Ch 21 - Mounting Pressure Against ChosonHungson TaewongunChoson faced the internal burdens of a gradual collapse that had been underway for generations. Yi Haung, the "Prince Regent of the Great Court," became the first and only Yi Dynasty ruler to seriously attempt wide-ranging reforms in Choson while simultaneously preserving its ancient social order. Except for limited contact with China and Japan, centuries of rigid isolation left Choson hopelessly ignorant of the outside world. The peninsula experienced few intrusions from the outside world and lived in relative seclusion behind its guarded borders. While China and Japan possessed considerable knowledge about the West, Choson's knowledge of that world was limited to what could be gleaned from a handful of Chinese works written immediately after the Opium War. Choson's kings were relatively weak as domestic rulers and they reacted to Western imperialist expansion with hesitancy and confusion. Vigorously hostile to all Western contact during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Choson government maintained its rigid policy of seclusion until it was almost too late for them to learn the art of diplomacy. Like their neighbors, they viewed early Western encroachments as little more than a curious intellectual challenge on the far horizon. Only in its later stages did the inexorable pressure from the West appear as a true threat. In 1832, the British East India Company sent the merchant ship Lord Amherst along the northern shores of China in search of new markets. That year, the ship appeared off the coast of Chungchong Province in an unsuccessful bid to open trade with Choson. Among the passengers was the German missionary Reverend Karl Gutzlaff, who served as interpreter for the mission. Despite the ship's month-long stay, the Choson royal court dutifully refused to enter into any commercial agreement with the British. Reverend Gutzlaff did not document any conversions during his brief visit to Choson, but he did give the Choson people some religious tracts and a Chinese translation of the Bible he had obtained from Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China. On his departure, Gutzlaff wrote: In the great plan of the eternal God, there will be a time of merciful visitation for them. While we look for this, we ought to be very anxious to hasten its approach by diffusing the glorious doctrine of the cross by all means in our power ... The Scripture teaches us to believe that God can bless even these feeble beginnings. Let us hope that better days will soon dawn for Corea. The next noteworthy visit from the West came in connection with the Catholic persecutions underway in Choson. Just before his execution in Saenamt'o on September 21, 1839, Bishop Laurent Marie Joseph Imbert wrote a detailed letter describing events in Choson. One of Choson's faithful converts smuggled the bishop's letter into China and delivered it to the Bishop of Beijing along with news of the execution of three French priests. In 1845, a British warship not only asked for trade relations, but spent over a month sailing the southern waters between Cheju Island and the south Cholla coast, surveying the island-studded waterways to make navigation charts. These ships and the others that followed were all turned away with the same response; it was illegal to allow foreigners to enter Choson. The following year, largely in response to the circumstances described in Bishop Imbert's letter, a squadron of three French warships under the command of Admiral Cècile anchored off the Chungchong coast. Admiral Cècile left a letter to be forwarded to King Honjong stating that he expected to receive an explanation for the deaths of French citizens in Choson. The following year the French frigate La Gloire and the corvette La Victorieuse returned to Choson as promised for the reply, but one ship was damaged when it ran aground on rocks along the coast off Cholla Province and the other returned to China, failing to accomplish its mission. Despite occasional visits by foreign ships, Choson had far less contact with the Western world than either China or Japan. By Chinese standards at least, Choson was a small country that could not fend off foreign encroachment without Chinese support. Choson lived under the secure shelter of the power of China's Qing dynasty for centuries and kept a watchful eye on international developments through its tribute missions to Edo and Beijing. What it saw was a world torn asunder by Western encroachments. Choson viewed China's broadened diplomatic and trade relations with Western powers with strong disapproval and suspicion. The strong anti-Manchu sentiment among Choson officials led them to believe that China's "deplorable" state of affairs resulted from the depravity of men such as Prince Gong, head of the Zongli Yamen - China's Foreign Office - in Tianjin. Choson was determined not to follow China's lead and enter into relations with Western "barbarians." The Arrow Incident, China's defeat in the Opium Wars, the opening of Japan, the humiliating treaties forced on China, and the subsequent outbreak of the Taiping Rebellion were alarming events, but none of them unduly shook King Cholchong or the royal court's faith in the might of the Manchu dynasty. The joint occupation of Tianjin and Beijing by a French-British task force, the destruction of the Emperor's Summer Palace at Yuan Ming Yuan and the flight of the Qing Imperial Court to Chengde in 1860 came as a great shock to the Choson government. Some government leaders in Seoul warned that should the Qing imperial homeland of Manchuria become untenable in the face of the advancing foreigners, the fleeing Qing emperor might seek refuge on Choson soil. They feared that such an outcome would inevitably bring Chinese interference in Choson's affairs and might even invite Western attacks on the peninsula. Nearer to home, the exodus of peasants across the border into Russian territory increased concerns among many court officials in Seoul who reacted by advocating military preparedness. Fearing collusion between these "renegades" and the Russians, the Choson government tightened its border defenses and ordered frontier officials to keep foreigners out of the country. Whenever Russians came to the border to demand trade, alarmed officials refused to talk with them. Furthermore, they arrested and executed anyone who allegedly aided the intruders. The Seoul government repeatedly appealed to China to check Russian activities along Choson's northern border. The Zongli Yamen regularly refused all requests from the Qing Board of Rites to take up the matter with the Russians, saying that was Seoul's responsibility. Nevertheless, Choson preferred to have China deal with this troublesome issue and continued to refer the matter to Beijing. In contrast to their traditional eagerness to maintain close ties with China, Choson remained aloof toward Japan. There was little in the history of relations between the two countries that endeared Japan to Choson and it never ceased to regard the Japanese as untrustworthy marauders with whom they should have as little contact as necessary. There was also the strong belief that Choson had little to gain from Japan, either culturally or materially. External pressure against Choson increased at the very time it was suffering the internal burdens of a gradual collapse that had been underway since the eighteenth century; the disintegration of its traditional class structure, the arbitrary rule and power of the royal in-law lineages and the ineffectiveness of its political institutions. The yangban class was dissolving and Confucianism, the foundation of social life, made no provision for this kind of collapse. Confucianism was gradually becoming irrelevant to a society now in the process of irreversible change and it was nothing short of heresy to even admit that such a situation could occur. The country was preoccupied with factional politics, recurring spasms of social unrest, government corruption, and the growing problem of conflicting religious and political ideologies all competing for attention. Choson rapidly declined after the brilliant rule of the Yi Dynasty's last two great kings: Yongjo (r. 1724-1776) and his grandson Chongjo (r. 1776-1800). Subsequent monarchs ruled as mere puppets; easily manipulated boy-kings enmeshed in the heated political struggle between the Andong Kim clan and the P'ung'yang Cho clan. At a time when a ruler of great skill and vision was needed, the unsophisticated King Cholchong proved unequal to the task at hand. Although King Cholchong ruled the country for thirteen years, until his dying day he never learned how to move with dignity or to wear royal clothes. Even when dressed in the most luxurious robes, he looked like a fisherman. Firmly set in the rigid discipline of court ceremonial rituals and the indulgent luxury of the palace, he was unable to manage the dilemma facing his nation. The former farm boy from Kanghwa Island died in December 1863, reportedly from the effects of alcoholism. Dowager Queen Kim died several years earlier and Cholchong's only heir was a daughter. His death set the faction-divided royal court into turmoil. Yi Haung, the impoverished fourth son of Yi Chae-jung (Prince Namyon) and a direct descendant of Grand Prince Inp'yong, had spent much of his younger years patronizing cheap bars, singing and drinking with the lower classes. He thought nothing of attending a peasant's wedding and singing for the guests. Despite his status as a representative of the royal family, his licentious, scandalous behavior earned him an infamous reputation as a womanizer. He also had the image of a street beggar who frequently visited the homes of members of the Kim clan asking for handouts. Many suspect he intentionally crafted this image for protection to conceal his ambitions from prying eyes in the Andong Kim clan. Among the three surviving dowagers in the royal family, the aging Dowager Queen Cho Sin-chong, the mother of former King Honjong, became the most influential voice in the royal clan. A daughter of the P'ung'yang Cho clan, she was determined to strengthen the influence of her own male relatives in the Choson monarchy. The Andong Kims had reduced the P'ung'yang Cho clan to a nearly forgotten status and Dowager Queen Cho dreamed of revenge. Yi Haung was well aware that she would be responsible for naming King Cholchong's heir-apparent and cleverly approached two of the queen's young nephews with a plan to make his own son the next king. He assured the two men that, above all else, he wanted to put an end to the rule of the disgraceful Andong Kim clan. Empowered by tradition to name a successor, Dowager Queen Cho called a meeting of all the top administrators of the court. In the deliberations, she turned to the family with the closest ties to the royal main line and reportedly made a secret pact with Yi Haung. Yi Haung's direct lineage made his standing within the royal clan more a matter of "adoption" than a direct blood-line descendant, but his marriage to a woman of the Yohung Min clan established a tie to the future king that offered Dowager Queen Cho an enticing opportunity to end court dominance by her enemies in the palace, the Andong Kims. King Cholchong's death came so suddenly, and Dowager Queen Cho acted so quickly, the Andong Kim clan had no time to propose a mutually satisfactory candidate. In early 1864, Dowager Queen Cho reportedly made a secret pact with Yi Haung and selected his twelve-year-old second son, Yi Myongbok, a boy with absolutely no ties with the Andong Kims, to be Choson's new king. Declaring the young Prince Myongbok to be the adopted son of lkchong, her late husband, and not the son of the late Cholchong, she quickly maneuvered the boy onto the Phoenix Throne as King Kojong, the twenty-sixth ruler of Choson. The lineage tie to King Kojong through Yi Haung's wife brought the once powerful Mins back into power in the Yi court. Dowager Queen Cho had no interest in the day-to-day exercise of power. She assumed the position of Regent for the young king and invited Yi Haung to assist her during his son's minority. Yi Haung took to the new post as though he had already become a high-ranking and dignified personage. Though short in stature, he possessed a strong will and a sharp wit. He had an excellent education and a charismatic personality that affected everyone around him. He spoke with conviction, yet somehow no one questioned his haughtiness and authoritarian demeanor. As the living father of a Choson king, Yi Haung was given the title Hungson Taewongun, "Prince Regent of the Great Court." From a humble and rather unconventional background, this former drunkard and distant cousin of a former king enjoyed the honor traditionally accorded the uncrowned father of a Yi king. Just three years after his son ascended the throne, the Taewongun decided it was time for the young ruler to get married. In order to solidify his choice to both the royal court and the people, he diligently sought out a woman of noble lineage without close relatives who would harbor political ambitions. After rejecting candidates one by one, Yi Haung's wife suggested a bride from her own clan, the Mins. She described as a beautiful, healthy sixteen-year-old girl with an education that compared with the most noble yangban. Furthermore, she was an orphan. The Taewongun approved Min Chi-rok's daughter as a wise choice, since daughters of the Min clan had married into the royal lineage as far back as the reign of King T'aejong. Dowager Queen Cho Sin-chong, the most senior member of the royal family, ordered the Board for Ceremonies, Yejo, to prepare for a royal marriage at the Changdok Palace. To ensure the king's future bride would neither marry nor become engaged before she was picked, the Board for Ceremonies banned all girls of the proper age from marrying. Once the selection process to pick the new queen was finished, the ban was lifted. In the spring of 1866, King Kojong married Min Chi-rok's daughter The young queen endured the long and arduous ceremonies of the royal wedding and coronation without the slightest complaint. Without a father or brothers to provide support, she appeared to steel herself with an iron will and the patience to endure all problems with dignity. She demonstrated the poise and manners necessary for a queen and spent all her time practicing her new skills without wavering in the slightest. She soon became expert at obeying every restriction imposed by the court and never showed distress or anxiety. She was respectful to her in-laws, kind to palace servants and eventually won everyone's praise. During the early years of her marriage, she spent a great deal of time watching her husband. She discovered early that although Kojong was king, it was Yi Haung, the Taewongun, who was the real ruling power in Choson. Worse, his son feared him. Exercising authority as the kingdom's de facto ruler, Yi Haung became the first and only Yi Dynasty ruler to seriously attempt to introduce wide-ranging reforms while simultaneously preserving the ancient order of Choson society. He left such a strong impression on his contemporaries and Choson history that, even though other men carried his official title at other times, it has become permanently and personally associated with him. To this day, Yi Haung is known as the Taewongun.
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