Ch 27 - Rebellion and Mounting Tensions

Rebels with a Cause

The Tonghak movement resurfaced in Korea in 1893 following repeated attempts to seek redress for their continued persecution. The Tonghak Rebellion gave both China and Japan an opportune excuse to put military troops on the peninsula.

In the waning years of the nineteenth century, the impotent Qing Empire stood on the brink of partition. France had already occupied Annam and lusted after southern China. The Russians had begun extending a railroad across Siberia and threatened China from the north. Japan maneuvered to remove Korea from the Chinese orbit. The British intimated that if China looked like it was falling apart it would be obliged to join the partition.

Much of the high-handed behavior of Chinese officials in Korea reflected the same self-confidence and xenophobia that gripped Chinese of all classes in the late nineteenth century. Uneducated peasants in both countries readily accepted even the most outlandish tales about the behavior of foreigners, whose appearance and ways of living were so different from their own. It puzzled them greatly that the Europeans had no cows, yet they still drank condensed milk from cans. The peasants believed that foreigners kidnaped women and cut off their breasts to fill the cans. Residents in Seoul were terribly upset during the summer of 1888 by a rumor that young children were being stolen from their parents and sold to the foreigners "to be eaten." Some even claimed to have seen children, bought from the American missionary schools and various Japanese agents, being boiled in the houses of Westerners. Anti-foreign sentiments appeared closely tied to the rise of anti-Christian activity in both China and Korea.

For twenty-five years Li Hongzhang had labored, with few resources other than his own wits and patience, to protect Chinese sovereignty from the pushy Westerners while he borrowed the money and machines needed to modernize from the same Westerners. Using intrigue, bribes and worse, he successfully countered Japanese influence at Seoul while encouraging Korea to make additional treaties and set the barbarians against one another. Unfortunately for Li, the more contact young Koreans had with foreigners, the more they yearned to modernize.

Growing dissatisfaction with the government led to an increase in political agitation in Seoul toward the end of 1891. Queen Min, said to be "the victim and dupe of quacks and sorceresses, " was the principal target of this furor. Rumors spread that she promoted her own family's interests at the expense of the country. For all his intelligence, King Kojong lacked the assertiveness to check the Min clan's ambitious drive for power and appeared to be too much under the queen's influence. The Yi government split in two directions, both of which were wrong. The absorption of the more lucrative and powerful offices by the Min clan led to jealousy and exasperation among the yangban. The general rapacity of the Min clan faction towards commoners and their extortion of taxes drove the peasants to utter despair. Neither group had any inducement to be either peaceable or law-abiding. The bold and strong-willed Queen Min had a strong attachment to her relatives and appeared not to appreciate the mounting danger from alienated yangban and Korea's peasants.

Dissatisfaction in Korea spread through virtually every level of society and grew worse over the years. On his departure from Korea, Russia's Alexis de Speyer commented,

It is difficult to imagine how terrible the condition of the Korean Kingdom is. The most widespread arbitrariness, lack of justice, extortion, corruption, bribery - all this is raised here to the level of principles of state.

As conditions in Korea deteriorated, the peasantry's deep hostility toward the yangban class and its resistance to the inroads of foreign powers rose, fueling public speculation about armed opposition to the government. Rumors flew through the diplomatic corps in Seoul about the likelihood of some kind of massive revolt. It was not long in coming.

The Tonghak movement went underground in 1864 following the execution of its founder, Choe Che-u. Choe Si-hyong, its second patriarch, systemically documented the tenets of the new Tonghak religion, helped to successfully establish a network of churches and parishes and formed a hierarchy of church leadership. The Tonghak Society's path to power was smoothed by a classic prophecy that held the ruling dynasty would be pulled from power by a man named Tei. The more educated leaders of the insurrection took advantage of such tales and soon began spreading a rumor that a mysterious teenager with that very name headed the Tonghak.

Given the disunity and fragmentation of the country at the time, economic and social aspirations soon became enmeshed with the spiritual and moral teachings of the religion. The entire mixture came to be known by the single epithet, the "Tonghak Rebellion." Like so many other revolutions, this one emerged from the dreams of those insecurely placed people at the bottom of the top and the top of the bottom of Korean society. The intellectuals began it, but somewhere along the line they met ordinary people with wrongs that needed to be righted. The explosive power of the "Tonghak Rebellion" erupted when the intellectual trying to save his soul encountered the common man looking for revenge and equality.

The growing significance of the Tonghak movement within Korean society made it the perfect vehicle for political action by opponents of the government. They channeled its energies into a drive to clear Choe Che-u's name of the false charges under which he had been sentenced to death. In 1892, at Samnye in Cholla province, local Tonghak adherents demanded that the governors of Cholla and Chungchong Provinces exonerate Choe Che-u and stop the suppression of their religion. The governors rejected the demand by claiming they lacked the authority to take such action. Nevertheless, they pledged to order local authorities to stop their persecution of Tonghak believers. The response settled nothing.

In 1892, local Tonghak adherents in Samnye in Cholla Province demanded the governors of Cholla and ChungChong Provinces exonerate Choe Che-a and stop the suppression of their religion. The officials rejected the demand by claiming they lacked the authority to take such action. Nevertheless, a pledge was given that local authorities would be ordered to stop their persecution of Tonghak believers.

Dissatisfied Tonghak followers took their struggle to Seoul in 1893 and attempted to petition the throne from directly in front of the palace gates. Their protest produced nothing and was dispersed by force. The Tonghak membership attributed the growing anarchy in Korea to the penetration of Chinese, Japanese and other Western thieves and rebels into the heart of the country. Tonghak leaders pictured Seoul as "the lair and den of barbarians" and proclaimed in a manifesto to have "sworn to the death that we will unite in one common effort to sweep out the Japanese and foreigners and bring them to ruin."

After two years of having their demands for relief from the continued persecution refused, more than 20,000 Tonghak followers assembled at Puan in Chungchong Province and erected defensive barricades, hoisted banners and called for a "crusade to expel the Japanese and Westerners." Korean authorities barely succeeded in dispersing the Tonghak mob by threatening to use force. It became readily apparent that the Tonghak's growing strength made continued prohibition of the faith futile. The Tonghak expanded into a well-organized revolutionary peasant movement motivated by a mixture of nationalism, anti-foreign sentiments and religious beliefs. By 1894, the rebellious peasantry became fully capable of staging large scale military operations.

Those who knew Cho Pyong-gap, the magistrate of Kobu county, knew him to be a cruel tyrant. Ever since assuming his post he had taken every opportunity to inflict torment on the hard-pressed people he governed. Cho routinely and illegally extorted large amounts from the peasantry. For one project, he mobilized the peasants to build a new water reservoir on a site just below the old reservoir at Mansokpo. The final insult came when Cho extorted an outrageous water use charge from the very peasants who had built the new reservoir. That was the final straw and it evoked the most bitter protests from the villagers. After years of repeatedly petitioning for redress of their grievances without satisfaction, the enraged peasants of Kobu took matters into their own hands.

Under the leadership of Chon Pong-jun, head of the county's Tonghak parish, rebels occupied the county office, seized weapons, distributed the illegally collected tax rice to the poor, and then destroyed the Mansokpo reservoir. The Yi government dispatched a special investigator to Kobu county to learn what had happened. In his report, the investigating official placed the blame for the uprising on the Tonghak. After drawing up a list of local Tonghak members, the special investigator arrested some, summarily executed others and committed the further outrage of burning a number of Tonghak homes in the county. Enraged by this denial of simple justice, the peasants rallied around Chon Pong-jun, Kim Kae-nam, Son Hwa-jung, and others. A call to arms went out to the peasants that stated in part,

The people are the root of the nation. ...We are wretched village people far from the capital, yet we feed and clothe ourselves with the bounty from the sovereign's land. We cannot sit by and watch our nation perish.

The Tonghak movement again rose in arms when peasants rushed to Kobu country to join forces with the Tonghak army and swelled its ranks to several thousand. Proudly carrying their distinctive bright yellow banners, these peasant soldiers were virtually spoiling for a fight. The ragged peasant army first occupied Kobu then moved its base northward to Paeksan, where the peasants organized themselves into battle groups. Chon Pong-jun assumed overall command of the "Tonghak Army," and inscribed on his banner in large letters the exhortation to "sustain the nation and provide for the people."

The Yi government responded to the growing threat by sending a contingent of troops from Chonju to Kobu to suppress the rebellious peasants. In their first major battle, massed formations of the Tonghak peasant army won a crushing victory against government troops at HwangtohYon Hill in Kobu county. Bolstered by their success, the peasant army seized Chongup, Kochang, and Mujang in turn, and took control of Yonggwang and Hampyong to the south. With each new victory their ranks swelled, soon growing to over 10,000 men.

Among the many new Tonghak enlistees were fifteen men of the Japanese Dark Ocean Society, Genyosha, sent as advisers to assist, if not foment further action by the Tonghak movement. In the wake of its defeat, the Seoul government quickly dispatched an elite battalion of about 800 men from its Capital Garrison under the command of Hong Kye-hun. By the time Hong's battalion reached Chonju however, desertions had reduced the size of his force to about four hundred men. Even though they had better weapons and timely reinforcements, the Capital Garrison troops could not defeat the confident, high-spirited peasants of the Tonghak army. In a fierce clash at Changsong, Chon Pong-jun's peasant fighters routed the government troops, pushed northward unopposed and occupied Chonju.

The Western diplomatic community in East Asia watched events in Korea with growing concern. Count Artur Pavlovich Cassini, Russia's minister to China, warned Foreign Minister Giers in March 1894 that Li Hongzhang's response to the Japanese regarding Chinese intentions to protect foreign residents in Korea was too vague. Japan, he claimed, would never voluntarily leave the defense of its important interests in Korea to the Chinese. Cassini believed that if open rebellion ever broke out in Korea, both China and Japan would inevitably intervene. He pointed out the need for Russian diplomats and officials in East Asia and in the Amur region to keep a close watch on events in Korea so as not to be caught off guard should the situation take an undesirable turn for Russia.

By mid-May 1894, Karl Waeber still believed the Tonghak upheaval to be simply an internal Korean problem. In his report to St. Petersburg on June 1 however, he stated that the disturbances had taken on a menacing tone. He indicated the possibility of Chinese intervention and urged that Russia send a warship to keep watch on the situation. Tsar Alexander III agreed. The Director of the Asiatic Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed Waeber that the Russian gunboat Koreets (The Korean) would be dispatched to Seoul.

The Japanese press eagerly followed the activities of the reform-minded Tonghak insurgents and whipped up popular support for their cause. Minister Mutsu Munemitsu did not hide the fact that Japan was sympathetic. Even responsible statesmen such as Count Okuma Shigenobu welcomed the Tonghak uprising as a chance for Japan to "wipe out the disgrace of 1884" and "make the empire respected and feared, not only by Korea, but also by the rest of the world."

The seriousness of the situation soon became fully apparent to the Seoul government. Mutsu Munemitsu, Japan's foreign minister in Seoul, became gravely concerned about the impact this revolt could have on Japanese interests and kept Tokyo closely informed of developments. Queen Min, in a state of near panic, acted against the advice of many officials and appealed to China and General Yuan Shih-k'ai for military support on June 2, 1894. Even Minister Mutsu urged General Yuan to take some kind of positive action against the Tonghak, all the while giving the impression that Japan's only interest in the matter was to protect its trade interests in Korea. That same day, Mutsu informed Japan's chargé d'affaires in Seoul, Sugimura Fukashi, that if the spreading Tonghak Rebellion endangered the Japanese legation, consulates, or residents in any way, or if China dispatched troops to Korea, then Japan would have to send troops. Sugimura wired Minister Mutsu's concerns to Tokyo.

Sugimura's telegram arrived at a time when Prince Ito Hirobumi was deeply involved in a bribery scandal that threatened to topple the Meiji government. Ito took advantage of the news that Korea had unofficially approached China about the dispatch of troops to quickly shift the hostility of his opponents from himself to Korea. He summoned Prince Arisugawa, the recently appointed Chief of the Japanese Army's General Staff, and Vice-Chief of Staff General Kawakami Soroku to his residence along with members of the Japanese cabinet. The meeting produced an agreement that Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu was correct;   if China sent troops into Korea, then Japan would have little choice but to match their action, "to prepare for any eventualities and to maintain the balance between Japan and China in Korea." With the senior military staff present, the men decided to dispatch an army brigade to Korea under the pretext of protecting the Japanese legation, the consulates, and some 20,000 Japanese subjects living in the country. Minister Mutsu and General Soroku became the principal architects of the Japanese policy that soon led to war with China.

On June 4, two days after the highly agitated Queen Min requested military support from China, chargé d'affaires Sugimura Fukashi cabled Tokyo that Korea had officially requested Chinese assistance to suppress the Tonghak Rebellion and proposed that Japanese troops be sent immediately. The same day, Japan's chargé d'affaires in Beijing, Komura Jutaro, cabled Tokyo that 1,500 Chinese troops were mobilizing for an expedition to Korea.

In Seoul, Minister Mutsu handed Otori Keisuke a lengthy set of instructions on June 5 that detailed what he was to say and do in the event Japanese troops were sent to Korea. The instructions stressed the justification of such action under the terms of the Tianjin and Inchon treaties. Mutsu further instructed Otori to assure foreign representatives that Japan's objectives were restricted to those specified in the treaties. Mutsu carefully instructed Otori to avoid any collision between Japanese and Chinese troops.

Viceroy Li Hongzhang hesitated after listening to General Yuan's proposal that Chinese troops be sent to suppress the Tonghak. Li feared the risk of another and more serious clash with Japan. Once King Kojong appealed for assistance however, Li decided to act. Li learned from China's minister in Tokyo, Wang Feng-ts'ao, that the Japanese Imperial Diet had become so entangled in conflicts related to the recent introduction of its new constitution in 1890, that Japan would not likely start a war over the matter in Korea. Japan's chronic instability persuaded Li Hongzhang and Yuan Shih-k'ai that the opportune moment to assert Chinese control over Korea had arrived.

On June 7, Li informed the Japanese of his intended action in accordance with the Convention of Tianjin. He noted that at the moment all was quiet in Seoul and the treaty ports and there was no danger to the lives or property of foreign residents. Chinese troops would be sent to the interior to suppress the rebellion, he continued, and would not enter Seoul or the open ports. Li received word from Japanese Consul Arakawa Minoji in Tianjin later the same day. Arakawa stated that, in view of the grave disturbances in Korea, Japan also intended to send troops to Seoul to protect its legation, consulates and residents. Li responded by repeating the Qing government's advice;   Japan should send only a small number of troops, keep them out of the interior and take precautions to avoid incidents between Chinese and Japanese troops. At Minister Mutsu's direction, Komura Jutaro gave written notice to the president and members of the Zongli Yamen in Beijing.

The Russians understood sooner than anyone, except perhaps the Japanese, what was really at stake in the potential war with China. St. Petersburg instructed Russian Minister Mikhail A. Hitrovo in Tokyo to warn the Japanese of the serious consequences if they did not agree to a mutual withdrawal. Minister Hitrovo knew well that the most unexpected and serious complications were possible whenever something aroused the "burning question" of Korea in Japan.

During a lengthy conversation with Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu in Tokyo on June 7, Minister Hitrovo tried to pry into the intentions of the Japanese government. Mutsu alleged that while China was sending troops with the expressed intent of suppressing the Tonghak uprising, Japanese troops would be going to Korea solely to protect the lives and property of its nearly 20,000 Japanese residents. When Hitrovo asked how many troops Japan was sending to Korea, Mutsu evasively replied that the Tianjin Convention did not specify how many troops could be sent. Minister Hitrovo later wrote that the "immemorial mutual hostility between the Japanese and the Chinese" made it virtually impossible for the troops of these two nations to remain completely neutral between the Tonghak rebels, with whom "every Japanese sympathizes in his soul," and the bloody suppression of the Tonghak Society by the Chinese. The recent murder of Kim Ok-kyun had inflamed the age-old sense of hatred between Japan and China and Hitrovo believed that a bloody clash between the two could occur in Korea over the slightest and most insignificant incident.

Minister Mutsu did not hide his own misgivings about the pending joint action in Korea. He expressed doubts that the Chinese would be satisfied with suppressing the Tonghak Rebellion and suspected they would want to stay in Korea and run things. Mutsu asked Hitrovo rhetorically, "Can we refrain from sending troops to Korea in order to watch the actions of China?" In a supplementary dispatch to St. Petersburg written just two weeks later, Minister Hitrovo repeated his belief that the "irreconcilable mistrust" between the Chinese and Japanese governments complicated the Korean situation. Japan, in its rush to counter China, had no difficulty dispatching its troops. But what, Hitrovo wondered, will happen when the time comes to withdraw? "Probably," he wrote, "neither China nor Japan will want to evacuate Korea earlier than the other because of the mutual mistrust." His words proved to be prophetic.