Ch 15 - A Crumbling Dynasty

Tonghak - Eastern Learning

Amidst the collapse of Choson's traditional class society, Choe Che-u formed and promulgated a new faith;  tonghak, or Eastern Learning, an esoteric amalgam of elements from his own personal religious experiences, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, and native shamanism. Choson's oppressed peasant population openly welcomed this native-born doctrine which held all the potential for a revolutionary movement of historic proportions.

The Andong Kim clan waged a fierce campaing to preserve their influence and dominate the royal house in Seoul. Things became so heated that whenever the Yi royal clan proposed an intelligent, acceptable candidate for the throne, they were either accused of treason and executed. or sent into exile. When King Hongjong died in 1849 at the age of twenty-three without leaving a son or heir, no acceptable replacement could be found.

Stepping out of the background, Queen Dowager Kim assembled the court high ministers and put them to work on the matter of succession. After three days of indecisive debate, the queen settled the matter herself by selecting Yi Wonbom, a nineteen year old recluse from a poor farm on Kanghwa Island. Yi Wonbom came from a cadet branch of the royal house whose family had fled to Kanghwa Island to escape oppression. Yi Wonbom's mother and grandmother, both Roman Catholic converts, had been condemned for alleged treason and executed during the Shinyu Persecution of 1801, and his father was dead.

When envoys from Seoul arrived on Kanghwa Island to find the new heir to the throne, they discovered the remaining Yi clan living a life of bare subsistence. The proclamation declaring Yi Wonbom king in 1849 was delivered in the midst of wretched poverty. From the beginning of the Yi Dynasty, kings had given a high priority to educating their sons. The young King Cholchong however, could not read a word on the notice congratulating him on his elevation to the Phoenix Throne.

The young farm boy proved to be an excellent choice for the Andong Kim clan, since his illiteracy made him easy to manipulate and vulnerable to their control. King Cholchong was placed under the Regency of King Sunjo's widow, Queen Cho, the daughter of Kim Cho-sun. Queen Dowager Kim soon secured firm control over the affairs of the monarchy by arranging a marriage between the young king and a member of her own clan. The queen's opportune choice meant there would never be an attempt by his relatives to exercise power through him. The Andong Kim clan was once again back in power and would remain there for many years to come.

Confucianism, which assumed a static and hierarchical society, had become an irrelevant philosophy to a country that was undergoing irreversible changes. The traditional class structure of Yi society was collapsing. The yangban class was in disintegration, and Confucianism made no provision to account for or deal with this development. In fact, it was seen as somewhat heretical to even admit that such a thing could happen at all. Buddhism, was strongly disliked and looked down upon by orthodox Confucians. Although it still occupied a small niche in society, it had long ago lost any intellectual pretense of respectability in Choson and had no solutions to offer. Daoism remained the refuge of hermit-scholars who tried to attain superhuman powers through solitary study and meditation. While it contributed to the alienation of those yangban scholars who had given up on Confucian political ideals, its contributed more to the body of folk-belief than to solutions for the country's ills. In the midst of this social turmoil, the Catholic Church found a niche and proceeded to fill it.

The official persecution of Catholics abated somewhat under King Choljong, whose own family had converted to Christianity. In addition, the Andong Kim clan was traditionally tolerant of Catholicism. By the time Cholchong ascended the Phoenix Throne, the arbitrary rule of the royal in-law families had rendered Choson's political institutions virtually ineffective. The diminished level of persecutions was not due to any specific change in official policy, but to the extreme level of confusion that made it virtually impossible to enforce the laws against Catholicism;  the authorities just gave up trying. As a result, a number of Western priests continued to enter Choson, including Gathers Maistre, Jansou and Berneux. A variety of Catholic books and tracts were published and distributed through their efforts and Catholicism began a period of rapid expansion. Not only did the priests visit every district in Seoul, they began to move out into the surrounding villages as well.

By the mid-nineteenth century, Choson was a nation with an uncertain future. Increased aggressiveness by the West in China and Japan were already beginning to shake the very foundations of East Asian civilizations. Increasing visits by Western warships to Choson's waters and the approaching threat of foreign intervention contributed to a general atmosphere of unrest and fear among the population. Famines and epidemics plagued the country. Uprisings, peasant rebellions and yangban protests made it clear that no government reform policy could ever salvage the growing moral decay and deeply rooted political, social and economic problems. The country was ripe for a major historic transformation. As happened in virtually every other great historic movement, including Christianity, the transformation took root in the very rubble of society.

The "selling" of official government positions and the dramatic loss of revenue caused by falling agricultural production had severely shaken the economic foundation that once supported the yangban class in the past - government employment. Choe Ok-kom, a fallen yangban living in Kyongju, Kyongsang Province, never received an appointment to government service, nor was he a wealthy landlord. The majority of fallen yangban living in Kyongsang Province belonged to politically weak factions condemned to powerlessness and poverty, such as the Namin faction. Faced with such a predicament, many of the fallen yangban were forced to make their living by going outside the once impenetrable boundaries of their class status. For Choe Ok-kom, this meant teaching Chinese characters to the children of Kyongju to provide for his family.

Choe Ok-kom was childless by both his first and second wives. After taking up with a wandering widow, Choe became the proud father of a son in 1824. Choe Pok-sul began his life in poverty and with a major stike against him in terms of his future potential. Among yangban, no man born of a concubine was eligible for a civil or military post in government regardless of his education or cultivation. Such people could rarely get even the most minor position in the government. The social discrimination toward "illegitimate" births was almost too severe to bear in Confucian Yi society. Those who bore the brunt of the persistent social and official discrimination were frequently filled with tremendous resentment. In addition, men of such birth often rebelled against the Confucian order.

Choe Pok-sul's mother died when he was only 5 years old. The child grew up in poverty, the fate of poor and unemployed yangban and common people alike, where he experienced the painful social discrimination shown towards those born of a concubine. Not even his illustrious ancestry, which traced back to Silla's famous Confucian literati Choe Chi-won, could provide him the wealth and position to fulfill his youthful ambitions. Instead, Choson society had already disintegrated to a point where failed and frustrated ambitions were commonplace.

Following Yi custom, Choe Pok-sul married when he turned thirteen. Just three years later, his father died, leaving his son and young wife nothing but a house, his yangban status and a strong orientation to Confucianism. The ruin of his family and the disintegration of the yangban class produced a sharp sense of despair in Choe about Confucian society. His family status and Confucian orientation often left him guilt-stricken, for he could never realize the Confucian ideals instilled in him as a boy. He also felt a deep sense of injustice and the pains of poverty, for he soon discovered he could not even maintain his own household.

After a fire destroyed his house, the only physical inheritance from his father, Choe abandoned his home and left his wife. Yi society was very much organized in terms of family origin and of place of birth and his departure from his birthplace added yet another dimension to his growing alienation. Even as a youth, Choe's rebellious nature earned him the label of rebel. The people of Kyongju began to call him "one who will commit treason," a term that meant Choe's alienation was not only general, but immediate and concrete. Choe Pok-sul's harsh beginnings virtually ensured his alienation from the Confucian order. Burdened with complaints and doubts, he began a life of wandering that lasted almost twenty years. The guilt and despair about his famed Confucian family name, his father's social status and his own birth drove him in a desperate search for answers.

A skilled archer and horseman, he worked as a merchant for a while and spent time studying geomancy and fortune-telling, but he concluded they had none of the answers he desperately sought. In his travels, Choe experienced economic poverty and the erosion of Confucian order. He saw the results of the rampant diseases, floods and frequent famines that plagued people's lives and saw first hand the impact of social unrest in the increasing number of peasant rebellions and riots, such as the violent Hong Kyong-nae Rebellion of 1812. He also saw how Choson's ineffective government, plagued by factional power struggles, was too weak to formulate and execute any policy to remedy this disastrous situation. In time, he developed a deep sense of the imminent ruin of the Yi Dynasty.

In the course of his travels, Choe Pok-sul developed a close identification with the lower class, people "pinched by poverty, oppressed by loneliness." He began to identify his own unhappiness with the wretched social and economic state of his less fortunate countrymen and sought a way of salvation to rescue a ruined world. He reflected upon the Confucian learning revered by his ancestors. He found no answers. He studied Daoism. He found no answers. He also looked at Buddhist works, but concluded "the ways of Confucius and Buddha have been exhausted in the past several thousand years." Finally, he studied Catholic books brought to Choson from China, but there he found "... no power in the sciences;  and no logic in the words." He came to the conclusion that the only cure for his country's ills was a new set of values relevant to modern conditions that carried the sanction of religious belief.

Choe Pok-sul tried everything to fulfill his personal ambitions, but finally concluded he could not succeed. This son of a poor village scholar had repeatedly failed the civil-service examinations to qualify for high office. His many years of travel searching for the truth ended with a deep sense of failure and disappointment. Lamenting his lot in life, Choe returned to the small house his father built on a forested mountainside near Kyongju.

"As a man of unhappy times, I wasted my time and age. On doing all the things of man, I spent almost forty years. Is this all my life of forty years?  I have no face to do anything. ... Can't there be another opportunity?"

On April 5, 1860, Choe suddenly fell sick and went into a trance-like state similar to the religious trance common to shamanistic rituals. It is claimed that, while in this state of half-consciousness, Choe received a messianic revelation during a conversation with God. He emerged from the experience with a soul-felt belief that he had been chosen by God to "heal the illness of the people" and to "teach the people in order for them to live for me [God], and then you will live a long life to spread virtue to the whole world." Choe was deeply moved by the experience and, after long meditation, came to the realization that his mission in life was to save the people from their suffering plight. He changed his name from Pok-sul to Che-u, a name that means "salvation of the foolish," or "to save the innocent people," and began a messianic journey of self-consciousness.

Choe Che-u allegedly entered this trance-like state a number of times between April 5 and September 12, 1860, and each time claimed to have received direct inspiration from Chonju, the Heavenly Emperor. Choe gradually began to gather people at his home near Kyongju, particularly the sick who wanted to be cured by his "supernatural" or magical powers. Those who gathered around him were not merely fallen yangban, but people of all classes and all ages, including women. Choe's teachings soon created a group of followers, or disciples, curious people who carried on lengthy discussions about Chondo-gyo, the "Religion of the Heavenly Way."

Choe Che-u announced the founding of his new religion from his home in Kyongju and called his new faith tonghak, or Eastern Learning, in contrast to the established sohak, or Western Learning, i.e. Catholicism. At its core, tonghak evolved from Choe's religious experiences during the spring and summer of 1860 and his own self-conciousness awareness of them. Once planted in the minds of others, tonghak blossomed in its interpretation and clarification by a growing community of followers. Choe Che-u's new doctrine carefully fused a mixture of precepts taken from Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, Catholicism, and ancient shamanism. From the ethics of Confucianism he borrowed a reverence for "Heaven," along with a kind of predestination. From the character cultivation and rebirth of Buddhism he borrowed the manner in which men could develop superhuman powers and become immortal if they lived their lives according to the will of Heaven. From Daoism he incorporated language and the powerful symbology of the other world. From Catholicism he introduced the idea of the personal God. From the ancient and popular belief in shamanism Choe incorporated such practices as the worship of mountain deities and the chanting of magical formulas, elements that were readily familiar and understood by the village people.

Having spent his adult life in search for the truth through Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and Catholicism, Choe Che-u could not find the way to reach the ultimate religious authority. His personal religious experience convinced him that none of the existing religions were sufficient for man to find the truth or salvation. Choe's dialogs with God were revolutionary events for a Confucian scholar, since they enabled him to ignore the established channels of existing religions to make direct contact the "ultimate authority." He came to believe that God is immediately accessible to man, any man or woman, and that every human being is immediately in touch with God. Therefore, neither Confucianism, nor Buddhism, nor Catholicism could mediate between man and God. Accordingly, he codified his personal and immediate experience of God into a central doctrine - "God is in man." From this foundation, it was never a problem to freely use elements and language from the various traditional and Western religions to make this singular point.

Choe Che-u's new doctrine incorporated a number of theological references to religious authority that used many of the "heterodox" names found in other religions. His use of the word Chonju for example, the Catholic word for God, was one reason that led to the later persecution of tonghak adherents. Tonghak did not evolve as a pantheistic religion however, since it never described God as a metaphysical entity with whom one cannot carry out a dialog.

Choe Che-u discussions were not limited to his small circle of disciples. Beginning in 1862, he began to travel extensively throughout southern Choson to teach his Way and to heal the sick, quietly moving among the people and avoiding large crowds so as not to attract undue attention from Confucian officialdom. He talked with and even debated Buddhist monks and Confucian scholars while he traveled throughout Kyongsang, Cholla, and Chungchong provinces. Among the ideas Choe expressed was the concept that man's mind or spirit was a replica of God, and that service to man was the same as service to God. The standard of tonghak morality was that the end result of man's conduct not only benefited the individual, but the whole society, the nation and the world. He openly proclaimed an equality for all humankind that transcended any social class status;  a concept openly welcomed by Choson's oppressed peasant population. Another characteristic of tonghak was its exclusionism, which rejected alien thought and incorporated an early form of nationalism.

Tonghak quickly took root among the farming villages of the peninsula and spread so rapidly that by 1863, one could find a branch in every district in the country, each with its own leader chosen from among local believers. This new religious and social movement had profound implications for Choson, because it bypassed Confucian orthodoxy altogether. Concerned principally with the peasantry and the improvement of village living conditions, tonghak urged that the country be strengthened and the livelihood of its people be ensured. It called for reform of the corrupt Yi government a nd boldly asserted that the time had finally come when these goals could be reached. It became a "call to arms" that held a special appeal to both the impoverished yangban and suffering farmers. Confucian officialdom reacted to this potentially revolutionary movement as if it were a direct challenge to the established government apparatus and Choson's entire Confucian social order. It condemned the emerging tonghak community as being every bit as subversive as Roman Catholicism.

Little had changed in Choson during the half century since Hong Kyong-nae's well-organized rebellion in 1812. Just as the precepts of Choe's tonghak doctrine were gaining in popularity, Choson's three southern provinces erupted in rebellion. Paek Nak-shin, a newly appointed military commander who had jurisdiction over the western half of Kyongsang Province, was a highly unpopular administrator with a reputation for exploiting destitute farmers. Yu Kye-chun, a discontented intellectual living in the Chinju district of southwestern Kyongsang Province, became outraged by Paek's rapacious conduct and in late March 1862, led local farmers in a major uprising. Denouncing corrupt minor officials and wealthy landlords, the rebels drove out Paek Nak-shin, killed a few local government functionaries, set fire to government buildings, and sacked and burned a number of houses belonging to wealthy landowners.

The suddenness of the uprising and the considerable destruction caused by the rioting caught the Seoul government by complete surprise. Already alarmed at tonghak's rapid spread in the southern provinces, the government hurriedly sent a special inspector to Kyongsang Province to bring calm and determine the cause of the trouble. Based on its findings of "fraudulent practices" by Paek Nak-shin and other local officials, the government made a superficial attempt to revise its land, military and grain lending systems in an effort to eliminate such abuses in the future. There was no realistic expectation that the ruling class in Seoul, many of whom were deeply involved in such frauds, would ever concede to make radical changes. In the end, all that happened was the arrest and execution of numerous rebel ringleaders and the banishment of nineteen others. No reforms were made, the grievances of the people remained unresolved, and the social situation of the kingdom remained explosive.

When it became obvious to people the government was not going to take action to redress their grievances, more uprisings followed. Forty days after the Chinju agrarian uprising, 3,000 people attacked the government office at Iksan in Chungchong Province. A total of more than 100,000 persons took part in similar rebellions in Kyongsang, Cholla and Chungchong provinces, in central Choson, in Hamgyong and Pyongan provinces in the north, even on faraway Cheju Island, each following approximately the same pattern. In a typical attack, several thousand people would seize the government district office, kill the magistrate's corrupt staff, scatter the higher officials into the countryside, destroy tax records, and sack and burn the houses of officials and wealthy landowners. Armed bandits compounded the situation by taking full advantage of the uprisings to carry off as much loot as they could find. The uprisings continued through 1862 and into the spring of 1863. Before government troops and the harsh winter weather finally quelled the rebellion, it had swept through a total of eighteen southern cities.

Earlier, Choe Che-u predicted that the year 1864 would bring "welcome tidings" for tonghak followers. The Yi government feared that such a prediction might well trigger another popular uprising and preemptively arrested Choe and some twenty of his followers in 1863. In an attempt to quell this developing problem before it became truly serious, the government charged Choe and his followers with misleading the people and sowing social discord. The following year, Choe Che-u was put on trial in the city of Taegu and beheaded as a subversive. To the government's dismay, Choe's death did not decapitate the tonghak movement. Unable to safely operate in the open, many of Choe's followers took refuge in the mountains. For a brief time the popularity of tonghak appeared to fade as the movement went underground, much like the Catholic community during the numerous religious persecutions of the first half century.

Choe Si-hyong, a follower of Choe Che-u and tonghak's second patriarch, quickly appeared on the scene to carry Choe's message. Despite great difficulties, he compiled and systemized tonghak's religious tenets as a message of salvation to farmers in distress. His "Bible of Tonghak Doctrine," contained an esoteric amalgam of ideas that strongly rejected each religion from which it was derived. It held out a vision of an earthly paradise that would be created once Choson's corrupt bureaucracy had been overthrown and the disruptive ideas and crude commercialism of foreigners had been driven away. Choe Che-u had set his doctrines to music so that farmers would readily understand and accept them. These songs to be sung by the faithful were collected in "Hymns from the Dragon Pool," which exhibited a mixture of traditional elements from Confucianism, Buddhism and Songyo, the teachings of Silla's Hwarang.

Two heterodox and potentially subversive religions were taking root in Choson, each in its own way threatening to undermine Confucian order. Although Choson's government managed to put a lid on the overt practice of tonghak while it tried to hold a lid on Cathoicism, it never dealt with the volatile ingredients that gave birth to tonghak in the first place:  the deeply-rooted discontent of the peasantry, peasant hostility toward the yangban class, government corruption, and opposition to the encroachment of foreign influences. This unstable mixture was spiced with the cultural chauvinism of Neo-Confucian beliefs and an appalling ignorance of the outside world. The end product was a militant exclusionist doctrine designed to protect the country and save East Asian civilization by stamping out Christianity and totally excluding Westerners from Choson. Before the close of the century, the tonghak movement reemerged in the form of a large-scale, peasant-driven revolution.