Ch 22 - Resistance to Change

A Tragic Irony

Queen Min's clan became the focal point for political dominance in Seoul at a time when China and Japan began maneuvering for influence in Korea. Yi Haung, the Hungson Taewongun, fell from power amidst signs that his country's long-standing isolationist and vigorously anti-Western position was starting to unravel.

Although the Taewongun's isolationist policy was generally well received in Korea, many of his other domestic policies and actions were not. The oppressive taxation imposed to finance his reconstruction projects, monetary inflation, the imposition of the military tax on the yangban, shutting down the sowon, and the fall from power of the Andong Kim clan had made him some powerful enemies. His hideous anti-Christian persecutions, including some large-scale killings, filled the people with both fear and horror.

The Taewongun planted the seeds of his own destruction at the very time he came to power. Fully aware of the danger posed by the relatives of Korea's queens, particularly in a strong administration, he chose his son's wife with great care. King Kojong married a young girl from the Yohung Min clan, the same clan to which the Taewongun's wife belonged, a clan that lacked any powerful political connections. The Taewongun believed that because she lost her parents as a child, this girl would be unable to form any kind of strong in-law faction in the royal court. In marrying this girl to his son however, he unknowingly placed at the very center of government power the child who would become Queen Min, an intelligent, energetic and ambitious woman. Among the more powerful voices now calling for change in Korea were those of the Min clan.

Opposition to the Taewongun's regime surfaced early in his tenure as co-regent under Dowager Queen Cho, but not until 1866 did hardened opposition really began. Yi Hang-no, one of Korea's Confucian intellectual giants, was a gifted and talented man whose fame attracted a large following of Confucian scholars from across the country. Yi and his followers revived and led what is sometimes called the movement "to revere China and expel the barbarians." Within days after the French landings on Kanghwa Island, the Taewongun appointed Yi Hang-no to the influential post of Associate Assistant Secretary to the Royal Secretariat. Just four days after his appointment, Yi submitted a memorial to advise King Kojong on how to rule the country during the invasion and to suggest measures that should be taken to deal with both Christianity and the missionaries. Of significance however, he also took the opportunity to sharply criticize the Taewongun's financial and tax policies and his extravagant reconstruction of Kyongbok Palace. This was the first overt criticism of the Taewongun by a government official.

Yi Hang-no retired from his post after only about one month in office and in April 1868, the seventy-year-old scholar died in his native home at Pyokkye. In the minds of his faithful disciples however, his views remained alive. Foremost among these men was the thirty-five-year-old scholar Choe Ik-hyon, recalled to government service by the growing Queen Min faction and appointed inspector in the Censorate. Following his mentor's footsteps, Choe opened his own attack against the Taewongun in November 1868, by presenting the first of a series of memorials directing the king's attention to urgent matters of state. Almost immediately the Taewongun ordered a written response to the charges and demanded Choe's banishment. King Kojong was reaching the age of maturity and would soon rightly take the formal reigns of the Korean government. Rather than punish Choe, the king promoted him by special decree to a senior post in the Council of Royal Kinsmen. Kojong's action indicated a thinly veiled enmity growing between the Taewongun and the emerging Queen Min faction which the king supported. In November 1869, Choe was appointed to the post formerly held by Yi Hang-no in the Royal secretariat.

Choe Ik-hyon's second memorial was prepared in December 1873; a slanderous and stinging attack against the Taewongun, which set forth at great length all the Taewongun's shortcomings and prior abusive actions. In a not so subtle reference to the Taewongun, Choe wrote of those officials entrusted with state affairs,

"They are the ones who obscured Your Majesty's sageness, wielded power and amassed fortunes ...I pray Your Majesty may ...exert the power of the sovereign,... strive diligently, be alert to [the dangers of] heretical doctrines and to being misled by men of power."

Enraged by the content of the document, the Taewongun warned Choe that his words were too improper to be presented and that he should resign from office. Otherwise, he threatened, the government would take action against him. When King Kojong read the memorial he praised it as a "manifestation of true loyalty."

The day after the document was made public many of the Taewongun's supporters reacted by resigning from government and launching a massive counter-attack against Choe. The denunciations and demands for Choe's punishment were all rejected by the young king. The unrelenting pressure finally forced Kojong to yield. On December 25, Choe Ik-hyon was arrested and brought to trial. Despite the cries for harsher punishment, Choe was banished to Cheju Island.

The first wave of counterattacks triggered an avalanche of denunciations against the Taewongun from those who had remained silent in the past. King Kojong and the Min clan took full advantage of the opportunity and began to reclaim the reigns of government. Little by little, the chief posts in the Yi government were taken over by members of Queen Min's faction and the opportunists associated with them. Under intense pressure and with many of his political supporters gone from the political scene, the Taewongun had little choice but to resign his position. He quietly left the capital to retire to his mountain estate at Yangju.

With the end of Taewongun's active role in Korea's political life, the way was opened to hasten the abandonment of Korea's isolationist policy. The crisis in Japan ended with the defeat of the "conquest of Korea" advocates led by Saigo Takamori; the upheavals in Korea ended with the retirement of the Taewongun. The fateful events in Japan and Korea in 1873 removed from power the two men most likely to trigger a war between them.

As the Meiji Restoration in Japan so clearly showed, only a dynamic society with rapidly expanding commerce and industry could successfully oppose the increasing pressure from the West. The Taewongun, whether unable or unwilling to see this fact, could only answer the challenge by attempting to completely isolate Korea from the outside world, refusing all foreign contact and violently suppressing all foreign ideas at home.

It is true beyond doubt that a great many people suffered and died under the rule of Yi Haung, but consider the background. The Taewongun hurt Korea not so much because he was a power-hungry tyrant, but because he was an idealist. Unfortunately, the sins of a misguided idealist can do far more damage than those of a designing criminal. Yi Haung embodied all the virtues of Korea's Confucian tradition. In his desire to create a society based on the tenets of the great Chinese sage Confucius, he remained honest, dedicated and uncompromising.

The Taewongun also had a darker side;  the defects of Confucian thought that gave him such a rigid mindset mind and made him resistant to change. When reality conflicted with his own beliefs, he staunchly refused to face it. The tragic irony of Yi-Haung's life is that he came to power at a time when the very ideals in which he believed so sincerely had become outmoded. History passed him by before he was born and he never knew it.

There was no basic difference among the Taewongun, King Kojong, his new ministers, and the literati regarding the fundamental concept, ideology and goal of Korea's foreign policy. The issue of opening Korea produced sharp internal divisions in the country. On one side of the issue stood the Taewongun, staunchly isolationist and vigorously anti-Western. He was opposed by a growing number of scholars, intellectuals and professionals alike, who had been arguing since the late eighteenth century that only by developing trade relations with Japan and the West could Korea become a rich and powerful nation.

With increasingly powerful voices, Korean scholars argued that Korea must engage in foreign commerce and initiate a process of enlightened reform. These men were not concerned with merely acquiring wealth through foreign trade;  they were eager to introduce Western technology to Korea. Neither Kojong nor his ministers had any intention of opening the country to the West, nor did they intend to broaden or substantially change Korea's traditional relations with Japan. While the Taewongun believed that Korea had sufficient military strength to hold out against the West, King Kojong and his ministers, greatly concerned about China's inability to expel the Western barbarians, had a more realistic appreciation of Korea's relative strength.

The Taewongun left a legacy of deep suspicion and antipathy toward Japan's adoption of Western arms, technology, and institutions. Because he had always regarded Japan's discarding tradition and its "collaboration" with the West as a threat to the traditional order in East Asia, he rejected compromise or accommodation with Japan on any issue, however minor or trivial. King Kojong and his ministers shared that fear and distrust, but unlike the Taewongun, the young king was a curious and pragmatic ruler. Even during the rule of his father, Kojong showed a strong interest in the reports brought back to Seoul by various missions to Beijing. In wide-ranging discussions with mission envoys, Kojong learned of Chinese domestic affairs compared to conditions in Korea;  China's attitude toward the West and the activities of Western barbarians in Beijing;  China's foreign trade;  Japan's westernization and the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1871. This education left its mark upon the young king, who was eager to broaden his knowledge about foreign matters and widen his perspective on Korea.

Not all reports brought good news. On May 15, 1874, the chief envoy of the Winter Solstice Mission to Beijing reported to King Kojong that the Japanese envoy to China had been received in audience by the Qing emperor on the same footing as his Western colleagues. Furthermore, Japan was opening a legation in the Chinese capital. As Kojong contemplated the decline of China's political status in the years following its defeat by the West in 1860, he concluded that Beijing's diplomatic conciliation was a show of weakness toward foreigners. It undoubtedly led the king and his advisers to suspect that China's preoccupation with the West might well affect its commitments to Korea.

In contrast to the Taewongun's strident exclusionist policy, King Kojong developed a political perspective that called for a more flexible approach to foreign affairs. Longheld traditions are difficult to overcome. A new perspective was one thing. Translating that perspective into concrete action was another. The Japanese anxiously followed developments in Korea, carefully watching for any opportunity that might afford them a foot in the door on the peninsula. The departure of the Taewongun from power provided just the opening Japan needed to pursue its plans.