Ch 26 - Coup d`état and International Rivalries

Gentlemen's Games

Chinese General General Yuan Shih-k'ai manuevered to weaken King Kojong's power while acting to increase China's grip on the peninsula whenever and wherever he could.

October 3, 1885, was a day of notable arrivals at Inchon. Russia's consul general and chargé d'affaires Karl Waeber arrived to exchange ratifications of the Russian-Korean Treaty of Amity and Commerce signed in July 1884. The second arrival was a lone Chinese gunboat carrying Korea's former Prince Regent, the Taewongun. In an effort admittedly aimed at regaining Korea's favor, Viceroy Li Hongzhang ordered the Taewongun moved from Baoding to Tianjin, where General Yuan Shih-k'ai escorted the Taewongun back to his homeland. Despite strong opposition from Min Yong-ik, Queen Min's cousin and the most influential member of her clique, China returned the Taewongun to Seoul.

Guarded by forty Chinese marines and followed by a multitude of well-wishers, the Taewongun made his festive entrance into Seoul on October 5. Min clan spokesmen convinced Kojong and the government to keep his reception a subdued affair. As if to distract attention from the Taewongun's arrival, Queen Min suddenly charged three of the Taewongun's former supporters with having aided him three years earlier in the aborted attempt on her life. On her orders, the men were beheaded and dismembered in the streets. After four days of civil unrest over the incident, the Chinese garrison quelled the disturbances and blocked further executions.

Russian Minister Karl Waeber took up temporary residence in Seoul on October 6 and spent a good deal of time at the royal court trying to promote support for Russia in the Yi government. He had orders not to discuss the question of a Russian protectorate or the dispatch of Russian instructors. If the subject ever came up, he was instructed to forward the matter to St. Petersburg. Through his direct access to King Kojong, the extraordinarily capable diplomat gradually increased his influence in the Yi court. Unlike Paul George von Mollendorff, Waeber's manner and tone well-pleased the Yi government and negotiations with Kim Yun-sik went smoothly. The two exchanged the treaty ratifications on October 16, 1885.

Having impressed the Yi government with his negotiating style, Waeber again attempted to convince the Korean Foreign Office of the need to select the site for a trading post and draw up regulations for overland trade between Korea and Russia. He didn't press the issue very hard and the matter was postponed until adequate maps of the area could be made. China opposed the establishment of any such trading post in Korea. A faction in the Seoul government deeply suspected Russian motives for giving refuge to an estimated 20,000 to 40,000 Korean economic and political refugees in the southern Ussuri Maritime Region .

On October 30, an imperial edict appointed General Yuan Shih-k'ai to the position of Prefect in Seoul, a much lower rank than other Chinese ministers sent abroad at that time. Yuan, like von Mollendorff, was an ambitious man with his own ideas about Korea's future. From the time he took charge of diplomatic and commercial affairs in Seoul on November 16, Yuan created the impression that he was the Chinese Resident in Korea with power akin to that of the British Resident General in India. His calling card bore the pompous English title "Director-General Resident in Korea of Diplomatic and Commercial Relations." At first, foreign representatives simply assumed that Yuan was the Chinese Resident.

It didn't take long however, for Yuan Shih-k'ai's rather eccentric, undiplomatic behavior to raise eyebrows around Seoul, not to mention suspicions. He flaunted his status with other diplomats by sending a subordinate to take notes at diplomatic meetings instead of attending himself. He often attempted to make the rest of the diplomatic community look foolish and unimportant. The young general arrived at the palace carried on a covered chair, unlike the other diplomats who were forced to enter the palace on foot, even in the worst of weather. Such behavior generated a fair amount of ridicule directed at the young Chinese general.

In an article published in an English language newspaper in October 1886, one Western author wrote,

The Chinese Resident, Yuan, still continues to gain notoriety here by his strange actions. His last freak was to build a wall 60 ft. X 40 ft., in front of his residence, in the heart of Seoul;  and he has now painted upon it, in most of the colours of the rainbow, a species of antediluvian animal, with its mouth open, about to swallow the sun, on one side; and on the other side a representation of a "setting sun," -- the former probably meant to represent China, and the latter Japan.

As the senior foreign diplomat in Korea, Yuan Shih-k'ai, the held a great deal of power. Although many laughed at his odd behavior, everyone had a certain degree of justifiable fear of the man. Ambitious and ruthless, his quick and merciless administration of justice caused his own people to fear him. He allegedly ordered the summary execution of numerous Chinese citizens in Seoul for crimes against Korean law or against each other. He even tried, often without success, to impose the death sentence on Korean officials who crossed him. Seoul's diplomatic community resented his presence and soon refused to accept his rank of "Resident."

King Kojong deeply resented China's unprecedented interference in Korea and felt angered by Japanese behavior in Korea following the failed coup attempt in 1884. Looking towards Russia as a possible protector of Korean interests, King Kojong and von Mollendorff were badly misinformed about Russia's capacity and willingness to get involved in Korea's affairs, misconceptions that laid the foundation for the king's life-long "pro-Russian" sympathies.

In Russia, Paul George von Mollendorff represented an unknown world. He tried to express the realities of an Asian culture in his communications with Russian officials using European languages - mainly German, sometimes English and French - which had no way to accurately express those realities. In Russian, the words "pro-Russian" mean "acting for Russian interests." King Kojong and von Mollendorff were "pro-Russian" only in the sense that both men believed that Russia might be in a position to help Korea to become truly independent of China.

In Yuan Shih-k'ai's mind, King Kojong was a weak, "dim-witted monarch," dominated by the "obstinate and stubborn'' Queen Min. Yuan tried to weaken royal authority in the eyes of government officials and the Korean people by constantly portraying himself as the king's equal, if not his superior. To show his disrespect, he remained seated and refused to stand in the presence of King Kojong. He often berated the king and queen and scolded them for their treatment of the Taewongun, then being held in China.

Yuan Shih-k'ai found Korea's increasingly independent behavior in foreign affairs particularly disturbing. He and Viceroy Li Hongzhang believed that China's continued "hands-off" policy toward Korea would only weaken Chinese security interests in northeast Asia. Yuan dreaded the growing influence of Russian and American representatives in Seoul. Early in 1886, he wrote the Chinese Foreign Office that communications from Kojong to the Qing government were rapidly diminishing at the same time Korea's actions were growing more independent than ever.

The long-standing friendship between Denny and Waeber, both of whom supported an independent Korea, added to Yuan's apprehension. On August 5, Yuan recommended to Viceroy Li that China should preempt the Russians from taking any action by quickly annexing Korea. As a first step, he urged that China should seize King Kojong, Queen Min and the Crown Prince, deport them to China, and return power to the Taewongun.

Yuan stunned Seoul's diplomatic community on August 13 when he reported the existence of a secret agreement between Korean officials and the Russian minister to Li Hongzhang. The agreement would make Korea a Russian protectorate, thus allowing it to finally break all ties with China. This "official document" was allegedly forwarded to Karl Waeber through the Home Office instead of the Foreign Office, an office noted for its pro-Chinese sympathies. The document bore the royal seal and the seal of the president of the Home Office, which gave Yuan reason to think that Kojong himself was involved. If true, claimed Yuan, then immediate Chinese intervention seemed necessary to protect China's dominant position in Korea.

Li immediately recognized the seriousness of the charges leveled by Yuan Shih-k'ai and acted accordingly. He instructed China's minister in St. Petersburg to advise the Russians to ignore any such appeal from Korea, since it would only serve to increase the level of Chinese action in the peninsula. He dispatched one of his ministers to Seoul to personally investigate Yuan's charges and put the Qing Navy on alert for departure to the waters off Korea. On August 16, Li telegraphed his friend Owen Denny, asking him to look into the affair and report his findings back to Tianjin.

On the day Yuan Shih-k'ai sent his communique to Li in Tianjin, Min Yong-ik excitedly informed Kojong he had learned from Chinese sources that some Korean official had telegraphed the Chinese viceroy that Korea "no longer desired the old relations with China." Soon afterwards, Yuan arrived in the halls of government and confronted both Minister Waeber and King Kojong with the charge of a secret agreement with the Russians. Both men denied the existence of any such an agreement. Yuan then threatened the bewildered monarch with the Chinese army and vehemently upbraided him for having approached Russia with the request for a protectorate. Becoming so excited he nearly came to blows, Yuan swore that he would replace Kojong with the Taewongun should he ever ask for Russian aid again.

Owen Denny visited Yuan's office in the Chinese legation building on August 16 and found him in a state of high anxiety, excitedly haranguing a group of high-ranking Korean officials. Yuan attempted to bully them into submission by claiming to have accurate knowledge of a written agreement bearing Kojong's seal that would place Korea under a Russian protectorate. Yuan wildly declared that China would stop such a move by sending troops to the peninsula when he gave the word and that he would die fighting. Fuming at the men, he waved a false telegram from Beijing which claimed, "Seventy-two battalions of Chinese army boarded ships this noon and are coming to Seoul for an investigation."

Owen Denny interpreted Yuan's stunning performance as an act and admonished the young general for his excitement, claiming that it accomplished nothing but provoking disorders that endangered the lives of foreigners. He insisted to the Chinese resident's face that if such a document actually existed it must be a forgery. Yuan was known for having resorted to forgeries of other documents in the past that proved useful to his diplomatic efforts and Denny was convinced he had done it again.

Yuan Shih-k'ai tried to shift the focus of Denny's attack by asserting that he first learned of these intrigues from China and had been chided by Li for not knowing what was going on in Korea. Denny bluntly charged that the Qing government had discovered no such secret agreement and that Yuan himself was the source of China's information. Denny accused Yuan of inventing, then telegraphing the so-called "secret agreement" to Li along with his own erroneous assumptions. Denny fully believed that Yuan was deeply involved in this ruse and that a Chinese move against Kojong would result in the slaughter of every foreigner in Seoul.

Yuan's charges and the resulting flurry of activity in Seoul had a dramatic effect on the Yi court and created an atmosphere of anticipation and fear. Within twenty-four hours, the government arrested four noted anti-Chinese palace officials, each carefully singled out as a close associate of a foreign representative. The men, including the liaison officer between Owen Denny and the king, were sentenced to death for their alleged complicity in framing a purported secret agreement with Russia. Karl Waeber hesitated to intervene on the men's behalf out of fear it might support the existence of a Russian agreement with Korea. Japan's Minister Inoue Kaoru remained committed to a "wait and see" policy. The British consul general sided with the Chinese position and the American minister lay in his quarters in a drunken stupor. It was left to Denny, Merrill and Dr. Horace Allen, a Presbyterian missionary doctor, to strongly protest the impending executions of innocent men. After personally pleading the men's case with King Kojong, they managed to get the sentences reduced to banishment.

Between 1885 and 1893, General Yuan rose to become the single most powerful personage in Korea by expanding Chinese influence whenever and wherever he could. Under Yuan's protection, the Chinese merchants who inundated both Seoul and the surrounding countryside profited handsomely from both Japanese and Korean businessmen. The rising mood of ill will toward the Chinese forced General Yuan Shih-k'ai to pull the Chinese residents in Seoul together into a single community for their own protection, thereby creating Seoul's "Chinatown." He sought to preserve the traditional forms of Chinese suzerainty throughout his tenure in Seoul. The young, brash, energetic general quickly came to dominate the Yi royal court, the customs, trade and telegraphic services.

To China's surprise, Owen Denny took the same position as his predecessor, Paul George von Mollendorff. Denny unexpectedly advocated ties with Russia as the best way to end Chinese interference in Korea and eliminate Yuan Shih-k'ai's ruinous and far-reaching influence in Seoul. American diplomats and missionaries, among others, benevolently fostered Korean independence, all the while unaware that Yuan was actually furthering Japanese interests. Neither General Yuan nor Li Hongzhang realized at the time that their new policy of exclusive control in Korea actually reversed their earlier policy of introducing Western influence as a counter to the Japanese.

Yuan's frustrated attempt to dethrone King Kojong had put Japan on its guard. Realizing the detrimental effect that Western influence in Korea would have on its own interests, Japan decided to encourage China to strengthen its control in Korea. The Japanese assumed that if China succeeded in curtailing foreign influences in Korea, then Japan would have only China to deal with in the future.

The Yi Government lacked any kind of coherent policy to deal with the conflicting ambitions of great foreign powers besieging the country. Faced with a serious menace from the outside world, King Kojong and the Min clan oligarchs could think of little else beyond maintaining themselves in power. Instead of seeking the support of the Korean people, they sought the backing of foreign states. In 1887 Korea sent a specially empowered envoy, Pak Chong-yang, to the United States and charged him with fostering closer relations between America and Korea.

With tensions on the rise between China and Japan over Korea's future, Russia took the stance of confining itself to "preventing any violation of the territorial integrity of Korea in accordance with the Tianjin agreement of 1886." If Korea ever decided to seek the exclusive protection of Russia, the tsarist government in St. Petersburg would decline and recommend a multinational approach for such protection. This new policy however, did not prevent the Russians from developing closer commercial ties with Korea. Owen Denny and Karl Waeber reached a trade agreement which reflected the new limitations of Russian interest in Korea.

On August 20, 1888, Owen Denny, Karl Waeber and Cho Pyong-sik signed the Regulations for Frontier Trade on the Tumen River, a purely commercial treaty with no political or military arrangements. The treaty opened the border town of Kyonghung near the Russian border to trade between the two countries. It set a 5 percent tariff rate on imports and exports brought into Kyonghung by Koreans, while goods carried by ship remained subject to existing maritime tariffs. The treaty also contained several general stipulations that included the establishment of a Russian vice-consulate at Kyonghung, the freedom for Russians to live in an extraterritorial settlement there, freedom of religion, and full navigation rights for Russian ships on the Tumen River.

Japanese economic penetration contributed to the further erosion of Korea's village economy. The introduction of large-scale fishing techniques to the waters off Korea robbed local fishermen of their livelihood. Japanese merchant vessels ruined the carriage trade as they strengthened their dominant position in shipping. At Japan's insistence, the Yi government ordered the use of steamboats to transport tax grains in 1886.

After the government established a bureau with responsibility for maritime shipping, the Korean Home Ministry hired Owen Denny to assist it in negotiating the purchase of the freighter Shima Maru from Japan's Nippon Yusen Kaisha Steamship Company. Korea soon bought three more modern steam-powered vessels and began providing shipping services. While it certainly created a more efficient way to move large volumes of grain, it also cost many people their jobs and increased transportation costs in the bargain. As a consequence, the retail price of rice rose steeply, as did the cost of such daily necessities as textiles, kerosene and kitchen utensils, many of which were now imported.

By the early 1890s, Japan stood as an unrivaled economic power in Korea and Japanese businesses and merchants literally dominated the open ports of Inchon, Pusan and Wonsan. For example, the Japanese owned and operated 210 of the 258 businesses operating in Korea in 1896. Japan enjoyed a strong lead in the number of merchant ships entering Korean ports and held a significant share of the total volume of Korea's foreign trade. Korea's principal import, cotton cloth, arrived from both China and Japan, but Chinese merchants simply re-exported English cotton goods. In 1893, 72% of all merchant ships and 78% of the gross tonnage that entered Korean ports came from Japan. The Japanese held sway over slightly more than 50% of Korea's import market, bringing in such goods as cotton, kettles, pots and pans, farming tools, kerosene, dyestuffs, and salt. On the export side, over 90% of Korea's exports of rice, soybeans, gold, and cowhides went to Japan.

Living as they were in such dire circumstances, Korean peasants could not resist the glitter of Japanese goods. Shrewd, unscrupulous Japanese traders eagerly reaped their fortunes at the expense of the Korean peasant. Because the majority of Japanese traders came from the lawless or depressed elements of Japan's society, they quickly took advantage of the fact that villagers could only buy imports by selling their rice. Japanese traders eagerly loaned villagers the money to make purchases and at harvest time claimed part or even all the peasant's rice crop to repay the loan. The practice became so profitable that in time Japan came to depend on Korea for supplies of rice to feed the home islands.

Korea's chronic financial crisis worsened as the continuing international rivalries in Seoul set the Yi government further adrift. The economic development that followed the opening of treaty ports at Pusan, Inchon and Wonsan required new and heavy expenditures. Unfortunately, the inequities of the tax and land distribution systems implanted by the Taewongun led to a plethora of special exemptions, abandoned fields and outright tax evasion that drastically reduced government tax receipts.

The Korean government responded to the shortfall by using every conceivable pretext to impose fresh levies. As a result, the tax burden on the peasantry doubled or even tripled as local magistrates and their tax-collecting ajuns resorted to ever more harsh methods of extortion. With such treatment, the deeply-felt grievances harbored by the peasants toward the yangban rulers gave every indication of erupting into violence. Armed bandits raided markets and other distribution centers with an alarming frequency and popular uprisings broke out in many areas of the country.

In the end, the Korean peasant found himself not only heavily burdened by government taxes and the extortions of his own countrymen, but pushed further into destitution by the usurious interest extorted by profit-hungry Japanese merchants. Although the Yi government attempted to offer some protection by banning all rice exports from certain southern provinces, Japanese protests and a compromise settlement of the issue mediated by British and American interests rendered them virtually ineffective. Korean villages sank further into destitution as the economic tension between China and Japan contiued to build. A steadily growing hostility spread among the peasantry toward its exploiters, native-born and foreign alike.