Ch 23 - The Opening of Choson

The Unyo Maru Incident

Constantly rebuffed in its attempts to establish new relations with Korea, Japan decided to emulate the predatory tactics of western gunboat diplomacy. Japan created a deliberate naval confrontation with Korea at Kanghwa Island in the hope it would allow them to force their way into the Seoul court.

Under the guise of surveying sea routes for potential commerce, a Japanese survey ship accompanied by the gunboat Unyo Maru sailed unannounced into Pusan harbor on May 25, 1875. Two more warships arrived within two weeks. When local officials protested, Moriyama Shigeru explained the ships had merely brought orders from Tokyo instructing him to speed up negotiations with Seoul. The language officer and his aides demanded to inspect the ships. Moriyama consulted with the naval commanders and permitted the inspecting party to board the ships on June 14.

As Pusan's port officials cautiously walked the decks, two of the warships began a gunnery exercise. Great clouds of smoke roiled across the water as naval gun blasts shook the entire harbor, much to the dread and discomfort of the startled visitors. It was a most effective demonstration of Japan's naval power, a demonstration that would be quickly reported to the government in Seoul. Having made its point, the squadron left Pusan on June 20 and proceeded north along Korea's east coast to Yonghung Bay at Wonsan. After surveying new sea routes and charting possible approaches to the capital city of Seoul, the squadron returned to Nagasaki on July 1.

The Japanese naval demonstration in Pusan failed to soften Korea's stand as Moriyama had hoped. Moriyama spent the summer of 1875 urging the Foreign Ministry to take even more "drastic action" in Korea. The action came that fall in the form of yet another demonstration of Japanese naval power. On September 12, the Unyo Maru, under command of Commander Inoue Yoshika, sailed from Nagasaki to Korea and spent several days off the southwest coast. Inoue continued steaming north along Korea's west coast, reaching Choji Bay at the southern end of Kanghwa Island on September 20.

Commander Inoue knew the approaches to the Salee River (Salt River) were off-limits to foreign ships. This was the same area where Korean shore batteries fired on French and American ships a few years earlier. Commander Inoue and a landing party of some twenty men took a small boat ashore near the Choji-jin fortress, ostensibly to get drinking water. Predictably, the gunners at Choji-jin immediately fired on the landing party. Inoue's launch signaled for help and quickly withdrew in rough seas unscathed to the Unyo Maru. The gunboat returned fire, silencing the guns at Choji-jin and causing considerable damage to the fortress.

The Unyo Maru weighed anchor and headed south. As it steamed near Yongjong Island off Inchon, Commander Inoue decided to attack a small fort on the island "in retaliation" for violating the Japanese flag. The naval bombardment began without warning. After a brief shelling destroyed the fort's gun batteries, about thirty marines and sailors went ashore and stormed the weakly defended garrison by surprise. Yi Min-dok, commander of the Yongjong military district, fled in panic. Thirty five defenders were killed and scores wounded as Japanese troops looted and burned the garrison town and captured large quantities of weapons and power. After its troops returned with the day's booty, the Unyo Maru sailed for home, reaching Nagasaki on September 28.

Seoul knew its forces at Kanghwa and Yongjong had engaged a foreign ship, but because Yi Min-dok failed to report the encounter, no one realized until much later that it was a Japanese warship. When the State Council learned the details of the encounter, it shocked them into the realization that their country's defenses were not impenetrable after all. Those in the government who had opposed reconciliation with Japan felt fully vindicated by the episode and pushed new policy measures that combined Confucian values with exclusionist tenets;  "put the country in order internally and repel the foreigners externally" was the cry.

At the age of twenty, King Kojong yearned for his rightful power as king, but he feared a confrontation with his father. Kojong's proven inability to lead resulted in a rising clamor in the country for a return to the Taewongun's leadership. The young Queen Min and her relatives, whose own appetites for power were intensifying, saw his potential return to power as a serious threat. By 1874, she had managed to establish some thirty representatives of the Min clan in strategic positions within the government. Initially, the subtle growth of the anti-Taewongun movement remained invisible beyond the royal palace. One by one, impoverished yangban, even some of the Taewongun's close relatives, began to receive special attention from the queen. They were being groomed as the stone she was preparing to throw at her father-in-law.

Yi Haung's older brother, Yi Choe-ung, who had lived for years without receiving favors from the court, was easily swayed by the honors he received from Queen Min. Grateful for the attention, he became one of her most faithful servants. Following the Taewongun's forced retirement in 1873, Yi Choe-ung received an appointment to the post of Second State Councilor. Yi Jae-myon, the Taewongun's older son, whom he called "blockhead," was appointed to keep an eye on his father and report his behavior to the royal court, thus becoming a spy in his own family. The Taewongun badly underestimated the cunning nature of his daughter-in-law. She seemed to him to be primitive and incapable of masterminding political intrigue.

Queen Min attracted a number of prominent Confucian scholars to her cause. According to Korean law, anyone could address the king directly by writing a letter. Choe Ik-hyon sent a letter to King Kojong in October 1873, which accused the Taewongun of lacking virtue, which was causing great trouble among the people. The king was so impressed by the memorial, he appointed Choe to a high government position. The Taewongun's anger was already aroused when Choe wrote another memorial to the king the following month which stated,

The Taewongun is the father of the King, and it is the law to respect him, but he can't rule the country forever. The King has grown up and must take his throne himself.

The Taewongun responded by sending a group of men to kill the errant Confucian scholar, but before they could complete their assignment, King Kojong ordered Choe Ik-hyon into exile on Cheju Island for his own safety. On November 5, King Kojong issued a proclamation announcing he had taken the reins of power into his own hands. That same day, the palace entrance used by the Taewongun was bricked over.

A number of events following the Taewongun's retirement deepened the hostility and suspicion between the queen and her father-in-law, not the least of which was the assassination of Queen Min's adopted brother Min Sung-ho, Korea's Minister of War, in January 1875. A beautiful box was delivered to Min Sung-ho's house. When the box was opened, a deafening explosion occurred which killed Min, his mother and a small child. Although no clear evidence tied the Taewongun to the incident, the queen believed him to be responsible for her brother's death. The emerging power struggle within the court between Queen Min and her relatives and the Taewongun and his supporters had crucial implications for Korea.

In February 1874, Queen Min gave birth to a son, Prince Chok. If the Qing court invested the queen's son as Crown Prince, it would legitimize the infant's position as future king and further strengthen Queen Min's position, virtually ensuring her clan's continuation in power. The Yi court decided that, although Kojong was in his robust twenties and the boy was not yet one year old, they would petition Beijing for investiture of the queen's second son as heir to the throne. Queen Min and her relatives made their plans carefully, well-aware that once committed to this precarious course of action, they could not prudently disregard the wishes or advice of the Chinese authorities. Also, the slightest delay by the Qing court in granting their request would seriously weaken their position.

The task of securing investiture was assigned to former Chief State Councillor Yi Yu-won, who had earlier resigned under fire from a supporter of the Taewongun. Yi left Seoul on his crucial mission to Beijing on August 30, 1875, just one month after the Taewongun returned to the capital. During Yi Yu-won's journey to the Qing capital, the ever-present subject of Japan became a topic of conversation at nearly every stop. He talked with Yu Chih-k'ai, prefect of Yingping and a close associate of Viceroy Li Hongzhang, about Korea's current relations with Japan. Yu not only forwarded Yi's letter to the viceroy in Baoding, but took the opportunity to impart their views regarding Japan. In Mukden, Yi also spoke with the influential Manchu Chung-shin, military governor of Shengching. Chung expressed his concern over Japan's rapid acquisition of Western arms and technology and inquired about the steps Korea was taking to cope with the growing Japanese threat.

Yi Yu-won's arrival in China provided the Chinese authorities with a rare opportunity to impress upon Korea's royal court the wisdom and necessity of accommodation with Japan. Yi soon became the "unofficial" communication channel between Li Hongzhang and the Korean government; a convenient and useful device for both countries. It allowed China to avoid the appearance of interfering in the affairs of a tributary state and set no institutional precedent that would enable China to intervene in Korea's affairs.

Unlike the Taewongun's resolute stand against the French and American invasions, Kojong's government reacted with timidity, confusion and delay. It first responded to theUnyo Maru Incident by pretending ignorance of the national identity of the intruding vessel. Pak Kyusu, the court's only articulate advocate of improved relations with Japan, argued throughout the spring and summer of 1875 for acceptance of the Japanese letters. He wrote to the Taewongun and his brother, Second State Councilor Yi Choe-ung, urging the immediate restoration of relations with Japan. Fearing a Japanese retaliation if the documents were again rejected, Councilor Yi decided to follow Pak's advice and on December 12 recommended that the government reverse its earlier decision and accept the Japanese communications. Kojong approved and dispatched instructions to that effect to Pusan.

Unknown to either King Kojong or his government at the time, theUnyo Maru Incident was neither an accident nor a case of poor judgement by Commander Inoue. When Saigo Takamori learned of the incident, he remarked that it was a desperate plot of the Meiji government to avert a collapse at home. Minister of War Yamagata Aritomo charged the incident was plotted by a Satsuma clique within the Ministry of the Navy. On the basis of available evidence, it was a carefully scripted drama designed to provoke the very response it achieved. Commander Inoue Yoshika had proceeded to Kanghwa Island under orders to create an incident that could later become a pretext for "drastic action" in Korea. Given Korea's longstanding policy of shooting first and asking questions later, a deliberate violation of Korean territorial waters virtually guaranteed the Japanese a dramatic response;  precisely the kind of "drastic action" Moriyama had been urging throughout the summer.

Japan's diplomatic and military officials eagerly seized the opportunity. On October 9, the Foreign Ministry briefed British and French representatives in Tokyo on the Unyo Maru Incident and placed the blame squarely on Korea. One week later, a formal note was sent to all foreign diplomatic representatives in the Japanese capital to the same effect. The Zongli Yamen learned of the incident on October 13 in a letter from Tei Einei, Japan's chargé d'affaires in Beijing. The Yamen did not respond immediately to the news, but it did reconsider China's policy toward Korea. Tirelessly, Tei convinced the foreign representatives in Beijing to accept the Japanese version of the incident. He reported to Foreign Minister Terashima - no doubt with considerable satisfaction - that the foreign diplomats shared Japan's opinion that Korea was the attacker and that all blame should fall on Seoul. He also reportedly gathered from their remarks that, because the West had failed in the past to open the peninsula for trade, they would actually welcome Japanese efforts to open Korea.

The significance of the Unyo Maru Incident drew international attention to Japan's diplomatic and military involvement with Korea. Admiral Enomoto Takeaki, Japan's ambassador to Russia, immediately saw the military value of the incident. Convinced that neither Russia nor China would interfere, Enomoto deemed the event a casus belli that would give Japan a clear excuse to urge its terms on Korea. The serious situation it created in East Asia was grasped by virtually all foreign observers. American Minister John A. Bingham reported to Washington that "war may be declared by Japan against Corea [sic]" and he urged the United States should properly declare itself strictly neutral.