Part 13

Early in the morning there was a great scene in the palace. The Imperial Hair-cutter was in attendance. A group of old Court officials hung around the Emperor. With blanched faces and shaking voices they implored him not to abandon the old ways. The Emperor paused, fearful. What power would be filched from him by the shearing of his locks? But there could be no hesitating now. Resolute men were behind who knew what they were going to see done. A few minutes later the great step was taken.

The Residency-General arranged the coronation ceremony in such a manner as to include as many Japanese and to exclude as many foreigners as possible. There were nearly a hundred Japanese present, including the Mayor of the Japanese settlement and the Buddhist priest. There were only six white men--five Consuls-General and Bishop Turner, chief of the Anglican Church in Korea. The Japanese came arrayed in splendid uniforms. It was part of the new Japanese policy to attire even the most minor officials in sumptuous Court dress, with much gold lace and many orders. This enabled Japan to make a brilliant show in official ceremonies, a thing not without effect in Oriental Courts.

Shortly before ten o'clock the guests assembled in the throne-room of the palace, a modern apartment with a raised dais at one end. There were Koreans to the left and Japanese to the right of the Emperor, with the Cabinet in the front line on one side and the Residency-General officials on the other. The foreigners faced the raised platform.

The new Emperor appeared, borne to the platform by the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Household. He was dressed in the ancient costume of his people, a flowing blue garment reaching to the ankles, with a robe of softer cream colour underneath. On his head was a quaint Korean hat, with a circle of Korean ornaments hanging from its high, outstanding horsehair brim. On his chest was a small decorative breastplate. Tall, clumsily built, awkward, and vacant-looking--such was the Emperor.

In ancient days all would have kow-towed before him, and would have beaten their foreheads on the ground. Now no man did more than bow, save one Court herald, who knelt. Weird Korean music started in the background, the beating of drums and the playing of melancholy wind instruments. The Master of Ceremonies struck up a chant, which hidden choristers continued. Amid silence, the Prime Minister, in smart modern attire, advanced and read a paper of welcome. The Emperor stood still, apparently the least interested man in the room. He did not even look bored--simply vacant.

After this there was a pause in the proceedings. The Emperor retired and the guests went into the anterooms. Soon all were recalled, and the Emperor reappeared. There had been a quick change in the meantime. He was now wearing his new modern uniform, as Generalissimo of the Korean Army. Two high decorations--one, if I mistake not, from the Emperor of Japan--hung on his breast. He looked much more manly in his new attire. In front of him was placed his new headdress, a peaked cap with a fine plume sticking up straight in front. The music now was no longer the ancient Korean, but modern airs from the very fine European-trained band attached to the palace. The Korean players had gone, with the old dress and the old life, into limbo.

The Japanese Acting Resident-General and military commander, General Baron Hasegawa, strong and masterful-looking, stepped to the front with a message of welcome from his Emperor. He was followed by the doyen of the Consular Corps, M. Vincart, with the Consular greetings. This Consular message had been very carefully sub-edited, and all expressions implying that the Governments of the different representatives approved of the proceedings had been eliminated. Then the coronation was over.

Two figures were conspicuous by their absence. The ex-Emperor was not present According to the official explanation, he was unable to attend because "his uniform had not been finished in time," Really, as all men knew, he was sitting resentful and protesting within a few score yards of the spot where his son was crowned.

The second absent figure was the Russian Consul-General, M. de Plançon. It was announced that M. de Plançon was late, and so could not attend. Seeing that M. de Plançon lived not ten minutes' walk from the palace, and that the guests had to wait nearly an hour after the time announced before the ceremony began, he must have overslept very much indeed on that particular morning. Oddly enough, M. de Plançon is usually an early riser.

VIII

A JOURNEY TO THE "RIGHTEOUS ARMY"

It was in the autumn of 1906. The Korean Emperor had been deposed and his army disbanded. The people of Seoul, sullen, resentful, yet powerless, victims of the apathy and folly of their sires, and of their own indolence, saw their national existence filched from them, and scarce dared utter a protest. The triumphant Japanese soldiers stood at the city gates and within the palace. Princes must obey their slightest wish, even to the cutting of their hair and the fashioning of their clothes. General Hasegawa's guns commanded every street, and all men dressed in white need walk softly.

But it soon became clear that there were men who had not taken the filching of their national independence lightly. Refugees from distant villages, creeping after nightfall over the city wall, brought with them marvellous tales of the happenings in the provinces. District after district, they said, had risen against the Japanese. A "Righteous Army" had been formed, and was accomplishing amazing things. Detachments of Japanese had been annihilated and others driven back. Sometimes the Japanese, it is true, were victorious, and then they took bitter vengeance, destroying a whole countryside and slaughtering the people in wholesale fashion. So the refugees said.

How far were these stories true? I am bound to say that I, for one, regarded them with much scepticism. Familiar as I was with the offences of individual Japanese in the country, it seemed impossible that outrages could be carried on systematically by the Japanese Army under the direction of its officers. I was with a Japanese army during the war against Russia, and had marked and admired the restraint and discipline of the men of all ranks there. They neither stole nor outraged. Still more recently I had noted the action of the Japanese soldiers when repressing the uprising in Seoul itself. Yet, whether the stories of the refugees were true or false, undeniably some interesting fighting was going on.

By the first week in September it was clear that the area of trouble covered the eastern provinces from near Fusan to the north of Seoul. The rebels were evidently mainly composed of discharged soldiers and of hunters from the hills. We heard in Seoul that trained officers of the old Korean Army were drilling and organizing them into volunteer companies. The Japanese were pouring fresh troops into these centres of trouble, but the rebels, by an elaborate system of mountain-top signalling, were avoiding the troops and making their attacks on undefended spots. Reports showed that they were badly armed and lacked ammunition, and there seemed to be no effective organization for sending them weapons from the outside.

The first rallying-place of the malcontent Koreans was in a mountain district from eighty to ninety miles east of Seoul. Here lived many famous Korean tiger-hunters. These banded themselves together under the title of Eui-pyung (the "Righteous Army"). They had conflicts with small parties of Japanese troops and secured some minor successes. When considerable Japanese reinforcements arrived they retired to some mountain passes further back.

The tiger-hunters, sons of the hills, iron-nerved, and operating in their own country, were naturally awkward antagonists even for the best regular troops. They were probably amongst the boldest sportsmen in the world, and they formed the most picturesque and, romantic section of the rebels. Their only weapon was an old-fashioned percussion gun, with long barrel and a brass trigger seven to eight inches in length. Many of them fired not from the shoulder, but from the hip. They never missed. They could only fire one charge in an attack, owing to the time required to load. They were trained to stalk the tiger, to come quite close to it, and then to kill it at one shot The man who failed once died; the tiger attended to that.

Some of the stories of Korean successes reaching Seoul were at the best improbable. The tale of one fight, however, came to me through so many different and independent sources that there was reason to suspect it had substantial foundation. It recalled the doings of the people of the Tyrol in their struggle against Napoleon. A party of Japanese soldiers, forty-eight in number, were guarding a quantity of supplies from point to point. The Koreans prepared an ambuscade in a mountain valley overshadowed by precipitous hills on either side. When the troops reached the centre of the valley they were overwhelmed by a flight of great boulders rolled on them from the hilltops, and before the survivors could rally a host of Koreans rushed upon them and did them to death.

Proclamations by Koreans were smuggled into the capital. Parties of Japanese troops were constantly leaving Chinkokai, the Japanese quarter in Seoul, for the provinces. There came a public notice from General Hasegawa himself, which showed the real gravity of the rural situation. It ran as follows:--

"I, General Baron Yoshimichi Hasegawa, Commander of the Army of Occupation in Korea, make the following announcement to each and every one of the people of Korea throughout all the provinces. Taught by the natural trend of affairs in the world and impelled by the national need of political regeneration, the Government of Korea, in obedience to His Imperial Majesty's wishes, is now engaged in the task of reorganizing the various institutions of State. But those who are ignorant of the march of events in the world and who fail correctly to distinguish loyalty from treason have by wild and baseless rumours instigated people's minds and caused the rowdies in various places to rise in insurrection. These insurgents commit all sorts of horrible crimes, such as murdering peaceful people, both native and foreign, robbing their property, burning official and private buildings, and destroying means of communication. Their offences are such as are not tolerated by Heaven or earth. They affect to be loyal and patriotic and call themselves volunteers. But none the less they are lawbreakers, who oppose their Sovereign's wishes concerning political regeneration and who work the worst possible harm to their country and people.

"Unless they are promptly suppressed the trouble may assume really calamitous proportions. I am charged by His Majesty, the Emperor of Korea, with the task of rescuing you from such disasters by thoroughly stamping out the insurrection. I charge all of you, law-abiding people of Korea, to prosecute your respective peaceful avocations and be troubled with no fears. As for those who have joined the insurgents from mistaken motives, if they honestly repent and promptly surrender they will be pardoned of their offence. Any of you who will seize insurgents or will give information concerning their whereabouts will be handsomely rewarded. In case of those who wilfully join insurgents, or afford them refuge, or conceal weapons, they shall be severely punished. More than that, the villages to which such offenders belong shall be held collectively responsible and punished with rigour. I call upon each and every one of the people of Korea to understand clearly what I have herewith said to you and avoid all reprehensible action."

The Koreans in America circulated a manifesto directed against those of their countrymen who were working with Japan, under the expressive title of "explosive thunder," which breathed fury and vengeance. Groups of Koreans in the provinces issued other statements which, if not quite so picturesque, were quite forcible enough. Here is one:--

"Our numbers are twenty million, and we have over ten million strong men, excluding old, sick, and children. Now, the Japanese soldiers in Korea are not more than eight thousand, and Japanese merchants at various places are not more than some thousands. Though their weapons are sharp, how can one man kill a thousand? We beg you our brothers not to act in a foolish way and not to kill any innocent persons. We will fix the day and the hour for you to strike. Some of us, disguised as beggars and merchants, will go into Seoul. We will destroy the railway, we will kindle flames in every port, we will destroy Chinkokai, kill Ito and all the Japanese, Yi Wan-yong and his underlings, and will not leave a single rebel against our Emperor alive. Then Japan will bring out all her troops to fight us. We have no weapons at our hands, but we will keep our own patriotism. We may not be able to fight against the sharp weapons of the Japanese, but we will ask the Foreign Consuls to help us with their troops, and maybe they will assist the right persons and destroy the wicked; otherwise let us die. Let us strike against Japan, and then, if must be, all die together with our country and with our Emperor, for there is no other course open to us. It is better to lose our lives now than to live miserably a little time longer, for the Emperor and our brothers will all surely be killed by the abominable plans of Ito, Yi Wan-yong, and their associates. It is better to die as a patriot than to live having abandoned one's country. Mr. Yi Chun went to foreign lands to plead for our country, and his plans did not carry well, so he cut his stomach asunder with a sword and poured out his blood among the foreign nations to proclaim his patriotism to the world. These of our twenty million people who do not unite offend against the memory of Mr. Yi Chun. We have to choose between destruction or the maintenance of our country. Whether we live or die is a small thing, the great thing is that we make up our minds at once whether we work for or against our country."

A group of Koreans in the southern provinces petitioned Prince Ito, in the frankest fashion:--

"You spoke much of the kindness and friendship between Japan and Korea, but actually you have drawn away the profits from province after province and district after district until nothing is left wherever the hand of the Japanese falls. The Korean has been brought to ruin, and the Japanese shall be made to follow him downwards. We pity you very much; but you shall not enjoy the profits of the ruin of our land. When Japan and Korea fall together it will be a misfortune indeed for you. If you would secure safety for yourself follow this rule: memorialize our Majesty to impeach the traitors and put them to right punishment. Then every Korean will regard you with favour, and the Europeans will be loud in your praise. Advise the Korean authorities to carry out reforms in various directions, help them to enlarge the schools, and to select capable men for the Government service; then the three countries, Korea, China, and Japan, shall stand in the same line, strongly united and esteemed by foreign nations. If you will not do this, and if you continue to encroach on our rights, then we will be destroyed together, thanks to you.

"You thought there were no men left in Korea; you will see. We country people are resolved to destroy your railways and your settlements and your authorities. On a fixed day we shall send word to our patriots in the north, in the south, in Pyeng-yang and Kyung Sang, to rise and drive away all Japanese from the various ports, and although your soldiers are skillful with their guns it will be very hard for them to stand against our twenty million people. We will first attack the Japanese in Korea, but when we have finished them we will appeal to the Foreign Powers to assure the independence and freedom of our country. Before we send the word to our fellow-countrymen we give you this advice."

I resolved to try to see the fighting. This, I soon found, was easier attempted than done.

The first difficulty came from the Japanese authorities. They refused to grant me a passport, declaring that, owing to the disturbances, they could not guarantee my safety in the interior. An interview followed at the Residency-General, in which I was duly warned that if I travelled without a passport I would be liable, under International treaties, to "arrest at any point on the journey and punishment."