Japanese were murdered. In the same year Korea was forced to pay a heavy indemnity, punish the malefactors, and send a special mission of apology to Japan; but in spite of this exactly two years later the Japanese Legation was again completely destroyed by a mob. Likewise, in 1884, an émeute followed a banquet given in honour of the opening of the Korean Post Office; high Conservative Korean officials were assassinated; the Progressives seized the Palace; the Foreign Representatives were invited there for safety but declined to go, the Japanese Minister alone proceeding there with 140 of his soldiers as an escort. No sooner had the Japanese party arrived than the Palace was attacked by 3,000 Korean soldiers and another 3,000 Chinese soldiery, as a counter-blow to the assassination of the men of the old régime. So precarious did the position in the Palace become that the Japanese detachment had to fire a mine and fight its way through once more to Chemulpo with their Minister and a trembling mass of Progressives in their midst. Then, so as the Japanese Legation should not suppose itself immune, it was once more burned to the ground by the infuriated Seoul mob. After this one might have expected anything, for the whole country was in an uproar, and a revolution seemed inevitable. The other Foreign Ministers once more fled to Chemulpo. Europeans were rescued with great difficulty from various parts of the country, and no one knew what the end would be. In two weeks, however, a fresh Japanese Ambassador, accompanied by 2,500 Japanese troops, landed in Korea: and simultaneously with his arrival a high Chinese official, accompanied by 3,000 Chinese troops, appeared. Then for many weeks there were strange happenings. The leaders of the various émeutes, plots, and counter-plots were all arrested and impartially decapitated; various high Korean officials were declared rebels, and everybody impeached by either the pro-Japanese Progressive party or the Chinese Conservatives; and through all this the Korean Royal Family moved uneasily from one Palace to another, not knowing what moment assassination might overtake it. Wild rumours of war between China and Japan circulated for many weeks, and the people, accustomed to general uneasiness but not to the great shocks of real warfare, trembled as they trod the streets. It was not until the Li Hung Chang-Ito Convention was signed in Tientsien in April, 1885, that the immediate prospects of war were removed; but the instrument was at best a pis aller, conferring as it did the right on both "suzerain" Powers to despatch troops to Korea, provided that due notice was given in advance, but nevertheless leaving the main question of Korea's exact position in regard to the outside world untouched. But as a result of this convention it was possible for the main bodies of Japanese and Chinese troops to re-embark, and three months after these events only Legation guards remained. On the very day, however, that the Japanese troops left the country, China obtained the telegraph monopoly in Korea, solely owing to the astuteness of Li Hung Chang, who, all-powerful in Tientsien, continued to direct the policy of the able Chinese Imperial Residents at the Korean Court and incited them to oppose the Japanese. For nine long years, although the thrice-repeated burning of the Japanese Legation seemed to have exhausted the incendiary proclivities of the Seoul malcontents, it is one continuous story of bickerings and quarrellings, which only stopped short of armed collisions because neither party, Chinese Conservatives nor the Japanese Progressives, was yet prepared to risk all on one throw of the dice. Korea, by this time thoroughly convinced that Japan had thrown herself definitely on the side of progress and reform, and was determined to sweep away at all costs the old corrupt order of things, instinctively inclined more and more towards China; and China on her part, completely led by Li Hung Chang, saw that she was always represented at the Korean capital by a determined and astute agent, who, as Chinese Imperial Resident, maintained a controlling voice in all matters concerning Korean internal policy, and was able to influence materially the attitude of the Korean Court on vital matters which were really beyond his province. Under such circumstances Japanese irritation. increased steadily. Powerless to check the ceaseless scheming of Chinese diplomacy, and left the sport of absurd incidents, successive Japanese Ministers left Korea in an angry frame of mind with their reputations besmirched; and by the violence of their language, once they were face to face with sympathetic audiences in their own country, fanned the flames which only awaited the gust of ill-fortune to leap skywards and make Korea the cockpit of the East. Fortunately Japan's internal troubles over the revision of her treaties absorbed most of her attention; but with the signature of the Anglo-Japanese Kimberley-Aoki Convention of 1894, conceding to Japan the judicial and tariff autonomy she had so long desired, and the certainty that the rest of Europe would have to follow England's example, it became clear that the time was rapidly approaching when Korean affairs would have to be taken in hand and placed on a more equitable and satisfactory footing, or war would result. In other words, Japan was absolutely determined to decide once and for all whether Peking or Tokyo was to control Korea's fortunes. Matters reached a crisis in this year, 1894. The Tonghaks, who may be best described as a secret society of ne'er-do-wells on the approved Chinese pattern, rose in the spring of that year and successfully opposed the Korean troops who were sent to crush them. The Korean Government became alarmed and turned to the all-powerful Chinese Resident, who loaded the Chinese-Korean telegraphs with urgent messages to Li Hung Chang representing the state of affairs as one demanding immediate attention. On the 8th June 2,000 of Li Hung Chang's foreign-drilled troops arrived at Asan anchorage, disembarked and commenced preparations for the march on Seoul. But before they had started, 500 Japanese marines, who had landed at Chemulpo, reached Seoul; and following promptly in their train came battalion after battalion of Japanese infantry from over the seas, who entrenched themselves around the capital and prepared for the worst. It was plain that a great crisis had arisen, and that Japan was determined to strike if necessary. By the end of June there were over 5,000 Japanese troops in Seoul. On the 18th July 1,500 more Japanese arrived at Chemulpo, and commenced occupying strategic points around the capital. The Japanese representative then notified the Korean Government that a wholesale reform in the peninsula's administration must be at once undertaken, or else Japan would consider herself free to act in any way she deemed necessary to protect her own interests. The Korean Government in spite of the threatening outlook still reposed in blissful ignorance of what was to happen, and therefore not only demurred but secretly sought the advice of the Chinese Resident. This high official, in spite of the fact that Japan had already notified the Peking VOL. II D |