substitute, tattooing. The fact is, that tattooing occurs
under all
climates and under the most different peoples. In Japan
tattooing is altogether
only a few centuries old and can therefore have no connection
with the old
Koreans.
(4) “The diminutive size of
horses found nowhere else except in the Malay peninsula.” Now the only tribe,
amongst which you mention the extreme smallness of the horses,
are the Yemăk,
(p. 81) whom you count as of northern
origin. Griffis,
no doubt from Korean or Chinese sources, expressly states that
the Mahan knew neither
the driving nor the riding of horses; so I cannot see how small
horses can be
adduced as a proof of a southern origin of the Mahan. Besides I
have never seen
in the Malay peninsula horses as small as the Korean. If the
latter came from
Malaysia by way of the large islands, why do you not find small
horses on
those? And it is extremely improbable that barbarians in
primitive times should
ever have dreamt of taking horses on board their small and
fragile boats, on
which they could often hardly
store water and food enough for themselves for a long voyage.
(5) The tradition of the southern
origin of the people of the island of Quelpart. This is all right. Quelpart is
peopled by Malays, as my map shows, and so is Formosa; both are
in the line of
the Kuroshiwo or “‘Black
Stream.”
(6) “The seafaring propensities
of the people of the three Hans.” I have nowhere found that propensity mentioned although
every other detail is given about the tribes. The fact is, that
the Koreans
were not a seafaring people compared with the Japanese, who had
far more Malay
blood than the Koreans. Witness the whole Korean history in the
middle ages, and particularly your own description of the
raid by Japanese pirates.
(7) “The ignorance of the value
of gold and silver.” Now
Marco Polo says, that the Chinese got most of their gold from
the very islands
in the eastern sea, through which you guide your Dravidians to
Korea.
Then the long-tailed fowls (p. 89), “they
are now extinct, but within the memory of people now living they
were quite
common in Japan.” The are
not extinct, and they were never common in Japan.
They were and are
a monstrosity [page 443] cultivated
in one place of the province of
Kochi in Shikoku
a province on the eastern
shore of
Japan. When the specimens in the Museum of Tokyo were first
exhibited, old and
young flocked
there to see
the wonder. Last year a living specimen was brought to Tokyo
under the greatest
difficulties;
it had never been seen there before.
You take every opportunity to show
that the Korean annals are far more reliable than the Japanese.
But although you
say
expressly on p. 88, that no Korean
history mentions Japanese in South Korea, (which they would
certainly do, if they are reliable and
if there were any Japanese,) you
think their presence probable because they are mentioned by one Chinese author, and you go
on discussing that question quite seriously.
Then I wish to draw your attention to
the fact that the houses of the Mahan and of the Malgal are
described by you in
literally the same words,
and that they both had a peculiarity which is found in northern
people only, viz,
that they were built into the ground and were entered from
above. The typical
peculiarity of the southern people from Ceylon to all EastAsia
islands is, on
the other hand, that the houses are built above the ground, on
poles. Therefore
the Japanese house is of Indonesian origin, and the Korean is
not.
But the most curious part in your
argument is, that you adduce as proofs horses and fowls, but
that you quite
ignore the people themselves. The fact is, that on the southern
edge of Korea,
where the
Kuroshiwo touches, there is a small admixture of Malay (or what
is the same
thing, of southern Mongol) blood, but that the immense majority of
the Koreans is of unmistakeably northern origin. Nowhere in the south, not
amongst the Tamil or Telugu, nor amongst the inhabitants of
Java, Sumatra,
Borneo, or the Malay peninsula, do you find the long slit eyes
(and the nose)
so common in Korea, but
you find them all through Manchuria, Northern China and right
through central
Asia as far as Irkutsk or even further west, and you find them
amongst the
Japanese, because there has been a strong immigration into easternn Japan from Korea. One
thousand years ago, that is in strictly historical times, when a
list of the
noble families of Japan was made, not less than 170 out of 1100 traced their descent to
[page 444] Korea and nearly as many
from China! If that Is the case amongst the nobility of a people
so proud of
its antochthonous, that
their mythology ignores the whole world outside of Japan, how
much more
numerous must have been Koreans in the lower classes, in
consequence of the
constant wars, and raids, in which no end of people must have
been carried away
as prisoners! If we stick to historical times and to official
statistics alone,
there is an endless list of smaller or larger numbers of Koreans
settled in
Japan,
The original kingdom of Idzumo, which
was found when Jimmu Tenno appeared, was Korean and its inhabitants must have come with
the cold current from north-east Korea. From the earliest times
until the
present year we read of Korean ships thrown ashore or landing at
Idzumo, or
Echizen the very places where even to-day the Korean type is
most common in
Japan, and if you look at any map of Asia, you will acknowledge
that very, very
strong arguments are needed to convince anyone that the bulk of
the Koreans
should have come from the south,
and not across the Yalu.
In “The Korean Pronouns” you
say “that the people of southern Korea, who developed the earliest
civilizaiian, which survived,
and who
were the first to dominate the whole peninsula and impose their
language upon
the whole people, were distinctly of southern origin.” This is a
direct
contradiction to your “History
of Ancient Korea”
where yon distinctly say that the people of southern Korea, the Mahan and
the Chinhan (the Pionhan you almost ignore) were barbarians, until
civilized by refugees from the descendants of Kija and from
China. Where is there any proof
of an “early
civilization, which survives”?
Certainly not in your own History! There has never been in Korea
from the days
of Kija down to our time, anything which can be called
civilization, which was
not of undoubted northern (Chinese) origin. If there was, it was never shown nor
demonstrated, nay even mentioned.
One thousand years before Mahan was
civilized Chosen had a written language taught by Kija, and it
is certainly more
probable that Kijun brought that language to Mahan than that the
Mahan language
spread into Chosen, of the existance of which you say the Mahan
had no idea.
The Chosen people being northerners, they must have had a
different
[page 445] language from the
southerners, and we ought to have at least two different
languages in Korea, of
which fact I am
not aware. Silla in its turn was from the very beginning
entirely under the
influence of Chinese civilization, and always sided with China,
the ruling
classes considering themselves of Chinese descent.
Altogether Korea and Japan have the
same two racial types, which are in pure specimens as different
as a Swede is
from an Italian. In Japan the Malay type prevails, in Korea the
other which I
have called Manchu-Korean.
In the whole history of Korea the only
part really interesting to the world at large is, and
particularly will be, her
rôle as a transmitter of Chinese civilization and Buddhism to
Japan.
Unfortunately you have almost ignored that aspect in your
History and you would
certainly deserve the thanks of every student of the Far East by
taking up that
subject and by publishing what the Koreans themselves have to
say about it.
When the Chinese and Silla beat the united troops and navies of
Koguryŭ, Pakche
and Japan that event made an enormous impression on Japan, where
the word To
(Tang) is synonymous with Chinese up to this day. It was a time
of triumph for
Silla, which the Japanese had always regarded as a vassal state, from which
they claimed tribute. It was not until 1894
that the Japanese paid back that defeat at the hands of China.
Korea, from what everybody in Seoul
tells me, has no future even in the eyes of her own people, but
Japan will rise more and more and it will
be in the interests of the Koreans themselves, to show how much
Japan owes
them.
On another subject I beg to be allowed
to make a few short remarks: about the writing of Korean names.
The new
orthography adopted by the Korean Asiatic Society throws a great
difficulty
into the way of students not living in Korea. This is to be
regretted, as many
will lay aside the publications as a hopeless task, if they
cannot find the
names of the places given in the text, on any of the maps. When
they know that
Chung has to be carefully differentiated from Chong or Chang,
and Yöng from
Yang, they will never suspect that Euiju may mean Wiju, or
Kenija, Kija. In its
own interest should not the Society adopt the easiest way of spelling, [page 446] and from that most natural
standpoint the old Wiju and Kija
are decidedly to be preferred. As it is, none can find his way
through the
publications who
has not the sheet with the explanations of sounds in his hand.
The society
should write not only for the few residents in Korea, but should
try to attract
the attention of a large public; that can be done only by
adopting a simple
method of spelling.
I see I have been writing down many
criticisms, but I hope
you will excuse them because of my great interest in the matter
in question.
Believe
me,
Yours
very truly,
E.
Baelz. Tokyo, Oct. 6th, 1902.
The
Prince of Detectives.
Probably
the most astute police official that Korea ever had was Sin Hön.
Ordinarily a
suspected criminal is beaten to make him confess his crime,
whether he has
committed one
or not, but this official did not have to resort to such means.
In the case of
a suspected thief, for instance, he had a most novel and
convincing method of
proving the truth or falsity of the charge. He was the first man
to discover
the fact that men have three kinds of gaits. One is like that of
the horse, one
is like that of the cow, and one is like that of the dog. It
cannot be detected
when a man merely
walks, but when
he runs it is quite clear. So when a suspect was brought before
Sin Hön he
would order one of his attendants to seize the man by the
top-knot and run him
around the yard once or twice. If he showed the cow gait he was
a gentleman, if
he showed the horse gait he was a common man but if he showed
the dog gait he
was surely a thief; all of which goes to show that the West has
still much to
learn from the East. Sin Hön was also an expert at mind reading
and could tell
from a man’s
face a good deal as to his honesty.
And yet the time came when even Sin Hön
was outclassed in his
own favorite sphere. A certain
district in the [page 447] country
was being harassed by a particularly
bold and successful robber whose modus operandi
was peculiarly effective. Some wealthy man would wake up in the
morning to find
a sheet of paper pasted on his gate and on it the picture of a
chrysanthemum,
while beneath the flower were written the words “Kindly bring a hundred
thousand cash to such and such a point just at midnight or else
I shall be
under the painful necessity of burning your house down over your
head.” Of
course the money was always forthcoming. The matter was reported
to the chief,
Sin Hön, but with all his astuteness he was unable to get on the
track of the thief. In the district
thus terrorized lived a former friend of his who firmly asserted
that the rogue
could not be caught.
Sin Hön had about given up hope of capturing the felon when one
of his
lieutenants, Kim Se-p’ung by name, asked permission to work up
the case. It was
cheerfully given and, armed with a heavy purse, he made his way
secretly to the
infested district. He there sought out a man of the common
people and offered
him enough money to build a fine house in a rather unfrequented
position. When
the house was done some of the tiles which cover the upturned
corner of the
roof were not put in place; but when night came Kim himself,
clad in dark
clothes, would mount the roof and lie down where the tiles should have been,
with his face peering over the edge of the eaves. In the
darkness he was quite
undistinguishable
from the tiles.
The third night his vigils were
rewarded by seeing a little boy glide up in the shadow of the
wall and silently
paste one of the blackmailing sheets of paper to the gate. With a bound
like a wounded tiger Kim dropped from the sky upon the lad and
pinned him to
the earth, at the same time choking him so that he could not cry
out. When he
saw the boy’s face he was surprised to find that it was one of
the house
servant’s sons. The boy said that a gentleman had asked him to
paste the paper
to the gate but that he did not know the meaning of the words on
it.
Kim commanded the boy to lead him to
the “gentleman,” and going with him into a
clump of trees nearby, he found the crafty scoundrel waiting to
give the boy
his reward for the service rendered. Kim promptly grappled with
and
[page 448] secured his victim and
when he was brought to Seoul and
placed before Sin Hön, behold, it was his former friend, the one
who had discouraged all
attempts to catch the thief. Sin Hön confessed that for once he
had been at
fault, and his former friend came to an untimely end at the
extremity of a rope.
This was the beginning of Kim Se-p’ung’s career as a Korean
Sherlock Holmes. One of the best stories told of him is that of
how he broke up
a nest of robbers on Chi ri mountain. He went at it in a
remarkable manner.
After announcing publicly that he was going to take the matter
in hand he proceeded
openly to the dangerous vicinity, although he well knew that the
robbers had
set a price upon his head, and a round price too.
As he was riding along the road he
fell in with a man whom he instantly knew to be one of the
robbers, and he opened
the
conversation by saying:
“I am Kim Se-p’ung and I am down here to
break up this band of robbers. Now how would you go about it if
you were in my
place?”
“Well,” answered the robber,
chuckling to himself at what he deemed the callowness of his
questioner, “I should think you had
better go in disguise among the mountains and spy out the
retreat of the
robbers first so as to learn the lay of the ground.”
“Good,” said Kim, “I will do it tomorrow. I
will get a couple of coolies and a horse and make believe that I
am a wood
cutter and go up the mountain and have a look. Good day.” Of course the robber made
straight for the mountain retreat and prepared his companions
for the morrow’s
fun. It really seemed too easy be to at all exciting.
True to his word, Kim started for the
mountain with his coolies and having advanced well into the
woods he told them
to go forward and cut wood while he rested beneath a tree. They
obeyed and
pushed forward until suddenly they came to a great stone gate which barred
the way. Two huge men,
bristling with knives, sprang out and seized them and ordered
them to lead on
to where their master waited.
Half dead with fear they complied. Kim came briskly forward and
said:
[page 449] “Oh you are members of that brave band of free-booters who live among these
mountains.
How I should
like to see your retreat.”
“You shall indeed,” said one of the villains,
glancing with an amused smile at the other, “Come this way.” Kim followed
them up the hill and through the frowning gate which fell to
with a crash
behind them and was securely bolted. But Kim did not seem to
care. He walked
gaily on chatting affably
with his captors till they entered another gate and found
themselves in the
very citadel of the robbers. There
was quite a large village and it was admirably defended. Kim looked about him in an
interested way like a tourist with a Baedecker in his hand, and
apparently
quite oblivious of his oncoming fate.
They led him to the principal building
where sat the chief of the robbers. Kim walked boldly in and
introduced himself
as Kim Se-p’ung
and seated himself as if to have a comfortable chat with the old
Blue-beard.
The latter smiled a little grimly but thought to have a little
sport with his
victim, as
a cat would with a mouse, before applying the bow-string.
“I thought,” said Kim,
undaunted, “that
I would come up and have a little friendly chat with you on a
matter of business.
You have a fine place here and well defended, but now, tell me
honestly, don’t
you and your men find it harder work to make ends meet than you
would if you were
honest farmers
or merchants?” He looked about at the faces of the men who had crowded in to hear the fun, and he saw that his question
had hit the
mark. He
pressed his advantage. “You see, it is hard for us honest men to
realize what advantage you have over us. You have to live cooped up here
in the bleak mountain keeping a stiff guard
about you night and day. You have to work summer and winter, and
all the time there
is the gnawing anxiety which you must feel knowing that every
raid yon make is
at the risk of your lives. Now, really,
do you think it worthwhile? You see I have no such fear even here for I am an honest man and if you should touch me with so
much as your little finger the government would surround this mountain
with fifty thousand men and smoke you out in short meter.” He glanced about and saw conviction
written on more than one face.
[page 450] “Now see here, I have a
proposition to make. I will guarantee to every man of you a nice
little farm
and house, and full pardon for all past offences if you will come out one
by one and accept the clemency of the King. You know I am a man of my word
and I pledge my life to fulfill the promise. Then you can marry
and live at
peace and in plenty the rest of your days. What do you say?” and he looked about with a smile.
There was an eager stir among the
crowd. The old chief was moving uneasily in his seat and casting
doubtful
glances at his men.
“Come speak up,” said Kim. “I
know how you feel and how much it goes against the grain, but
it’s a fair offer and one you can’t afford
to refuse.”
“I’m hanged if I don’t do it,” cried one
big fellow throwing his weapons clanging to the floor.
“And that’s true, too,”
laughed Kim. This broke the ice and they crowded about him and swore to
follow his advice. But the old chief still sat in gloomy
silence. At last he
looked up and said: --
“There’s only one diffculty. People will know
what we have been and they will make it hard for us. If you can
change all our
names and settle us in different places far from there so that
our past shall
be a secret, I agree.”
“Certainly, sir, every effort will be
made to start you fair with the world and I will personally
arrange the details
so that there
shall be no trouble whatsoever.”
It was done, and from that time on
peace reigned in the land; but Kim Se-p’ung had once more proved
the truth of the adage that it is better to make a friend of
your enemy than to
kill him.
Odds
and Ends.
Things
are not what they seem
In
the northern part of Korea there once lived an old man named Pak
who was a
philosopher. He had had a large experience of men and things and
his wisdom made him the oracle of his neighborhood and the
counsellor of the
people [page 451] all
through that region. The following story is often told to
illustrate his sagacity.
Old
man Pak owned a fine horse. He had raised it from a colt and was
very, much
attached to it. One day this horse broke loose from its stable,
and though
strenuous efforts were made to recapture it, it succeeded in
getting away and
disappeared. When the news of his loss became known many of his friends
came to
condole with him and express their regrets. But, strange to relate, old man Pak refused to be
condoled with and insisted that it was really an occasion for
congratulation. “It is really a piece of
good fortune, as you will see.” Now this was a strange way to
look at it, but
his friends let it go and returned to their homes mystified.
Shortly afterward they heard that the
horse had returned to old man Pak and brought with it a whole
drove of wild horses
from the mountains. These became the property of Pak and made
him a rich man.
Then the mystery of the old man’s philosophic way of taking his
loss at first was cleared up and his friends
hastened to call on him
and present their congratulations. But again to their great
surprise he held an
altogether different view of the result from that which they
held and
nonplussed them by answering their congratulations with the
remark – “A misfortune --a misfortune!”
Old man Pak had one son, born late in
life, but now grown to manhood and more precious to the old man
than all his
earthly possessions. This son had special charge of the horses
and undertook to
break one in to the saddle. In this process he was one day
thrown by the horse
and severely injured, breaking his
leg and becoming a cripple for life.
Again the friends acknowledged the superior wisdom of the old
man and, feeling
sure they were
right this time, called in person to sympathize with him and
express their
regrets. But again they found the old man opposed to them.
“You are all surely wrong
this time,” he told them. “Far
from being a misfortune, this is the best thing that could have
happened to me.”
But this was too much for the friends and neighbors and they could only
conclude that the old man had become insane through too much
learning and wisdom
so they
departed in sadness to their various homes, giving up the attempt to
convince him as a hopeless task.
[page 452] But again time proved the truth
of old man Pak’s view of his experiences. For war broke out in
the land and all
able bodied young men were conscripted
into service. Then the sons and brothers of his neighbors, being drafted for the war,
were compelled to leave their homes and die on the field of
battle. But the
crippled son of old man
Pak,
because of
his infirmity, was allowed to remain by his father and escaped
the peril of
those who had sound bodies. Amid their sorrow and lamentation
over the loss of
their sons all paused to acclaim the wisdom of old man Pak and
to acknowledge
that he was correct in saying that things are not what they
seem.
Not
dead Yet,
KingYong-jong,
who ruled Korea from 1724 to 1777 once desired to build a little palace
to be called the Yuk-sang-gung. But when he gave an order on the
public
treasury for the money the official who acted as “Controller of the Treasury” under the Finance Minister
refused to hand over the money. The Minister thereupon reported to the
King to that effect. In great anger the King ordered the official, Kim Pok-sam, to appear before him.
When he appeared the King asked “Why have you dared to refuse to pay
out the money,
at my order?”
The faithful Kim replied, “The
money in
the public treasury is for public use but this palace Is a
private affair of
your Majesty’s
and I cannot let the money go for this purpose. “
The King was not able to answer the
argument and dismissed the man, but immediately sent to the
royal stables and
ordered the grooms to pick out a horse that was sick and at the
point of death
and send it to Kim Pok-sam’s
house; and at the same time he sent a message to Kim saying “If in four days from now you
tell me that this horse is dead your head will be forfeited.”
Promptly at the appointed time Kim was
called to the palace and the King asked, “How about that horse?” “Well,” answered Kim, “for three
days the horse has refused to eat or to drink or to – breathe.” “Aha; then he is dead?” Kim only bowed assent. “Your life is forfeit then.” Kim bowed still lower and
said, “I am quite prepared to die if Your Majesty so orders, but
you said my
head would be forfeit when I told you that the horse was dead. I
have not done so yet, I merely said the
animal had ceased to breathe.”
[page 453] The King threw back his
head and laughed. The man’s wit had disarmed him, quite. Kim was
sent away with
a rich present and until his dying day he held the key of the
public treasury.
Expert
Archery.
Yi
T’ă-Jo, the
founder of
this dynasty, while
yet a boy was already a crack shot with the bow and arrow. One
day as he and
one of his boy friends were amusing themselves with their
weapons a woman
passed by with a crock of water on her head.
“Look,” cried Yi, “If you shoot a hole through
that crock I will plaster the hole with mud before a single drop
of water is
spilled.” He put a lump of wet clay on the end of his arrow and
let fly, an
instant after his friend’s arrow had left the string. The first
arrow punctured
the side of the crock and fell, and instantly the other arrow
followed and plugged
the hole with mud. How the youthful Yi knew just where first
arrow would hit
the crock does not appear. In fact if all the tales told of this
doughty
general were true he would have had to live a century to
complete all the
adventures accredited to him.
Editorial
Comment.
We
print in this number a letter from Dr. Baelz of Tokyo in which
he gives a very
able critique of the argument on which we base the theory of the
southern
origin of the Korean
people. But there are one or two points that may not be
dismissed without a
word in reply.
He
begins by saying that he has come to the same conclusion regarding the origin of
the Koreans as I, but from a different set of data: yet he ends by saying that the overwhelming
mass of the Koreans are of northern origin. Now there never has
been a doubt in
my mind that by far the greater portion of the Korean people are
of northern
origin. The people of Ma-han, Pyön-han and Chin-han I believe to
have been of southern
origin excepting for a comparatively few Chinese who came over
and settled in
Chin-han. And
yet all the people of these three con genes of settlements could
not have
exceeded a few
hundred thousand in numbers. That the Korean people are a
mixture of the
northern tribes
and of the southern cannot be doubted and there were
unquestionably more of the
northern than of the southern people.
The
point at issue is this: Who were the people that welded Korea
into a unit and
made the peninsula homogeneous in language and in customs? There
can be no
question that it was the people of Silla, the seat [page 454] of whose government was in
southeastern Korea. We then ask
who were the people of Silla. and how did their power and civilization arise? First, who
were they? The first mention of the people of southern Korea is
the traditional
account, given in all the great histories of Korea, of the
southward flight of
Ki-jun in 193 B. C.
The account is perfectly plain and unequivocal. He found there a
people differing so radically from the
people of the north that a minute catalogue of the striking points of
dissimilarity are given. We know very well that although the
Ki-ja dynasty had
existed for a thousand years in the north it had by no means
brought into
subjection the wild tribes of eastern and central Korea. It
looked rather
toward the north, and its energies were always spent in
extending its limits
toward the borders of China. Not a word is said of any effort
toward conquest
in a southerly direction. It is safe to say that the Han River
was a definite
limit to the Ancient Chosŭn power and that it never concerned
itself with
anything beyond that line. The people of far southern Korea
lived in little
communities near the coast. They were not warlike and they lived
their own life
without caring to explore the north. There were barbarous tribes
between them and
Chosŭn. These tribes may have made raids upon the southern
settlers but no Chosŭn
influence ever penetrated this savage belt and made itself felt
in the far
south. The southern Koreans were on the defensive and the
hostility between
them and their still more barbarous neighbors on the north
prevented commerce
and interchange of ideas. Our critic is wrong when he affirms so
positively
that isolation under these circumstances was impossible. We have
the positive
statements of history and tradition together with a fair degree
of reason to
oppose to his statement that, on general principles, it could
not be so.
As for the subject of tattooing, the
mere matter of whether it was as a substitute for dress or for
mere ornament is
of little importance. We know that the southern Koreans
tattooed, while we have
no such statement regarding the northern tribes. This is given
as one of the
peculiarities of the southern Koreans. Now it is well known that while tattooing is
a widely distributed custom it looks toward the south rather
than the north. We
gave it simply as an additional step in a cumulative argument.
Whether or why or when the Japanese
tattooed had
nothing to do intrinsically with the validity of the argument.
It is true that small horses are
mentioned in connection with Yemik, one of the tribes that acted
as a buffer
between Southern Korea and Chosŭn, but it is certain that from
the remotest
antiquity the island of Quelpart has been the breeding-place, par excellence, of the
dwarf Korean pony
and tradition states that the
people of Quelpart got their horses from the south or southeast;
and our critic
himself acknowledges that the people of Quelpart are Malay in
origin . Nothing
is more easy to imagine than that in the border wars between the
southern Koreans and the people of
Ye-mak the latter may have become possessed of this breed of
animal, but this
would not necessarily argue that there was any commerce or friendly
relationship between the two peoples. Then again why are these
dwarf horses
found nowhere
north of this [page 455] tribe which immediately
bordered upon the southern Koreans? It is certain that the only
other breed of
small horses is in the far south of Asia. How they got north or
why there are
none in Formosa, or
how they
could have travelled by boat
are questions we cannot at present answer but what evidence there is points to a southern
origin. They were in the Malay peninsula, in Quelpart and in
Ye-măk. Did they go north or south?
Our
critic agrees with us as to the Malay origin of the Quelpartians. He says, “Quelpart is
peopled by Malays, as my map shows, and so is Formosa; both are
in the line of
the Kuroshiwo.” [*We greatly regret that we
are not able to reproduce the map, which shows an ocean current running north by
Formosa and breaking on the southern coasts of Japan and Korea,
and another current coming down
from the north along the eastern
coast of Korea and, when near the southern point, curving to the east
and striking the western coast of Japan.] The map simply shows the
ocean current, upon which we laid emphasis in our argument. But
that current
also strikes the southern coast of Korea along a line far
greater than Quelpart
and whatever it argues for Quelpart it argues still more
strongly for the
mainland.
As to the sea-faring propensities of
the southern Koreans, we know that southern Korea contains a
vast archipelago
and that some of the southern tribes lived on these islands and
traded with
their friends on the mainland. We know that Koreans have been
great fishermen
from the earliest times but not near so warlike as the Japanese nor
probably such gocd mariners. At the same time we know that in
1592 a Japanese fleet
of over a thousand boats was destroyed
by Yi Sun-sin in a naval battle that meant as much for Asia as
Salamis did for
Europe.
Tradition says that the southern
Koreans did not value gold or silver. Marco Polo is cited as
saying that the
Chinese got most of their gold from the islands in the eastern
sea. Well, was
Marco Polo talking about 1600
B. C. or washe talking about
1600 A.
D. It
makes all the difference in the world.
Then come the long-tailed fowls.
Korean tradition says that such fowls existed in far southern Korea. We knew that
they did and still do exist in Japan. “Whether they are extinct or still
living and whether they are
common or
rare makes not a hair’s breadth of difference. They were in both
Korea and Japan, and whether
the Japanese got theirs from Korea or whether the Koreans got theirs from
Japan or whether both Koreans and Japanese got them fromi a common source, the fact remains that they both had them and the point at issue, namely a
connection between
the Japanese and Koreans, was proved insofar as such a point
could prove it. It
was but a small and
unimportant step in the argument but
what small validity it had our critic does not seem to have
broken down. In a cumulative
argument even such details as this have their value.
As to the relative reliability of Japanese
and Korean annals prior to the year 700 a. d. we would simply
suggest that our
critic compare the Kojiki
or the Nihonji with the Korean Sam-guk-sa. It is like comparing
[page 456] the Arabian Nights with the works of
Herodotus. It is true that the Korean histories say nothing
about Japanese in
southern Korea but as
a Chinese writer does mention it we felt bound to give the
evidence for what it
is worth, merely remarking that such a thing might easily have
been possible.
The fact that the houses of southern
Korea were built partly underground
is the only valid argument that is adduced against our theory.
It is difficult
to explain this fact, but there are so many other things that
would be far more
difficult to explain on any other theory that it means on
overwhelming
preponderance in favor of our contention.
In the next paragraph we are told that
there was on the southern edge of Korea “a small admixture of Malay
(or what is the same, of southern Mongol) blood” Now we find in the very
place here indicated a peculiar lot of people whose traditions
and customs and
especially speech seem to indicate a southern origin. They must
therefore be
the Malays which are mentioned in the above quotation. But who,
again, are the Malays? Has it
not been fairly well proved that they were the overflow of
ancient Indian
peoples when the Aryan conquerors drove them, east and south out
of northern
India? Those ancient Indian people were of Turanian stock and it
is quite
proper to look among the Dravidian of today for evidences of a
racial
connection with the Malays or with any offshoot of the Malays.
As to physiognomy, it is true that the
Mongol type is in the preponderance in Korea, but if there is
any one fact
beyond dispute it is that there exists in Korea two distinct types of face even after 1200
years of complete social admixture. One of these types is Mongol
and the other is
Malay, as has
been proved over and over again since the time when Oppert
disclosed the fact.
My statement that the Southern Koreans who developed the
earliest civilization which survived and who were the first to
dominate the
whole peninsula and impose their language upon the whole people,
were of southern
origin, is a “direct
contradiction’’ of nothing that I have said elsewhere, as a word
will show. I
have nowhere said that the immigrants from the south brought any
degree of
civilization with them. They were barbarians when they arrived
on Korean soil.
Some Chinese refugees settled among the Chin-han people and
doubtless helped
them to some new ideas but when the Kingdom of Silla was founded, it was done,
so far as we can learn from historical sources, by native
chieftains the names
of whose tribes are utterly un-Chinese, the name they gave the
kingdom was not
Chinese, the names of their official grades were not Chinese and
it was not
till at least five centuries later that the kingdom began to be
very largely
moulded by Chinese ideas. There can be no doubt that the
civilization here
developed owed much to Chinese ideas but it is equally clear that it was developed by Koreans of the
southern stock. Now is it true or not that this was the first
civilization in Korea to survive?
The Kija dynasty dwindled away until it was so weak that a
itiere adventurer
with a few hundred men at his hack was able to over throw it
without Striking a
blow. It left no literature whatever and [page 457] Koguryŭ was founded on its decayed ruins a couple of
centuries after its fall. All native accounts describe the early
people of
Koguryŭ as very little better than savages. The Kija civilization had lapsed
into aboriginal semi-savagery. Then the kingdom of Păk-che in the southwest, which was of mixed northern and
southern blood, was blotted out together with that of Koguryŭ,
before the
opening of the seventh century, and Silla reigned supreme in the
peninsula. And
from that time to this everything essential in Korean
civilization has been but
a working out of
problems proposed by Silla. Confucianism, Buddhism, Shamanism,
and fetichism,
as practiced in Korea, all come down from Silla days. That
kingdom organized
its provincial governments and sent its language throughout the
land and the
homogeneity of Korean speech to-day is due to the unifying
influence of Silla.
The whole grammar of Korean is given in epitome in the ancient itu which
was invented by a Silla scholar and it shows that
the basis of Korean speech
to-day is the language of Silla just as surely as the basis of
English speech
is Anglosaxon. The civilization of Silla continued into the
Koryŭ dynasty; the founders
of the latter were natives of Silla and the last king of Silla
became the prime
minister of the first king of Koryŭ. More than nine tenths of
the family names
of Korea to-day are Silla names. The Silla people originated the
celebrated
Satsuma ware which has attained such an enviable reputation,
they cast the
largest bell that can be found either in Korea or Japan, and it
hangs to-day in
Kyöng-ju, a mute memorial of the actual founders of the present
Korean
civilization.
The extreme weakness of our critic’s
contention is shown in his statement in regard to Kijun and the language ot
Chosŭn. There is, to be
sure, a legend that Kija reduced the language of Chosŭn to
writing but if so
there has come down to us
not a single trace of it. The writing of those days was the seal
character of
China and no Korean language or dialect was ever reduced to
writing until the
days of King Se-jong in the fourteenth century A. D. We cannot imagine that
Kijun with a few boat-loads of followers could have imposed the
language of
Chosŭn upon Mahan, although it is more than likely that he
introduced the
Chinese character into that country. That would have little or
no influence on the
vernacular.
I am prepared to grant that
physically the northern type prevails in Korea, though, as Dr.
Baelz acknowledges, there is a distinctly
Malay type here as well; but this by no means disproves my point
that it was the
Malay element in the south who developed (not necessarily
originated) the first
civilization in Korea, which has survived, and who imposed their
language in
its main features upon
the whole peninsula.
As to my having ignored the whole
question of Korea’s transmission of Chinese civilization and
Buddhism to Japan
this much may be said, that Korean history and tradition have very little indeed to say on the question.
Japan having been the gainer by it we would naturally expect to
learn much more
from Japanese sources than from Korean.
In the preparation of the system of
romanization for Korean words simplicity was one of the first things
considered. The main vowels are [page 458]
nearly all pronounced after the continental system as they are in Japan, but that Korean contains a few very
peculiar sounds is not our fault. A society like the Korea
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society must preserve some semblance of accuracy as well as
simplicity in its system of romanization. If anyone demurs at the
differentiation
of Chung, Chong, and Chang we might as well spell all words alike. There is no town in
Korea properly
pronounced Wiju nor any character in Korean history properly pronounced Kija but it
may be that these errors have become so stereotyped that it is useless to
try to correct them, just
as the town of Cairo, Illinois, U. S. A., is officially as well
as popularly
pronounced as if it were spelled
Kayro. We assure our good friend that a close examination of actual conditions will
show that an easier system
of transliteration or romanization of Korean
words will not be easy
to find.
Book
Review.
The Queen of Quelparte. 12 mo. pp. 330, by Archer
Butler HULBERT. Little, Brown & Co, Boston, U.S.
A,, publishers.
We
have received from the above mentioned firm a copy of a new novel entitled
The Queen
of Quelparte, by Archer Butler
Hulbert, who spent nearly a year in Korea in 1897 and 1898. It is the first novel, so far we know,
whose scene
is laid in this country, and as such it possesses a peculiar
interest. The word Quelparte was evidently used for alliterative purposes and because the writer did not care
to use the word Korea; but as he mentions in his preface, there
is no intention
whatever to cover the fact that Korea is meant. The descriptions
of scenes, costumes and events are all purely
Korean, although actual names of Korean places or persons are not given.
On one living in Korea this book
produces a curious impression: for while it is in no sense an historical novel,
it brings in, and in fact
is hinged upon,
events with which many of us are familiar. At the same time these events are not handled in
the order in which they occurred nor are the causes given the
ones that
actually produced the
results. It
is a story
pure and simple, and as such is very entertaining and
delightful. The plot
hinges about a supposed attempt on the part of Chinese enemies
of Korea to
prevent the funeral pageant of Her Majesty, the late Queen, and
the part which
a young American naval official and a remarkably resourceful Russian girl played in
thwarting this nefarious
plot. The
narrative is brisk and
breezy and never drags. In truth, at times it carries us along with perhaps too
impetuous a pace. The book does
not pretend to be historical nor to handle accurately the causes
which led up to the departure of His
Majesty
from the Russian Legation in 1897, nor does it pretend to analyze
nor to take sides with or against the policy of Russia in the
Far East; and yet
all these things and many more which tax the imagination are woven into the story. One of
its pleasantest
features is the way the writer weaves in a deal of Korean folk-lore and native
[page 459] superstition. In only one particular
does he run counter to actual Korean life, and that is where he
hides the wounded hero in the cave of a sworddancer on a
mountain side and
gives us to understand that this dance is outlawed in Korea. Far
from it.
The curious thing about this novel is
the fact that while people at home will find nothing incongruous
in it,
residents in Korea will be unable to dissociate the romance from
the shreds of
reality which appear and the result is that the book is a sort of curiosity. We venture
to say that no one in Korea will be able to read it from a
purely literary
standpoint and judge it on its merits as such We confess that we
have not been
able to; and yet the book is vividly interesting and holds the
attention to the
end.
If the writer had been working to
catch the attention and elicit the praise of foreign readers in
Korea he would
have done better to invent all his facts as well as the plot,
for then we never
would have known but what the events might have happened, whereas,
knowing what we know, it is inconceivable that they ever could have happened.
News
Calendar.
The
recent tennis tournament in Chemulpo resulted in a victory for
Miss Remedios in the Ladies’ Singles and for Miss
Townsend and Mr. McConnell in the mixed doubles.
M.
Leon Vincart, the Belgian Consul, has returned from Europe,
arriving in Seoul
on the 8th inst.
C.
Waeber, Esq,
former Russian Minister to Korea, but lately appointed special
envoy from the
Russian Emperor to the ceremonies that were to have taken place
this month, was
already far on his way to Korea when the news reached him that
the celebration
had been postponed. He continued his journey however and arrived
in Seoul on
the 16th inst,
where he has been treated with
distinguished honor by His Majesty, as his personal guest.
The
viaduct across the main street inside the West Gate has been
completed and
another is about to be built across the street from the palace
to the former
German Consulate grounds.
Kim
Hak-su, of ministerial rank, has been banished because of his strong
opposition to the cutting of the soldiers’ hair.
A
prison school has been
established and Yi Seung-man, one
of the prisoners, who is well known to many foreigners in Seoul, is the
teacher. The curriculum includes arithmetic, geography, history
and ethics.
Cho
Pyŭng-sik,
was appointed Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs on the 16th
inst.
It
is reported
that the
Russain Minister of Finance, de Wette, who is taking an extended tour of Eastern Asia, will
visit Korea.
The
funeral ceremony of Conte Ugo Francisetti di Malgra, late
Italian Consul in Seoul, was held at the Roman
Catholic Catheral on Monday [page 460]
the 13th instant. An Italian man-of-war
had just arrived in Chenmulpo
and the officers took charge
of the Consulate and superintended the obsequies. The
impressive funeral service was read by one of the French fathers. Many handsome wreaths
and other floral decorations were sent in by friends of the
deceased and the
ceremony was attended
by a large
part of the foreign community including the diplomatic corps and many of the leading
Korean officials. Music was rendered by a boy choir and the
casket was flanked
on both sides by a company of Italian men-of-wars men.
We
are informed by the French authorities that the inauguration of
the Hanoi
Exhibition has been postponed from Nov. 3rd to Nov. 16th. The Messageries Maritimes S. S. Co.
will establish
a direct service between Hongkong and Haiphong, the port of
Hanoi, at the
special return rate of $75.
We
understand that the new Italian Consul, Mr. Monaco, is now on
his way to Korea
and will arrive sometime in November. Meanwhile the Consulate is
charge of an
officer from the Italian man-of-war which arrived at Chemulpo on
or about the
12th inst.
The
friends of Rev. Eugene
Bell will be glad to learn that he is to return to Korea,
starting from his
home in Kentucky on the 30th inst.
We
must apologize for an error in our last issue. Col. Buck, the U.
S. Minister to
Japan, came to Korea in company with Admit al Rodgers in a
purely private
capacity und not as U. S. Envoy to the celebration of the
fortieth anniversary^
of the Emperor’s
accession.
FROM
THE NATIVE
PAPERS.
From
the first of October the prevalence of cholera in Seoul caused a
suspension of
the visits of the Ministers of State to the palace. All
government schools were
closed for three weeks.
Two
new regiments of 1000 men each are being selected as an addition
to the Seoul
garrison.
A
new barracks is to be built immediately adjoining the Government
Hospital (제즁원 ).
Two
hundred horses have been purchased in Japan as mounts for the
new Korean
Cavalry company. They arrived in Chemulpo on the 10th inst.
Pak
Che-sun,
the newly appointed minister to China, arrived in Tientsin on
the 29th of
September.
Gen.
Yi Hak-kyun and Col. Yi Heui-du were appointed by the
government, at the
invitation of the Japanese, to visit Japan and attend the great military
review in Kiu-Shiu.
As
the funds in hand at the Finance Department have not sufficed
for the payment
of the monthly salaries of the officials, the amount required
has been paid out
of the treasury of the Imperial Household.
A
scheme is on foot to establish wireless telegraphy between Fusan
and the
islands of Tsushima.
Kil
Yŭng-su has been appointed Manager of the Railway Bureau.
The
celebration
which was to have taken place this month in honor [page 461] of the fortieth anniversary
of the present reign was postponed
because of the prevalence of cholera, and March of 1903 is named
as the time
when it will occur.
The
Emperor made donations amounting to $5000 to the cholera relief fund.
The
custom of saluting by discharge of cannon on royal birthdays and other national
holidays has been introduced. This was first done on October 18th, the anniversary of the
King’s accession.
The
price of the new Korean legation compound in Peking, Yen 100000, has been sent to that
city and will be paid over by Prof. E. Martel who is acting as
agent of the
Korean government in these negotiations.
On
the 19th instant His Majesty the Emperor received the
congratulations of the
officials for the first time in the new Audience Hall that has
just been
completed in the palace.
Foreigners
have been finding great difficulty in securing from the
Mayoralty office the
proper deeds for property bought
from Koreans but the vigorous action of certain foreign
representatives has
resulted in a statement from the Mayor that such business will hereafter receive prompt
attention.
It
is said that a Chinese publishing house on Nassau Street in New
York City is
getting in a font of Korean type
in addition to Chinese
and Japanese which they already have.
The
French
Minister, M. Collin de Plancy, has been decorated by the Korean
government with
an order of the first class,
which is called the order of the T’a-geuk.
The
custom of saluting with cannon was begun in Seoul on the 18th inst in honor of the fortieth
anniversary of His Majesty’s accession. Unfortunately a mistake
of some kind
was made and five men were severely injured, two of whom, it is
said, have
since died.
The
people on Chin-do, an island off southwestern Korea, report the
ravages of an
immense tiger which they say is over twenty years old and whose
paws are seven
inches broad as judged from his spoor, and whose body is covered
with mud and
pitch to which leaves and grass adhere. Their guns are useless
against him and
they are wondering how they will rid themselves of his unwelcome
proximity
Pang
Tă-yŭng, of the Foreign Office, has been sent to China to secure
a portrait of
Emperor So-yul (**),
one of the last Emperors of the Latter Han dynasty. It will be
placed in a new shrine which, at the instance
of Cho Pyŭng-sik, is to be built in honor of the “Elder Brother” of the God of War, whose
temple is outside the South
Gate.
The
contract of Mrs. Joly, as English instructor to the Crown
Prince, has been
renewed for a period of three years.
A
society has been formed with Yi Chă-gon at its head to agitate
the matter ofl sanitary reform and the
cleansing of the streets of Seoul.
The
Minister of
Agriculture, Commerce, etc, has called upon all the merchants who wish to exhibit at the
Osaka exposition next year to send
to the department a list of the goods they
wish to
exhibit.
[page 462] The Whang-sung Sin-mun says that in the United States there are five naturalized Koreans that in New York there are
five Korean
students, in
San Francisco eight and in Ohio one,
and ten others in
various parts
of the States. The one in Ohio is a woman.
The
prefect of Mu-an has been at work reclaiming waste land by building dykes
and digging irrigating ditches. The amount thus reclaimed is an area that
will require 3000 bags of seed rice to plant.
The
government has appointed a commission to determine the location
and condition
of all the water mills in
Korea for the purpose of levying a tax upon the same.
Those that are out of repair the government will rebuild for the
use of the
people. These mills are simple beams hung on a pivot and having
a heavy head at
one end to
best upon the rice and at the other
a trough into which water falls and raises the hammer end. This releases
the water in the trough and the beam falls.
The
first of September the number of Japanese in the open ports of Korea was as follows;
Fusan, 8198, Masanpo 288,
Mokpo 974, Kunsan
484, Chemulpo 5181, Sŭngjin 69,
Chinnampo 224, P’yŭng-yang 224, Seoul and Wonsan not
reported.
The
deaths from cholera
among the well-known men of Seoul during the recent epidemic
were as follows:
Yi Heui-ha, the governor of North Ch’ung-ch’ŭng province; Sin
Sang-hun’s wife;
Min Yong-jun’s father: Chöng Sewŭn,
ex-president of the Board of Ceremonies.
IN
MEMORY OF
The
Late Count
Ugo Francisseti di Malgra.
We
have to mourn the loss of one
of the most beloved members of our community, the Count Ugo Francisseti di
Malgra, Lieutenant in the Italian Navy and Italian Consul in
Seoul.
Count Francisseti was born in Rome,
his parents representing two of the most noble Italian families.
He was an only
son and his father died soon after his birth. We can imagine how
proud his
mother and his uncle, Baron Sidney Sonniuo, Minister of France,
must have been
since he seemed to unite in his own person all the virtues of
his ancestors.
During his early studies and later in
the Naval Academy he was facile princeps among his school fellows
and soon became noted for brilliancy of mind and seriousness of
character.
Speaking with admirable facility
Italian, French, German and English, accomplished in
mathematics, a thorough
connoisseur in literature, he applied himself, after his
appointment in the
navy, to the study of politics, to which he was attracted both
by long family
tradition and natural inclination.
Arriving in the Far East soon after the capture
of the Taku forts, he [page 463] was
put in command of a detachment
of Italian soldiers which was holding one of the forts at
Tientsin and was soon
after intrusted with several missions by the Italian Minister at
Peking. In all
these affairs he gave such satisfaction that when the question
arose of
establishing an Italian Consulate in Seoul he was selected and
was nominated
full Consul.
It took him but a short time to master
the situation in Korea. In fact all his time was spent in study.
No sport, no
pleasure seemed to attract him outside his house, and yet this
severity of life
did not
interfere with his being a most amiable and accomplished
gentleman.
His idea was that he must render
himself as useful to his government as possible and that all
time not spent in
acquiring a perfect knowledge of the country was thrown away.
It was just at the beginning of
September, as
he was about
to start on a journey in the interior of Korea, that he was
struck down by typhoid
fever which snatched him from his work and his hope, and tied
him down to
inaction, pain and death.
It was at two o’clock on the morning of Sunday the 12th of October that
he succumbed to the disease. In vain was the indefatigable
attention of Dr.
Wunsch who with loving insistence stayed at his side for days
and nights; in vain the assistance of two experienced
nurses, Miss Mills
and Miss Wambold, from the English and Americati Missions
respectively; in vain was all that science and
nursing could
do!
A few hours before his death, by an extraordinarv coincidence, the Italian
man-of-war Lombardia arrived at Chemulpo. It seemed as if the distant father
land had sent to its faithful servant the highest tribute of
honor!
The funeral which took place on Monday at the French
Cathedral was very imposing, a real and hearty demonstration of
sympathy.
The Korean Minister of Foreign
Affairs, the Minister of the Imperial Household, a large
detachment of Korean
soldiers and police, the members of the Diplomatic Corps in full
uniform, the
captain and officers of the Lombardia
and the captain and officers of the Russian gun boat Otvajne with their respective escorts followed the bier to
the cemetery
where two of the compatriots of the deceased spoke words as sad
as tears over
the open grave in which so many hopes were to be buried.
Count Francisseti had a brilliant
future opening up before him. He was to have been relieved
shortly and was to
have travelled
in Australia and America investigating the political
administration of those
lands. At the age of thirty
he was to have entered upon his political career in the Italian
House of Commons. His studious mind
his tenacious will and his brilliant talents warranted the
belief that a high destiny was in store for him.
In the unspeakable despair which must
have overcome his mother in far-away Italy, may the testimonials of the universal esteem
in which he was held be of some comfort to her, if it be that
comfort can be found for such a grief.
D.
Pegorini. Chemulpo, Korea, October, 1902.
Table
of Meteorological Observations;
Seoul,
Korea, September, 1902.
V.
Pokrovsky, M.D., Observer.
[see image files]
[page 465] KOREAN HISTORY.
MODERN KOREA
But
Sin replied,
“I have
enjoyed pleasures with you and now I prefer to suffer with you.” So the two died together.
The Japanese general in command was so impressed with the
bravery of this
prefect Song Sang-hyŭn that he had his body decently buried and
erected a stone
over his grave.
When Gen. Yi Kak, the cautious, and
Gen. Pak Hong who was with him, heard of the fall of Tong-nă,
they took to their
heels and consequently their forces did likewise. And here it
should be noted
that cowardice evinced itself almost exclusively in the generals
and other
officers. We shall find that in almost every instance the
soldiers stood by
their officers to the last man.
As the forces of the Japanese moved
northward the prefects fled to right and left. The governor of
the province, Kim
Su, hearing of the battle at Tong-nă, advanced toward that place
with all the
forces at his command, but his determination seems to have
wavered, perhaps on
account of the growing rumors of the prowess of the Japanese;
for before he came
in sight of the invading army he turned to the west and south,
alarming all the
prefects as he went; and so it is said that this whole portion
of the province
was practically depopulated.
When the Japanese arrived at Yŭng-san
they found it empty. They swarmed over Chak-wŭn Pass like ants
and filled the
plain beyond. Pak Chin the prefect of Mi-ryang burned all the
provisions and arms and fled to the mountains. Not so with Sŏ
Yi-wŭn the
prefect of Kim-hă. He stayed inside his fortress and defied the
invaders. The latter could not effect an entrance until they
went and cut down
a large field of barley in the neighborhood, which they tied in
bundles and
heaped against the wall till they
were able to scale it. Having done his best and failed the
prefect made good
his escape. U Pok-yong, prefect of Yong-gung, as in duty bound,
called in his
retainers and started to join the banner of his chief, Yi Kak,
whose
whereabouts at that time was [page 466]
rather uncertain, as we have already seen. During a halt for
dinner two hundred
soldiers from the town of Ha-yang passed them on their way to join the
forces of the governor. U Pok-yong seems to have had so large an
opinion of
himself that
he was enraged because these soldiers did not dismount when they
passed him.
They were of course ignorant of his rank, but he had them all
seized and executed and sent a note to
the governor saying
that he had destroyed a band of two hundred robbers. For this
meritorious
service he was elevated to the rank of district-general.
Meanwhile Gen. Yi Kak, the provincial
general, was flying from place to place in momentary fear of
encountering the
enemy. His troops were disgusted at this, for they had made some rude guns that would
throw pebbles and they thought if they could have a fair chance
at the Japanese
they could give them a whipping.
On the seventeenth, four days after
the landing of the Japanese, the startling news reached Seoul.
The city was thrown
into a sort of panic. The ministers hastened to the palace to
consult about
ways and means for defense. Yi II was the highest actual field
officer in the
country. He was of the third military rank but the two above him
were simply the
minister and vice-minister of war and always stayed with the
king. Gen Yi II
may then be said to have been the General-in-chief of all the
armies of Korea
at the time.
There were three main roads leading up
from the south to the capital, any one of which might be chosen
by the
Japanese. The most direct of these was the central one leading
over the
mountain chain at the celebrated Cho-ryŭng (Pass). Another to
the east crossed
the mountains at Chuk-uyŭng
(Pass) and a third to the west led through the center of Ch’ung-ch’ŭng province. To
guard these three approaches the king ordered Gen. Yi II to go
south by the
middle road and station a garrison at Cho-ryŭng, the most
important strategic point
in the Japanese line of march. Gen. Pyŭn Keui was to be
stationed in charge of
this garrison. The eastern road was to be guarded by Gen. Yu
Keuk-nyang and Pyŭn
Eungsŏng was made prefect of the important southern town ofu Kyong-ju. All these men were
ordered to start
for their respective posts immediately. At a late hour of that
same day
[page 467] came
the news of the
fall of Fusan, for someone from the summit of a neighboring hill had seen the
red banners of the Japanese
swarming
over the walls into the doomed town.
These generals who had been ordered to
start in such hot haste were practically without forces. When
the military rolls
were looked
up it was
found that the army was mostly on paper and that a large
majority of the men
were either “sick” or were “in mourning.” So the whole force that
Gen. Yi Il could
muster amounted to just three hundred men. Even these could not
be mustered at
an hour’s notice, and so in order to obey the king’s command,
the unfortunate
general had
to start off alone, trusting that this pitiful handful of men would follow him. The sight of the
General-in-chief of the armies of Korea starting out alone to
meet the mighty army
of invasion would be
comical were it not so pathetic Of course the intention was to
gather troops as
he went, and we shall see that he did succeed in getting
together at least the semblance
of an army.
The Prime Minister Yu Sŭng-nyong was
made Minister of War and charged with the duty of gathering a
competent force
to cope with the dreaded Japanese, Sil Yip was also appointed
Vice-minister of
War. He seems to have been specially trusted by the king for the
latter gave
him a splendid sword and sent him
south with the injunction to kill anyone who should prove unfaithful, even though it be Gen. Yi
II himself. Here we see
another grievous mistake, in thus giving a man an independent
command over the
head of the General-in-chief.
It well illustrates a defect that has brought disaster to many an army -namely the confusing of
authority. As Sil Yip came out from this audience with the king
he slipped on the
stone steps and his court hat fell from his head. The attendants
looked upon
this with dismay for it was considered an omen of ill-success.
The general went
south only
eighty li and stopped
at Yong-in,
Kim Sŭng-il whom we will remember as
the man who accompanied the cowardly envoy Whang Yun-gil to
Japan and who had
so severely censured him for his craven conduct, was now made
commander of all
the forces in the western part of Kyŭng-sang Province. He
started for his post
immediately and in a few days arrived at the important town of
Chin-ju,
[page 468] just as the Japanese were
approaching. His escort had
become somewhat scattered, but he was not going to take a backward step even
to save his life. Dismounting he seated himself in the official
chair having
with him only a corporal and a dozen soldiers. It was a common
custom for the
Japanese to wear hideous masks for the purpose of terrifying the
Koreans. On
this occasion, when the van of the Japanese army entered the
town it was led by
a burly fellow
wearing an extremely large and extremely ugly mask. The corporal
strung his bow
and let fly
a shaft which pierced the mask and laid its wearer low. His
followers beat a
hasty retreat supposing that no one would be shooting arrows
about like that
unless there was a considerable force of soldiers in the
immediate vicinity. We
are not told
as to the fate of the bold general. In this part of the province
the prefects
seem to have been made of better stuff than those further south,
for they sent
to each other urging the necessity of standing at their posts
and offering
whatever
resistance they could to the advance of the enemy.
By this time Gen. Yi II had collected
a considerable force, had crossed the great Cho-ryŭng (Pass) and
was stationed
at Sŭng-ju, in the very path of the invading army. It did not
take long to
measure his calibre, for no sooner did the rumor of the approach
of the
Japanese reach him than he turned and fled up the pass. This was
bad enough,
but his next act was little less than traitorous; he made no
attempt to block the
pass, even though a mere handful of men could have held it
against thousands.
It was his
one great opportunity to distinguish himself and that he did not
improve it
speaks as poorly
for his generalship as it does for his patriotism.
Meanwhile an equally reprehensible
event was happening in the south. Governor Kim Su, who had
turned aside from
meeting the enemy had sent letters to all the prefects ordering
them to have
soldiers from all the districts rendezvous at Tă-gu and await in
camp the
arrival of generals
from Seoul. The order was obeyed and a large force was
congregated at the
appointed place; but day after day passed and no generals came. The
Japanese were sweeping northward and would soon be upon them.
Under the circumstances it should cause
little surprise that the
camp broke up, [page 469] each
man returning to his own district. This
is but one of many
cases which go to show that in almost every instance the blame
rested not on the
soldiers but on the generals and other officers. The soldiers were
always willing to go where the generals would lead them.
When Gen. Yi II fled in panic over
Cho-ryŭng and left it undefended his followers naturally
objected to remaining under
the command of a man who was not only no commander but was a
coward to boot. So
at last the doughty
general found himself stranded in the town of Sang-ju without a
soldier at his
back. He had hoped to find some troops there under the command
of the prefect,
Kwŭn Chong-gi. When
he found that there were none he
flew into a rage and
was about to decapitate the prefect, but let him off on condition that he find
some troops immediately. This the poor fellow tried to do, but
as the whole
population was a farming one not a man could be found who had ever borne
arms or who knew anything about fighting. Nevertheless, to save
his head, he
got together some nine hundred raw recruits. At this juncture a
messenger came post haste from Ka-ryŭng saying that the Japanese
were coming
and were already near. Gen. Yi replied: “You lie, this is only a
scheme to get me to leave, so that I will not levy any more
troops here. Off with
his head.”
So off it came. That very night the Japanese encamped at Chang-chŭl-li a
few miles away, but Gen. Yi knew nothing about it, as he had no
pickets out.
The next morning Japanese scouts were seen on the opposite bank
of the river
reconnoitering. The Koreans saw these scouts but as one man had
been beheaded
for telling of the approach of the Japanese no one dared to tell
the general,
and it was not till he heard the firing of guns that he became
aware of the proximity
of the foe. Then he rushed out and formed up his little garrison
as best he
could behind the fortifications, Ere long his attention was called to
several columns of smoke arising from the town. He sent some of
his aides to
discover the cause but they fell into the hands of the Japanese
and were
immediately cut down. When Gen. Yi learned of this he was
genuinely alarmed,
and his anxiety was added to by seeing two long files of
Japanese deploying to
right and left
and rapidly inclosing him and his forces. There was only
[page 470] one thing to do. Mounting
his steed he fled by the only way
that was not already blocked. Being hotly pursued he abandoned
his horse and the greater part of his
clothing and fled into the mountains where he managed to
elude his pursuers. In a day or so he appeared at the town of Mun-gyŭng
where he wrote a letter telling of his defeat and sent it to
Seoul. Hearing
that Gen. Sil Yip was at Ch’ung-ju
he hastened to that point and joined him.
Gen. Sil Yip had some time since
arrived at his post in Ch’ung-ju and had prosecuted his work of
collecting
soldiers with such zeal that he had mustered a force of some
eight thousand
men. It was his
intention to push straight for Cho- ryŭng, the key to the whole
situation, but when he heard of the
flight and defeat of Gen. Yi II he fell back to his strong
position in Ch’ung-ju.
One of his lieutenants, Kim Yŭ-mul,
expostulated with him and said, “We cannot cope with them except in such
a place as Cho-ryŭng where the roughness of the land will be of
material aid to
us,” but the general replied, “No, they are infantry and
we are cavalry. If we can once get them
into the plain we can use our battle-flails on them with deadly
effect.” One of his captains told
him that the Japanese had already crossed the Cho-ryŭng, and
that night he left
the camp secretly and went on a long tour of inspection in order
to ascertain
whether this was true. When he came back he ordered the instant
execution of
the captain. This midnight expedition speaks well for his
courage and his loyalty.
A few days after the fugitive general,
Yi II, joined the forces of Gen. Sil Yip, the Japanese forces
approached. In order
to carry out his pet scheme of fighting the Japanese in an open
plain where his
soldiers could make good use of their battle-flails. Gen. Sil selected a
spot that seemed to him most suitable. It was a great
amphitheater made by high
mountains. Along the other side, like the chord of an arc,
flowed tbe river T’an-geum da. The only
approaches to this plain were two narrow passages at either end
where the
mountains came down to the river bank. In this death trap, then. Gen. Sil drew up his
entire command and awaited the coming of the invaders. It is
easy to imagine
the glee with which the Japanese saw this arrangement, for it meant the
extermination [page
471] of the
only army that lay between them and Seoul. Strong detachments
were sent to
block the passages at the ends of the plain while the main body scaled the
mountains and came down upon the doomed army as if from the sky. The spears and swords of the
descending legions flashed like fire while the roar of the
musketry made the
very earth to tremble. The result was an almost instantaneous
stampede. The Koreans made for the two narrow exits but found
them heavily guarded
by the Japanese. They were now literally between “the devil and the deep blue
sea,” for they had the appalling spectacle of the hideously
masked Japanese on
the one hand
and the deep waters of the river on the other. The whole army was driven into the river or
mercilessly cut down by the swords
of the Japanese. Gen. Sil Yip himself made a brave stand and
killed with his
own hand seventeen of the enemy before he fell. Out of the whole
army only a handful escaped,
and among them we are almost sorry to say was the coward Yi II
who managed to
get across the river.
Chapter
VI.
News
of defeat reaches Seoul...
panic...
divided councils...
lack of troops . . .general exodus . . indescribable confusion .
. .straw shoes
at a premium...
Princes sent away... the king leaves Seoul.... Yi Hang-bok
attends the Queen .
. .riotous citizens . . .slaves burn the deeds... palaces in flames. . .
.royal party dwindles . . .drenching rain . . .the king goes
without dinner . .
.welcome relief . . .Japanese approach Seoul . . the race
between Kato and
Konishi ... .no resistance.
. . the Han left undefended ... an empty victory .... Hideyi’s
quarters . .
.the Japanese in Seoul. . . .the king orders the Im-jin River
guarded. . . .the
king enters P’yŭng-yang.
. . .a coward ... the
Im-jin guarded. . . .the Japanese impetus checked.
Meanwhile
the city of Seoul was waiting breathless for news of a victory
by Gen. Sil Yip.
The terrors of the horde of half-savage soldiers from the
islands of Japan had
passed from mouth to mouth
and all, from the king to the humblest coolie, knew that Gen.
Sil Yip alone
stood between them and that dreaded host. One morning a naked
soldier was seen
approaching the South Gate on a run. He bore the marks of
[page 472] battle and as he passed
under the great arch of the gate a hundred hands were stretched out to greet him and a
hundred voices demanded news of the battle. He cried, “I am one of the followers
of Sil Yip and I come to tell the city that yesterday he fell at
the hand of
the Japanese. I have escaped with my life and I am come to tell
you that flight
is your only hope.” The people were fearfully agitated. The evil
news spread from
mouth to mouth and a great wailing arose from the multitude that
thronged the
streets.
It was the last day of the fourth moon
and that night the king, not knowing at what moment the enemy
might be thundering
at his gates, took up his quarters in a secluded part of the
palace, “The Old Palace” as it is
now called, and gathered about him all his courtiers and
officers and held a great
council. The only question was, “Where shall we go?”
Yi San-ha the Minister of War said “The Court should remove to
Pyŭng yang,” but Yi Hang-bok, an official who was destined to
figure prominently
in the war, said, “It
will not be enough to go to P’yŭng-yang. We must send and ask aid
of China.” On the other hand Kim Kwi-yŭng and a host of other
officials said, “No, the king should stay
right here and defend his capital.” The king himself, after
listening to all
that had to be said, agreed with the majority that it would be
best to stay and
defend the city. He said, “The
ancestral temple with all the tablets of my illustrious
ancestors is here. How
can I go and leave them? Let the Minister of War immediately
detail troops to
man the walls.” But it was just here that difficulty arose and
it showed
clearly why the Minister of War had counselled flight. The city wall has thirty
thousand battlements and each battlement has three embrasures,
but in the whole
city there were only seven thousand troops. This was not a tenth
part the
number that would be required to man the walls. This lack of
soldiers was due
to the fact that in the long centuries of peace it had become customary for the
government
to receive a money equivalent in place of military service. As a
result only
the very poorest of the poor were enrolled in the army, and the
service
consequently suffered. This bad custom, while it argues corrupt
practices among
the officials, does not prove the absence of courage or
faithfulness among the
people, and [page 473] we
shall find that the people were as a rule true to their duty
when they were
properly led.
To add to the difficulty of the situation, on
that very night there was an overwhelming exodus of the people.
High and low,
rich and poor, young and old, thronged out of the city by every
gate and made
for some place of fancied safety in the country. The very
warders of the gates
fled and left them wide open. The great bell at Chong-no
remained silent that
night for lack of someone to ring it. Very many took refuge in
the palace
enclosure and men and women, horses and cattle and goods of all
kinds were
mixed together in indescribable confusion. Wailing and shouting
and crying on
all sides added to the confusion. The king could do nothing to
quiet the
disturbance, so he sat down in his private apartments attended
by two eunuchs.
Meanwhile the lawless element among the people was trying to
make capital out
of the confusion, and all night long the palace was being looted
by these
vicious characters, while palace women fled half naked and
screaming with
terror from room to room.
The king’s relatives all gathered at
his doors and begged with tears and imprecations that he would
not go and leave
them. An order went forth from the palace that all the straw
shoes and sandals
that could be found should be brought in. When the officials saw
these they
said to the king “This
great pile of straw shoes looks as if flight was being prepared
for. We had
better take them and burn them all and then shut the city gates
so that the
people cannot escape and leave the place undefended.” This advice was probably
not followed, for by this time the king himself began to see that flight
would be the only possible plan, and it was probably at his
order that the
shoes had been prepared.
Minister Yu Sŭng-nyŭng said, “Let us send the two Princes
to the provinces where they will be safe and let the different
governors be
instructed to collect troops and send them on as fast as
possible.” This seemed sound advice
and the king’s oldest son, by a concubine, for the Queen had
borne no sons, was
sent to the province of Ham-gyŭng, and Prince Sun-wha went into
Kang-wŭn
Province.
[page 474] When night came the king,
who saw that it was useless to attempt to hold the city, sent to
the keeper of
the Ancestral Temple and ordered him to send the ancestral
tablets on toward P’yŭng-yang. All night long the
preparations for departure were pushed and just at day-break the
king called for
his horse and, mounting, rode out the New Gate attended by his
personal
following, a host of the officials and a crowd of terrified
citizens who well knew that his
going meant perfect anarchy. The Queen was aided in making her
escape by Yi
Hang-bok who under cover of the darkness led her by the light of
a torch to the
palace gate. She asked his name and being told she said, “I have to thank you and I
am sorry to have put you to this trouble.” It is said that he
had all along
felt sure the Japanese
would enter Seoul and that he had sat for days in his house
refusing food and
drink. At the end of that time he roused himself and called for
food. Having
eaten he prepared for a long journey and then went to the
palace. One of his
favorite concubines followed him and asked what they were to do
at home, but he
did not answer. She plucked him by the sleeve but he drew his
sword and cut the
sleeve off leaving it in her hands. He felt that his first duty
was at the
palace. We have seen that he did good work there in looking
after the welfare
of the Queen. He secured her a chair at the palace gate and they
joined the
royal cavalcade on its wav northward.
As the king and his escort passed through “Peking Pass” day was breaking in the
east and a last look at the city showed it to be on fire in many
places. The
populace had thrown off all restraint and had looted the
treasure houses and
the store houses. In one of the latter were kept all the deeds
of the
government slaves. Each slave was deeded property, the same as
real estate, and
the deeds of the government slaves were deposited in the Chang-yo-wŭn. At that time there
was nominally no lower middle class at all. Society was composed
of the upper
class and their retainers. Almost every man in the lower stratum
of society was
nominally the slave of some nobleman though in many places it was a nominal
serfdom only. At the same time the master had the right to sell
them at will
and they were in duty
bound to assume mourning at his death. It was this class of
people, then, that
arose and burned [page 475] the
store-house
which contained the deeds and thereby secured liberty. Another
building
contained deeds of all private slaves. This too was made an
objective point the
moment the restraint of government was taken off. They also saw
the royal
granary in flames where the rice, cloth and money were stored.
The king’s
private treasure house inside the palace grounds was also
burning. The Kyŭng-bok
Palace, the Chang-dŭk Palace and the Chang-gyŭng Palace were all
in flames. It
must have been a depressing sight to the king and his court, but
there was no
time to waste in mourning over the desolation in Seoul. No one
knew at what
moment the enemy might appear over the southern hills; and so
the royal party
pressed on toward the north. When they arrived at Sŭk-ta-ri in
the district of
Ko-yang it was raining furiously and by the time they arrived at
Pyŭk-je-yŭk
the entire party were dripping wet.
Up to this point the cavalcade had
kept together very well but there were many among them who had
not intended to
keep on with the royal party and there were probably many more
whose good
intentions were so dampened by the elements that they gave it
up. From this
point on the royal escort was much reduced. The king here
dismounted, entered a hostelry and sat
down and began to beat upon the ground with his whip and to weep. As
the Ministers gathered around him he said, “What shall we do in this
terrible haste?” Yi Hang-bok answered, “When we get to Eui-ju, if
we find it impossible to stop there we must push on into China
and seek aid from the Emperor.” The king was
pleased with
this and said, “That
is just what I want to do.” But Yu Sŭngnyŭng said, “Not so, for if the king
leaves Korean soil the dynasty will be at an end and Korea will
be lost. The soldiers
of Ham-gyŭng Province are still to be heard from and those from
Kang-wŭn
Province as well; so there is no call for such talk as this
about leaving
Korean soil.” He likewise administered a sharp reproof to Yi
Hang-bok who
confessed himself to have been too hasty.
After a short rest they took the road
again, ever goaded on by the dread of pursuit, and as they
passed He-eum-nyŭng the
rain came
down again in torrents. The palace women were riding horses that
were small and
weak and they could [page 476]
go but slowly. The riders went along with their hands over their
faces, weeping
and wailing loudly. By the time they reached the Im-jin River it
was dark, and
a more wretched company can hardly be imagined. The horses were
up to their
kness in mud and were wellnigh exhausted. All were nearly
famished. It was
pitchy dark and the party had become scattered. The case looked
about as hopeless
as it well could; but Yi Hang-bok was a man of tremendous
energy, and he
realised the gravity of the situation. So halting the cavalcade
he dismounted
and managed after great exertions to collect the entire party
once more. It was
so dark that it was impossible to think of crossing the river by
ferry, until someone
thought of the happy plan of setting fire to some of the
buildings on the bluff
beside the stream. By this baleful light the sorry and
bedraggled multitude
somehow effected a crossing and from that point on the fear of
pursuit was
greatly lessened. By this time food and rest had become
imperative both for man
and beast. Those who had been accustomed to no greater hardship
than lolling on
divans in palaces found a ride of thirty miles in the mud and
rain, without
rest or nourishment, a severe test. When the cavalcade came at
midnight to the
hostlery of Tong-pa-yŭk in the prefecture of P’a-ju they found that the prefect Hŭ-jin
and the prefect of Chang-dan, Ku
Hyo-yŭn, had provided
an excellent supper for the king and the Ministers, but before
these worthies could
get settled in the apartments provided for them, the grooms and
coolies and
others, rendered desperate by hunger, rushed into the kitchen to
find what had
been provided for them, and finding that they had been forgotton they began to
help themselves to the food that had been prepared for the royal
table. An
attempt was made to stop them but they were in no mood to be
stopped. The result was that the
king and his Ministers went hungry. His Majesty asked for a cup
of wine but none could be found. He
asked for a cup of tea but that too had disappeared. One of the
servants of the
party happened to have a cake of Chinese sugar tucked under his
head-band. This
he drew out and it was dissolved in some warm water and formed
the repast of
the king that night.
In the morning when it became time to
resume the journey it was found to the dismay of all that the
coolies had
[page 377] decamped and left the royal party high and dry. But
even while they were discussing this sorry plight the governor
of Whang-hă
province and the prefect of Sö-heung appeared on the scene with
two hundred
soldiers and fifty or sixty horses. They had come expressly to
escort the king
northward, and truly they came in the very nick of time. They
had with them a
few measures of barley and this was doled out to the hungry
people. As soon as
possible a start was made and at noon they arrived at
Cho-hyŭn-ch’an forty li
from Sŭng-do where they found plenty of food, as the governor
had ordered it to
be prepared. This was the second
day of the fifth moon. That night they entered the welcome gates of Song-do,
which, almost exactly two centuries before, had witnessed the
overthrow of the
Koryŭ dynasty. This was the first time the royal party could
really breathe
freely, for they could be easily warned of the approach of the
enemy, now that
soldiers were on the lookout. So it was decided that they should
rest a day at
this place.
The king came out and seated himself
in the upper story of the South Gate and all the people gathered
before him. He
said to them “Now
that this war is upon us. if there ts anything that you would
say, say on.”
Without hesitation they replied, “This war has been caused by Yi San-han
(one of the Ministers), and by Kim Kong-yang,” (the father of a
favorite concubine).
The people were very angry with them. They also said, “You should recall the
Minister Chöng.” This man had been banished because of factional
rivalry. To
the latter proposition the king readily assented, glad probably
to find some
way to please the populace.
It was on this day, the third of the fifth
moon, that the Japanese entered Seoul.
It will be necessary for us to pause
here and note the method of the Japanese approach to the
capital. A glance at the
map of Korea shows that there are three great highways leading up from Fusan to
Seoul. One is the main or middle road leading by Yang-san,
Mi-ryang, Ch’ŭng-do,
Tă-gu and soon
up the valley of the Nak-tong River, over the great Choryŭng
(Pass). The division
led by Konishi came up the peninsula at double-quick by this
road. It was
before this division that Gen. Yi II had fled. A second road is
to the east of
[page 478] this, proceeding by way of
Choa-p’yŭng,
Ul-san, Kyöng-ju, Yong-jin,
Sil-yăng, Kun-wi,
Pi-on and Mun-gyŭng. Kato led the division
which took this road, but his forces joined those of Konishi
below Cho-ryŭng
and the two crossed it together. The forces of both Kato and
Konishi were in
the battle which witnessed the massacre of Sil Yip’s forced in
the cul dc sac which
we have described.
After this battle the two rival leaders again separated and
hastened toward
Seoul by different routes. Konishi kept on by the main road by
way of Chuk-san, Yong-in, crossing
the Han River just
below Han-gang and entering the city by the South Gate. Kato
took a more
easterly road and came via Yŭ-ju
and Yanggeun crossing the Han seventy li above, at Yang-jin. But a third
division under Kuroda and other generals had branched off to the
west at the
very start. They
proceeded by way of Kim-hă and U-do and then, leaving Kyung-sang
Province they
crossed over to Chi-re and
Kim-san
in Chŭl-la Province.
Then crossing the Ch’u-p’ung Pass they entered Ch’ungch’ŭng
Province and then
made for Seoul by way of Yongdong, Ch’ung-ju and so up by the
main road.
The reason for the different divisions
taking different routes may have been because of the necessity
of obtaining forage,
but it was also in part due to the jealousy which existed
between Kato and
Konishi, for each of these men was disirous of getting to Seoul
before the
other.
This great tripple army met with no
real resistance on its way to Seoul. The country was utterly
unprepared for
war, the principal lack being
in competent leaders rather than in number of troops. It was the
first quick,
sharp stroke on the part of the Japanese which seems to have
paralysed the Koreans, The banners
of the great host of the invaders spread out over a thousand li
and at
intervals of twenty or thirty li they built fortifications from
which they
signalled to each other at night. The only aggressive move on
the part of the
Koreans up to this time was the effort of Captain Wŭn Ho to
prevent or at least
delay the passage of the Han by Kato’s forces, at Yang-jin, by destroying
all the boats. But the Japanese were not delayed long by this,
for the
neighboring hill-sides furnished them with logs for rafts on
which they soon
crossed and hastened on to anticipate the troops of Konishi in
the occupation of Seoul.
[page 479] It was on the fourth day of the
fifth moon that the eager forces of Konishi swept down to the
banks of the Han
River opposite ths town of Hangang. This river is a real barrier
to an army
unprepared with pontoon or other boats and the Japanese troops
might have been
held in check for some considerable time. But the whole make-up of the Japanese warrior
was calculated to inspire terror, and no sooner did this
countless horde show
itself on the opposite shore than Gen. Kim Myŭng-wŭn, who had been put in charge of the river
defenses, came to the conclusion that he would have more than a
mere river
between himself and that gruesome array. He therefore threw all
his engines of
defense into the Han
and fled with all his following to the Im-jin river, the next
natural barrier
between the Japanese and the king. At first thought this flight
of Gen. Kim
would seem to be an act of pure cowardice, but when we remember
that he had
only a few hundred men under him while on the opposite bank a
hundred thousand
men were clamoring for a passage across, we cannot wonder that
he found it
necessary to retreat. He did it in proper style by first
destroying his
military engines lest they should fall into the hands of the
enemy.
The king before leaving Seoul placed
Gen.Yi Yangwŭn in charge of the city and its defenses, but when
he learned of
the flight of Gen.
Kim from the river he rightly judged that the city could not he
held by any
such force as was at his command; so he in turn beat a retreat
and went north
to the town of Yang-ju. The result was that when the Japanese
succeeded in
crossing the river and pushed on to the gates of Seoul they
found only an
undefended and half depopulated city of which to take inglorious
possession. It is said that only a few hours elapsed after the
entry of Konishi’s
forces befere those of Kato hastened in from the east,
disappointed and
chagrined to find that they had been beaten in the race; but
they were probably
consoled by the fact that long before the goal had been reached
the prize had
taken wing.
Hideyi, the
General-in-chief of the Japanese forces, took up his quarters in
the Ancestral
Temple from which the tablets of the royal line had been
removed. This was
looked upon by the Koreans as an act of sacrilege and queer
tales are told of
how during that first night, while the burning of the [page 480] city was going on, a
Japanese soldier would drop dead every few minutes without
visible cause. It is
for this reason, as some say, that Hideyi removed to the
Nam-pyul-gung, known as the place where Chinese embassies have
been lodged, and
now the site of tlie Imperial Altar.
Before many days had elapsea the
people found out that the coming of the Japanese did not mean
universal
slaughter as they had
supposed, and gradually they returned to their homes in the city. They
reopened their shops and so long as they attended to their own
affairs they
were unmolested by the Japanese. Indeed they adapted themselves
readily to the new
order of things and drove a lucrative trade with the invaders.
The latter were
strict in the watch of the city and no one could go out or come
in without
showing a passport. When the Japanese had exhausted the supplies
in Seoul they
pushed out into the country and laid the surrounding villages
under contribution.
Koreans were even found who would tell them where they could go
with the hope
of finding booty, and acted as guides to them. Among the more
loyal citizens a
plot was gotten up to assassinate the guard, but it was betrayed
to the enemy
and the plotters were seized and burned to death after
indescribable tortures.
In is said so many perished in that holocaust that their
collected bones made a
huge mound.
When Gen. Kim Myŭng-wŭn fled from the defenses of the
Han and came to the Im-jin he immediately sent a letter to the
king at Song-do
telling him of the arrival of the Japanese, his own retreat and
the entry of
the Japanese into Seoul. The king did not censure him, for
retreat was the only
way open to him; so a messenger was dispatched ordering him to
make haste and
get together as many soldiers of Kyŭng-geui and Whang-hă
Provinces as possible
and make a firm stand at the Im-jin River. Gen. Sin Kll was sent
to aid in this
work. No sooner were these orders given than the royal party
resumed their
journey northward in haste, and at night they reached the
village of Keum-gyo in Keum-ch’ŭn district. Here the
escort of the king bivouacked in the open air. It was discovered
with dismay
that the ancestral tablets had been overlooked in the haste
attendant upon the
departure from Song-do. So one of the king’s relatives started
back after them
and succeeded in bringing the precious relics on.
THE KOREA REVIEW
Taxation
in Korea.
The
revenue of the Korean Government is derived from a dozen or more
different
sources. Among the most important are (1) land tax; (2) house tax;
(3) salt tax; (4) customs; (5) ginseng monopoly; (6) gold mines;
(7) fish tax;
(8) fur tax; (9) tobacco tax; (10) gate tax; (11) forests; (12)
guilds; (13)
licenses (14) minting; (15) poll tax; (16) boat tax; (17)
cowhide tax; (18) paper
tax; (19) pawn tax. These include forms of taxation that are now
obsolete as
well as those actually in force, but a full discussion of the
subject requires
a mention of each kind.
The magistrate of each of the 360 districts in Korea is supposed
to have in his office a map and a detailed account of every
piece of arable
land in the district, excepting kitchen gardens. This forms the
basis of the
land tax,
which yields probably two thirds of the national revenue.
Although there are no
fences, the limits of the fields are clearly marked by earth
banks or by the
natural conformation of the land, and no farmer would dare to
throw two fields
together or divide a field into two without the cognizance and
consent of the
local magistrate, and even then the magistrate would have to
obtain permission
from the central government. This arable land is considered
under two heads -rice-fields (*) non, or ordinary fields (*) pat. The owner of each field
holds a deed for the same, stamped with the magistrate’s seal or
signed with
the magistrate’s name. In many instances where property has
[page 482] been in the same family
for a century or more these
deeds have been lost or destroyed. But if they are sold new deeds must be issued.
The magistrate’s records as well as the deed of each field
indicate the grade of the field. There are six grades of
rice-fields and three of ordinary fields. These grades are determined by several
factors; the natural fertility of the soil, the ability to
irrigate easily, the
mountainous or level character of the locality and the lay of
the land, for if the
field slopes toward the north it is considered much less
valuable than one
which slopes toward the south. Rice fields are more carefully
graded than other
fields because in the first place they are much more susceptible
of gradation
and secondly because they are of far greater importance than
other fields.
But new fields are constantly being made, which for a
few years are not shown on the magistrate’s records and do not
pay taxes to the
government. For this cause the government periodically orders a
remeasurement of arable land or
rather a readjustment of the prefectural records so as to
include the new fields
that have been made since the last readjustment. There is no special
and definite interval of time between these readjustments.
Sometimes half a
century passes without one and then again they may follow each
other by an
interval of only a few years. Korean history shows that with the
beginning of a
new reign or the inauguration of a new government policy or
under stress of
some national calamity which has emptied the treasury a
readjustment of land
values is likely to be ordered.
Let us suppose, then, that such a
readjustment has been ordered and the agents of the magistrate
go about the
district to find what new fields have been made and arrange for
the payment of
annual taxes thereon. They come to a new rice-field and make a
careful
examination of the soil, the conditions of irrigation, the lay of the land, and
they determine, for instance, that this particular field is of
the second class
and is a “thirty kyul field.” They do not
actually measure it but they call witnesses who declare how many
days it takes
to plow that particular field with a bullock and how many
measures of seed grain
it requires to plant it. These things, together with all the
other conditions,
help the judges to decide the grade of the field and the number of kyul. Now the question arises as to
[page 483] what is meant by the word kyul.
So far as we can ascertain a kyul is composed of one hundred
man-loads, or chim,
of unthreshed
rice and each chim is
composed of ten
mut, or sheaves. In the case of
the field cited above the appraisers estimated that it would
produce an average
of thirty kyul and this was made the
basis of taxation. Ten per cent being the usual legal rate, a
field of thirty kyul
would render a tax of three kyul.
This again must be reduced to threshed rice, in the bag, as that is the form in
which the tax is paid. It would seem to be easier to estimate
how many bags of
clean threshed rice the field would produce and then levy on
that, but the
Koreans seem to cleave to the old system still and the kyul remains the basis of estimate. In actual
practice it is found
that it takes twelve and a half chim,
or loads, to make one bag, or fifteen “rice pecks,” of unhulled rice. The
status of a field being once definitely settled, it is put down
on the books as
being liable to a certain definite amount of taxation each year.
And this tax
is due whether the year is a good or a bad one, whether the
field is tilled or
left fallow. It is only by a special dispensation of the central
government
that the tax on a piece of land can be remitted, whatever be the
disabilities
under which the owner or tenant may be laboring. In other words
the government
takes no chances. And yet
it may be that, when we take into account the great infrequency
of serious
famines in Korea, this system is the best for the farmer, for
were the regular
government tax the only charge on the field there would be every
incentive to
cultivate the soil with care, to fertilize it heavily and to
make it produce
the very most that it was capable of. As a fact, however, the
farmers are
frequently subjected to further imposts which, though illegal,
are unavoidable
under a system which gives officials no opportunity to gain a
competence except
by indirection.
The description given above applies
both to irrigated rice and to upland rice. As to other fields a
different rule
applies. They are divided into three grades only, according to
the fertility of
the soil, the number of days they require for plowing and the
amount of seed
used in planting. In deciding the amount of lax the appraisers
take note of all
the conditions and reckon the number of kyul
in any particular field to be [page 484] one fifth as many as there would be were it
a rice field. The reason is because rice is much dearer than the
other grains and the magistrate must send
only rice as tax. Rice then being the unit of measure, it takes
five times as
much land to raise the same money’s worth (or the same “riceworth”) of barley,
beans, oats or other grain. It is the farmer who must sell his barley,
millet, beans or sesamum and buy rice to pay his taxes with.
Such for centuries
has been the law, but today all taxes are collected in money,
which simplifies
the matter greatly. The tax today is six Korean dollars per kyul.
Now such is the law in regard to the
land tax of Korea but there are great discrepancies in the operation and administration
of this law. The magistrate and all his underlings receive a
nominal salary
which is deducted from the tax rice or money which is to be sent
up to the
central government, but it is well known that this salary is
quite insufficient
and that it is supplemented by special taxation. As this is an
actual charge
upon the productive portion of the population it demands
mention. Of course the
amount of special taxation depends upon the personal character
of the
magistrate and his deputies, the ajuns;
but it will be possible to indicate the general lines upon which
it is levied.
According to law each field must render a certain definite
amount of tax, and this
is determined by an appraisal of the probable or average
product. Now if this
average product is exceeded in any year of plenty or through
exceptional thrift
on the part of the farmer the overplus or increment is commonly
appropriated by
the ajuns who share
it with their
chief. But it all depends upon the status of the owner of the
field. If he be a
country gentleman who has influence at Seoul the ajuns may not dare to take even the legal rate of
tax. In fact he
may go tax free. If he have slightly less influence he may pay
the legal tax on
fairly good years but pay less in bad years. If he have no
influence he may
always pay the legal tax but nothing extra in case of overplus.
It is the
common farmer who has practically no rights in the case and must
always pay the
full tax and whatever proportion of the overplus ajuns may
require or, even if
there be no overplus, he may have to give up part of the nine
tenths remaining
after his tax is paid. One exception must be made. No fields
within the walls of
Seoul [page 485] are
subject to the land tax. The approximate amount at present
received by the
government from the land-tax is 5,800,000 Korean dollars but
with the enormous
fluctuation in exchange this may mean anywhere from Yen
4.000,000 to Yen 3,000,000.
Just at present it is nearer the latter figure, and consequently
there is talk
of raising the rate of taxation. In the country the nickel five
cent pieces do
not pass current and so many farmers find it difficult to pay
their taxes in
money. The result is that they turn over their rice or other
produce to the ajuns who act as agents and dispose of it.
Naturally, they do not do this for their health, and it forms
one of their handsomest
sources of income.
The next most important asset of the
government is the house-tax. All the houses of Seoul are exempt
from this tax and the houses of the
suburbs as
well, excepting outside the East
Gate. On the south, the river is supposed to form the limit of
the city and no
house in any of the river towns from Han-gang to Yang-wha-jin is
taxed. On the
east however the taxable property begins immediately outside the
Gate. With the
exception of Seoul and her southern and western suburbs, every
house in Korea
is subject to a tax of fifteen hundred Seoul cash or three
hundred of the yup, which
means sixty cents in the new currency. The tax is imposed
uniformly, irrespective of the size or quality of the house. The
annual amount
actually collected from this source is about 500,000 Korean
dollars. At the
rate of sixty cents a house, this would mean that there are
something less than
a million houses in the empire. Reckoning five people to a
house, it would give
a population of five millions. This of course is an absurdly
small estimate and
the conclusion is irresistible either that all the houses are
not taxed or that
there is serious leakage in transit. When a new house is built
the magistrate
gives a deed for the same to the owner and from that time the
house is put on
the tax list. When a house burns or is swept away by flood the
tax is always
remitted.
The salt tax is no mean item in the
government revenue. Salt is all made by evaporating sea water or
salt spring
water and the “works” are so easily accessible
and salt is
such an indispensable commodity that this government, like most
oriental
governments, finds it a reliable and lucrative [page 486] source of revenue. The tax
is levied on the actual amount produced, and hardly ever exceeds
four per cent, ad
valorem. This amount seems small
compared with the ten per cent levied on cereals, but it must be
remembered
that in the case of the latter nature does by far the larger
part of the work.
The evaporation of salt is exceedingly laborious. The apparatus
itself is
costly considering the annual output. The cost of fuel is heavy
and the goods
are marketable only in spring and autumn. For these reasons a
heavier tax than four
percent could not be levied without killing the business. The
income from this
tax amounts to above 90.000 Korean dollars annually. The best
salt in Korea comes
from salt springs in
Hong-ju in South Ch’ung-chŭng
Province.
The ginseng tax is an important one
but in this connection the word tax is hardly applicable, since
ginseng is a
government monopoly. At the same time it cannot be passed
without notice. The
monopoly is of two kinds. In the first the government gives
licenses to certain
men to grow ginseng with
the understanding that the whole crop be turned over. Having
received it, the
government markets it in China and then pays the producer his
proper
proportion. In other words the government acts as middle-man
between the
producer and the market and receives a commission of perhaps
twenty or
twenty-five per cent. In the other case the government itself
owns the farms
and having marketed the crop simply pays the men, who worked the farms, a
proper salary. Most of the farms near Songdo are of this
character. The annual
revenue from this source differs widely with different years. In
1901 it
amounted to above 150,000 Korean dollars.
All minerals are supposed to belong to
the government, and no man has a right to open a mine even on
his own ground
without special permission from the authorities. The local
magistrate, even,
has no right to grant such permission. It can be obtained only
from the Bureau
of Agriculture, Commerce and Public works at Seoul -formerly called Kong-jo yamen. If a man
desires to mine
for gold (and the vast majority of native gold-mining is of the placer variety) he applies to the office in Seoul and if he has
influence enough succeeds in buying a license to open a placer
mine in a
certain specified [page 487] locality. For this license
he pays a round sum, though this may not be within the purview
of the law.
After opening the mine he will be called upon to pay over to the
agents of the government
probably sixty percent of his gross earnings. Of course the rate
differs in
different places and under different conditions but at the
lowest the rate is
enormously high. The idea seems to be that as he is working
government land he
must divide the proceeds, just as when a farmer lets out his
land on shares,
the crops to be equally divided between him and the tenant. The
annual revenue
from this source is of course a variable quantity. In some years
it is as high
as a quarter of a million and then again it may fall to a
hundred thousand
dollars.
Copper mining is a considerable
industry in Korea but as the profits are relatively smaller than
those of gold
mining, considering the amount of labor involved, the government
demands a tax of only three
tenths, or thirty per cent. To be exact, the government receives
five ounces
out of every sixteen. It is impossible to get at the figures to
show what
revenue the government derives from this source. There are many
iron mines in
Korea but carried on in only a small way. From them the
government receives a
tax of about nine per cent on the gross product. There are said
to be over
fifty iron mines in Korea, most of them on the sea coast.
Korean fisheries annually render a
neat sum to the national exchequer. The tax is levied not on the
amount of fish
caught, but upon the fishing-boats. There are about ten grades
of boats, the
grade being determined by the number of the crew and the size of
the net. But
when the tax is collected, cognizance is taken of the number and
quality of the
fish and the
amount collected bears no special reference to the amount to be
received by the
central government. It has been said that the Korean government
possesses no
navy, but from time immemorial
it has owned a large number of boats all along the coast which
are supposed to
be ready for use in case of war! But they are all let out to
fishermen, and
from them the revenue is, of course, much larger than from the
native owned
boats. Of late years very many of these “men-of-war” have been sold to the
fishermen, but the proceeds are probably not sufficient to put
the Korean navy
on a modem footing.
[page 488] Furs have always been an
important product of Korea. They have always figured in the
annual tribute to
China and in indemnities demanded by Chinese, Mongol or Manchu.
Furs have
always been
considered a sort of government monopoly and many of the
trappers have been
specially sent out by the government. The entire catch is handed
in to the government
and is paid for. If others take furs, especially sea-otter,
sables, tiger or
leopard, the rule is to carry them to the nearest magistrate who
will almost
surely buy them in for the government at a nominal price. This
method of
procedure makes it quite impossible to estimate the amount annually
received. It never comes out in the shape of dollars and cents.
As for deer,
fox, badger, squirrel and weasel skins there is no regular
method of taxation,
but the dealers in these simply pay what is called “mouth
money,” which is about
the same thing as a commission. This is not paid to any
government official but
to someone who knows how to handle and dispose of the goods to
advantage.
Besides the fish-tax there is a
separate tax on boats. This is not levied on small boats
operated with oars but
on regular merchant craft. The basis of taxation is the number
of bags of rice
a boat can carry. About three cash per bag is collected at the
port of entry.
This is only a small fraction of one per cent. Before government
taxes became
payable in currency these boat taxes were often paid by bringing
government
rice up to Seoul. The amount received from this source hardly
exceeds seven
thousand dollars annually.
The forests of Korea are considered
crown lands, and lumbering can be carried on only by government
permit. The tax or license is paid in
kind, a certain amount of lumber being handed over to the
officials. The tax
amounts to only about three per cent of the product.
Cow-hides being one of the principal
products of the country they form a special source of revenue.
They are graded
into three classes according to their excellence. The first
class ones are
taxed twenty cents apiece, the second class sixteen cents and
the third class
twelve cents.
Seoul is a city of guilds. There are
few towns where the different trades and industries are more
thoroughly
organized than in the capital of Korea. These do not extend out
[page 489] into the country however.
We have here the guilds of the silk merchant, the cotton
merchant, the linen
merchant, the waist-cord merchant, the paper merchant, the hat
merchant, the
head-band merchant, the optician, silversmith, cobbler,
fruiterer, grocer,
furrier, book merchant, cotton-batting merchant and scores of
others. Some of
these are housed in government buildings at Chong-no. These
guilds do not pay a
regular tax but they
are frequently called upon to help out in any good work that the
government may
be engaged on. Sometimes they are instructed to repair a road
over which a royal
procession is to pass. In case of a royal funeral or wedding
each guild is
supposed to make a gorgeous banner to be carried in the
procession and the
members of the guilds are called upon to act as bearers of the
catafalque of
the dead and the other paraphernalia of the obsequies.
Up to the time of the China-Japan war every man was obliged
to carry on his person a small piece of wood on which was
written his name,
together with the year of his birth and his rank. Any man who
failed to carry
one was considered an outlaw. This tag was called a ho-p’a or “name tag.” Every two or three years,
or to be more exact, every year in which a general national
examination or kwaga
was held, all these tags were
changed or renewed. Each one of these bore the stamp of the
Mayor of Seoul or
of local country prefects and the application of this stamp cost
each man the
sum of five yup or
country cash. This
amounted to a poll-tax. Since the discontinuance of the ho-p’a the tax has of course been
dropped.
There never has been in Korea a tax
upon spirituous liquors nor any license required for their sale.
In the country
there is a slight tax on nu-ruk, the yeast or leaven used
in making beer. This yeast is made from barley and comes in the form of
cakes the size and shape of a small grind-stone. The tax on each
cake in one
cash.
Besides these different forms of
taxation the government sells licenses for a large number of
different forms of
industry. These are not all worthy of mention but among them we
find the
pawn-shop license which amounts to two dollars a month in the
case of large
shops, while others pay a dollar and a half or a dollar a month
according to
their size. The government also sells licenses to cut firewood
in government
preserves.
[page 490] This practically ends the
list of
regular taxes, but it must not be imagined that these are the
only sources of
income. There is another long
list of chin-sang (**) or donations to the king.
These are not taxes, and yet they are so fixed in Korean custom that they amount to
the same thing, and their discontinuance would be the signal for
instant and
searching investigation. The principal objects of the chin-sang are fruits and vegetables. There are
certain districts
noted for the production of the best quality of certain
particular kinds of
fruit and vegetables. For instance the best pears are the
Pong-san pears, the
best persimmons are from P’ung-geui or Nam-yang, the best walnuts are
from Ko-ryŭng or
Sun-ch’ŭn, the best jujubes are from
Ch’ŭng-san or Po-eun, the best tobacco is from Kwang-ju or
Sŭng-ch’un or Kim-sŭng,
the best
turnips are from Kŭ-chang. From each of these places the growers
of these
products send up through the local prefect the best selections,
for use in the
Imperial Household. The amount is not regulated by law but the
prefect is sure
to see to it that the quantity and quality of these gifts do not
fall far below
the limit established by custom. A failure to attend to this
matter would soon
get the prefect into trouble.
Besides fruits and vegetables, several
of the sea products are also sent up, such as edible seaweed,
bèche-de-mer,
dried clams, pearls, cuttle-fish, cod, and other fish. Then
among Korean
industrial products many kinds are sent, such as linen, cotton
cloth, fans,
screens, mats, tables, inlaid cabinets, pipes, paper, human hair, silk, furs,
horses, hats, head-bands, pens, ink, ink-stones, candles,
grass-cloth, tiger
and leopard skins, deer horns, mountain ginseng, game, honey,
ginger, crockery
and porcelain, medicines, embroidery, cranes, musical
instruments and coral.
These are the principal varieties. It will be noticed that some
of these are in
the regular tax list, such as paper, linen, silk, cotton and
tobacco, but in
addition to the regular tax,
gifts are also sent.
We have made no mention of the
Maritime Customs as they
are familiar to everyone. It is the
most reliable source of income for the government and the only
asset which it
can use for collateral.
[page 491] A Leaf from Korean
Astrology.
In
every Korean book-stall will be found a little volume printed
entirely in the
native character and selling by the thousands. It is called the
Yuk-kwă-ch’ăk or “The Six Marks of
Divination.” It is also called the Man-bo
O-gil-pang or “The
Five Rules for Obtaining the Ten Thousand Blessings.” It
represents some of the
grossest superstitions
of the Korean people. The fact that it is written in the native
character and
has such an enormous sale, shows what a firm hold these
superstitions still
have upon the people. It is the common people who make constant use of
this work but the women of the upper classes are almost equally
sure to have a volume of it from
which to cast the horoscope of their infant sons and daughters.
The book is a
curious mixture of Buddhism and the in-born fetichism of the
Korean. It is
probably the best sample of the manner in which Buddhism has
adapted itself to
and grafted itself upon the original and indigenous stock of
Korean
nature-worship. As such it is sure to be of interest to those
who want to get
an insight into the Korean nature. It is also a striking proof
of the fact
that, while Confucianism is the nominal religion of Korea, human
nature as
developed in this peninsula demands something more imaginative
and idealistic
to satisfy its religious tastes.
The first division of the book deals
with what is called the hăng-nyŭn
or “Procession of the years.” It tells which star rules the life
of a boy or
girl from his or her tenth year until his or her sixty-fourth
year. Each year
is ruled by a different star or constellation. It also tells
what the person must
do to secure health, happiness and success. The reason why it
begins with the
tenth year is because up to that time the person is considered a
mere child and
the star influences do not work. No one ever marries before the
tenth year nor does
a boy ever shave the head and become a monk before that age.
The Tenth
Year.
For a boy, this year is under the influence of the Che-yong chik-sŭng or “Man Image Star.” He [page 492] is also under the
direction of that one of the twelve Buddhas who is called
Mi-ryŭk Po-sal. The
Mi-ryŭk is the name of the Buddha and the Po-sal is an honorific
title applied
only to Buddhas. In the third place he must light candles to
this Buddha and in
the fourth place his body during his tenth year will be like
that of a rat
thrown into the river.
For a girl the tenth year is under the
influence of
the Mok-chik-sŭng, “Wood Star,” (Jupiter). She
is also under the direction of the Mi-ryŭk Po-sal and must light
candles to
him. Her body also is like a rat thrown into the river.
The Eleventh
Year. For
a boy, this year is under the To-chik sŭng or “Earth Star” (Saturn). His
patron is Yŭ-ră Po-sal. He must be careful of his body. His body
is like a hawk
in the ashes. For a girl the eleventh year is under Che-yong Chik-sŭng or “Man Image Star.” Her patron is Kwan-eum Po-sal. Her duty is to show
deference to the Spirits. Her body is like a deer in a deep gorge.
The Twelfth Year. For a boy, this year is
under Su-chiksŭng “The Water Star,” (Mercury). His patron is Ch’oé-jung Po-sal. His duty is
simply to be happy. His body is like a wolf in a field.
For a girl, this year is under To-chik-sŭng “The Earth Star” (Saturn).
Her patron is Ami Po-sal. Her duty is to worship the Spirits.
Her body is like
a pig in a bag.
The Thirteenth Year. For a male, this year is
under Keum-chik-sŭng “The Metal Star,” (Venus). His patron is
Po-hyŭn Po sal. His duty is to wait on Po-hyŭn Po-sal. His body
is like a tiger
in the mountain.
For a female this year is under Su chik-sŭng, “Water Star” (Mercury). Her patron is Tă-se-ji
Po-sal. Her duty is simply to pass the time well. Her body is
like a pheasant in
a mill.
The
Fourteenth Year.
For a male, this year is under Ilchik-sŭng, “Sun Star,” (Sun). His
patron is Yak-sa Po-sal. His destiny is to enjoy a “great full
year.” His body
is like a lion in the grass.
For a female, this year is under Keum-chik-sŭng,
“Metal Star”
(Venus). Her patron is Ma-ri Po-sal. Her destiny is fairly good.
Her body is
like a lion in the garden.
[page 493] The
Fifteenth Year.
For a male this year is under Whachik-sŭng, “Fire
Star” (Mars). His
patron is Mun-su Po sal. His
destiny’ is blessed above measure. His body is like a pheasant
on the
mountains.
For a female this year is under Il-chik-sŭng “Sun Star” (Sun). Her patron
is Chŭn-dan Po-sal. Her destiny is lofty and brilliant. Her body
is like a
tiger in a blossom.
It
would be tedious to give the whole list, but the above is enough
to show the
general style. Other stars mentioned are the “Fixed Star” and “The Moon Star” (Moon). So there
are only nine stars in all which influence the fortunes of men
and women
between their tenth and sixty-fourth year. Of the Po-sal or Buddhas there are twelve, eleven of
which we have named; the other being Chi-jang Po-sal. As for the
destiny of
each year we have given eleven. There are twelve kinds in all,
the last one
being “to
bow to the Star T’ăeul in the west.” As for the kinds of bodies. there are many kinds, as
for instance pig in hot water, deer in blossom, hawk in the
mountain, rat in
the garden, rat in the grass, hawk in the mill, wolf in the bag,
pig in the
field, tiger in the ravine, pheasant in the ashes, and lion in
the river. It
will be noticed that eight animals are named; the deer, hawk,
pig, rat, tiger, wolf,
pheasant, and lion. Twelve places are mentioned; the river, the
garden, the
ravine, the bag, the field, the ashes, the grass, the mountain,
hot water, the
blossom, the mill and the hill. Among the animals there is no
distinction
between the good and bad, but in certain positions the
combination is unpropitious.
For instance the rat in the river, the hawk in the ashes, the
pig in the bag,
the hawk in the mill, the deer in the ravine, etc., are all bad,
while the deer
in the mountain, the wolf in the field, the tiger in the
mountain, the rat in
the garden, etc., are all good.
The
second division of the book is taken up in explaining the
influence of the
different stars.
The Sun Star Year (The Sun). Under the
influence of this heavenly body one will have many blessings, a
good salary, a
chance to travel, and good words from everybody. But in the
first, fifth and
ninth moons he will be censured or lose money. In order to ward
off these evils
one must cut out a disc of red paper on the 15th of the first
moon (in imitation
[page 494] of the sun), fasten it to a piece of
wild cherry wood, stick it up on the roof, and bow toward the
four points of
the compass. This will save him from all anxiety.
The Moon Star Year (The Moon). His body will
be strong. He will get a good salary.
He will be
fortunate in everything he does, but if he
travels far he will be ill and he will have a severe fall of
some kind. If a
woman, she will become pregnant. All danger will be averted by
making three
torches of wild cherry wood and burning them by moonlight on the
15th of the
first moon, at the same time praying to the moon to ward off
evil.
The Water Star Year (Mercury). All he does
will succeed and he will attain fame. His official rank will be
raised and he
will secure the services
of a good servant. If he travels he will gain wealth. But in the
sixth and
twelfth moons he must look out for danger. If he would avert it
he must never
bow to the dead or ask about anyone’s health. Fire may burn or
flood may carry
away his house. This can be prevented on the 15th of the first
moon by making a bowl of millet porridge
and throwing it into the river.
The Wood Star Year (Jupiter), This is a good
year to marry in. All the household will be at peace. If one is connected with a
government office all will go well. But one is likely to have
some eye disease.
If a woman, she will have frequent bleedings at the nose and
mouth. In the
sixth and twelfth moons one is likely to be censured or to lose property, or if wood,
other than firewood, is brought into the house there will be
trouble. So on the
15th of the first moon the man must take a full bath, sit down
facing the east,
bow thirty times. Thus he will become secure against evil.
The Fire Star Year (Mars). Everything will go wrong.
One will be ill and, if a woman, will become pregnant. One will
receive
censure. In spring or summer one’s house is likely to burn down.
In the third
and ninth moons the man is almost sure to be ill. In the fifth and tenth
months one of his sons or grandsons will lose money and must be
on the lookout
for robbers. He must not travel far, nor must he engage a new
servant. And yet
there is safety for him if on the 15th of the first moon he will
tear off the
collar of his coat and burn it toward the south.
[page 495] The
Earth Star Year
(Saturn)., This is also a very dangerous year. His house will be in an uproar all the time.
He will be severely blamed and will be ill. He will go far away and be very
homesick. He will receive a severe fall and in the first, fifth
and ninth moons
he will lose property. He must not enter a boat nor travel far
nor ascend any
high place nor repair his house. On the 15th of the first moon he must
ascend some “good”
mountain and scatter food on the ground. Only thus can he
escape.
The Metal Star Year (Venus) , Fortune will smile. If
a long road is traveled success will follow. A good salary will
be received.
But in the ninth moon, only, property may be lost or
sickness may come. In the third moon one may be blamed, so it is
necessary to
keep out of disputes. He may get into trouble through another’s
fault. On the
15th of the first moon he must face the west and bow four times
toward Venus.
Then all will go well.
The Man Image Star Year. Ten thousand evils will arise.
In the third and ninth moons
one is almost sure to be blamed for something and have the eye
disease. If a woman,
she will become pregnant. In autumn and winter his son or
grandson will have
trouble. One must not travel nor engage a servant. On the 15th
of the first
moon the man must make a manikin of straw and stuff cash into it at different
points and throw it away. If a woman, she must draw the picture
of a woman and
wrap up money in it and throw it away.
The Fixed Star Year. This year is also a very
bad one. In autumn and winter one will lose a son or daughter or
horse or
bullock. Travel will do no harm but if he stays at home trouble
will arise. In
spring or autumn he must not walk out at night. But if on the 15th of the first moon he
makes a paper stocking and fixes it to the roof with a piece of
wild cherry wood he need have no more fear.
The
next division takes up the different forms of destiny appointed
for the various
years and tells what evils will befall if one tries to thwart
the fates. There
are twelve kinds of destinies
governing the different years. The twelve destinies correspond to the twelve Buddhas.
[page 496] The Candle Lighting
Year. One must
be careful what he does or he will lose his property. One is
likely to be defrauded. A son or relative is likely to
die. But it he is careful to light
the candles to the Mi-reuk Buddha, on
she 13th of the first moon he will escape these evils.
The Taking-car e-of-the-body Year. All sorts of evil spirits will
enter the house and make
trouble. Whatever one wants
to do will fail. Goods will be lost. In the fifth and eleventh moons the
dangerous crises will come.
So he must be careful to light
candles to the Yŭ-ră
Buddha.
The Great Good Year. Whatever one does will
prosper. A hundred fortunate things will happen. But there is
one danger. One
is apt to get into trouble through the wiles of a woman. The
sixth and twelfth
moons are the worst ones. Candles must be lighted to the Ch’oé-ung Buddha.
The Year of Grateful Help. A hundred things will prove
fortunate, a great man will give the fortunate one increase of
rank. Wealth
will roll up. But sadness will intervene and the first and
seventh moons will
be dark ones. So candles must be lit to the Po-hyŭn Buddha.
The Great Full Year. Fortune frowns. Fetters
await. Sickness dogs the footsteps. Distant travel makes the
heart sick. One
must not take the road. Look out for the second and eighth
moons. Burn candles
to the Yak-sa Buddha.
The Thousand Blessing Year.
Nothing to do! The height of bliss. Banish the thought of labor!
But sickness lies
in wait. Forbear to mend the house. Suppress the longing to
travel. A son or
nephew may die. Beware the ides of March --also of September. Burn
your candles
at the shrine of Mu-su
Buddha.
The Evening; Star Year. Evils are multiplied.
Censure is imminent. Death dogs the footsteps. Goblins swarm.
The fourth and
tenth months
mark the crises of danger. Make obeisance to the Chi-jang
Buddha.
The Year of Brilliant Fame. Fortune smiles again. A noble
and wise man will be met. Wealth will accumulate. Law suits will
turn out well.
But do not mend the
house. Lie low in the fifth and eleventh moons. Light candles to Chŭn-dan Buddha.
[page 497] The
Year of
Moderate luck.
The farm will prosper and the fruit of the loom will abound. But
be careful in
trading. Never ask about a friend’s health. Beware the sixth and
twelfth moons.
Light candles to the Ma-ri Buddha.
The Year of Happy Outcome. Build no house. Official position
or salaried post will prove a snare. Stay not at home but keep
on the move. The
first and seventh moons are pregnant with evil. Light candles to
the Tă-se-ji
Buddha.
The Spirit Following Year. Evil, only evil! Imps
will cause catastrophes and wailing. Goods will be stolen. The
ox or horse will
be a prey to robbers. The second and eighth moons will see the
culmination of
disaster. Light candles to the A-mi Buddha.
The Demon Possessed Year. Only hard words I
Sickness will come. If a woman, pregnancy will oppress. The
third and ninth
months will be hard to pass. Light candles to the Kwan-eum
Buddha.
The
fourth division of the book deals with the five elements, metal,
wood, water,
fire and earth, and their influence on the lives of men. This is
a form of
necromancy practiced on the fifteenth of the first moon in order
to find out
whether luck will be good or bad during the year. The man takes
in his hand five
round discs of wood. On one side of each piece is written the
name of one of
the five elements. The other side is blank. While shaking these
in his hand he
says, for instance, “Beneath
the bright heavens I stand and pray, I who live in Whang-hă Province, town of Hă-ju,
ward of Puyong,
by name Kim Yun-sŭk. To the bright heavens I pray that I may be
truly shown
what will befall the present year, or good or ill.” He then
throws down the
five discs. They may all fall blank side up or all with the
names up or there may
be many combinations of two, three or four characters. Each
combination means
something different, as the following list will show.
(1) If all the written sides
turn up, the sign is most propitious. The fabulous animal called
Ki-rin and the
phoenix bird will send good fortune to his house. The tortoise
and the dragon
will announce prosperity. Every catastrophe will be warded off.
Blessings will
be multiplied and a good position will be secured. The five
stars will shine
and the radiance [page 498] of heaven will be shed on
him. His descendants will all be happy and glory will be
undiminished.
(2)
If the disc with the word “metal”
alone turns up, fortune will be of medium quality, neither very
bad nor very good.
Former mistakes will be corrected and a better start made. The
fish will enter
the dragon’s gate (indicating that there will be happy consummations),
ailments will be cured. Any work begun must look toward the
west, for therein
lies success, as metal corresponds to west.
(3)
If the word “wood”
alone turns up, this also brings a medium fortune. As leaves are
driven by the
wind even so events will follow the impulse of his desire. Plans
will succeed.
He will not have to wait long for the fruition of his hopes. As
a seemingly
dead tree puts forth flowers in the spring so disease will be
cast off.
(4)
If the word “water”
alone turns up the fortune is excellent. He is like a boatman
finding a
priceless pearl. And with it he will secure great advantage. It
will dissipate
all danger and bring blessings. To the north (which corresponds
to water) the
water is a wide expanse. So blessings and joys will abound and
spread out like
a sea.
(5)
If the word “fire”
alone turns up, the fortune will be fair or medium. As fire is
of the south the
flame will mount and cannot be extinguished. If the man go to
law he will be worsted.
Frequent calamities will overtake him. The will if unable to act
promptly and
there will be many errors to correct. There will be continual
blame. Efforts
will be in vain.
(6)
If the word “earth” alone turns up, the fortune will again be
medium. As earth
is the middle element, at first it will be bad but afterward it
will be good.
He will be put in jail, though innocent, but will be released. Earth
is merely dirt, but as from that dirt there grows the hope of
man’s sustenance,
so out of evil shall come good.
(To
be continued.)
Reviews.
Trade Reports of the Korean Imperial
Maritime Customs for the year 1901. We have received a copy of
this valuable
[page 499] work which has been most thoroughly done, giving not only the
returns for 1901
but comparative tables of returns for the past six years. It is
a volume of 253
pp. small quarto, and the press work and general get-up of the
book are worthy
of great praise. In all the reports from the different ports
special mention
was made of the famine conditions which prevailed during the
latter part of
1901, and it seems to have been the universal impression that
the raising of
the embargo on the export of rice had no effect on the export of
that article,
as the low price in Japan prevented the realization of any profit on rice
exported from Korea. This is a gratifying fact even though it
shows that our
protest against the forced withdrawal of the embargo was without
point. But it
is something of a puzzle to understand why, since the Japanese
authorities must
have known that the relative prices in Korea and in Japan would
prohibit
export, they were so persistent in their demands that the
embargo be removed.
That eagerness to see the prohibition discontinued argued a
belief that it was
injuring the Japanese exporters.
But in spite of the untoward
conditions in the peninsula we are told that the volume of trade
was greater
than in any previous year, the direct foreign trade exclusive of
gold being $2,778,000
more than in any other year, and the total trade, domestic and
foreign, being
$3,900,000 greater than in any previous year. But this good
showing was the
result of a heavy trade during the early part of the year before
the famine was
announced. In one sense the year was less successful than the
previous one, for in 1900 the balance of
trade was $2,132,457 in Korea’s favor, while in 1901 it was
$1,241, 170 against
her. The tendency however is toward an equilibrium, which places
Korean trade
in a favorable light compared with Japan, where the balance of
trade is always
heavily against her. That the tendency is toward an equilibrium
is shown b}’
the fact that while between 1892 and 1896 exports were 40 per
cent of the trade
and imports 60 per cent, between 1896 and 1901 the exports were
48 per cent and
the imports 52 per cent, approximately. Again, while imports
have increased 100
per cent during the decade, exports have increased 175 per cent.
The total revenue of the Customs was
$1,325,414.11 [page 500]
which is $212,245.47 better than any previous year. To this
increase Chemulpo
contributed almost twice as much as any other port. It is
somewhat of a
surprise to learn that Wonsan contributed to this increase more
than twice as
much as Fusan.
One important feature of the
year under review is that the heavy imports, followed by a
partial famine,
resulted in leaving over heavy stocks of goods to be disposed of
during 1902
and the consequence is a temporary falling off in the
importation of certain
classes of goods. Of course cotton goods are the most important
import and the
Japanese have been making bold incursions into a field hitherto
supplied almost
wholly by English houses. How far the Japanese have succeeded
may be gathered
from the statement that “of
the increase of some $1,250,000 in the total importation of
cotton goods during
1901, as compared with the average of the last seven years, two
thirds has been
gained by Japanese manufacturers.”‘ That Koreans know a good thing when
they see it, or feel it on their backs, is proved by the rather
sensational
leap in the import of woolen goods which in 1901 outdid any
previous year by
two hundred per cent. Another evidence of financial prosperity,
or at least of
there being plenty of money in the hands of the higher class
people, is the
fact that the importation of silk piece goods was almost twice
as large in 1901
as in 1900 or any previous year.
The Trade Report speaks encouragingly
of the trade in hides, affirming
that “Korea seems to be turning to account her fine breed of
cattle, in which,
with systematic selection and rearing, undoubtedly lies one of
her best
resources.” There ought to be plenty of pasturage in Korea,
considering the
fact that with an area almost equal to that of Japan, Korea has
less than one
third the population.
As to the export of Gold, the
following figures speak for themselves; beginning with 1892 the
total export
for the ten years has been as follows: $852,751; 918,659;
934.075; 1.352,929;
1.390,412; 2,034,079; 2,375,725; 2,933,382; 3,633,050; 4,993.351. It will be
seen from this that the increase between 1900 and 1901 was
$1,360,301. which is
twice and a half as great as the increase between any other two
years.
There is much of interest in each of
the reports from the [page 501] different
open ports, but Song-chin , the newest of the open ports is so
little known even to most of the readers of the Review that we
venture to make
an extract from the report on that port by C. E. S. Wakefield.
Esq.,
Commissioner of Customs at Wonsan.
“The Port of Song-chin,
which lies on the 40th parallel, facing nearly northeast, midway
between Wonsan
and Vladivostock, has a very fair harbor, though quite
unsheltered from the
northeast. The prevailing wind, winter and summer, blows from
the southwest,
and it is only
in times of atmospheric disturbance, an infrequent condition in
these
latitudes, that a northeast blow renders the anchorage unsafe and compels
vessels to shift their moorings to the northeast end of the bay,
where the
Sarako headland gives them shelter.
The holding-ground is good, and water to the depth of five
fathoms obtains
within 200 yards of the shore. The rise and fall of spring tide:
is about two
feet. No obstacles present themselves to the building of a
landing-stage and
boat harbor.
“When the port was opened a
few huts represented the native town. Since then about 250
houses have been
erected and more are being built, and at no distant date it is
probable that
Song-chin will displace the neighboring Im-myŭng as the
market-place.
“The foreign community is
represented by a Japanese* Consul and staff and police force,
postal staff,
schoolmaster, shipping
agent and workmen, and a British doctor and his family,
belonging to the
Canadian Mission. The only foreign house erected within the
settlement limits
is that occupied by the Japanese Consul.
“The climate is almost all
that can be desired, and owing
to the sea wind it is said to be more temperate at all seasons
than Wonsan.
Fogs and winds in Spring are the only drawback. The crops most
cultivated are
beans, millet, barley, oats, buckwheat, hemp, potatoes and some
rice. The best
quality of millet is cultivated in water like rice, and attains
about the same
size of stalk as that plant. This would seem peculiar to this district.”
On the whole, this annual
report is extremely
full and complete and its comparative tables are sure to be of
immense value to
anyone who wishes to study up the subject of Korea’s growth in
material
prosperity.
[page 502]
A Maker of the New Orient (Samuel Rollins Brown), by Rev. William Elliot Griffis.
Heming H. Revell Company, Chicago, U. S. A. We have received a
copy of the
above book from the publisher and have examined it with much
pleasure, as we do
everything from the facile pen
of Dr. Griffis. The book deals with the opening years of Japan’s
new era and
the part that Dr. Brown played in helping. on. this good work.
It is a
sympathetic and appreciative study and, while it is a fixed rule
with us to
review nothing that does not bear directly on Korea, yet we cannot forbear saying that
such a work as this is most valuable in preserving a record of
the life of a
man who rendered such a service to Korea’s nearest neighbor and
most intimate
friend -Japan.
Obituary
Notice.
Miss
Christine
May Collbran,
For
the second time within a month the foreign community of Seoul
has been called
upon to mourn the death of one of its number. First it was the
highly esteemed
and distinguished Italian Consul, Count di Malgra, and now it is
a young lady,
taken in the very flower of her youth when life, with all its
opportunities and
promises, was before her. Death is a sad guest at any age and in
any condition
of life but there seems something particularly touching in the
loss of one who,
having spent years
in preparation for life’s work and having formed noble plans for
the future, is
cut down on the very threshold of life. It makes us feel the
futility of all
earthly things and we are almost tempted to throw down the implements of
earthly work and give up the fight; and were it not for that
noblest of all
merely human qualities, the sense of duty, who knows what havoc such bitter
disappointments might not work even in the most strenuous life?
But, like soldiers
in line of battle, when one
falls his comrades, so far from throwing down their arms, close
up the gap and fight
the harder; not forgetting their dead comrade but spurred on to
greater
achievements by the memory of what that comrade was and of his
loyalty to the cause.
[page 503] Miss Christine Collbran was
born in Blackheath, England, on February the eighteenth, 1881. The following year her parents brought her to America and
settled in Denver. Colorado. In that beautiful city of the plains she
grew to girlhood and womanhood. When she was sixteen years old
she graduated from Jarvis Hall, a
ladies’ seminary in Denver, and soon after left America to study French and music in Paris.
After two years of assiduous study she returned to Denver but
very soon decided
to take a trip to the Far East, her father then being in Korea.
It was in 1899 that she first
came to the East,
and after spending some time in Japan and just touching Korea
for a few weeks
at Chemulpo she continued on around the world by way of Suez.
She happened to
be travelling by
the Steamship China, on the trip when she was
wrecked on the island of Perim
at the entrance to the Red Sea. Proceeding to Paris she once
more plunged into study, perfecting herself in the
use of the language and developing her musical talent. She
remained there until
April, 1902. Meanwhile, although as yet only nineteen years old,
she had
determined to write
up her experiences in the Orient, and with characteristic
American pluck she
set to work. She had been a keen observer and was gifted with a
large sense of
humor, so that while her book “An
American Girl’s Trip to the Orient and Around the World” is
quite serious in its
intent, it abounds in humorous passages and shows a mind rarely
endowed both
with solid common sense and a lively appreciation of the
absurdities and
inconsistencies of human nature.
Early in 1902 she again started for
Korea in company with her father and the other members of the
family and since that
time she has resided in Seoul.
Early in the month of October a gay
party went out into the country on a camping expedition and it
seems to have been
at this time that Miss Collbran contracted the germs of typhoid
fever, for
shortly after her return she was taken ill, and in spite of
medical skill and
most careful nursing she succumbed to the disease on the 15th of
November. Dr. Wunsch
and Dr. Baldock were both unceasing in their attention to the
sufferer and Miss
Mills and Miss
Wambold did everything
that nurses could do, but without avail. The [page 504] world is the poorer by one sweet and generous
life. She had planned to follow up her literary work by further
books upon
Japan and perhaps other portions of the world, and the work she had already
done gave promise that she would add something of even greater
value to the
world’s knowledge of the Far East. Her aspirations were noble, her ambition high.
She aimed at the very best -and
she found it sooner than she thought.
I
wonder if ever a rose was found
And
there might not be a fairer;
Or
if ever a glittering gem was ground,
And
we dreamed not of a rarer.
Ah,
never on earth shall we find the best,
But
it waits for us in the Land of Rest.
And
a perfect thing we shall never behold
Till
we pass the portals of Shining Gold .
Editorial
Comment.
We
were greatly pleased lately to note the promptness with which
the Japanese authorities at the consulate
took up the case of a common Korean who had been cheated by a
Japanese
dairyman, and forced the latter to make good the injury. It is
such evidences
of good will that go far toward building up a friendly spirit
between the
Koreans and the Japanese.
There
is solid satisfaction in knowing that at last Seoul is to have a
hospital
worthy of the name. The Severance Memorial Hospital, the corner
stone of which
was laid on Thursday last, is so thoroughly planned, so finely
situated and so
well superintended that we believe it will leave little to be
desired. Another
foreign physician is coming from America to assist in the work
and so with the
present efficient Japanese [page 505] nurses
and the trained Korean help, things will be put on a fine
working basis. We
wish it as many years of prosperity as there are bricks in its
walls.
It
is gratifying to see the manner in which the Japanese government
officials are
attempting to prevent the counterfeiting of Korean nickel coins.
The numerous
arrests at Kobe and the vicinity must convince the public that
Japan is
sincerely trying to do her duty in the case, which is perfectly
plain. Of
course it is to Japan’s advantage, too to stop this illegal
coinage, for the
only ones who benefit by it are the rascals who do the
counterfeiting, while
the Korean public and the Japanese merchants are all equally
victimized. It is reasonable
to suppose that the Japanese are, if anything, more injured by
it than the
Koreans, for it has a very depressing influence upon foreign
trade of all kinds;
and while the nickel coinage is not enough to affect seriously
more than a
small fraction of the Korean people it works havoc with the
Japanese trade.
News
Calendar.
A
Japanese merchant in Seoul bought goods in Japan and the
creditor drew on the
Dai Ichi Ginko for the money. The bill was presented here through the bank
but payment was delayed. The bank sent one of its clerks around
to the merchant’s
place to ask for payment and this the merchant took as an
insult. He therefore
published in the native papers a statement that he would
hereafter have nothing
to do with the new bank notes issued by the Dai Ichi Ginko. The
matter was
promptly taken up by the Japanese Consul and the merchant was
compelled to make
a public retraction of his threat, published every day for a
week.
The
Belgian Government has purchased a piece of land of 7000 metres
in Chang Dong,
near the Japanese Consulate, as a Consulate site. We understand
that building
will begin in the Spring.
During
the last month Seoul and Chemelpo have been visited by a virulent form of
typhoid. Among the foreigners in Seoul there have been four
cases and in
Chemelpo among the Japanese there have been a dozen cases. In each place one case has
terminated fatally.
[page 506] We have received from W.
F. Sands, Esq., Adviser to the Imperial Household, a report of The Provisory Cholera Committee on its work between
September 20th and October 20th, 1902. It is as follows:
On
the 20 September, 1902,
the Imperial Government entrusted to the Chief
of the Police Department of Seoul the sum of Yen 3000 for use in
preventing the
spread of the Cholera. The Chief of Police, Mr. Ye Pong Eui, requested the Adviser
of the Imperial Household to carry out the necessary measures
for preventing the
spread of the disease, and entrusted the Court-physician, Dr. Wunsch, with the disbursement
of the money, under his (the Chief of the Police) control, in
the expectation that
the permanent Medical Board then contemplated would be speedily
formed. The provisory
cholera committee was composed of Mr. Sands and three police
officials.
Their
first act was to organize an intelligence service by which all
cases were
reported to a Central Station.
For
5 days 20 policemen were sent every day from the central office
to the Imperial
Medical School where they were instructed by Drs. Kotake and Kim
Ik Nam in the
nature of the disease, and the handling of the necessary
medicines and
disinfectants. These 100 men were very useful later in the
distribution of
medicines and in disinfecting the affected districts.
Outside
the West and the South-east Gates, cholera isolation camps were
formed, where
the teachers and students of the Medical School and the
physicians of the Home
Department undertook the treatment of the patients.
In
the East Camp, about 100 patients were treated, (with 48 deaths)
and in the
West Camp 104 (54 deaths) .
A
large number of pamphlets containing simple rules relating to
cholera were
freely distributed by the police. The boiling of all water used
was especially
recommended. Medicines also, and disinfectants, were distributed by the
police to the sick, and a large number of persons not affected
by the sickness
were vaccinated, as a precautionary measure, with Dr. Kitazawa’s
cholera
vaccine.
This
vaccine was
generously furnished by the Japanese Consul, Mr. Mimashi. All
those whose
duties called them to the cholera camps, as also the officials
and messengers
of the Communication Dept., were obliged by the Committee to
undergo this
precautionary measure. Of those thus vaccinated none took the
sickness. A large
number of the members of the Police Department were also
vaccinated. These
vaccinations were undertaken by physicians engaged by the Police
Department.
The
barracks were all visited by Dr. Baldock and Mr. Sands and their
hygienic
condition inspected. One of the principal sources of danger, the
city prison,
was also visited by Dr. Baldock
and thoroughly disinfected. No deaths occurred in the prison
subsequent to this
disinfecting. One hundred
and ninety-two of the inmates of the prison had been vaccinated,
before the
formation of the provisory Committee,
by Dr. Ino.
[page 507] Five hundred of the 2000
bottles of Carbolic Acid Solution presented to the Imperial
Household
Department by Mr.Tanaka Zotaro, were sent to Chinnampo for use in disinfecting.
At
the time of the formation of a Medical Board in August, measures
had been taken
to stop the progress of the epidemic at Pengyang and Chinnampo,
and even after
the breaking up of the Medical Board these places received all
the support,
from Seoul, that the limited means at the disposal of the
Committee permitted
them to offer.
In
Pengyang Dr. Wells was placed in charge of the work, in Chinnampo Dr. Koto.
When
the provisory Committee was formed on the 25th September the
number of deaths
reported had reached 317. From the 26th to the 20th October 1606 further
deaths were reported. From the 20th October no deaths were
reported, and the
epidemic may be considered
as having ended about that date.
The
sum of money placed at the disposal of the Committee was used as follows:
Salary
for Dr. Baldock / Dr.
Kim / Dr.
Kotake Yen
685.00 Salary for Medical students 210.00 Medicines and
disinfectants 325.62 Materials for Isolation
Camps 147.00 Transportation, coolie hire 119.00 Printed matter,
stationery,
telegrams 83.70
[Total] 1570-32
For Chinnampo and Pyeng Yang 582 98
------------Yen 2153.30 There remain,
therefore, Yen 846.70 and a certain quantity of medicines, drugs
and
disinfectants which were not distributed.
Deacon
Thing, the founder of the Ella Thing Memorial Mission, has
turned over all his
property in Korea to Pastor M. C. Fenwick of the Korean
Itinerant Mission, to
be used at his discretion in missionary work. The two missions
have now become
one and will be known in the future as the Gordon Mission, after
the late A. J.
Gordon,
D.D., who fostered both missions in their infancy. We
congratulate Pastor
Fenwick on this new development in the work. We understand that
it has been
accompanied by handsome cash donations. It is evident that
Deacon Thing’s
interest in the Korean work is not abating. By this move the two
different
Baptist movements in Korea are made one.
The
Pacific Mail Steamship Company has sent out a notice informing
the public that
the Steamship Korea
on her first eastward trip across the Pacific beat all previous
records between
Yokohama and San Francisco.
We suppose this was found necessary to refute certain derogatory
remarks in the
Kobe Chronicle and
elsewhere
regarding the speed of that boat. The fact remains that there is
no other boat
on the Pacific
that can touch her in the point of size, power, speed or
appointments.
[page 508] Yi Hak-kyun memorialized
the throne in favor of putting
tobacco and wine, or beer, on the regular tax list, reviving the
system of
national examinations, or Kwaga, making boys resume the
wearing of a hop’a, or name tag, raising the land tax to twenty
dollars on each
Kyul. The last of
these suggestions
was already under contemplation and will probably become an
accomplished fact.
Japanese
Buddhist
monks have established a new monastery in Seoul. It is called
Pon-wŭn Monastery or “Native Desire Monastery.” Whether
the name is apposite or not we have not inquired from the “Natives.”
The
Superintendent of Trade at Masanpo informs the government that
some Russians
are prospecting for gold in Hap-Ch’ŭln, near that port.
Chung
Hă-yong has been made Chargé d’
Affaires in the Korean Legation at Tokyo since the return of the
Minister.
The
postponed celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the accession of His
Majesty the Emperor
will be held in December, beginning with the third. This is the
Korean part of
the function. The one to which foreign guests are invited will
take place in
the Spring, as already announced.
The
removal of the Queen’s remains to the tomb in Keum-gok will take place on
the fourteenth of December.
The
place of the late Count di Malgra in the Italian Consulate is being filled by Lieut.
Carlo Rossetti of the Italian navy, pending the arrival of the
newly appointed
Italian Minister.
Lady
Om has been raised one step, her rank now being Kwi-pi instead
of Pi as heretofore.
The
Minister of Education has recommended the issuing of an order
commanding all
boys of eight years old and upward to go to school, excepting
those engaged in
commerce, agriculture or manual trades; also to forbid boys to smoke cigarettes, play
pitch-penny or fly kites.
Cho
Chŭng-pil has been appointed Governor of North Ch’ung Chŭng
Province.
U
Yong Sŭn and Kim Kwi-hyŭn, who were imprisoned in 1900 because
of their
connection with the Independent Club, have been liberated.
It
is said that before the celebration next Spring a large sum of
money will be
spent in repairing the drains and sewers of the city and in
cleaning up
generally.
A
man who dared to memorialize the throne against the cutting of
hair got a
hundred blows with the paddle and banishment for three years.
Yi
Kun-t’ăk
has been appointed acting Minister of War.
Pak
Che-sun, the Korean Minister to China, presented his credentials
to the Emperor on the 31st of
October.
Cho
Pyŭng-sik has been made full Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The
Educational Department has sent $4666 to Prince Eui-Wha in America to defray his
education expenses.
The
Korean Minister to, England, Min Yung-don, will shortly return
to Korea on
account of illness.
[page 509] Over
three hundred houses were burned in Fusan on the
4th. Over twelve hundred people were rendered homeless and many
received severe
injuries. Report says that some thirty people were killed.
At
last reports are to hand of the terrible storm in Kyŭng Sang Province last September A great
monastery near Tăgu was buried under an avalanche or landslide
caused by the
rain and 420 kan were destroyed. In various
places a total of 1310 houses were destroyed and 108 lives lost
in this storm.
The
police in Kobe on the 6th inst. arrested two Koreans who were
seeking an
opportunity to assassinate Yi Chun-yong, the grand-son of the
late Regent.
Kim
Chu-hyŭn has been appointed Minister of Home Department in place
of Yi Kön-ha,
resigned.
A
branch of the Dai Ichi Ginko
has been established at Mokpo.
Because
of complaints lodged by the English and Japanese representatives
the Mayor has
withdrawn the prohibition of the use or sale of foreign washing
soda.
It
is rumored that Yi Yong-ik is trying to secure a loan of $5,000,000,
offering as
security the ginseng crops for the next five years.
Yi
Yong-ik has received a decoration
of the second order because of meritorious service.
Ki
Kön-tăk has been appointed acting Chief of Police in place of Yi
Pong-ei,
resigned.
Of
the three military officers who went to Japan to witness the
manoeuvers, Yi
Hak-kyun has
been given a Japanese decoration of the third degree, Yi Heui-du
of the fourth
degree and No Păk-in of the fifth degree.
As
the Government has failed to pay the mortgage on the Electric
Railway the
creditors have announced that the road will be offered for sale
to some other
nationality, but the Foreign Office says that this will not be
necessary as the
Government will pay.
The
shrine in honor of the Chinese General O Chang-gyung who died in Seoul in
1882 is to be repaired by the Chinese aided by a Korean grant.
The shrine is
near the Hun-yŭn-wun, inside the East Gate.
Yun
Ung-yŭl has been appointed acting Judge of the Supreme Court in
place of Yi
Yong-ik, resigned.
Japanese
counterfeiters of Korean nickels arc being sharply handled by
the authorities
in Kobe and elsewhere. Several have been arrested in flagrante delicto, and committed to the peaceful
quietude of the jail for periods of from two to four months.
The
26th instant saw 5000 bags of rice exported to Osaka.
The
Imperial household has made a gift of a solid gold cup to each
of seventeen
Buddhist monasteries in the vicinity of Seoul.
Kwŭn
Chong-sŭk and Yi Chong-jik have been arrested on suspicion of having conspired to assassinate
Yi Yong-ik.
Gen
Yi Hak-kyun and Col. Yi Heui-du, who have just returned from
Japan, have been
arrested on suspicion of having
had converse with certain disaffected
parties in foreign parts.
[page 510] The Seoul Fusan Railway
line has been laid as far as Su-wŭn and it is hoped that trains
will soon be
running over this section of the road.
Many
pirates are said to be carrying on their nefarious work along
the coast of
Whang-hă Province.
Thanksgiving
Day, by proclamation of President Roosevelt, was observed in
Seoul on Thursday
the 27th. inst. The regular Thanksgiving Service was held, at
which Rev. Mr.
Hounshell delivered a most appropriate address. A solo was sung
by Mrs. Morris,
which gave great pleasure to the audience.
It
is said
that game is very plentiful this year, especially pheasants. One
of our local
nimrods flushed six birds and secured four within sight of the
Yong-tong-po
Station, and only a few minutes’ walk away,
Seoul
is fortunate in having access to such fine stocks of Christmas novelties as
are to be found at the office of Mr. J. W. Hodge, at Mr.
Rondon’s store and at
On Cheong*s store. Heretofore we have had to be content with a
very small
assortment, and much credit is due these firms for their
enterprise in
supplying the market here, which at best can be little better
than precarious,
owing to the smallness of our numbers.
The
many friends of Mr. and Mrs. English were very sorry to learn that the
latter had contracted the smallpox. The disease developed about the
twenty-third inst. Mrs. English had been vaccinated only a few
months previous
but it had not taken. It is not necessary to say that all her
friends wish her
a speedy and happy recovery.
The
ceremony of the laying of the corner-stone of the new Severance
Memorial
Hospital took place at three o’clock in the afternoon of Nov.
27th in the
presence of a large number of guests, among whom were most of
the Foreign
Representatives and a goodly showing of Korean officials. The
site is a
commanding one on the east of the main road outside the South
Gate.
The
exercises were opened by Dr. O. R. Avison who invited Rev. H. G.
Underwood, D.
D., to occupy the Chair. Dr. Underwood made a short speech in
accepting the
position. Prayer was then offered by Rev. Geo. Heber Jones, Ph.
D., and this
was followed by a prayer in Korean by one of the native church
members. The
scriptures were then read by Rev. J. R. Moose and also by one of
the native
brothers. Dr. Underwood then, in a few graceful words,
introduced the speaker
of the day, Hon. H. N. Allen, the United States Minister. In
introducing him
Dr. Underwood referred to the fact that it was Dr. Allen who
inaugurated the medical
work in Seoul, and that it was largely owing to his pioneer work
that the
present happy consummation had been reached.
Dr.
Allen began a most appropriate speech by referring to the
beginnings of
hospital work in Seoul in 1884, and mentioning by name and in
chronological
order his successors in the government hospital. Special mention
was made of
the arduous labors of Dr. O. R. Avison, the present Physician in
Charge. A
tribute was also offered to the generous friend in America, Mr.
Severance, who,
though he had never seen Korea, had put down the money for this
fine building.
The speaker closed by a [page 511]
reference to
the fact that this institution
is a hand of greeting extended by the young west to the old east
and he hoped
that it would prove of great benefit to the Korean people.
After
Dr. Allen finished, his speech was translated into Korean by
Rev. J. S. Gale,
and then Dr. Allen took in his hand the silver trowel, which had
been made of Korean metal and
by a Korean, and superintended the placing of the corner-stone,
under which was
deposited a box containing copies of the Scriptures, hymn books,
Christian papers, the daily papers,
coins, and several other objects. He then declared the stone
laid and the work
formally begun. Dr. Avison made a few remarks expressing his
gratification at the
completion
of the work and giving some of the events which led up to the
formation of the
plan and the raising of the money. After prayer by Rev. W. D. Reynolds the meeting was
dismissed with the benediction by the chairman.
It
seems that there has been a combined effort on the part of a
very powerful body
of Korean officials to secure the down-fall of Yi Yong-ik who
has been having
his own way so long in Korean affairs. As we go to press the
report is that Mr.
Yi is in hiding, which would indicate that the combined effort
has been at
least partially successful. In this, Korean history is but
repeating itself,
for it has been demonstrated time and again that no man can
continue to hold
power for any length of time without having a strong personal
backing.
A
letter from Tă-ku announces that on a recent country trip Rev.
Mr. Adams shot a
wild boar weighing 300 pounds. He is preserving the head. It
will be our
endeavor to secure a detailed account of this interesting event.
This is the
first wild boar shot by a foreigner in Korea as far we as have heard.
Table
of Meteorological Observations
Seoul,
Korea, October, 1902
V.
Pokrovsky, M.
D., Observer.
[see image files]
[page 513] KOREAN HISTORY.
MODERN KOREA.
On
the seventh of the moon the royal party crossed the Tă-dong
River and entered
the gates of P’yŭng-yang.
Two days later a messenger was seen
approaching at a rapid pace. He was swiftly ferried across the
river and
hurried into the king’s presence where he said, “Yi Yang-wŭn, the defender
of Seoul has fled, and the city is in the possession of the
enemy.” The king exclaimed, “This is bad news indeed, we
must appoint someone whose work it shall be to continually
attempt to retake
the capital.” He thereupon appointed Gen. Yu Hong to that
arduous and dangerous
position. He was to go with three thousand men and do what he
could to stop the
progress of the Japanese and if possible regain control of the
capital. Gen. Yu
received the appointment with the worst possible grace. After
the headlong flight
with all its hardships and privations, to be told that he must
go back with
three thousand men and meet what he supposed was a blood-thirsty
horde of
savages was too much for his patriotism; so he stayed in his
rooms and sulked. Two
days passed and still he did not start. The king called him up
and said, ‘‘How
is it that you let the time slip by like this when you ought to
be on the way
to Seoul with troops?” The
mighty warrior replied, “I
fear Your Majesty will have to excuse me from this duty as I am
suffering from
a boil on my leg.” One of the courtiers, Yi Han-guk took him to
task saying, “How is it that after
receiving such favors at the hand of the king you shrink from
this duty? You
are a coward and are afraid to go. You are like a sulky
dancing-girl who refuses
either to dance or sing. You are not only not brave but you are not even clever. Do
you suppose you can impose on His Majesty with any such story as
this about a
boil on your leg?” The king was immensely pleased with this well
merited rebuke
and laughed long and loud at the discomfited general, but
finally said, “Well, then, since our
doughty Gen. Yu cannot go let Gen. Han Eung-in go instead.” The
next day Gen. Han started south with 5000 troops picked from
[page 514] the northern bother guard,
and in good time he arrived at the banks of the Im-jin. River,
midway between
Song-do and Seoul. This was the great strategic position that
must be held at
any cost. It was the key to the north, the gateway to Whang-hă
Province and to P’yŭng-an
Province beyond .
Now that the king and the court were
in comparative safety, an attempt was made to bring together the
loose ends of
things and make some sort of headway against the Japanese. Gen.
Yi Hang-bok who
had so gallantly escorted the Queen from the palace, the night
of the exodus
from Seoul was made Minister of War. A council was called to
discuss the
demands made by the people of Song-do in reference to the
punishment of certain
officials whom they had accused. The result was that Yi San-ha
was banished to
P’yŭng-ha but the king refused to
punish the father of his favorite concubine.
We notice that the military prowess of
the Japanese, their thorough equipment and their martial spirit
took Korea by surprise. It caused a universal panic, and
for the first few weeks it was impossible to get the soldiers to
stand up and fight
the enemy, to say nothing of the generals. The troops and the
generals were
muturally suspicious of each other and neither seemed to have
any faith in the
courage or loyalty of the other. But now the time had come when
the impetuous sweep
of the Japanese was stopped, for the time being, by their
occupation of Seoul.
The fall of the capital was looked upon by the king and the
people as a great
calamity, but in reality it was the very thing that saved the
king from the
necessity of crossing the border and perhaps it saved Peking
itself. If the
Japanese had kept up that impetuous, overwhelming rush with
which they came up
from Fusan to Seoul, and, instead of stopping at the capital,
had pushed straight
for the Yalu River they would have swept everything before them
and would have
been knocking at the gates of Nanking before the sleepy
celestials knew that
Hideyoshi dreamed of paying back in kind the haughty summons of
Kublai Khan
four hundred years before. The stop at Seoul gave the Korean
forces a breathing
space and an opportunity to get into shape to do better work
than they had
done. The people came to see that [page 515] instead of painted devils,
as they had at first appeared, the Japanese were flesh and blood
like
themselves and the terror which their fierce aspect at first
inspired gradually
wore off and in-so-far lessened the discrepancy between the two
combatants. On
the side of the Japanese there was only one favorable factor,
their tremendous
fighting power in battle. There they had it all their own way.
But on the other
hand they were in a thickly populated and hostile country,
practically cut off
from their base of supplies and dependent entirely upon forage
for their
sustenance. Under these circumstances their position was sure to
become worse
rather than better and the real strength of the Koreans was sure
to show itself.
If a Korean regiment was swept off in battle there were millions
from which to
recruit, while every Japanese who fell caused just so much
irreparable injury
to the invading army. We shall see that it was the abandonment
of the “double quick” that
eventually drove the Japanese back across the straits.
Chapter
VII.
Mutual
jealousies...
first Korean victory
... .successful general executed ...people disgusted ...another general
executed .. .operations in the south ...troops mass in Kong-ju... unfortunate engagement ....troops scattered ...naval
engagement in
the south under Admiral Yi Sun-sin. . . .a great Japanese
defeat. . . .Japanese
army cut off
from reinforcements . . .the tortoise boat... another naval victory ....and another naval campaign
closes....
Admiral Yi is decorated. . . the fall of Yŭng-wun Fortress. . .
.Japanese
checked at the Im-jin River...
they seemingly prepare to retreat.... jealousies among the Koreans ...divided counsels. .. .Koreans
cross and attack . . .defeated . . .Korean army retreats... the Japanese cross ....Japanese jealousies.... they separate. ..the news
of defeat reaches the king...
a trifling Korean victory...
a great council the
king decides to go to Ham-heung.
The
wretched party strife among the Koreans was the cause of their weakness. No
sooner did a capable man arise than he became the target for the
hatred and
jealousy of a hundred rivals, and no trickery or subterfuge was
left untried whereby
to have him degraded and disgraced. A particular [page 516] incident will illustrate
this. Gen. Sin Kak had been associated with Gen. Kim Myŭng-wŭn
in the defenses
of the Han River, but when Gen. Kim fled after throwing into the
river the
engines of defense, there was nothing to do but fall back. Gen.
Sin retreated
to a place of safety but immediately began collecting troops
from Kyŭng-geui
Province, and he was also joined by a contingent from Ham-gyŭng
Province. While
the Japanese held Seoul, large bands of them scoured the
surrounding country
for booty. One of these bands was trying to make its way across
the hills to
Ka-p’yŭng and Ch’unch’un, and had gotten as far as
the Kye Pass in the town of Yang-ju when they found themselves
face to face
with the troops of Gen. Sin Kak. A fierce fight took place, in
which the
Japanese, who were probably largely outnumbered, were severely
defeated,
leaving sixty heads in the hands of the Koreans. This promised
to be the
beginning of a series of such little engagements in which the
Japanese army
would be gradually weakened without being able to draw the
Koreans into a large
general engagement; the more so because the Japanese were
dependent upon forage
for their supplies.
But note the sequel. While all Kyŭng-geui
was ringing with the praises of the successful general and the
people were beginning
to see that all was not yet lost, a swift messenger was on his
way southward
from P’yŭng-yang
bearing a sword and a letter ordering the instant execution of
the traitor Sin Kak.
The alleged reason for this was as follows: When Gen. Kim fled
from the
defenses of the Han, in order to cover his infamy, he wrote a
letter to the
king accusing Gen. Sin Kak of having deserted him in his hour of
need. Gen. Yu
Hong also recognised Gen. Sin as a powerful rival and so added
his prayers to
those of Gen. Kim that the traitor Sin be killed. The king knew
no better than
to comply with this request, preferred as it was by two of his
leading
generals, and the message of death was sent. But before the day
was done came
the news of the defeat of the Japanese by the forces under this
same Sin Kak.
The condemned “traitor” had stood up before a
Japanese force and had taken sixty beads. The king was filled
with remorse and
a swift messenger was sent to stay the hand of the executioner.
He took the
road an hour after the death messenger and arrived at the camp
of Gen. Sin
[page 517] Kak an hour after that
loyal man had bowed his head to the axe of his royal master. Who
knows but the
feet of the second messenger had been made heavy by the gold of
Sin Kak’s
rivals? History is silent as to this but the suspicion is
inevitable. This
wanton act was looked upon by the people with horror and
detestation, who saw
their first successful champion cut down in the very hour of his
success.
But
another sword, this time of pure justice, was also prepared for
Gen. Yi Kak who
had fled from before the Japanese at Tong-nă. He made his
appearance at the
Im-jin River, doubtless thinking himself safe from criticism,
but in this he
was mistaken, for as he was the one who first set the example of
cowardice, he
was arrested and put to death.
And
now as the Japanese are revelling in Seoul and the king is
resting in P’yŭng-yang and the Korean
generals are busy massing troops at the Im-jin to dispute the passage of the Japanese, let
us turn southward and witness some of the events that are
transpiring there,
for we must not think that the provinces of Chŭl-la and
Ch’ung-ch’ŭng are at
peace all this time.
When the Japanese army separated .soon after leaving Tong-nă one army
division under Kuroda swept
like a whirlwind westward across the north-western corner of
Chŭl-la Province
and through the entire length of Ch’ung-chŭng Province on its
way to Seoul. Yi
Kwang the governor of Chŭl-la got together some 8000 men and
hastened north ta Kong-ju
the capital of Ch’ung-chŭng
Province. Finding there that the king had fled from Seoul, he
gave up all hope of
effecting anything and, turning about, made for the south again.
But on the way
he was met by Păk Kwang-ön who upbraided him severely, urging
that if the king
had fled northward all the more need of keeping on and offering
him whatever
support was possible. The governor humbly confessed that he had been hasty in his action,
and turned about and went back to Kong-ju where he joined the
forces of the governors
of C’ung-ch’ŭng and Kyŭng-sang Provinces
who had arrived at that place. There were also Gen. Yi Ok, the
military
governor of Ch’ung-ch’ŭng,
and Gen. Kwak Yŭng, the military governor of Chŭl-la. Each of
the provinces had
both a civil and a military governor. These three civil and
[page 518] two military governors met, then, in Kong-ju and joined forces. It is
commonly reported that they had between them 100,000 men, but
probably about
half that figure would be nearer the truth. They formed a
gallant array with
their flaunting banners, and the people of the adjoining
districts caught up
arms and came and joined what seemed to them an invincible host.
A Japanese
force was found to be intrenched on Puk-du-mun Mountain and
Governor Yi Kwang
was for making an immediate attack, but one of his aides said, “We are now so near Seoul
there is no use in turning aside to attack so small a force. We
had better push
on to the defense of the Im-jin River.” Păk Kwang-on who had upbraided the
governor for retiring also said, “The road is very narrow which leads up
to this position of the Japanese and the woods are very dense.
We had better be
cautious.”
Being
opposed thus the second time was more than his temper could
endure, so the
governor ordered Păk bound and whipped. The latter thinking that
it was an
imputation on his bravery, after receiving a severe beating,
seized his weapons
and rushed headlong up the slope and attacked the Japanese. Many
followed and
the engagement became general. From morning till noon it
continued but the
Japanese could not be driven out of their strong position in the
woods. The Koreans
began to lose in the battle and finally the Japanese, creeping
down toward the
Koreans in the underbrush and grass, suddenly rushed out upon
them and cut them
down by
scores. Păk and several other notable men fell in the fight, but
the main body
of the Korean troops under Governor Yi Kwang moved on to
Kwang-gyo Mountain
near the town of Su-wŭn, only eighty li from Seoul. Expecting
that the day
would be a busy one, Governor Yi had his soldiers fed very early
in the morning
and when day broke, sure enough, there was the Japanese force
ready to engage
him, and every few moments one or other of the Japanese braves
would rush out
from the lines, brandish his weapons and challenge the Koreans
to come out and
fight. So Gen. Sin Ik of the province of Ch’ung-ch’ŭng advanced with his force
and engaged the enemy. In a few moments the superiority of the
Japanese arms
became evident. The panic-stricken Koreans fled before them like
sheep before
wolves. After an hour’s time [page 519] this
considerable army which was to have succored the king was
thoroughly scattered,
but it is probable that many of the soldiers figured later in
the defense of
the Im-jin
River.
At the same time events were happening
further south which were far more creditable to the Korean arms
and which were
the forerunner of the final expulsion of the Japanese from the
peninsula.
A fleet of Japanese boats, bringing as
is supposed the reserve of 60,000 men, arrived off the island of
Ka-dok on the coast
of Kyung-sang Province. At that time Admiral Wŭn Kyun had charge
of all matters
along the coast of that province. When he saw this vast fleet of
ships his
heart sank and without more ado he prepared to scuttle his ships
and flee by land,
but fortunately there was good advice at hand, for one of his
staff said, “Do not abandon all hope at
once but send and ask Yi Sun-sin the Admiral of Chŭl-la to come
and aid you.” A swift messenger was sent
and the missive was placed in the hands of Admiral Yi. One of
his staff said “No, let him guard his own
coast and we will look after ours. Why should we go and help
him?” But Admiral
Yi said, “Is
not Kyŭng-sang Province as much the country of our king as
Chŭl-la? How can we
refuse to go to his aid?” So
eighty boats were gotten ready in haste and sailed away to the
island of
Han-san where the two admirals met and joined forces. The whole
fleet sailed
out of harbor together and made for the island of Ok-po where
the hostile fleet
was moored. As soon as the enemy hove in sight Admiral Yi
Sun-sin made directly
for them and soon was grappling them. The Koreans had the
advantage of the wind
at their backs for they shot fire arrows among the boats of the Japanese and
soon had twenty-six of them in flames. It is said the sea was
covered with the
wreckage and with struggling human forms. So the remaining ships
of the enemy
turned about and crowded on all sail in flight, but Admiral Yi
gave chase and
cut down many more and scattered the rest so that the expedition
was an entire
failure.
This was the first of this great admiral’s successes and it
illustrates the fact that the Korean warrior was not a coward
when well led.
The Japanese armies in Korea were thus cut off from their source
of supply and
reinforcement and thus a tremendous blow was dealt them. This
[page 520] victory may be said to
have been the decisive point in the war.
It is probable that the soldiers in
the Japanese array had been accustomed to short though
sanguinary campaigns and
had spent the intervals of leisure at home. But now this vast
army was quite cut off from
their home and were among strange scenes. It cannot be wondered
at therefore
that after a time discontent arose in spite of all successes, a
discontent
which, combined with other causes, finally drove them back to
Japan.
Tradition says that about this time
Admiral Yi had a dream in which a robed man appeared and cried,
“The Japanese are coming.”
He arose, assembled his fleet and sailed forth as far as the
town of No-ryang
where he found a large fleet of the enemy. He used the same
tactics as before,
burning twelve of them and chasing the rest away. The main reason for his unparalleled
successes on the sea was the possession of a peculiar war vessel
of his own
invention and construction. It was called the Kwi-sŭn or “Tortoise Boat,” from its
resemblance to that animal. There is no doubt that the tortoise
furnished the
model for the boat. Its greatest peculiarity was a curved deck
of iron plates
like the back of a tortoise, which completely sheltered the
fighters and rowers
beneath. In front was a hideous crested head, erect, with wide
open mouth
through which arrows and other missiles could be discharged.
There was another
opening in the rear and six on either side for the same purpose.
On top of the curved
deck there was a narrow walk from stem to stern and another
across the middle
from side to side, but every other part of the back bristled
with iron pikes so
that an enemy who should
endeavor to board her would find himself immediately impaled
upon a score of spear-heads.
This deck being of iron, rendered the ship impervious to fire
arrows and so the
occupants could go into action with as much security as one of
our modern
battle ships could go into engagement with the wooden war
vessels of a century
ago. In addition to this, she was built for speed and could
easily overtake
anything afloat. This made her doubly formidable, for even
flight could not
avail the enemy. She usually did more execution after the flight
commenced than
before, for she could overtake and ram them one by one, probably
better
[page 521] than she could handle them
when drawn up in line of battle. It is said that the ribs of
this remarkable
ship lie in the sand today in the village of Ko-sŭng on the coast of Kyŭngsang
Province, They are believed to have been seen there by Lieut.
Geo. C. Foulk, U. S. N., in 1884. The
people of the town have an annual festival, when they launch a
fleet of boats and
sail about the harbor in honor of the great Yi Sun-sin and his “Tortoise Boat.”
In the engagement last described the
Japanese in their flight were so terrified by this craft, which
pursued them and
sank them one by one, that they stamped their feet and cried out
that it was
more than of human workmanship. And indeed it was almost more
than the human of
that century, for it anticipated by nearly three hundred years
the iron-clad
war ship. In this battle Admiral Yi was wounded in the shoulder
but made no
sign. He urged on his men to the very last and finally when they
drew off, weary
of slaughter, he bared his shoulder and ordered the bullet to be
cut out.
Having thus brilliantly begun, and
perhaps fearing lest, if he should delay, some jealous rival
might induce the
king to take off his head, he pushed straight on to Tang-hang
Harbor where he
encountered another fleet, among which was an immense
three-decked ship on
which sat the admiral of the fleet, clad in silk and wearing a
golden
head-piece. The intrepid Yi made straight for this craft with
his tortoise boat
and when near it called to one of his best marksmen to let fly a
shaft at the
man in silks. The
arrow flew straight to its mark and pierced the man’s throat.
Seeing the fall
of their chief, the whole fleet showed their rudders and made
off as fast as
they could go, but with the usual result. The next day saw
Admiral Yi in Pyŭk-hang
Harbor where he lay at anchor while he sent out ships to
reconnoitre and find
out the position of the enemy. If anything was seen of the foe,
guns were to be
fired as a signal. Ere long the signal shot was heard far out at
sea. The fleet
put out in two long divergent lines “like a fish-trap,” as the Koreans say,
and soon on the horizon twenty-six hulls appeared rising and sinking on
the swell. As they neared they entered the two lines of the
Korean fleet and were
surrounded. As the [page 522] result of this fight every one
of the Japanese boats was burned and two hundred heads were
taken as trophies. This remarkable
naval campaign closed with the
destruction of a few remaining Japanese boats that were
overtaken near Yong-deung
Harbor.
The reputation of Admiral Yi Sun-sin
spread over the whole south and his praises were one very lip.
His followers would
go anywhere with him and scarcely seemed to know what fear was.
Soon the report
of these splendid victories came to the ears of the king, and
though Admiral Yi
was not without detractors at court the king conferred upon him
a lofty title.
In the fifth moon the Japanese resumed
active operations in the north and east. A powerful force were
sent to the
province of Kang-wŭn which was straightway overrun. The
governor, Kim Che-gap,
hastily collected all the soldiers that could be found, together
with arms and
ammunition, and went to the almost impregnable fortress of
Yŭng-wŭn. The
natural defenses of this place were unexcelled by any in Korea.
On three sides
the approach was almost precipitous and a handful of men could
hold an army at
bay. Here the governor collected provisions in abundance and dug
a well. Stones
were piled on the top of the wall to be thrown down upon anyone
who should
attempt to scale the height. The Japanese recognised the
strength of the
position and tried to get the governor to surrender without a
struggle. A
letter was sent up the steep slope and handed over the wall. It
said “You are doomed. Even if you
hold out for two months you will then be taken. You must come
out and surrender
at once.” The only answer was the headless trunk of the Japanese
messenger,
rolled down the precipice before the eyes of the invading army.
The next day the assault began. The besiegers
swarmed up the sides of the slope, so that, to use the Korean
figure, the
mountain -side was clothed with them. The garrison though only 5000
strong found no difficulty in driving them back. That night the
Koreans, wearied
by the labors of the day and deeming it impossible that the
Japanese should try
to attack at night up those steep slopes, failed to set a guard;
and in the
early morning, before light, a little band of the enemy worked
its way up the
face [page 523] of the precipice until they
reached the base of the wall. A few stones were displaced until
a small
aperture was made and
the little band effected an entrance. They rushed into the camp
with a terrific
yell cutting down the half-awakened and wholly terrified
garrison. The gates
were thrown open and in an hour the victory was complete. Gov.
Kim Che-gap refused
to do obeisance and was cut down.
And now all eyes were turned toward
the Im-jin River where the king and the people fondly hoped to
be able to stop the
invading host. Troops had been coming continually and massing on
the northern
bank of the stream
at the point where the main road from Seoul to P’yŭng-yang crosses it by ferry.
Its great strategic importance was due to the fact that it was
the only good
place for a large force to cross. The troops massed here were
nominally under
the command of Gen. Kim Myŭng-wŭn who had so promptly deserted
the defenses of
the Han, upon the arrival of the Japanese. The Koreans had
everything in their
favor. The southern bank where the Japanese must embark is a
high bluff pierced
only by a narrow gully which would allow of only a few hundred
approaching the
immediate brink of the water at once and consequently the army
would have to
cross little by little. The opposite bank, on the other hand, is
a long flat
stretch of sand, an ideal place for drawing up a defensive
force, and every
boat-load of the enemy would be the mark for a thousand arrows.
The Korean forces were numerous
enough, they were brave enough and their leaders were
individually capable enough;
but note the sequel. All the boats had been brought over to the
Korean side and
so, when the Japanese arrived on the southern bank and looked
down the high
bluff upon the assembled hosts of the Koreans and marked the
difficulty of
embarkation, the swiftness of the current and the utter absence
of boats or
craft of any kind, they
found themselves for the first time completely checked. An
hour’s resistance was
all they had ever met before, but here was evidently a serious
obstacle.
For ten long days these great armies
sat facing each other across the waters of the Im-jin. They were ten days of
exultation for the Koreans and every day that passed [page 524] raised the courage, or
rather the self-confidence, of the Koreans, who forgot that it
was nature and
not they who held the foe in check. They did not dream for an
instant that the Japanese
were about to make them the instruments of their own
destruction. When the
eleventh morning broke something was seen to be going on among
the Japanese, a
great running about and the carrying of bundles from place to
place. In a short
time the reason became apparent. The Japanese had given up
further advance and
were preparing to retreat toward Seoul. Smoke and flame showed
that they were
burning their camp and soon the whole force was seen to be on
the move back
toward the south. To imagine the revulsion of feeling in the
minds of the Koreans
we should have to realize the deep humiliation to which they had
been subjected,
the heaps of slain they had seen, the losses in property, in
homes, in
relatives, in friends which they had sustained at the hands of
the ruthless
invaders. Instead of being pursued they were to pursue. They
would dog the
footsteps of the retreating army, cut off the stragglers, worry
the life out of
the “dwarfs,” as they called the Japanese, and finally give them
a farewell kick as they left the port of Fusan on their
ignominious homeward
flight. Such must have been the common thought and purpose of
the Koreans, and
the thirst for revenge was simply unbearable. And here again
comes to the front
the fatal weakness of the Koreans. We have before remarked that the rise of
the political parties lay at the bottom of the failure of the
Korean arms
against the Japanese. It has already been illustrated in the
case of Gen. Sin
Kak who was executed through jealousy on the very day of his
great victory.
Here again it is to become apparent. While Gen. Kim Myŭng-sŭn
was nominally in charge
of the defenses of the Im-jin
he was far from being in full command of the troops massed
there. A number of other
generals were there and each held his own troops in hand and
each wished to
distinguish himself and so step over the heads of the rest into
the good graces
of the king. This would mean preferment and wealth. There was
absolutely no
supreme command, there was no common plan, there was nothing but
mutual
jealousy and suspicion. A young general. Sin Kil-i, who knew
nothing of war,
was sure that the
[page 525] enemy had decamped, and he
wanted to cross immediately in pursuit. But this was so
manifestly absurd that even the common
soldiers cried out, “You
had better examine carefully and see whether the enemy has
actually gone.” For answer the young
general had a few heads struck off, which shows he was something of a
disciplinarian if nothing more. Then Gen. Yu Keuk-yang
expostulated with the
young man, warning him that it was surely a trick to lure them
across, but the young
fellow drew his sword and made a lunge at the old general and
charged him with
cowardice. This no one could endure, so the aged general said, “Coward, am I? Well I speak
only for the good of my king; but I will be the first to cross
and fall into
this trap, and when you see me fall you will know that my advice was sound.” So calling his soldiers he
ordered them into the boats and, throwing all caution to the
winds and
forgetting the best interests of his king for a petty
vindication of his own
bravery, he dashed across the river and up the heights. The
young Sin Kil-i
could do no less than follow, and when he had gained the heights
beyond he
found the words of the aged general true. A short distance away
a half dozen
naked Japanese were dancing on the border of a wood, but when
the Koreans
rushed at them a
countless multitude of Japanese who had lain concealed in the wood poured out, and in
an instant the Koreans were surrounded. The aged general having
thus proved his
claim to bravery, or rather foolhardiness, sat down and said, “Now has come the time for
me to die.”
And die he did. It was only of himself that he thought, and it
was this
all-pervading selfishness, bred of party strife, that
neutralised every good quality
in the Korean army. It was not because they were not brave nor because luxury had
sapped the vitality of the noble classes but it was because no
one would work
with anyone else. It was because they saw in war nothing but the
chance of
personal advancement. And so each one deplored the successes and
rejoiced in
the failures of every other.
When the old general fell, the Koreans
found themselves again, as in the battle in which Gen. Sin Yip
fell, between the
Japanese and the river. Back they rushed only to find that some
of the boats
had drifted away and others, being overcrowded, had sunk.
Hundreds were driven
into the [page 526]
water while others, preferring a soldier’s death, presented
their necks to the
swords of the Japanese.
But even yet all was not lost. A little
wisdom and care might still have left the day unwon by the Japanese. They had
a few boats, to be sure, but not enough to be of any use in the
face of the
still large Korean force on the opposite bank. But here occurred
the greatest
mistake of all. The generals on the northern bank, witnessing
the terrible slaughter of their confreres,
and not stopping to reckon the chances still remaining of
successful defense,
mounted their horses and gave themselves to flight. This was not
only
cowardice. It was thoughtlessness, carelessness in large part,
and if there had
been one man in command of the whole defensive force who could
witness the loss
of a large fraction of his force without losing his head, the
Japanese would
still have been as far from the northern bank as ever. The
moment the soldiers
saw the
flight of their generals they raised a derisive shout, “The generals are running
away,”
and forthwith they followed the example, as they had a perfect
right to do.
The Japanese leaders seeing the
defenses of the river broken up by their successful strategem,
immediately
crossed with their entire force which Korean accounts reckon at
about a quarter
of a million. The Korean accounts tell us but little about the
rivalry of the
two Japanese leaders, Kato and Konishi, but among the Japanese
it was
notorious. It was impossible for them to march together for any
length of time.
It was this rivalry which had made them take different roads to
Seoul and it
was now necessary for them to part again. This jealousy was
another of the
potent causes of the final failure of the Japanese. Had these
two men worked
together they could have marched straight on to the walls of
Nanking without
meeting an enemy worthy of their steel. As it was they separated
and scattered
over the country, dissipating their power and thus frustrating
the design of Hideyoshi -the conquest of China. They cast lots as to their routes
and fortune favored the younger
man, Konishi, who drew as his lot the straight path north where
glory lay if anywhere.
Kato had to be content with a dash into the province of
Ham-gyŭng in the
northeast. Another general, [page 527] Kuroda,
led a force into the western part of Whang-hă Province. All this
took place in
the fifth moon.
The king was resting secure in P’yŭng-yang, trusting in the defense of
the Im-jin River, when a messenger rushed in breathless,
announcing that the Im-jin
had been deserted and that the invaders were coming north by leaps and bounds. The town
was thrown into a panic of fright and, as the Koreans truly put it, “No man had any color in his
face.” Gen , Yi II came hurrying in from the seat of war
disguised as a coolie
and wearing rough straw shoes. The king put him in command of
the forces
guarding the fords of the Ta-dong River which flows by the walls
of P’yŭng-yang.
We must note in passing a trifling
success on the part of Captain Wŭn-ho who had been in charge of
the ferry
across the Han at Yo-ju. He had been called away into Kang-wŭn
Province but
returned just in time to form an ambush at Yoju and spring out
upon a company
of Japanese whom he routed, securing some fifty heads. The
Koreans say that from
that time the Japanese avoided the Yo-ju ferry.
Chapter
VIII.
A
great council...
the king decides to move to Ham-heung. . . .the news in China ...the king
finds difficulty in leaving P’yŭng-yang ... a parley in the channel of
the Ta-dong...
the king leaves the city ... .the Koreans reveal the position of
the ford. . .
.the Japanese enter P’yŭng-yang. . . .the Crown Prince goes to
Kang-wŭn
Province ... the
king pushes north...
Koreans in despair...
the indefatigable Yu Sung-nyong. . . .Song Ta-ŭp brings the
queen to the king.
. . . Kato pushes into Hani-gyŭng Province... fight at the granaries...
Korean
reverses . . .a Korean betrays the two Princes. . . .a traitor punished . . .brave defenders
of Yŭn-an...
the king goes to Eui-ju . . . .conclave in the south... “General of the Red Robe”... his prowess. ..he retires
...disaster at Köm-san. .. .a long chase. .. . Japanese defeated
at Keum-nyŭng.
On
the second day
of the sixth moon the king called a great council to discuss the
advisability
of his staying longer in P’yŭng-yang
or of moving further north. One said, “If someone is left to guard this city
it will be well for the king [page 528]
to move north,”
but another said, “Pyŭng-yang
is a natural fortress. We have 10,000 soldiers and plenty of
provisions. If the
king goes a step from here it will mean the destruction of the
dynasty.” Another voice urged a
different course; “We
have now lost half the kingdom. Only this province and that of
Ham-gyŭng remain
to us. In the latter there are soldiers and provisions in
abundance and the
king had better find there a retreat.” All applauded this advice
excepting Yun Tu-su who said, “No,
this will not do. The Japanese will surely visit that province
too. Ham-heung
is not nearly so easy of defense as P’yŭng-yang. If the king is
to leave this
place there are just three courses open to him. First, he can
retire to Yung-byŭn
in this province and call about him the border guard. If he
cannot hold that
place he can go to Eui-ju on the border and ask speedy help from
China. If
necessary he can go up the Yalu to Kang-gye, still on Korean soil.
And if worse comes to worst he can cross into Chinese territory
and find asylum
at Kwan-jun-bo although it is sure that he could hold out for a
few months at
Kanggye before this would be necessary. I know all about
Hamheung. Its walls
are of great extent but they are not high and it is open to
attack from every
side. Besides if he retreats northward from that place he will
find nothing but
savage tribes. Here he must stay.” But all cried out as with one voice
that the king must go to Ham-heung. Gen. Yi Hang-bok insisted
upon the necessity
of going north to the Yalu and imploring aid from China even if
it became necessary
for the king to find asylum on Chinese soil. But in spite of all
this advice
the king on the sixth of the month sent the queen on toward Ham-heung and
gave orders to Yun To-su to hold P’yŭng-yang against the Japanese. His Majesty
came out and seated himself in the Ta-dong summerhouse and
addressed the people
saying, “I
am about to start for Ham-heung but I shall leave the Crown
Prince here and you
must all aid him loyally.”
At this the people raised a great outcry. It looked as if they
would all follow
the king from the city. They did not want the Prince to stay,
they wanted the
king.
By
this time the rumors of these things had gone ahead into
Liao-tung. .
THE KOREA REVIEW
DECEMBER 1903.
From
Fusan to Wonsan by Pack-pony.
Two
American Kerosene cases, filled with tinned foods, cooking
utensils and other
odds and ends of travellers’ necessaries, slung on either side
of a hardy
Korean pony, bedding and blankets spread on top of these and, on
top of all,
your humble servant, sitting cross-legged like a Turk, or with his feet
dangling in proximity to the horse’s ears. In front my friend R.
similarly
accoutered, and behind, on foot, my cook very down in the mouth
because I had
not given him a mount too. Such was the cavalcade that might
have been seen
shaking off the dust of Fusan from its shoes early on the morning of the 18th
of October 1902. Our way led along the bay parallel with the new
railway
embankment, then by the town at the head of the bay and thirteen
miles over a
fairly level road to Ku-p’o
or Ku Harbor on the east bank of the Naktong River. This is the
third largest
river in Korea if the Yalu is left out of account, and its
entire course is
southerly, cutting Kyŭng-sang province into practically equal
parts. We had struck
it not far from its mouth, where a delta has been formed, the
water of the
river passing by three mouths to the sea. The railroad
embankment had been
finished only to this point, and five miles of track had been
laid, but at the time
of the present writing it has been pushed much further north.
Our way led
across the river, an old fashioned ferry being the means of
transport. Crossing
the first branch we found ourselves on a low, flat island covered partly
with grain fields but mostly with reeds, which are much used for
making mats
and screens. The flatness of the land was relieved by
[page 530] curious rocky bluffs that
rose steeply from the level of the ground to a height of some
seventy feet. The
other two mouths of the river were crossed by ferry. They were
smaller than the
eastern branch. We were interested in watching the farmers
plowing with two
cows, tandem. This
seems to be their
usual method, though we have seen it nowhere else in Korea. The
beasts used for
work were invariably cows. We saw very few, if any, bullocks
under the yoke.
This also is something of a contrast to the vicinity of Seoul.
After crossing
the Nak-tong, a ride of only ten li, three miles, brought us to
the important town of Kim-hă. We approached it from the south
and found that
the suburbs were more considerable than the town itself. Cholera
was raging at
the time and we came across a number of dead bodies lying beside the
road. The stench was most offensive and we hurried on toward the
city wall,
which is about twelve feet high and in fairly good repair. We
entered the city
by a neat arched gate and made our way to the compound of the
Presbyterian
Mission where we were to put up. It was still comparatively
early, and about
and dusk we took a stroll about town, in the course of which we
met a crowd of
people marching through the streets with an enormous straw rope, carried on the shoulders
of men and boys. Hundreds of lanterns and banners were flashing and swaying in the
air and a continuous shout, a cross between a song and a groan,
went up from
the multitude. Inquiring whether this was the usual method of
spending the
evening, with the Kim-haites, we were told that this
demonstration was for the special
purpose of driving out the cholera imps which were working such
havoc in the
community. It was rather pathetic to see these people exerting themselves
so strongly, but so vainly, to curb the epidemic. They did not
sit still and
say “what will
be will be,”
but, according to the best light they had, they went to work to
fight the
plague.
The following day was Sunday and in
the little six kan
thatched chapel we
saw an interesting gathering of about forty people of either sex. This is an important
center for missionary enterprise, and the church here is in a most
promising condition, despite the fact that the fewness of the
foreign workers
leaves much of the work in the hands of helpers, who are, of
course, as yet but
partially qualified. [page 531] In
the afternoon we took a walk out to the hills to the east of the
town where
lies a small but ancient monastery. It is situated high on a
mountain side, and
from it we obtained a glorious view over the broad sweep of
rice-land just
yellowing to the harvest, the gleaming waters of the Nak-tong
and the shimmer
of the sea, far to the south.
I determined that I would make the
town of Taiku, the capital of Kyŭng-sang
Province, in two days, although the distance was a full 210 li.
In this I reckoned without my cook who even after a seventy li walk
showed signs of failure. Now the Koreans are among the best
walkers in the
world, and make their thirty-five or forty miles a day without
trouble. So his
reluctance to take the road argued something beside physical
disability.
Nothing is worse than a grumbling servant on the road, and as I
did not wish to
be held back, I told him that I would cook for myself. Monday
morning, then,
saw me on the road at a very early. hour, bent on reaching Taiku in two days. My friend
R. remained in Kim-hă
and I was all alone except for my two horsemen. At first our
road struck northward
among rough country and I climbed a succession of passes. In the
valleys every
possible
level stretch was utilized for rice and the population was
fairly heavy for
such mountainous country. The contrast between the dark pine
growth and the
autumnal colors of the scrub oak and other deciduous trees was
very beautiful.
I had chosen an ideal season for travelling in Korea. I saw no
tiled houses
excepting in the prefectural towns and even then they were only
the government
buildings. I was following two lines of telegraph which ran
parallel from Fusan
to Seoul, one the Japanese and the other the Korean. We
frequently met single
Japanese cavalry-men on the road and we soon learned that a
mounted Japanese guard passes each day along
the whole line of the telegraph, in relays. Last year these
mounted guards were
much exercised over the fact that directly within their beat
foreigners were
held up on the road and robbed by a gang of Korean highwaymen.
Forty li out
from Kim-hă I touched the river again at Sam-dong and crossed by
boat, after
which the way led due north over a level and luxurious rice
plain in which a
very little cotton was already beginning to show its snowy
bolls. Passing
[page 532] the important town of Mi-ryang a little on the east we
reached Yu-ch’ŭn
at night. We had made 100
out of the 210 li and were confident of
coming in on the home stretch the next day. It was six o’clock,
and already
growing dark as we made our way through the streets to a very
neat little inn
where I secured a clean room to myself, which was better hick
than usual. My
horsemen were made to understand that we must make an early
start the next
morning. Koreans may like to lie about and sleep at noon but
they have the
compensating virtue of being early risers. Although I went to
bed at eight o’clock
it seemed as if I had slept but a few minutes when I heard that
warning note “Ta-in, Ta-in; it’s time to
get up.” I mentally rebelled but struck a match and consulted my
watch, which
said two o’clock. This was surely overdoing it but as I had
given such
stringent orders I did not dare to disobey the summons. I turned
out and after
a breakfast to the music of the early cock-crow we took the road at four o’clock.
It would still be two hours before light and I saw my horsemen
looking up at
the sky and, with that peculiar inhalation through the teeth
that means
perplexity and is as expressive as a French shrug, I heard them
say, “Well, what time of day is
it, anyway?” My stringent orders had gotten them up two hours
ahead of time.
But as there was brilliant moonlight and the road was a good one
I did not
admit that the joke was on myself.
At noon we reached a high pass which
is ascended by a
steep winding path. A full hour was consumed in crossing it.
This pass is the
only considerable one between Fusan and Taiku. Descending the
other side we
reached Sam-san-dong from which place the road to Taiku is
across a level plain where the roads
ought to be good but are not, because they are filled with round
water-worn
stones, as if the road were the bed of a former stream. It would
be almost
impossible for a bicycle.
Taiku lies thirty li east of the Nak-tong River.
I had not caught a glimpse of the river since crossing it,
except from the top
of the pass. Unlike most large towns in Korea, Taiku has no mountain at its back
and thus violates the first principle of town location in the
peninsula. The
wall is in fair condition. A large amount of money was squeezed from the people by
the late governor for the ostensible
purpose of [page 533]
repairing this
wall but most of the money found other avenues of usefulness (?)
and very little was spent on the
wall. The result was that the first rain broke down all that had
been done.
This governor became quite impossible and was practically driven
out. On a hill
to the south of the city is the Presbyterian Mission property.
It was here that
we found a welcome and created some surprise when we affirmed
that we had made
110 li before three o’clock in the afternoon.
The most conspicuous object in or
about the city is the new Roman Catholic Cathedral which has
been erected
through the untiring efforts of Father Robert. With its two handsome spires
it forms a most conspicuous land-mark. Just inside the South
Gate is the
Presbyterian Dispensary in charge of Dr. Woodbridge Johnson, and
the mission chapel, a modest tiled structure where they have a
regular
attendance of some
forty or fifty people. From my observation it appeared to be a very live
church.
In the vicinity of Taiku there are a
number of graves called Koryŭ-chang which means “Koryŭ burial.”
They are graves
in which people were buried alive. Such was the tender regard in
which old
folks were held in the days of Medieval Korea that if they
passed their
eightieth year and were in poor health they were gently reminded
of the
necessity of making room for their successors by being buried in
a subterranean
vault with some food and drink and left to starve to death.
These vaults are
occasionally opened, and within them are found the bones of the
deceased and
the dishes in which the food was placed. This pottery has a dull
brown glaze
and the shapes are various, such as that of bowls or ewers or
cups. Spoons and
other utensils are sometimes found as well.
In one of the hills near the city
there is found an opening about five feet broad and six feet
high. Entering,
you find yourself in an underground apartment forty feet long,
sixteen feet
wide and about ten feet high. It is covered with a stone roof of
heavy slabs,
like a pointed arch, and above the whole there are three or four
feet of earth.
This is called an ice
house and some say that ice was stored here to keep the hill
cool, as it is a “fire
hill’ and
might otherwise make trouble. Others say that it is a veritable
ice-house and was used [page 534] as such in the usual way.
It must have been very very many years ago, and it doubtless
antedates the present dynasty.
On the south-west of the city, at a
distance of something like half a mile, is a curious fort-like
structure
roughly circular in shape. The walls have fallen but there
remain steep earthen
banks whose grassy slopes are difficult to climb. This fort is
entered through
what appears to be a break in the wall or rampart, but
investigation shows the
base-stones, with the round sockets, in which gate-posts once
turned. This
place was the house of a once famous family who grew so powerful
in the days of
Koryŭ that they had to be dislodged. They were given as a
residence the hill on
which the Presbyterian Missionaries have erected their homes.
The descendants
of that same family still retain jealous possession of the crown
of the hill
although none of them live there now.
H.
O. T. BURKWALL.
Note:
-This
fortress is the celebrated Tal-sŭng (**) or “Moon Fortress” which dates from the days
of Ancient Silla. The name is derived from the tradition that
the wall arose in
a single night, all by itself, when the moon was full. It is
interesting to
notice that the pure Korean word tal, “moon,” is retained and. is merely
transliterated by the Chinese *,
where we would have expected the Chinese * . The inference is that the
origin of the name, or at least the first part of it, antedated
the importation
of Chinese words in great numbers. In the days of the Koryŭ
dynasty this
stronghold was occupied by the Sŭ family. It is the native place
of one branch
of that important name. The family attained such renown for
literary
attainments as well as martial skill that the government at
Song-do began to
get restive under it, fearing that the strength of the place
might arouse too
independent a spirit. It was believed that the marvelous success of the Sŭ family lay in the fact that this Tal-sung was
a sort of enchanted ground, or at least specially blessed by the
spirits. In
order to nip in the bud any possible difficulty, the Sŭ family
were pointedly
asked to vacate the premises; but another site was given them to
build upon,
namely the hill mentioned in the above account, on which the
Presbyterians have
since built. For many years no one dared even to set [page 535] foot inside the place, but
more recently it has been used as a sort of park, yet no one
would dare to build there. If you meet
a man by the name of Sŭ and
ask him to what Sŭ family he belongs he may say “I am a Tal-sung
Sŭ” as that is
the usual way of speaking of the family. He would not say that
he was a Taiku Sŭ.
A little to the north of Taiku is a
famous battle-field. The battle was fought at O-dong Forest and
it was between Koryŭ forces and those of the free-lance,
Kyŭn-whŭn. The Koryŭ kingdom had been founded for some nine years but Silla had not yet
fallen. Kyŭn-whŭn was an adventurer who hung on Silla’s flanks
like wolves
beside the deer. Silla appealed to Koryŭ for help, but it came a
day too late. Kyŭn-whŭn
took Kyöng-ju
and looted it, he forced the King to drink poison and divided up
the palace
women among his half-savage horde. Then he put on the throne a relative
of the King and started home with the booty. He was met at
O-dong Forest near
Taiku by Koryŭ forces and, though he succeeded in staving off
the evil day, the
time soon came when he was hounded to his death by the
determined arms of
Wanggon the king of Koryŭ.
The Yŭ-ji Seung-nam says that Taiku
has no wall, but this book was published in 1478, which leaves
plenty of time for
it to have
been built since then. We find no notice of the building of the
wall of Taiku, although it
can doubtless be found in the separate history of each town
which is preserved in
the archives of the Home Department in Seoul. Ed. K.R..
A
Leaf from Korean Astrology.
Second
Paper.
We
were describing last month the method of telling one’s fortune
by throwing five
discs with the characters for Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth
written on
them.
If
the pieces with the words “metal” and “wood” alone turn up in the
throw it means bad luck. It is like a meteor [page 536] in the day time and means
war and trouble. The man will be injured by those whom he has
helped, and his
relatives will all turn against him. As metal cuts wood, this combination means
constant trouble, and friends will be estranged. Kindness will be repaid by ingratitude.
If “metal” and “water” alone turn up
it means the very best of luck. His virtue will be polished
bright. Heaven will
help him and a hundred blessings will ensue. A powerful will man
help him and
his salary will he raised. When metal and water join they help
each other, (the
Korean belief being that if gold is put in water its bulk will be
increased. Perhaps this is because of the slightly magnifying
quality of water,
a physical property that is well known). So he will join with
someone who will be of great help to him.
If “metal” and “fire” only turn up the
combination is good. When metal and fire meet great prosperity
will come from
the west, since gold corresponds to west. Whether at home or
abroad there will
be many causes for happiness. When metal and fire meet it means
that a good
utensil will be made; even so the man will find good and
profitable uses for himself.
If “metal” and “earth” alone turn up the
fortune is likewise good. The man will go far away and secure a
good position.
Like a firefly, he will carry his own light to show his way to
fortune. No plan
will miscarry and every anxiety will fade away.
The combination “wood” and “water” is good
because water helps wood to float, and because water revives the
trees in
spring. The combination “wood”
and “fire” is extremely bad, for fire consumes wood. But as wood
is both the
parent and the victim of fire so the man will be injured by one
who should be
his best friend. As smoke and ashes are blown away by the wind so his money will
be scattered and lost. “Wood”
and “earth” together are a bad sign. Like a jewel dropped in
deep water, even
so he will be lost to his friends, and they to him. But if he is
extremely
careful he will get them back.
“Water” and “fire,” strange to say,
are a propitious combination. Wood appears to die in winter but
the warmth and moisture
of Spring again make it put forth leaves. Fire and water have
nothing in common
and do not interfere with [page 537] each
other so the man’s plans will not be interfered with.
“Water” and “earth” are bad. On land
frost and snow come and the wind blows. There will be indecision
and doubt.
“Fire” combines well with “earth.” The sun shines and
the earth rejoices. Good rank will be attained. When heat and
soil meet there
is production. Disaster will be averted and the mind will be at
peace.
“Metal,” “wood” and “water.” This is the first
of the triple combinations. It is propitious. All distressful
signs will cease.
Glad events will happen. Dark roads will be lighted. Joy will
reign supreme.
“Metal.” “wood” and “fire” predict a
medium fortune. If he takes medicine it will help him. A
law-suit will be hard to
win but if he be wise and patient he will succeed. Don’t be in a
hurry. Be wise
and strong: and all will go well.
“Metal,” “wood” and “earth”
form a most unwelcome combination, a clouded mind, property
lost, relatives
unfriendly -such
is his fate. Friends far removed cannot help against the
machinations of
enemies. Insults will be “eaten,” with no power to resent them.
“Metal,” “water” and “fire.” will
bring good luck. The land will be at peace and festivities will
abound. An
opportunity will be given to prove his loyalty to his king.
Gentle winds and
showers will render a hundred-fold of increase.
“Metal,” “water” and “earth” are also
fortunate. The fish out of water gets back to his native
element. The bird escapes
from the fowler’s net. So evils will all be averted. In a dry
day, showers
fall. A good friend will be met after long separation. Chronic
disease will be
cured. The prisoner will be released.
“Metal,” “fire” and “earth.” Lucky is
the man who throws this combination. The waning moon again
begins to wax. So
things that go wrong will be righted. Marriage will prove happy
-letters long delayed will
arrive.
“Wood,” “water” and “fire.” Good again. High rank awaits
you. Happiness is your lot. The plaudits of the people will
elate the mind. You
will meet a great helper and riches will be amassed.
“Wood,” “water” and “earth.” This
means trouble for you. Like a country-man coming to Seoul you
will go hungry
[page 538] and your mail will be
delayed, causing you no end of bother. Your plans will all go wrong. Your enemies will be wise and your
friends foolish.
“Wood,” “fire” and “earth.” If you see this
combination you may count yourself fortunate.
Three stars will
help you and you will obtain heaven’s
blessings. Calamities will be averted and all will go well. Do
not fear to
carry out all your plans. You will be as happy as the heavenly
dragon looking
into the face of God.
“Water,” “fire” and “earth.” Neither
good nor bad. You will go to a far place and on returning find
every-thing in
good shape. Then you will laugh and play. You will gain friends
and lose
enemies.
“Metal,” “water” and “fire.” This also is a
medium fortune. You will be like a man who catches: a yellow carp and throws it
back into the water (The carp is red but if it lives a thousand
years it turns
yellow and will soon be transformed into a dragon and ascend to
heaven). Though
trouble is upon you, you will escape it all. Out of evil will
come good. The
skies will clear. All because of the yellow carp.
“Metal,” “wood,” “water,” and “earth.”
Bad luck again.
A far road will be travelled, rocky, steep and tiresome. The
heart’s hope will
be extinguished. In the dark you will miss the road. All your endeavors will come to naught.
“Metal,” “wood,” “fire” and “earth”
form the clearest sign of good. The general will go to a far
country, conquer every
enemy and return, to the beating of drums. He will show his seals of office
and make the beholders glad. High rank will be his, a dukedom or
marquisate.
Blessings as wide as the sea.
“Metal,” “water,” “fire,” “earth.” A
medium fortune. Like a jewel hidden in a box or jade within a
rock so his
fortune while seemingly dark will turn out well.
“Wood,” “water,” “fire.” “earth.” This
again is medium luck. On thin ice; beside deep water; over a
high bridge. All
these are dangerous, but through every danger .you will come
safe; poverty will
turn to wealth.
If all the five signs turn
down and only blanks appear you
are in the clutches of an
evil fate. A dust covered mirror, [page 539] jade
covered with mud,
a destitute gentleman -what are any of them worth?
Folly will take hold upon you and an evil imp will haunt you. All your friends will fall away
and only flatterers will surround you.
The
next
division of the book deals with the yut
which is a method of fortune-telling by means of four
small pieces of wood, flat on one side and round on the other,
as if half an inch
of lead-pencil were split in two. These same pieces of wood are
used in the game so commonly
played by Korean coolies, who scratch a ring on the ground with
cross marks arid
each time they throw the pieces of wood, slap the thigh.
According as they
throw, they move little pieces of broken pottery or shell around
the ring. In
divination these pieces of wood, called yut,
are thrown in the same way, and from them a forecast is made as
to the future
luck of the thrower. Nothing is written on these pieces of wood,
but all
depends upon whether the round or the flat side turns up. The
combination of
round and flat sides, turned up, determines the fate of the
victim. This
division of the book is an index of what the different
combinations mean. [*As to the derivation of this word yut it would seem to be from the fact
that each piece of wood has a flat side and a round side “like a
man.” They
think a man is flat in front and round behind. And when a man
falls on his back
a provincial expression describes his fall as yu-t’o
in which t’o means “to fall” and the yu means “over.” The yu
may be from the Chinese *
but the t’o is pure Korean and appears
in such words as t’o-jin-ta
and t’ok-ch’in-da. So yut
seems to
be derived from the combination yu-t’o. This t’o has the meaning of “end,” as we
also say “it fell out thus or so,” meaning it ended so.] Of course it is harder to
make the flat sides turn up than the round sides. If one out of
the four pieces
falls with the flat side up the combination is called t’o meaning
“end.” It two flat sides turn up it is
called ka, the
meaning of which is
not known. If three round sides turn up it is called kul, (also unknown); if four flat
sides turn up it is called yut. If no flat sides turn up
it is called mo
meaning “all” as seen in the word mo-do and other combinations.
Three throws are necessary to tell the
fortune, and we will indicate the three throws, as is done in
this book, by
[page 540] figures, 1 meaning that only one flat
side turned up, 2 that two turned up, and so forth -except that by the figure 4
is meant either that all flat sides or all round sides turned
up.
1 – 1 – 1.
(meaning that in each of the three throws only one flat side turned
up). He is like a rat in a granary, lean in spring and summer,
and fat in
autumn and winter.
1 – 1 – 2. Like a
fish that finds the water. His body will be
well and a son will be born to him,
1—1 –
3. Like finding a candle at night. He will have food and clothes
enough. Whatever
he tries will prosper.
1 – 1 – 4. Like
flowers meeting the spring-time. In spring and summer
everything will be pleasant and autumn and winter will pass
smoothly.
1 –
2 – 1. Like
a king without
a realm. All kinds of troubles, poverty and shame.
1 – 2 – 2. Like
a successful defense against a criminal charge.
In spring and summer it will be rough going, but autumn and
winter will pass
smoothly.
1 – 2 – 3. Like
a moth flying over a lamp. Summer and autumn
will bring disease.
1
– 2 – 4.
Like an ox meeting fire. He will become a mourner. He must pray
to the
Pleiades.
1 – 3 – 1. Like a
stork that has lost its home. He will leave
home. He must not go southward.
1 – 3 – 2. Like a
hungry man who finds food. His body will be
very strong.
1 – 3 – 3. Like
a tortoise in a box. He will be punished. It
will be hard to escape.
1 – 3 – 4. Like
a dragon in the sea. He will have a most fortunate
lot. He should light candles to Buddha.
1
– 4 – 1.
Like a tree without roots. He will be grossly deceived and will
suffer banishment.
1 –
4 – 2. Like
finding warm clothes in the winter. He will meet a good friend
and will have
food and clothes enough .
1 – 4 – 3.
Like a dead man, come to life. He will enjoy unexpected good
fortune.
1 – 4 – 4.
Like a
beggar who finds a treasure. All the four seasons will pass
happily.
2 –1
–1. Like the
sun gone
behind a cloud.
The spring and summer will be extremely fine,
[page 541] Such are some of the combinations. There are many more,
but we must
not spare space
for them all. The similes however
are interesting and run as follows: Sunshine in the rainy
season: an arrow
without a head: a house without a gate: a heavily loaded horse:
a stork rising
to the sky: a butterfly on a flower: a cart without wheels: a
boy to whom a brother is born: a sick man who
secures medicine; a frog meeting a snake: a bow without an
arrow: a tiger in the mountain; a rat
fallen into the river: a pine tree covered with frost; a man who
catches his
boat: a king who gains a good official: finding a fan in hot
weather: a hawk
without claws: a jewel hidden in the sea: a dragon growing a
horn: a bird
escaping the net: rain in drought: a cat with a rat: a fish
becoming a dragon;
a bird without wings: a flower turning to fruit: a monk
returning to the world:
a house without tile: hard work without result: a horse, but no
whip: a
gentleman obtaining a slave: a man getting a son: getting into
trouble: a
dragon gaining a cloud chariot: a blind man recovering his
sight: a low man
becoming a gentleman: a farmer without an ox: a drunken fool: a
homeless man: a
deaf man recovering his hearing: a troubled man meeting good
luck: a man
recovering a lost slave: a traveller finding a horse: walking on
thin ice: a
fish that has swallowed a hook: a widower marrying again: a
general victorious.
It will not be difficult to guess
which of these are good and which are bad. That this is mainly
Buddhistic can
be seen from the fact that the combination 3 – 3 – 4, whose simile is “a monk
returning to the world”
is not a good one.
(To
be continued).
The
Ancient Kingdom
of Karak.
In
connection with the interesting article on travel in Southern
Korea which
appears elsewhere in this issue, some details of the history and traditions of the town of
Kim-hă will
not be out of place.
It
may not be generally known that at the very southern [page 542] tip of the Korean
peninsula between the mouth of the Naktong River and a point
about fifty miles
to the west, there existed an independent kingdom of no mean
name or position. Its
traditions go back to 140 B.
C. and it fell into the hands of Silla in 533 A. D., so we see
that it covered
a lapse of some 673 years, at least in tradition. Of its fall in
533 we are
historically assured, but of some of the marvelous events that
marked its
origin and development we cannot be so sure. The capital of this
kingdom was on
the site of the present town of Kim-hă a few miles to the east
of the Nak-tong
river and perhaps twenty miles from the sea-shore.
Tradition tells us that in 140 B. C.
the Kingdom was known as Ka-ya which is transliterated by the
Chinese
**, but
otherwise known. also as Ka-ra **.
The ra or * is the same as the final
syllable of the national names Silla, T’am-na, Im-na and many
others and is.
without much doubt, the root of the native Korean word Na-ra, “Kingdom,” the Chinese * being merely the
transliteration of the sound without any attempt to convey the
meaning. All we
are told about the Kingdom at that early date is that Ha-ji (**) was its king and that he
opened up communication with the Emperor of the Han Dynasty in
China and
received from him the title Po-guk Chang-gun Pon-guk-wang (*******). We will remember that
the Kingdom of Mahan to the west had already been in existence
about fifty
years, and it is just possible that Ha-ji, through intercourse
with Mahan, may
have had enterprise enough to attempt to put himself on a solid
footing with
the Chinese Emperor,
but we must confess to more or less skepticism about it.
We hear nothing more about this little
Kingdom until the year 42 A. D.
and the information at that point does not give us cause to
believe in the
historical accuracy of anything at that date; for it goes on to
say that in the
third moon of this year when the people went down to attend the
“Seabathing
Festival” at the beach, they saw a very queer cloud hanging over
Kwan-ji Peak
and they very naturally went to investigate. They there found a
golden bowl
tied with a purple cord. They broke it and disclosed six golden
eggs lying in
the bowl. The next day the
six eggs opened and as many handsome babies appeared. They grew
with marvelous [page
543]
rapidity and
before long attained the gigantic height of nine feet, which
seems to be the
special number reserved for the stature of all of Korea’s
giants. As they came
from a golden egg in a golden bowl the name Keum * became attached to the
family at a later date, and this is the origin of the great Kim
family that numbers its millions
in Korea. The first of them became King Su-ro (**) or “The King who first appeared.”
He became the ruler of the land and his five brothers became the
hereditary
dukes of the other five divisions of the country, namely Tă Kaya
now Ko-ryŭng,
So Kaya now Ko-sŭng, Pyŭk-chin Kaya now Sŭng-ju, Ara Kaya now
Ham-an and Ko-ryŭng
Kaya now Ham-ch’ang.
This was the eighteenth year of King
Yu-ri of Silla, a Kingdom which was just celebrating its first
centennial. Somehow
or other the Silla people called Kaya (or Kara) Ka-rak (**) though how they came to do it no
one seems
to know.
In 48 A.D, a marvel occurred. The watchers on the coast saw a flag appear above the waves on the southern horizon.
Then a hull appeared,
and they knew that someone was coming from the south to visit
Karak. King Su-ro
was told and he hurried to the sea just in time to hand to the
shore a sort of
Korean Queen of Sheba who had come all the way from the land of
A-yu-t’a (***) in Sŭ-yŭk or India. As ballast
for her boat she brought a sort of pagoda. As late as 1424 this
pagoda stood in
Kim-ha and bore the name P’a-sa
(**) This
character p’a * is that of the Chinese
word p’ara-mun (***)
which is the transliteration of the word “Brahmin,” and this p’a-sa
means “Brahmin
Woman.”
This Queen’s name was Hŭ (*) and as soon as she landed
she mounted a hill, took off her outer silk “bloomers” and
presented them to
the mountain spirit. Then she went to the palace and became the
Queen of Karak.
Since that time the harbor where she landed has been called Chup’o or Lord’s Bay in honor of her coming.
The place
where she donated her “bloomers” is called Neung-hyŭn or Silk Pass and
the place from
which her
flag was first seen has been called Keui-ch’ul-pyŭn or “Place
where the Flag Appeared.”
The Queen said of herself “I am
daughter of Nam-ch’ŭnch’ŭk,
‘South Heaven Bamboo’ [a common name for India, [page 544] according to Williams.]”
Her family name was Hŭ, *,
but she was also called Whang-ok or ‘Yellow Jade.’ She is also
known by the
title Po-ju Tă-hu, ****,
or “The Great
Queen of Po-ju,” Po-ju being another name for Kim-ha
While no one would think of classing
such statements as history it is curious to find India mentioned
so explicitly
in connection with such an early tradition, long before Korea
could have
learned anything about India from China. We lean to the opinion
that those
ancient people of southern Korea preserved the traditions of
their southern
origin and that we have one of them here; and that while the
details are
fanciful the main fact, as to a southern origin, is true.
From the time of King Su-ro to the end
of the Karak dynasty was 491 years and there were nine kings in
all, named
respectively Su-ro, Ku-deung, Ma-pŭm, Ku-jil-mi, Yi Sip’um,
Chwa-ji, Ch’wi-hi,
Chil-ji, Kam-ji and Ku-hă. The dynasty ended in 533 A. D. Its
fall was on this
wise: Silla had attained the zenith of her power and was rapidly
assimilating
all the native states of Southern Korea. Karak was perhaps the
most powerful of
these, but the great Silla general Yi Sa-bu had recourse to a
successful
stratagem. Dressed as a merchant he crossed the border and
entered the capital of
Karak. He was followed at intervals by bands of his own soldiers
similarly disguised. At length, when about two thousand of his
men had rendezvoused
at the Karak capital, he
gave the signal and in an hour the king and the country were in
his hands.
Three li
from Kim-hă is shown the spot where the palace of ancient Kaya
stood. Three
hundred paces west of the present town is the tomb of King
Su-ro. A little beyond the site of the ancient
palace, to the east of Kwi-ji Mountain is the site of the first
queen’s tomb.
Three times a year. January, May and August, the people
sacrifice at both the
king’s and the
queen’s tomb.
Kim-hă
figures conspicuously’
in the Japanese invasion of 1592. From very early times the
people of this town
have been celebrated as expert stone-throwers, sharing in this
respect the
enviable reputation of the people of P’yŭng-yang. When a band of
Japanese approached Kim-hă the people are said to have offered
such a stubborn
resistance with brickbats [page 545] that
the small force of the invaders was driven back. Kim-hă suffered
all the worse for this when the
Japanese arrived in force, for they proceeded to desecrate the
tomb King Su-ro,
sacred to all Kim-haites. The story goes that in the grave they
found an enormous skull that
would have well fitted the reputed nine feet of King Su-ro’s
stature. On each
side of the royal remains was found the body of a young woman,
so tradition
says; and these bodies were found in an almost perfect state of
preservation,
but when exposed to the sun and air they rapidly resolved into
their
constituent elements and faded from human sight.
Connected with the King’s tomb was a
great field requiring a bullock a full month to plow. This plot
of ground was sacred
to the King’s spirit and its produce was always expended in
sacrifice to him.
About four centuries after Karak became a dependency of Silla
and the latter
was waning to her fall, a man ventured to cut off a portion of
this field and appropriate
it to himself, but an unknown being appeared and after chiding
the man for his presumption struck
him dead. The King of Silla, fearing further disaster, had a
portrait made of
the ancient King Su ro and placed it in a shrine near his grave
but when it was
found that blood was exuding from the picture it was taken down
and burned.
At another time eight robbers came and
dug into the grave for treasure, but an armed man sprang forth
and killed them
all. A few days later nine more robbers, the remnant of the
gang, came to find
out what had become of their comrades, but a serpent thirty feet
long came out
and showed them how Laocoon
and his sons fared at the siege of Troy. On the side of
Myŭng-wŭl Mountain,
forty li south-west of Kim-hă, is shown
a hole five feet wide and bottomless, into which this avenging
serpent
disappeared.
Off the coast opposite Kim-hă is Măng-san Island or “Mount of Expectation,” so
called in honor of the fact that it was here that the flag of
the approaching
Queen Hŭ was first seen.
Not far from this is Myŭng-gi Island,
seventeen li
in circumference.
In the days of Karak this island is said to have acted as a
meteorological
index. If there was to be a great flood, or famine, or typhoon, a loud
sound like that of [page 546]
thunder, or the beating of a drum or a bell, would come from it.
And the
singular thing about it was that the nearer one went to the island
the smaller the sound and the farther away one was the louder the sound.
The great geographical gazetteer of
Korea says that the wall of Kim-hă is 4680 yards long and
fifteen feet high,
that through it flow twenty-eight streams one of which, the
Tiger Stream, is
perennial. This of course means that the other twenty-seven are
mere sewers.
Kim-hă is the site of one of the “Twenty-one Capitals” which have flourished from
time to time in Korea. Its traditions are all southern, and if
it is ever
definitely determined that Southern Korea was settled from the
south, this
place will play an important part in the solution.
Odds
and Ends.
A
Korean Jonah
He
was on his way to China on a junk, from the harbor of P’ŭng-dŭk, in company with a considerable
company of merchants. All went well until they neared the
vicinity of certain islands in the Yellow
Sea. At this point the water became horribly agitated and a most
violent storm
lay upon them. At last they came to the conclusion that the
spirits were angry
at one of their number, so they cast lots, and the lot fell upon
our friend
Cho, who, so far as he remembered, had no quarrel with the
spirits. They were
about to throw him into the sea when one of their number, more
compassionate
than the rest, suggested that they try to land him on an island
which they
could see through the driving spray. They managed to find a
sheltered nook in which
they took refuge from the storm and as soon as they were able
they landed Cho,
together with sundry bags of grain. The moment he set foot on
dry ground the
storm ceased as if by magic,
and the merchants went on their
way rejoicing. Our friend Cho was now, perforce, turned from a
[page 547] Jonah into a Robinson Crusoe. He
built himself a hut in a crevice of the rocks and kept a sharp
lookout for
boats sailing Koreaward, but none appeared. He noticed that
every four days the
sea would become terribly agitated for a few hours and then
suddenly stop. One
day as he sat on a point of rocks, watching the distant horizon
for a sail, he
learned the cause of the periodical disturbances; for a gigantic
sea-serpent lifted its head
from the waves and came rolling toward the shore. Its coming was
accompanied by
a howling gale and the sea was lashed into a fury. Gaining the
shore the
serpent crawled into a hole in the rocks. Cho having played
Jonah and Robinson
Crusoe now began to play St. George for he seemed to know in
some occult way
that his own salvation depended on his killing the dragon. He
studied the
habits of the reptile and found that it never stirred out of its
hole for two
days and that it always slid down a certain grooved path into
the sea. He bound
a sharp knife to the end of a stake and planted it in the middle
of the serpent’s
path with the keen edge pointing toward the hole. He then lay
down behind a
rock and watched from afar. The serpent came out and glided down
its accustomed
path; the knife pierced its throat. According to snake nature
the reptile would not retreat but
thought to gain the sea and so be safe. It therefore passed over
the knife so
that its entire body was slit open from end to end. Its
contortions were so
terrible that Cho fled in dismay and dared not return until a
horrible stench
apprised of the fact that the serpent was surely dead. Then he
came and found
that the ground all about the body was covered ankle deep with
gems, with
which, as every-body knows, a dragon’s insides are always lined.
Cho thereupon shifted
the scene again from St. George to Sinbad the Sailor and filled
his now empty’ rice bags with priceless
gems.
Not long after he saw the returning
sails of his friends, who were on their way back to Korea and
who stopped to
pick him up. When they saw his bags and asked what they
contained he gave an
idiotic grin and said they were full of nice go-bang stones
which he had been
making during his leisure hours. They thought that solitude had
driven him mad,
so they took him and his heavy bags back to Korea where he
became the
wealthiest man in all the realm.
[page 548] A Cure for Blindness
Doctor
Yi Sŭng-gak was a celebrated physician in Seoul about a century ago. One
day a high official, having eaten some fish for dinner, suddenly
went stone
blind. A messenger was sent to summon Dr. Yi in haste, but after
asking what
the symptoms . were and what the official had had for dinner, he
laughed and said
he would not go. He said the official was a blank fool. When the
messenger told
his master this there was an uproar in that house. The official
raged and tore
his hair. “What?
Shall a miserable doctor defy me to my face and send me such an
insulting
answer? By the shades of Yi Sun-sin, I’ll see to him. Go and
tell him that if
he does not come instanter I’ll have him flayed
alive.”
This grewsome summons only sent the doctor into another fit of
laughter and he
shouted “Get
out of my house! Do you think I’ll go to the help of such a
dog-progeny as that
man?” When
this answer reached the official he was speechless with rage; he
was on the verge
of apoplexy; when suddenly his sight came back to him and he was
as well as
ever. He forgot his anger in the joy of his recovery and when, a
few hours
later, the doctor came leisurely’
along the official was only eager to know why he had acted so
queerly.
“Well, you see.” said the
doctor “If
I had come at that time you never would have recovered your
sight. When I learned
that yon had eaten fish for dinner I immediately surmised that you had swallowed a fish-scale
and that it had lodged in your
vitals at the very point where the optic duct leads into the
bowels. Thus
blocked up, the orifice became useless and blindness naturally
followed. In
such a case the only way to dislodge the fish-scale is to become
exceedingly
angry. This will violently cramp and wrench the vital organs and
the scale will
be dislodged. This is why I laughed at and insulted you even at
the risk of my
life.”
A Burglar’s Implement
It is
called Homch’imson, or “The Sneakthief Hand.” It
consists of the amputated hand of a pock-marked boy fixed on the
end of a stick!
Koreans say that if a burglar has one of these he can enter any
house, however
securely fastened. All he has to do is to insert this hand into
any crack or
crevice in the door or into the dog-hole and it will open the
door or window
[page 549] all by itself. The hand
after amputation is laid
out in the dew for a single night or else it will lose all its
power. Then it
is varnished with the black varnish used on Korean hats and
dried thoroughly. A
story is told of a brave woman who, as she sat one night on her
maru or “verandah”
saw one of these black hands being pushed through a crack in the
door. Instead
of being terrified and losing all presence of mind she rushed
forward and
seized it and broke it off the end of the stick to which it was
fastened. Now
be it known that a Hom-ch’im-son or “Sneak-thief Hand” is so
rare a treasure that only one is owned by a whole gang of
robbers and it is lent
to one or another of the band as he may have occasion to use it.
He is required
to give a strict account of it and if he should lose it his life
would pay the
forfeit. So when this robber lost his “Sneak-thief Hand” he was
in a very bad
predicament. He got right down on his knees outside the gate and
begged the
woman to give it back to him or he would be killed. He solemnly
promised never
to steal again, and so she gave it back. He went to his gang and
gave back the
hand, took his
portion of the booty
that had been accumulated, divided it with the woman who had
befriended him, and from that time on
lived a decent life.
A Recipe for Getting Rich
A
young Korean came to an old miser and asked him to divulge the secret of
this wealth. and show him how to become a rich man.
The old miser replied, “Come with me and I will show
you.” They ascended the hill and found a tall pine tree. “Can you climb it?” Asked
the miser. “Yes,
I think so,” and up the young man went to the very top. “Now can you go out to the end
of that
limb and hang with both hands?” This the young man soon did.
*’Now can you
leave go with one hand and hang by the other alone?” The young
fellow took a
good grip with one hand and let go the other. “That’s enough, now come down,” said the
old shylock.
When the young man reached
the ground he said, “Well what has that to do with my getting
rich?” but the
old man answered never a word. The young fellow was disgusted
and went and told
his father about it, but the latter cried out, “Good, good, you
could not have
been told plainer. To amass wealth is hard work like climbing a
tall tree, and
then, when [page 550]
you get the money,
hang on to it for dear life even if you nearly starve.”
The boy took it to heart and became a very wealthy man.
An Intelligent Plant
The
long flag poles used in carrying the imperial banners in
processions are
obtained from the island of Ul-leung
or Matsushiwa (Dagelet) of the eastern coast. These poles are
very long and
light but are not bamboo. They are a sort of reed, or at least
belong to the
same family of plants as the Korean kal’tă.
Now wherever a boat is sent across from the mainland to secure a
good pole, the
messenger never has to search for one. He always finds a long
and handsome one lying on the shore at the
point where he lands.
It is not cut by mortal hands but comes of its own accord and
lies where it can
be readily found. This curious belief is similar to that of the
Chinese who say
that when a piece of sulphur is required and a man goes to get
it from the
sulphur go-down he always finds just the piece he wants lying on
the floor just
inside the door.
Editorial
Comment.
With
this number
we close the second year of the Korea Review.
In some respects it has been an eminently successful year and in
other respects
it has been disappointing. The circulation of the magazine has
steadily
increased and there has been practically no withdrawal of names
from our
mailing list. Nearly all the comments that have been made to us
regarding the
magazine have been commendatory and the rest we will discuss
presently. It has always been the aim
of the Review to give its readers as much information about the
history,
customs, superstitions, traditions and social conditions of
Korea as could be
gotten within the 576 pages that constitute a year’s issue. We
always have said
and still say, that this Review is in no sense a news-paper. The
circulation
and the price of the magazine preclude the possibility of
carrying a force of
reporters sufficient for such a purpose. At the same time, in
giving a monthly resume of [page 551] the events that have
happened, there is no adequate excuse for inaccuracy; and what
slips have been
made we sincerely deplore. It would be much to the benefit of
all the readers of
the Review if its friends would see fit to send in items of news
with which it
is impossible for us to be otherwise acquainted.
The greatest drawback of the year has
been the extreme paucity of material furnished by outside
parties. The index for
the year will show less than half a dozen signed articles. The
reason for this
is not because such articles have not been repeatedly solicited
nor is it
because the Review is lacking in friends; but everyone seems to
be too busy to
take the time to write articles of a nature not directly
connected with their
personal work. We have been told that the Review is criticized
for this, but we would respectfully submit
the question to our readers whether the trouble is not with them
rather than
with the management of this magazine. To anyone who says “Why do not you have more
signed articles?” we reply “Will
you be one to help in supplying this need?” We are willing and
glad to receive
such help from anyone who has anything to say about Korea: and, as we have
said before, we stand ready to pay, in a modest way, for such material.
We do not say this because there is any dearth of “copy.” There are rich mines of it
all about us as yet untouched. There are a hundred interesting
subjects
connected with Korea about which pen has never been but to
paper. It would be well
if this material could be worked up by a large number of
different individuals,
but if these individuals decline to do it no stigma should
attach to the one or
two who may be trying. It may be that there is a personal
equation with which we
have not reckoned. If so we hereby offer to turn over the whole
plant of the
Review, quill, scissors, waste basket, goat, good-will and
mailing list, to any
individual or group of individuals who can give proof that they
could enlist
the active literary
support of a dozen residents of Korea
in furnishing material for the pages of the magazine. If this
challenge is not
accepted we propose to keep on; for, although it involves an
enormous amount of
labor whose pecuniary compensation is ridiculously small, yet
the fact that there is hardly a
foreigner in Korea who does not patronize the magazine, [page 552] while the subscribers in other
lands are twice as many more, warrants us in believing that
there is a certain
demand for it even under the present regime. We take it that to
buy a thing and
pay for it is better praise than anything else could be, and so
as long as the
subscription list maintains its upward tendency we shall take it
as a command
from the public to continue.
During the coming year we propose to
introduce illustrations into the magazine itself. It will
therefore be
necessary for us to put out two editions, one illustrated and
the other without
illustration, since the price of the illustrated edition will be
six yen
instead of four, as at present. The edition without
illustrations will be four
yen a year as heretofore. Subscribers who have purchased sets of
pictures during
November and December will note that instead of thirty pictures,
as advertised,
thirty-nine were sent. These extra nine are among those that
will appear in the
illustrated edition. There will be thirty-six full-page
illustrations during
the year, besides smaller ones from time to time. We need hardly
say that we
recommend the illustrated edition. It will be our aim to secure
pictures
specially typical of Korean life. It will be necessary for all
our subscribers
to indicate promptly whether they wish the illustrated edition
or the ordinary
one. If nothing is said we shall continue to send the
un-illustrated edition as
heretofore. To those who are having their 1902 Review bound in
book form we
would suggest the insertion of the thirty photogravures that
have already been
published. We have a number of sets still on hand. Here, too, we
need the aid
of our subscribers. If they will send us interesting photographs
from the out
ports or any part of Korea, showing the natural beauties of the
scenery, works
of antiquity, customs or industries or any phase of Korean life,
we will pay a
good price for them and publish them in the pages of the Review
for the benefit
of all.
In concluding these remarks, which
contain neither an apology nor a complaint, we would again
insist that the true
metier of this
magazine is that of a
medium for the exchange of ideas on Korea, and we again invite
the public to
use its pages for this purpose.
[page 553] It is with great
satisfaction that we learn of the return of Dr. Chas. Irvin to
his field of labor in Fusan. There is no call
for us to pass
upon the merits of the question involved, but we cannot retrain
from restating
a law of human society which should never be allowed to drop out
of sight on a mission
field; and that law is, that in any society or organization the
attempt to
secure harmony by a process
of elimination,
if carried to its logical issue, must result either in the
dissolution of the
organization or in the autocratic sway of the strongest will.
***
During
the past month Seoul has witnessed another of her periodical
upheavals. Opinion
is much divided in regard to the merits of the man who was at
the center of
this latest political cyclone. No one doubts that Yi Yong-ik is
a man of great
sagacity and a good judge of human nature. No man without these
qualities could have retained such a commanding position for
such a length of
time especially when a large personal following was lacking. It
was done by
sheer personal force. An examination of the methods which he
used and the
instruments he employed in managing the finances of the country
would probably
show the reasons for his inevitable fall. The fact that he
leaves the treasury empty, the monetary system
a chaos and commerce hampered at every point cannot but create
the impression
that a powerful personality is not the only qualification
necessary for a
successful financier or administrator. That he may come back to
Korea is quite
true but it will be only under a heavy guard and with the
certainty of trouble
ahead.
News
Calendar.
The
past month has witnessed something of an upheaval in official circles
owing to the strenuous attempt on the part of many high
officials to depose Yi
Yong-ik from the high eminence to which he had attained. So far
as we can learn
the genesis of the affair was as follows: As we might expect,
the almost absolute
power attained by Yi Yong-ik made him an object of hatred to a
very large
faction of the active officials in Seoul [page 554] and they were ready to
take advantage of any slip which he might make. One day, while
in conversation
with Lady Om, Yi Yong-ik compared her to Yang Kwi-bi a concubine
of the last
Emperor of the Tang dynasty in China. He intended this as a
compliment but as
he has but a limited education he was not aware that he could
have said nothing
more insulting, since Yang Kwi-bi by her meretricious arts is
believed to have brought
about the destruction of the Tang Dynasty. At the time Lady Om
herself was
unaware that anything offensive had been said. Lady Om’s nephew
was present and
heard the conversation but not understanding the reference to
Yang Kwi-bi he
went to some of his friends and asked about it. When he learned
how his aunt
had been insulted he held his peace for a time, but when,
shortly after this, a
dispute arose between Yi Yong-ik and Kwŭn’ Chong-sŭk and the
matter was to be brought
before the Supreme Court, the Prime Minister YunYong-sŭn and the
Foreign
Minister Cho Pyung-sik heard a rumor that something insulting
had been said to
Lady Om. They called in her nephew and he told them the facts.
Therefore on the
27th of November fourteen of the highest ministers memorialized
the Throne
declaring that Yi Yong-ik was a traitor and must be condemned at once. His Majesty
suggested a little delay but on the evening of the same day
these same fourteen
ministers again presented a memorial couched in still stronger
terms, and followed
it up with a third on the morning of the 29th. To their urgent
advice was added
that of Lady Om and many of the officials. A crowd of officials knelt at
the palace gate to await the decision of His Majesty. The latter
reluctantly
complied with these demands but first ordered Yi Yong-ik to be
deprived of all
his honors, and ordered all his accounts to be rendered. These
included the
accounts of the Finance Department and of the Government Mint.
After these had
been examined the Emperor declared that it would be impossible
to carry the
sentence into effect immediately, because the accounts required
to be explained
and no one could do this but Yi Yong-ik. It now became evident
that His Majesty
desired to deal leniently with the culprit and after
consultation with some of
the friends of Yi Yong-ik it was determined that the latter must
find asylum at
the Russian Legation. On the night of the 29th an audience was
arranged for the
Russian Representative. Fifteen Russian soldiers were stationed
outside the
palace gate on the west and when the Russian representative came
out he was
accompanied by Yi Yong-ik who went to the Russian Legation.
Another batch of
verbal memorials was presented to His Majesty on Dec. 1st and he replied that he
would consider the case and that meanwhile the officials should
disperse. As
the 2nd was the anniversary of the 4th year of the reign the
officials desisted
but informed His Majesty that they would press their claims at a
later date So
on the 8th inst. they again presented a memorial of the same
tenor. As this was
unsuccessful five of the ministers of departments handed in
their portfolios
and resigned. They were the ministers of Finance, Law,
Education, Household and
Interior, and three other officials of equal rank. On the 11th they repeated the memorial
and declined to enter the palace when summoned. Three of-
NEWS CALENDAR. 555
ficials
then memorialized the Emperor to the effect that the Prime Minister had done wrong.
This was
listened to and Yun
Yong-sŭn was deprived of his official rank. But on the 14th all the ministers
including Yi Yong-ik were restored to their former honors. To Yi
Yong-ik was also given the
post of Commissioner to purchase Annam Rice and on the 17th he
left for Port
Arthur on a Russian man-of-war -to
purchase Annam
rice.
Dr.
Johnson of Taiku writes us as follows: “The Japanese are pushing
the railroad between here and Fusan. They are working at a point
about twenty li
beyond Mi-ryang which is half way between Taiku and Fusan. From
that point to
Fusan the work is being pushed, and will be all winter, I am
told. The Colonel
in charge of Japanese troops here tells me that the road will be
put through to
Taiku within a year. I presume that means that they will be
working it to this
point. I am told that work will begin this winter at a point
thirty li
from here. All along the line Japanese houses of a substantial
character have
been built. They are apparently intended only for men at work on
the road but
it remains to be seen whether they will be removed when the road
is finished.
The church (R. C. ) built here by Rev. M. Robert is finished. It
is a handsome
structure of red and gray brick with two tall spires -a great work for one man to
have accomplished alone. We have had a pretty fair rice crop
here this year. I
doubt whether there will be any suffering from scarcity of food,
though the
price of rice is still high.”
Rev.
Addison Parker and wife, of Richmond, Indiana, have been spending some
weeks in Taiku at the home of their daughter, Mrs. Johnson.
Mrs.
Ella Scarlett Synge writes from Bloemfontein about her work in
South Africa: “My
husband and I are thinking of settling in this country where
there is so much to do. He is at present
surveying for one of the new lines of railroad in the Transvaal.
I am thinking
of starting private practice in Bloemfontein but nothing is
settled as yet.”
A
general meeting of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society
was held in
Seoul on the 17th. inst. at which
Rev. Geo. H. Jones, Ph. D. read a most interesting and
instructive paper on Ch’oi
Chi-wan the great scholar of Silla and the man who did perhaps
as much as
anyone to introduce Chinese literature and civilization into
Korea. He was a sort
of literary Columbus for while he discovered a new literary
continent he was
treated as shabbily as was Columbus, in the end. He was so far
ahead of his
times that he was quite out of sight of them and the people
failed to recognize
his surpassing merits. Posterity however has made it up to him.
The subject was handled very skillfully
by Dr. Jones and we shall await with impatience the appearance
of his paper in print.
We
note with pleasure the return to Korea of Rev. A. B. Turner of
the English
Church Mission.
A
daughter was born to Rev. and Mrs., W. D. Reynolds on the 11thinst.
[page 556] Early in the month Seoul
was visited by
Rev. Dr. Rankin, the Editorial Secretary of the Presbyterian
Mission (South) of
America. He occupied
the pulpit of the Union Church on the 7th. Later he went to
P’yeng-yang to
investigate mission work there and while at that place was
prostrated by
pneumonia. He had not yet entirely recovered from the effects of
a severe
attack of cholera which he went through on a Yangtze steamer.
W.
H. Wilkinson, Esq., formerly British Representative in Seoul,
has been
transferred from the Consulship at Ningpo to the
Consul-Generalship of Yunnan
and Kuei-chow.
A
son was born to Rev. and Mrs. Cyril Ross on the 7th. of October.
Santa
Claus visited Seoul as usual this year being only one day behind
European time.
He arrived promptly as scheduled, on Friday P. M. at 3.30 at the Seoul
Union rooms, where youth and beauty were met to welcome him. As
he had to come
so far, several kind friends helped him out by giving liberal
donations, for
which, besides the thanks of the children, they have doubtless
received a good
mark on Santa Claus’ books. In spite of his long white beard
Santa Claus seemed
so young and frisky that we should not be surprised if on some
future trip he
should bring Clausina with him. That Seoul is growing in foreign
population is
plain, for it was found that our old, young friend had to
provide for
forty-three children.
A
friend kindly supplies us with an account of a striking case of
honesty in a
Korean of the lower class. On the 26th inst. a valuable brooch
was lost at the Seoul Union Reading Room,
and the coolie in charge, finding it, made haste to look up the
owner. We
venture to say that there are very many other Koreans who would
have acted likewise
but unfortunately a stricter record is kept of those who act in
the opposite manner, so foreigners get the
impression that
peculation
is the rule rather than the exception.
The
Countess Francesetti di Malgra,
accompanied by her daughter Donna Hilda Francesetti and Miss
Alice Perodi, arrived
in Seoul on the 20th inst. and left on the 23rd. They came from
Shanghai on the
Italian cruiser “Ivombardia.”
The remains of the late Count were put on board the Cruiser for
transportation
to Italy but the Countess
and the other ladies will proceed from Shanghai on a regular
line steamer.
G.
Hayashi. Esq., the Japanese Minister in Seoul, left for Japan
about the middle
of December. It is said that he will be accompanied, on his
return, by Mrs. Hayashi.
Christmas
Sunday the 28th inst. was observed in a special manner by the
Union Church. The
address by Rev.
Mr. Clark was a highly appropriate one and special music was
rendered by the
children, by Mrs. Morris and by a quintet. From this time on we
are promised an
anthem each Sunday
by a mixed quartet, which we believe will add to the
attractiveness of the
service.
Later
news from P’yŭng-yang
announces the sad fact of the death of Rev. Dr. Rankin. He had
gone to that
station to examine the mission work, and he attended a bible
class of 600 Koreans. He is reported to
[page 557] have said before he left Seoul that P’yŭng-yang would be a good place to go to Heaven from, little
thinking of course that his words were prophetic.
We
understand that the Japanese authorities have lodged a strong protest against the return
to official power of Yi Yong-ik, but that the Russian
authorities have made a counter proposition
urging that he is the only man capable of handling the finances
of the country.
If the present financial condition of the country and the
monetary system in vogue are taken as the
criterion of his financial ability, they are their own best
commentary.
FROM
THE NATIVE PAPERS.
The
shrine to Gen. O Chang-gyun of China, who aided the Government
in 1882, at the
time of the military riot, is to be repaired with funds provided
by the Korean
and Chinese Governments jointly. The shrine is in Seoul, near
the East Gate.
The
Korean Military Band which is under the direction of Prof. Franz
Eckert has
been given quarters at Pagoda Park.
Reports
from Kang-gye, in the far north, state that during the late
cholera epidemic
1426 men ,
601 women and 378 children died of that dis ease in that one
district.
The
epidemic among cattle this Autumn was most severe in Su-wŭn,
Si-heung and
Yong-deung-p’o, probably one third of all the cattle being swept
off.
The
season has been so warm that many fruit trees blossomed and the
fruit set. Some
half developed crab-apples were brought to the palace and
exhibited. This has
always been considered an omen of evil but this year the seers
have been able
to extract a favorable augury from the event.
On
the 6th inst
Prof. Martel and Adviser W. F. Sands started for Peking on Government business.
Some
Koreans went to China and stole a copper Buddha from a Monastery
near Peking
and brought it to Korea on the 10th
instant. They were arrested at the instance of the authorities
and taken to
Chemulpo for trial, as they are natives of that place. [It is
evident that this
image was one that was looted from the monastery at the time of
the late disturbance,
for it is inconceivable that Koreans could have taken it from
the monastery
itself] .
A
professor in the School of Mines took some of the pupils to
Sö-san to give them
some practical lessons in gold mining. On the way back they were
fired at by
robbers in the town of Ye-san but escaped injury. The French
representative has
requested the Government to take steps to put down the robbers
in that
district.
During
the 13th and
14th of December work was suspended in six of the ministerial
bureaus, the
ministers having all resigned in a body because their memorial re Yi
Yong-ik had not been favorably received.
The
Japanese authorities acted promptly in the case of two Japanese
soldiers, one
of whom attacked and severely injured a Korean policeman
[page 558] inside the Water Gate and
the other
fell upon a Korean gendarme in Chin-ko-gă and wounded him in the face and
elsewhere. One of them was sentenced to six months imprisonment
and the other
to four mouths.
About
Dec. 15th the Japanese Minister sent a communication to the Foreign office in regard to three separate
items. ( 1 ) The excessive likin dues levied at Mi-ryang on the Nak-tong River and
which is a serious impediment to Japanese trade. (2) The
hesitancy about using
the Dai Ichi Ginko five yen bills, which is evinced by the
Koreans on account
of Government opposition, and (3) The necessity of sending a
Korean Minister to
Tokyo promptly to fill that important post which is now in the
hands of an
acting minister.
The
Foreign Office has consulted the Home Office about sending a
delegate to the
medical congress to be held in Brussels in 1903.
It had been decided to remove
the Queen’s Tomb on the 16th
inst but owing to a number of causes it has been postponed for
one year.
Kim
Ka-jin, well known in foreign circles, has been made a vice-councillor.
In
view of the recent disturbances Yun Yong-sŭn. the prime minister
has gone to
No-dol to await a decision in regard to his case. Cho Pyŭngse
has gone to his
home in Ka-p’ŭng and Sim Sun-t’ak will go to An-san as soon as
possible. This
is a form of self-banishment,
because their ideas about
the administration of the government are not carried out.
The
river boatmen have asked permission to form an association for
the protection
of water-borne goods against pirates; 150 men who are good
swimmers and boatmen
are to be trained and armed, and several of them will accompany
each boat-load
of goods. Each bag of
rice will be taxed six cents and each bag of barley four cents
to cover this
expense.
The
Korean civil and military students in Japan have fallen into
arrears with the
Japanese government to the extent of $18,120, and the Acting Korean
Minister in Tokyo asks that the bill be settled by the Finance
Department in Seoul.
The
Foreign Office has instructed the Home Department to send a
notice to all the
prefectures saying that it is not according to treaty for
foreigners to reside
in the interior and that while tacit consent has been given for
the residence
of missionaries in the country the settlement of merchants,
etc., in the
interior must be stopped. In Songdo there are twenty-two
Japanese houses and
many Koreans have mortgaged their houses to these Japanese. The
government says
these foreigners’ houses must
be removed and that any Korean in the interior who mortgages a
house to a
foreigner will be severely handled.
A
Japanese Consulate is to be built it Chinnampo at a reputed cost
of Yen 70000.
Out
of 800 former
prefects who failed to give a strict account of moneys received,
300 have been
arrested and are now awaiting trial at the house of detention
connected with
the Supreme Court. Many
of these alleged offenses date back
seven or eight years.
[page 559] One of the native papers
states that the cholera continued at Mokpo and was causing many
deaths up to
the 23rd. of December, and a government physician was sent to
that port to investigate.
Chinese
vagabond soldiers in Ma-san, in the extreme north, have been
committing such depredations that 300
tiger hunters have been enlisted and armed by the Government to
hunt them down.
A
custom’s revenue steamer and light-house tender is to be built
in Kobe by the
Imperial Korean Customs for use on the Korean coast. The reputed
cost is
500,000 yen .
A
Korean soldier entered a wine shop near the Japanese quarter and
after drinking
came up behind a gendarme and drawing out the latter ‘s sword
plunged it into his own throat
and died on the spot.
No cause for the suicide is known.
Exchange,
which stood at about 196 per cent at the end of November rose to
170 per cent
early in December
but again dropped and at the present reading stands at about 180 per cent.
The
Japan Gazette quotes
from the New York Herald
that Countess Cassini
has announced the engagement of Mdlle. Irene Desplanques, her
guest at
Washington,
to M. Paul Pavloff,
the Russian Minister to Korea. The marriage, it is stated, will
take place at
the Embassy in February after which M. Pavloff will take his
bride to Korea.
Mdlle Desplanques is the daughter of M. Gabrielle Desplanques of
the
Russo-Chinese Bank
and was formerly a resident of Kobe.
Table
of Meteorological Observations.
Seoul,
Korea, November 1902.
V.
Pokrovsky,
M.D., Observer.
[see image files]
[page 561] KOREAN HISTORY.
MODERN
KOREA.
The form which the news
assumed across the border was that the king had fled north to
P’yŭng-yang, but that it was only
a blind, as the Japanese and Koreans had formed an agreement to
invade China
together and the king had made a pretense of flight so as to
keep the Chinese
unsuspecting until the Japanese should reach the Yalu. This
report caused a
great deal of anxiety in the Chinese capital and the Emperor
sent Gen. In Se-dŭk, who was stationed in Liao-tung,
to investigate. He immediately set out for P’yŭngyang, and on his
arrival sought an audience with the king. It was granted, and
the general,
having learned the exact state of affairs, started post haste
back toward Nanking
to report to the Emperor.
On the eighth day of the sixth moon
the van of the Japanese army arrived on the southern bank of the
Ta-dong River
opposite P’yŭng-yang,
but there were no boats and no way of crossing; so they went
into camp to await
the arrival of the main body of the army. No Chik was ordered by
the king to
take the Ancestral tablets and start north. The people were
enraged at this,
for they thought it would mean the immediate pillage of the city
by the
Japanese, and consequent hardships and dangers for themselves.
So the crowd
armed itself with clubs and stones and as the tablets were being
carried out of
the gate they struck the bearers down and loudly insulted No
Chik, who was in
charge. Meanwhile the old people and children besieged the
palace with their
prayers, saying, “We
are all here to protect the city, and if the king leaves it will
be the same as
handing us over to slaughter.”
In the eagerness of their importunity they even pressed into the
outer court yard
and were stopped only by the statement that the king was not
about to leave. Yu
Sŭng-nyong came out and sat before the crowd and addressing an
old man said, “You say that you desire to
protect the city and the king’s person [page 562] and you say well, but how is it that
you so far forget your duty as to come in this bold manner into the
king’s apartments
and raise this disturbance?” The people, partly because it
seemed evident the
king was not about to leave, returned to their homes.
That night the Japanese caught a
Korean and sent him across the river with a letter to the king,
in which they
said “We
wish to meet Yi Tŭk-hyŭng and have a parley with him.” This seemed to be a proper
thing to do, so Yi entered a small boat and was sculled out to
the middle of
the river where he met Konishi. Without wasting any words in
mere formalities
the latter said, “The
cause of all this trouble is that Korea would not give a safe
conduct to our
envoys to Nanking, but if you will now give us an open road into
China all the
trouble for you will be at an end.” To this Yi replied, “If you will send this army
back to Japan we can confer about the matter, but we will listen
to nothing so
long as you are on Korean soil.” Konishi continued, “We have no desire to harm you. We have wished such a
conference as this before, but have not had a single opportunity
until today.” But
the only answer the Korean made was, “Turn about and take your troops back to Japan.”
The Japanese general thereupon lost his temper and cried, “Our soldiers always go ahead, and they know
nothing about going backwards.” And so the conference was broken
up, each
returning to his own side of the stream.
The next day the king succeeded in
getting away from the city and made his way towards Yŭng-byŭn,
generals Yun Tu-su, Kim Myŭng-wŭn and Yi Wŭn-ik being left to
guard the city
and oppose the passage of the enemy. The Japanese camped beside
the Ta-dong and
waited, as they had waited beside the Im-jin, “for something to turn up.”
They did not have to wait as long as they did beside the Im-jin.
The Korean
generals, Kim Myŭng-wŭn and Yun Tu-su were not without courage
and skill, and
they conceived the scheme of crossing the river at night at the
fords of
Neung-na-do a little above the city and falling upon the enemy
with a picked body
of troops. It would be difficult to disprove that in the face of
such odds and
such a vast disparity in equipment this plan showed the highest
courage not
only in the generals but [page 563] in
the common soldiers. The fact that the attempt failed and failed
disastrously
may reflect upon the judgment of the leaders but it can never
impeach their
bravery. The fording of the river, always a difficult and slow
operation at
night, consumed more time than had been anticipated and by the
time the devoted
men reached the Japanese outposts it was already dawn. They were
now in a
desperate situation. There was nothing to do but to retreat, but
the retreat
was itself a cause of disaster, for it revealed to the foe the
position of the
fords; and thus it happened that a miscalculation as to time
made the Koreans
the instrument of their own destruction, even as they had been
at the Im-jin.
The Japanese now knew that they had
everything their own way. After a hearty breakfast they
shouldered their arms
and made for the ford. They swarmed across in such crowds that
the defenders
were driven back before they had shot a dozen arrows. The two
Korean generals,
making a virtue of necessity, opened the Ta-dong Gate on the river side of the town and told
the people to escape
for their lives. The soldiers threw all their heavier arms into
the pond called
P’ung-wŭl-su
and fled by way of the Po-dong Gate. The Japanese did not
pursue, but took
quiet possession of the town and settled down. Here again they
made a grand
mistake. Their only hope lay in pushing on at full speed into
China, for even
now the force that was to crush them was being collected, and
every day of
delay was lessening their chances of success.
The king was at Pak-ch’ŭn when the
news of the fall of P’yŭng-yang
reached him, and he was in feverish haste to get on to Eui -ju. saying that if
worst came to worst he would cross into Chinese territory. But
he added, “As I am told that by
leaving Korean soil I shall abdicate my royal right I wish the Crown Prince, in
care of Gen. Ch’oe
Heung-wŭn, to go
to Yi-ch’ŭn in Kang-wŭn Province and there gather about him an
army and hold the fortress as long as he
can.” This order was immediately carried out and the Prince
started for Kang-wŭn
Province, while the king pushed on northward to Ka-san. He
arrived at that
place in the middle of the night. It was pitchy dark and there were no
lights and the rain was falling in torrents. The royal escort
had dwindled
[page 564] to less than twenty men.
Here the report was received that a Chinese force was to cross
the Ya-lu, and
so the king stopped at Ka-.san waiting their approach. Yu
Sŭng-nyong was hurrying
from town to town trying to get together provisions for the
Chinese army that
was coming to Korea’s aid, but as fast as he got them together
the people rose
in revolt and stole them
all. Some days passed and still the expected army did not
appear, so Yi Tŭk-hyŭng
was despatched as envoy to China to
solicit aid from the Emperor, and His Majesty called together
his little court
and said, “If
necessary I shall cross the Ya-lu and find asylum on Chinese
soil. If so, which
of you will go with me?” For some moments there was a dead silence and
then Yi Hang bok. the same who had aided the Queen in her flight
from the
palace, spoke up and sad,
“I will go
with you.” The truth of the matter is that when the king left P’yŭng-yang the courtiers all
gave up the kingdom for lost and were ready to desert the king
the moment there
was a more favorable opening.
With tremendous toil Yu Sŭng-nyong succeeded in
getting some provisions together and transported them all to Chöng-ju, but when he
arrived at that place he
found a crowd of people assembled in front of the royal granary
armed with clubs.
He charged the mob and scattered it, caught eight of the leaders
and beheaded
them on the spot. He then went to Kwak-san and secured further
supplies, and
also at Kwi sŭng, and held them
in readiness for the Chinese army when it should appear.
We will remember that the king had
fully determined to go across into Ham-gyŭng Province, but at
the last moment he
had been dissuaded because of the difficulties that might arise
if he were
compelled to retreat further still. Being now urged to go on to
Eui-ju he
replied, “Yes, I must do so, but what about the queen whom I
sent forward into
Hamgyŭng
Province?” The brave Prefect of Un-san made answer, “I will go and bring her to
Your Majesty.” So he set out across
the country to find the queen.
and all the records tell us is that he brought her faithfully to
him at Pakch’ŭn.
This short mention does this brave man scant justice, for even in these days a journey
across the northern part of the peninsula is an arduous
undertaking especially
in summer.
[page 565] But not only so; he was to
find a queen, beset perhaps by enemies, and bring her safely
across that
wilderness to the king, who by that time might be far across the
Chinese border, while the country behind
him swarmed with a half-savage enemy. This prefect, whose name
is Song Ta-ŭp, must have been a brave,
energetic, tactful man whose will
was as strong as his patriotism was deep.
The Japanese were now settled in P’yŭng-yang and as they were destined
to remain there some time it may be well for us to leave them
there and follow
the fortunes of Kato, who, as we will remember, had branched off
eastward into
Ham-gyŭng Province after casting lots. He pushed on rapidly
across the country
toward Wŭn-san, but as he was not on one of the main
thoroughfares of the
country he found it difficult to keep to the road; so he
captured a Korean and
forced him to act as guide. Arriving at the town of Kok-san in the eastern part of Whang-ă Province they crossed the
mountains by the No-ri-hyŭn Pass and pushed on until they struck
the Seoul-Wŭnsan road not far from the latter
place.
Gen. Han Keuk-sŭng was in charge of
the government farces
in Ham-gyŭng Province, He advanced immediately to engage the
Japanese, and a
fierce fight took place at the government storehouses at
Ha-jong. At first the
Japanese had decidedly the worst of it but at last they retired
to the shelter of
the granaries and barricaded themselves behind bags of rice from
which position
they poured a destructive fire upon the Korean troops who were
drawn up four deep, and who
therefore suffered the more severely. Not being able to dislodge
the enemy the Koreans decided
to withdraw and fortify the passes both in front and behind the Japanese,
supposing that in this way they would be entrapped. The Japanese
learned of this
and when night came they knew they must make a bold strike for
liberty. So they
scaled the mountains in the darkness and succeeded incompletely
surrounding the
defenders of
one of the passes. When morning came there was a heavy fog and
the Koreans were
utterly unsuspicious of danger. Suddenly the surrounding party
of Japanese
opened fire on them
and it took but a few moments to have them on the run. It came
on to rain and
the roads were heavy
with mud.
[page 566] The Koreans who were
entirely unused
to such a prolonged strain, fell exhausted along the way and
were butchered by the
pursuing enemy. Gen. Han made his escape to Kyŭngsŭng but was
there captured by
the Japanese. The governor of the province, to the disgust of the people,
fled and hid among the hills, but the populace arose and dragged
him out and
forced him to resume his duties. Gen. Yi Hon also fled northward toward
Kap-san, and the people consequently seized him and took off his
head. It was
hard work for generals in that province, for they had the
Japanese on the one
hand and the people on the other. The people of the north are
made of sterner
stuff than those of the south and the punishment they meted out
to these
cravens is a good indication of their quality.
While these events were happening the
two princes who had taken refuge in this province fled northward
and stopped not
till they reached the border town of Whe-ryŭng on the Tu-man River. As it proved,
this was the worst thing they could have done, for the ajun or constable of that
district was either in the pay of the Japanese or was so
terrified by their approach
that he was willing to go to any extreme to gain their favor. So
he seized the
two young princes and carried them to the Japanese camp. The
latter received
them gladly, unbound them, placed them in their midst and
carried them wherever
they went. They were a prize worth watching. To the traitor. Kuk
Kyŭng-in, who
had betrayed the two princes, they gave a position equivalent to
the
governorship of the province, and he was formally installed in
that office. But
justice soon overtook him. A loyal general, Chöng Munbu, in the northern part of
the province, arranged a plan to effect the capture of the
traitor. But in some way the news got out and
the pseudo-governor
sent and seized Gen. Chöng, intending to take his head off the
next morning;
but during the night another loyal man named Sin Se-jun,
gathered a band of
men, armed them as best he could and addressed them thus: “Our district has become
disloyal through the treachery of this villain. If we do not
hasten to make it
right we will all
have to suffer for it in the end. If you do not agree with me,
take your swords
and strike me down.” They answered as one man, “We will listen
to you and obey
you.’ They
[page 567] immediately sallied out,
broke into the governor’s house
and beat him to death. The Japanese knew that it was Gen. Chöng
who had
originated the plot and they searched for him everywhere, but he
hid in private
houses in different places and so they failed to apprehend him,
Chi Tal-wŭn of Kyŭng-sang gathered
a band of men and tried to make head against the Japanese but
not being a soldier
he could make but
little impression; so Gen. Chöng was hunted up and put in
command. There were
only two hundred soldiers in all, but .soon they were joined by
the prefects of
Chöng-sŭng and Kyŭng-wŭn and their contingents, and the little
army made its
headquarters at Kyŭngsŭng.
As the Japanese were overrunning the
country, many events of interest happened, many episodes that history will probably
never record, scenes of cruelty and rapine that are perhaps
better left
undiscovered; but a few of the more important of these events
are necessary to
a correct understanding of the way in which the Koreans met
their fate at the hands
of the invaders.
When the Koreans fled from Seoul a high
official by the name of Yi Chong-ŭm fled to the walled town on
Yŭn-an in Whang-hă
Province Its prefect had fled, and when a Japanese force of 3000
men under
Nagamasa approached, the people besought this Yi to take charge
of the defense
of the town. He consented and made proclamation, “The Japanese are all about
us and we are in jeopardy of our lives. All that wish to live
must now run away
and the rest of us will remain and die together.” To this they
replied with one
voice, “How
can we let our leader die alone?” The next day the Japanese
arrived and
invested the town, but on attempting to storm it they were met
by buckets of
boiling water thrown down
on their heads. They drew off, but renewed the attack at night.
This time they
were met by piles of burning straw which again drove them back.
Again they came
on, this time with broad planks over their heads to protect them
from the novel
weapons of the Koreans, but these were not proof against the
huge stones which
the defenders threw down upon
them. The fight lasted three days and finally the Japanese
withdrew after
burning their dead.
[page 568] In the seventh moon the
king moved
northward to Eui-ju. But we
must turn
again to the south to witness another loyal attempt to stem the
tide of
invasion. In the province of Chŭl-la there were, men who longed to take up arms in defense
of their homes, but all the regular troops had been drafted away
northward and
nothing could be done on regular lines. So Ko Kyöig-myŭng and
Kim Ch’ŭn-il of
that province and Kwak Cha-u
and Chöng In-hong of Kyŭng-sang Province held a conference to
devise ways and
means for prosecuting a geurilla campaign. These men had all
been connected
with the army at some previous time and were not utterly lacking
in knowledge
of military affairs. Kwak Chă-u was in the prime of life and was appointed leader.
Gathering the people of the countryside to a great conclave, he addressed
them thus, “The whole country is being overrun by the Japanese
and soon we will
become their prey. Among our young men there must be many hundreds who are able to
bear arms. If we take our stand at Chong-jin on the river we
shall be able to
prevent the Japanese from crossing and they will thus be held in
check.” This
brave leader then turned his whole patrimony into ready money
and spent it in
equipping his little army, which amounted to 5000 men.
A Japanese general attempted to enter
this portion of the province but was met all along the line of
the river by a determined
soldiery, and was not able to affect a crossing. The Korean
leader Kwak has
become famous in Korean story for his valiant deeds. He is said to have
worn a fiery red cloak and he was dubbed Houg-eui Tă-jang or
‘‘General of the
Red Robe.”
His particular skill lay in rapid changes of base and he
appeared now at one
point and now at another with such bewildering rapidity that he
earned the
reputation of being able to transport himself by magic to
incredible distances
in a moment of time. These reports he did not contradict. The
Japanese came to
dread his approach and the report that he was near, or a glimpse
of the flaring
red robe was enough to send them scurrying off. From his central
camp he sent
out spies in
all directions who kept him informed of every move of the enemy,
and whenever
the Japanese encamped the Koreans gathered on the surrounding
hills at night,
each carrying a framework that supported five [page 569] torches, and so the Japanese
supposed they were surrounded by great numbers of Koreans, and
anxiety kept them always awake. The best of
the Korean soldiers were detailed to watch mountain passes and
look for
opportunities to cut off small bodies of the enemy’s forces.
Traps of various
kinds were set, into which they occasionally fell, and they were
so harassed
and worried that at last they were compelled to withdraw
entirely from the
three districts of Eui-ryŭng,
Sam-ga and Hyŭp-chŭn, and quiet was restored.
But this useful man’s career was cut
short in a manner similar to that in which Gen. Yi Kak’s had
been. We will remember,
after the Japanese had taken Tong-nă and were sweeping
northward, that Kim Su,
the governor of Kyŭngsang Province, not daring to meet them,
turned to the west
and fled from their path. It was just about this time that the “General of the Red Robe”
was having his victories over the Japanese that had pressed
westward after the
fall of Tong-nă. When this successful leader heard of the craven
flight of Gov.
Kim Su he was filled with scorn and with righteous indignation.
He considered
the cowardly governor to be worse than the Japanese themselves.
He sent the governor
a message naming seven valid reasons why he deserved execution.
Kim Su replied,
“As for
you, you are a
robber yourself.” and he also sent a letter to the king charging
Gen. Kwak with
disloyalty. At the same time Gen. Kwak sent a letter to the king
saying, “Gov. Kim ran away from his
post of duty, and when I upbraided him for it he called me a
robber. I have
killed many of the ‘rats’
but as I have been called a robber I herewith lay down my arms
and retire.” Despatching
this letter to the king, Gen. Kwak dismissed all his followers
and retired to a
hermitage of Pi-p’a
Mountain in Kyŭng-sang Province and “lived upon pine leaves for food.” So
the records say. Thereafter, though offered the governorship of
Ham-gyŭng or Chŭl-la
province he refused to come out of his retreat. He changed his
name to Mang U-dang
or, “House of
Lost Passions,” and he thus acquired great sanctity. Here is
another instance
in which the king lost an able leader through mere wanton
caprice. Wounded pride
made the famous leader forget country, king, kindred, honor – all.
[page 570] Another attempt was made
by Ko Kyŭng-myŭng, a native of Chang-heung in Chŭl-la Province.
Hearing that the king had fled to P’yŭng-yang he, together with Yu P’ang-no. gathered a large
force at Tam-yang.
Sending letters all over the province he succeeded in getting
together 6000
men, and made the central camp at Yŭn-san. The king, being
informed of this,
sent a gracious letter giving his sanction and urging the
faithful men to do
all in their power for the people and the country. Gen. Kwak
Nyŭng was also sent
from the north to cooperate with this army in their loyal
attempts.
Hearing that the Japanese had arrived
at Köm-san, the Korean forces advanced against them, but, for
some reason not
stated, when they appeared before the town their number had
dwindled to eight
hundred. Whether the rest had run away or whether a small
detachment was deemed
sufficient is
not known, but at any rate a blunder had been committed, and
when the Japanese
saw the smallness
of the attacking party they sallied out and soon scattered the
Korean forces under
Gen. Kwak Nyŭng. The other troops, seeing this, also took to
their heels, but
Gen. Ko would not run away, though urged to do so by his
lieutenants. He told
them to make good their escape, but that he would remain and
meet his fate. So
they all stood and fought it out to the bitter end and fell side
by side. Gen.
Ko’s son,
learning of his father’s death burned for revenge and so he
collected a band of
soldiers in the south, which he named “The Band that Seeks Revenge.”
A more successful attempt
was made by Chöng In-hong of Hyŭn-p’ung in Kyŭng-sang Province. He was joined
by Kim Myön, Pak Song, Kwak Chun, Kwak II and Son In-gap. These
men organized a
force and drove the Japanese out of Mu-gye and burned their
supplies. Hearing
that the enemy had fled toward Cho-gye and knowing that a river
intervened, they
gave chase. The Japanese came to the river but could find no
boats to cross.
They spent so much time looking for a ford that when at last
they found one and
were starting to cross, the pursuers came up. The ford was a bad
one, the
bottom being composed of soft sand, something like quick-sand. Soon the horses and men
were floundering [page 571] about
in mid-stream, Chöng and
his men, who knew the ford, rushed in upon them, while so
entangled, and cut
them down by hundreds. Those that escaped fled towards Songju,
but one of Chong’s lieutenants took a
thousand men and gave chase. Pressed beyond endurance the
Japanese turned and
came on to fight. One huge fellow on a magnificent charger came dashing out ahead
of the rest, brandishing his sword and yelling at the top of his
voice. A
hideous gilt mask added to the picturesqueness of his appearance, but it did
not frighten the pursuers. Their leader aimed at the horse’s
legs and soon he
came crashing to the ground, where he was speedily despatched.
The other
Japanese thereupon turned and resumed their flight. Japanese troops who
were in force in Song-ju and Ko-ryŭng came out to intercept the
pursuers, but
Chöng and his men formed an
ambush and springing suddenly upon the Japanese threw them into
confusion and
chased them as far as Pyŭl Pass, In this flight the Japanese
threw away their
baggage, weapons and all superfluous clothing. Chöng and his men
chased them
six miles and then turned back.
The last adventure of this nature
which we shall mention is that of Kim Ch’ŭn-il a man of Na-ju in
Chŭl-la
Province. Hearing of the king’s flight he sat down and wept, but
suddenly
springing up he exclaimed, “I
might far better be trying to aid my sovereign than sit here
bewailing his
misfortune.” In company with his friends Song Che-min and Yang
San -do, he got
together a goodly band of men whose avowed purpose was the
succor of the king.
Before commencing operations the leader slaughtered horses and
oxen and made
each man taste the blood and take an oath of allegiance to the
cause in which
they were embarked. Kim addressed them in these words, “Of
course this means
death to us all. We cannot
expect to
come out of it alive. We can only go forward. There must be no
retreat. If any
one of you desires life more than the accomplishment of the work
in which we are
engaged let him turn back now.” They fortified Toksan in Ch’ung-ch’ŭng Province. Koreans who
had sold themselves to the
Japanese as spies came to this camp to gain information, but
were apprehended
and put to death. The Japanese camp was at Keum-nyŭng not far
away. One
[page 572] moonless night Kim, by a
forced march
came and surrounded this camp, and at a given signal his forces
descended like
an avalanche upon the unsuspecting enemy. Those that escaped the
edge of the
sword found safety in flight. In the seventh moon this force,
consisting of
several thousand men,
crossed the Han River below Yang-wha-do intending to go and join
the king, but
instead of doing so they entered the island of Kangwha and fortified it. When the king heard
of these deeds of Kim Ch’ŭn-il,
he was highly pleased and gave him the title of “Defender against Invaders.”
These incidents of Korean success
against the Japanese cannot be taken as typical cases for, as a
rule, the
Japanese went where they wished and did what they wished, but
they are inserted
here rather to show that it was no craven submission on the part
of the Koreans;
that there were strong, brave and faithful men who were willing
to cast their
fortunes and lives into the scales and strike as hard blows as
they knew how
for their homes and for their king. It was of course a geurilla
warfare and it
was only small detachments of the main army of the Japanese that
they could
successfully withstand, but the utter pusillanimity of the
Koreans, as
sometimes depicted, is not a true picture of them. Their worst
fault was that
they were unprepared for war. This together with the strife of
parties was the
reason why the Japanese for a time worked their will upon the
peninsula.
Chapter
IX.
Attempts
to secure aid from China...
divided counsels
in Nanking... an
army sent. . . .a desperate envoy, . ..Gen. Suk Sŭn’s love for Korea... the Emperor gives orders for the
king’s entertainment . . . .great Korean victory in the south. .
. .Japanese army of reinforcement defeated and destroyed by
Admiral Yi Sun-sin...
Gen. Yi honored .... the back
of the invasion broken.,., a vainglorious Chinese general. ..
.severely beaten. .. .the monks begin a Holy War. . . .a sharp
answer. . .
.various Korean forces. . . .a night adventure... Japanese reverses in the
south. . . .China awakens. . . .a grand conference... a truce... the time expires. .. .a
celebrated soldier tracked down...
attempt to retake Seoul . . . .brave defense of ChinJu [page 573] . . . .the first mortar and
bomb, . . . various Korean attempts. . . . Korean victory in Ham-gyŭng Province... another in the south. .
.Japanese confined almost entirely to P’yŭng-yang.
The
efforts that Korea put forth before she obtained aid from China
make an
entertaining story, and they show that China delayed it as long
as possible and
then complied, not so much because she wished to help Korea as
because she
desired to check the Japanese before they crossed the Ya-lu and
began ravaging
the fruitful plains of the Liao-tung peninsula. Before the
Japanese ever landed
in Korea the king had sent an envoy to Nanking telling the Emperor that an invasion was
next to certain; and that envoy was still in Nanking. After the king’s
flight to the north he sent Min Mong-nyŭng and Yi Tŭk-hyŭng as
special envoys
to ask aid again. On the arrival of these men with their urgent
request there
was a great council of war in Nanking. Some of the leading
generals said, “There is no need for China
to help those wild people. Let them fight it out themselves.” It
would appear that
the policy by which China disclaimed responsibility for . Korea,
when such
responsibility involved sacrifice, is several centuries old.
Other generals
said, “No,
that will not do. We must send troops and at least guard our own
territory from
invasion.” But the Chinese General-in-chief, Sŭk Sŭng, said, “We must, without fail,
render Korea the assistance for which she asks. We must
immediately despatch 2000
troops, and the Emperor must appropriate 2,000,000 cash for their maintenance.”
The upshot of it all was that Gen. Nak Sang-ji took a small body
of troops and
marched eastward to the banks of the Ya-lu where he went into
camp without
attempting to render the Koreans any assistance.
In the seventh moon the king sent
another envoy to Nanking on the same errand but with the same
lack of success.
Then the king called to him one of his most trusted officials
and appointed him
envoy to Nanking and said, “The
salvation of the kingdom lies in your hands. Go to Nanking and
leave no efforts
untried whereby the Emperor may be induced to help us.” Charged
with this
important mission, this envoy Chöng Kon-su hastened to Nanking
and, entering the
enclosure of the war office, sat in the courtyard for seven
[page 574] days weeping; but the
officials all turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, excepting the
General-in-chief
Sŭk Sŭng. Indignant at the apathy of his colleagues and in spite
of the fact
that his duty as general-in -chief demanded his presence in
Nanking, he arose
and said, “If none of you gentlemen will go to the aid of Korea
I will go
myself.” There were special and personal reasons for this man’s
interest in
Korea. In years gone by a Korean merchant, while in Nanking, had met in an inn a beautiful
slave girl and upon inquiry had discovered that she was of noble
family but had
sold herself into slavery to obtain money wherewith to deliver
her father from
prison. The merchant was so touched by the sacrifice which she
had made -for it meant the sacrifice
of honor itself -that
he gave all his patrimony and bought her and set her free. In
after years she
became the wife of this same Gen. Sŭk Sŭng, and thus it was that he was an
ardent admirer of Korea and was determined to see that Korea
received aid in her
present extremity.
At this point the king sent a message
to the prefect of Liao-tung saying, “The Japanese have come as far north as
P’yŭng-yang
and I fear I shall have to cross the Ya-lu and take refuge in
your district.”
This the prefect immediately reported to the Emperor, who
answered, “If the
king of Korea enters your district, provide him with a fine
house, give him
food out of the imperial stores, each day four ounces of silver, a pig, a
sheep, vermicelli and rice. Give him also an escort of a hundred
men and let
twenty women be detailed to wait upon him.”
We have now arrived at the threshold
of the Chinese counter-invasion which was destined to be one of
the main causes
of the Japanese retreat, but before entering upon this narrative
we must turn
again to the south and witness some events which did far more to
effect the
withdrawal of the Japanese than did the coming of the Chinese
armies.
The first of these was the utter
defeat of a large body of Japanese who were scouring the
province of Chŭlla. Entering the town of I-ch’i they were met by such a
fierce attack on the part of Whang-jin the prefect of Tong-bok
that they turned
back and, crossing the Ung-ch’i
Mountain entered the prefecture of Chŭn-ju. Yö Pong-nam, the prefect of [page
575]
Naju, and
Whang Pŭk, a volunteer general, lay in ambush with a large body
of volunteer
troops, and succeeded in driving the Japanese back, but the next
day the
invading host came fiercely to the attack and the Koreans had to
give way. The Japanese
in their exultation now thought they could go back to I-ch’i and avenge themselves for
their defeat there. Gen. Kwun Yŭl and the prefect of Whang-jin heard of this in time to fortify one of the
mountain passes. The Japanese attacked in a desperate manner,
creeping up the
steep mountain sides on their
hands and knees, shooting as they advanced. All day long the
fight continued
and the Japanese were utterly defeated. Their bodies were piled
in heaps where
they fell and the records say that the ground was covered with
one crimson
matting of leaves. This was one of the greatest land victories
which the
Koreans scored against the Japanese. Retreating to the valley
with their dead
the Japanese made two great heaps of bodies and buried them in
trenches,
marking the spot with rough monuments of wood. This was probably
one of the
bodies of troops for which the Japanese in P’yŭng-yang were
waiting, before attempting
the invasion of China.
But meanwhile events of far greater
importance were occurring farther south, where Admiral Yi
Sun-sin with his wonderful
“tortoise
boat” was watching for Japanese fleets.
It was in the eighth moon that his
watchfulness was rewarded and he beheld on the eastern horizon a
vast fleet of Japanese
boats bringing a hundred thousand men to reinforce the army of
invasion and
enable it to push on into China.
Admiral Yi and his lieutenant Yi
Ok-keui met this powerful fleet in a place called Kyön-nă-ryang
among the
islands off the southern coast of Chŭl-la Province. The evident intention of
the Japanese was to round the southwestern corner of the
peninsula and sail up
the west coast to P’yŭng-yang.
At first the wily admiral made as if he would betake himself to
flight and the
Japanese, by giving chase, threw their own line into disorder.
When opposite
Han-san Island, Admiral Yi suddenly turned his iron-clad about
and rammed the
nearest of his pursuers, and then engaged the others either
singly or by the
score, for his craft was impervious to their weapons. His attending
fleet followed and completed the work, after he [page 576] had disabled the enemy’s boats.
Seventy-one of the Japanese boats
were sunk that day
and it is said the very
sea was red. But soon a reinforcing fleet came up from An-gol
Harbor near
Han-san
and the Admiral found that his day’s work was not yet done. The
attack
straightway
began and soon the Japanese were in the same plight in which
their comrades had been put. Many, seeing
how impossible it was to make headway against this iron ship,
beached their
boats and fled by land; so on that same day forty-eight ships
more were burned.
The few that escaped during the fight sped eastward toward home.
So ended, we
may well believe, one of the great naval battles of the world.
It may truly be called
the Salamis of Korea. It signed the death-warrant of the
invasion. It
frustrated the great motive of the invasion, the humbling of
China; and
thenceforth, although the war dragged through many a long year,
it was carried
on solely with a view to mitigating the disappointment of
Hideyoshi -a disappointment that must
have been as keen as his thirst for conquest was unquenchable.
When the king heard of these splendid
achievements he heaped upon Admiral Yi all the honors in his
gift, and even those who hated him for his
successes were compelled to join in his praise. Konishi had
heard that an army
was coming to reinforce him and he wrote an exultant letter to
the king saying,
“A hundred
thousand men are coming to reinforce me. Where will you flee to
then?” But
before this letter reached its destination there came the news
of the crushing defeat
in the south. The whole success of the invasion depended upon
forming a
junction between the army in P’yŭng-yang and this army of
reinforcement, but
Admiral Yi shattered the fleet, and the last hope of the
invaders perished.
And now at last China bestirred
herself and sent Gen. Cho Seung-hun with 5000 troops across the
Ya-lu into
Korea. This was a man whose vanity was as great as his ignorance
of the
Japanese. He loudly boasted “Now
that I have come, no Japanese will be able to stand before me.”
Penetrating as
far south as Ka-san he enquired whether the Japanese had fled
from P’yŭng-yang, and being answered
in the negative he exclaimed “Heaven
is indeed good to keep them there for me.”