Chapter 11

All that night the rebels dribbled in. Several wounded men who had escaped from the fight the previous day were borne along by their comrades, and early on the following morning some soldiers came and asked me to do what I could to heal them. I went out and examined the men. One had no less than five bullet-holes in him and yet seemed remarkably cheerful. Two others had single shots of a rather more dangerous nature. I am no surgeon, and it was manifestly impossible for me to jab into their wounds with my hunting-knife in the hope of extracting the bullets. I found, however, some corrosive sublimate tabloids in my leather medicine case. These I dissolved, and bathed the wounds with the mixture to stop suppuration. I had some Listerine, and I washed their rags in it. I bound the clean rags on the wounds, bade the men lie still and eat little, and left them.

Soon after dawn the rebel regiments paraded in the streets. They reproduced on a larger scale the characteristics I had noted among the few men who came to visit me the evening before, poor weapons and little ammunition. They sent out men in advance before I departed in the morning to warn their outposts that I was an Englishman (really I am a Scots-Canadian, but to them it was all the same) who must not be injured. I left them with mutual good wishes, but I made a close inspection of my party before we marched away to see that all our weapons were in place. Some of my boys begged me to give the rebels our guns so that they might kill the Japanese!

We had not gone very far before we descended into a rocky and sandy plain by the river. Suddenly I heard one of my boys shout at the top of his voice, as he threw up his arms, "Yong guk ta-in." We all stopped, and the others took up the cry. "What does this mean?" I asked. "Some rebel soldiers are surrounding us," said Min-gun, "and they are going to fire. They think you are a Japanese." I stood against the sky-line and pointed vigorously to myself to show that they were mistaken. "Yong guk!" I shouted, with my boys. It was not dignified, but it was very necessary. Now we could see creeping, ragged figures running from rock to rock, closer and closer to us. The rifles of some were covering us while the others advanced. Then a party of a couple of dozen rose from the ground near to hand, with a young man in a European officer's uniform at their head. They ran to us, while we stood and waited. At last they saw who I was, and when they came near they apologized very gracefully for their blunder. "It was fortunate that you shouted when you did," said one ugly-faced young rebel, as he slipped his cartridge back into his pouch; "I had you nicely covered and was just going to shoot." Some of the soldiers in this band were not more than fourteen to sixteen years old. I made them stand and have their photographs taken.

By noon I arrived at the place from which the Korean soldiers had been driven on the day before. The villagers there were regarded in very unfriendly fashion by the rebels, who thought they had betrayed them to the Japanese. The villagers told me what was evidently the true story of the fight. They said that about twenty Japanese soldiers had on the previous morning marched quickly to the place and attacked two hundred rebels there. One Japanese soldier was hurt, receiving a flesh wound in the arm, and five rebels were wounded. Three of these latter got away, and these were the ones I had treated earlier in the morning. Two others were left on the field, one badly shot in the left cheek and the other in the right shoulder. To quote the words of the villagers, "As the Japanese soldiers came up to these wounded men they were too sick to speak, and they could only utter cries like animals--'Hula, hula, hula!' They had no weapons in their hands, and their blood was running on the ground. The Japanese soldiers heard their cries, and went up to them and stabbed them through and through and through again with their bayonets until they died. The men were torn very much with the bayonet stabs, and we had to take them up and bury them." The expressive faces of the villagers were more eloquent than mere description was.

Were this an isolated instance, it would scarcely be necessary to mention it. But what I heard on all sides went to show that in a large number of fights in the country the Japanese systematically killed all the wounded and all who surrendered themselves. This was not so in every case, but it certainly was in very many. The fact was confirmed by the Japanese accounts of many fights, where the figures given of Korean casualties were so many killed, with no mention of wounded or prisoners. In place after place also, the Japanese, besides burning houses, shot numbers of men whom they suspected of assisting the rebels. War is war, and one could scarcely complain at the shooting of rebels. Unfortunately much of the killing was indiscriminate, to create terror.

I returned to Seoul. The Japanese authorities evidently decided that it would not be advisable to arrest me for travelling in the interior without a passport. It was their purpose to avoid as far as possible any publicity being given to the doings of the Righteous Army, and to represent them as mere bands of disorderly characters, preying on the population. They succeeded in creating this opinion throughout the world.

But as a matter of fact the movement grew and grew. It was impossible for the Koreans to obtain arms; they fought without arms. In June, 1908, nearly two years afterwards, a high Japanese official, giving evidence at the trial of Mr. Bethell before a specially convened British court at Seoul, said that about 20,000 troops were then engaged in putting down the disturbances, and that about one-half of the country was in a condition of armed resistance. The Koreans continued their fight until 1915, when, according to Japanese official statements, the rebellion was finally suppressed. One can only faintly imagine the hardships these mountaineers and young men of the plains, tiger hunters, and old soldiers, must have undergone. The taunts about Korean "cowardice" and "apathy" were beginning to lose their force.

X

THE LAST DAYS OF THE KOREAN EMPIRE

Prince Ito--he was made Prince after the abdication of Yi Hyeung--was Resident-General of Korea from 1906 to 1908, and was followed by Viscount Sone, who carried on his policies until 1910. Ito is still remembered as the best of the Japanese administrators.

He had an exceedingly difficult task. He had to tear up an ancient administration by the roots, and substitute a new. This could not fail to be a painful process. He had the best and the worst instincts of a nation aroused against him, the patriotism and loyalty of the Korean people, and also their obstinacy and apathy. He was hampered by the poor quality of many of the minor officials who had to carry out his orders and still more by the character of the settlers from his own land. The necessities of Japanese Imperial policy compelled the infliction of much injustice on the Korean people. The determination to plant as many Japanese on Korean soil as possible involved the expropriation of Korean interests and the harsh treatment of many small Korean landowners and tenants. The powerful and growing commercial interests of Japan were using every possible pressure to exploit Korea, to obtain concessions and to treat the land as one to be despoiled for their benefit. Ito meant well by Korea, and had vision enough to see that the ill-treatment of her people injured Japan even more than it did them. It was his misfortune to be committed to an impossible policy of Imperial absorption. He did his utmost to minimize its evils and promote reforms.

Unfortunately, all of his subordinates did not see eye to eye with him. His military chief, Hasegawa, believed in the policy of the strong hand, and practiced it. A large majority of the Japanese immigrants acted in a way fatal to the creation of a policy of good-will. The average Japanese regarded the Korean as another Ainu, a barbarian, and himself as one of the Chosen Race, who had the right to despoil and roughly treat his inferiors, as occasion served.

Some Koreans stooped to the favourite Oriental weapon of assassination.

In 1907 Mr. W.D. Stevens, Foreign Adviser to the Korean Government, was murdered by a Korean when passing through San Francisco. In October, 1909, Prince Ito, when making a journey northwards, was killed by another Korean at Harbin. Both of the murderers were nominal Christians, the first a Protestant and the second a Catholic. A deadly blow was struck at the Korean cause by the men who thus sought to serve her.

This book will probably be read by many Koreans, young men and women with hearts aflame at the sufferings of their people. I can well understand the intense anger that must fill their souls. If my people had been treated as theirs have, I would feel the same.

I hope that every man guilty of torturing, outraging or murder will eventually be brought to justice and dealt with as justice directs. But for individuals, or groups of individuals to take such punishment into their own hands is to inflict the greatest damage in their power, not on the person they attack, but on the cause they seek to serve.

Why?

In the first case, they destroy sympathy for their cause. The conscience of the world revolts at the idea of the individual or the irresponsible group of individuals taking to themselves the right of inflicting death at their will.

Next, they strengthen the cause they attack. They place themselves on or below the level of the men they seek to punish.

A third reason is that the assassins in many cases reach the wrong man. They do not know, and cannot know, because they have had no full opportunity of learning, what the other has had to say for himself. Too often, in trying to slay their victim, they injure others who have nothing to do with the business.

To attack one's victim without giving him an opportunity for defence is essentially a cowardly thing. Assassination--I prefer to give it its simpler name, murder--is wrong, whatever the supposed excuse, fundamentally wrong, wrong in principle, fatal in its outcome for those who adopt it. Have nothing to do with it.

The murder of Prince Ito was a cruel blow for Korea. It was followed by an attempt to assassinate the Korean Premier, the man who had handed his country over to Japan. For some time the military party in Japan had been clamouring for a more severe policy in the Peninsula. Now it was to have its way. General Count Terauchi was appointed Resident-General.

Count Terauchi was leader of the military party in Korea, and an avowed exponent of the policy of "thorough." A soldier from his youth up, he had risen to the General Staff, and in 1904 was Minister of War in the fight against Russia, earning his Viscountcy for brilliant services. Strong, relentless, able, he could only see one thing--Japan and the glory of Japan. He regarded the Koreans as a people to be absorbed or to be eliminated. He was generally regarded as unsympathetic to Christianity, and many of the Koreans were now Christians.

Terauchi came to Seoul in the summer of 1910, to reverse the policy of his predecessors. He was going to stamp the last traces of nationality out of existence. Where Ito had been soft, he would be hard as chilled steel. Where Ito had beaten men with whips, he would beat them with scorpions.

Every one knew ahead what was coming. The usual plan was followed. First, the official and semi-official plan was followed. The _Seoul Press_, now the lickspittle of the great man, gave good value for the subsidy it receives. It came out with an article hard to surpass for brutality and hypocrisy:--

"The present requires the wielding of an iron hand rather than a gloved one in order to secure lasting peace and order in this country. There is no lack of evidence to show an intense dissatisfaction against the new state of things is fermenting at present among a section of the Koreans. It is possible that if left unchecked, it may culminate in some shocking crime. Now after carefully studying the cause and nature of the dissatisfaction just referred to, we find that it is both foolish and unreasonable....

"Japan is in this country with the object of promoting the happiness of the masses. She has not come to Korea to please a few hundred silly youngsters or to feed a few hundred titled loafers. It is no fault of hers that these men are dissatisfied because of their failure to satisfy them.... _She must be prepared to sacrifice anybody who offers obstacles to her work_. Japan has hitherto dealt with Korean malcontents in a lenient way. She has learned from experience gained during the past five years that there are some persons who cannot be converted by conciliatory methods. _There is but one way to deal with these people, and that is by stern and relentless methods_."

The _Japan Mail_, as usual, echoed the same sentiments from Yokohama. "The policy of conciliation is all very well in the hands of such a statesman as the late Prince Ito," it declared. "But failing a successor to Prince Ito, more ordinary methods will be found safer as well as more efficacious."

Viscount Terauchi settled in the capital, and it was as though a chill had passed over the city. He said little, in public. Callers, high and low, found him stern and distant. "He has other things to think of than pleasant words," awed Secretaries repeated. Things suddenly began to happen. Four Japanese papers were suspended in a night. An item in their columns was objectionable. Let others be very careful. The police system was reversed. The gendarmerie were to be brought back again in full force. Every day brought its tale of arrests. Fifteen students were arrested this morning; the old Korean President of the Railway Board had been hurried to prison; the office of a paper in Pyeng-yang had been raided. It was as though the new Governor-General had deliberately set himself to spread a feeling of terror.

The Korean must not so much as look awry now. Police and gendarmes were everywhere. Spies seemed to catch men's thoughts. More troops were coming in. Surely something was about to happen.

Yet there were some smiling. They were called to the Residency-General to hear good news. This man was to be made a peer; he had served Japan well. This man, if he and his kin were good, was to be suitably rewarded. Bribes for the complaisant, prison for the obstinate.

Men guessed what was coming. There were mutterings, especially among the students. But the student who spoke bravely, even behind closed doors to-day, found himself in jail by evening. The very walls seemed to have ears.

Then it was remarked that the Ministers of State had not been seen for some days. They had shut themselves in, refusing to see all callers. They feared assassination, for they had sold their country. Policemen and troops were waiting within easy calls from their homes, lest mobs should try to burn them out, like rats out of their holes.

And then the news came. Korea had ceased to exist as an even nominally independent or separate country. Japan had swallowed it up. The Emperor--poor fool--was to step off his throne. After four thousand years, there was to be no more a throne of Korea. The Resident-General would now be Governor-General. The name of the nation was to be wiped out--henceforth it was to be Chosen, a province of Japan. Its people were to be remade into a lesser kind of Japanese, and the more adept they were in making the change, the less they would suffer. They were to have certain benefits. To mark the auspicious occasion there would be an amnesty--but a man who had tried to kill the traitor Premier would not be in it. Five per cent of taxes and all unpaid fiscal dues would be remitted. Let the people rejoice!

The Japanese expected an uprising, and were all ready for one. "Every man should be ready to fight and die in the cause of his nation's independence," they said tauntingly to the Koreans. But the people's leaders kept them in. Up on the hills, the Righteous Army was still struggling. The people must wait for better times.

One man stuck a proclamation on the West Gate, threatening death to the traitors. Man after man, scholars, old soldiers, men who loved Korea, committed suicide, after telling of their grief. "Why should we live when our land is dead?" they asked.

The Japanese sneered because the people did nothing. "We may assume, indeed, that all fear of a national uprising is now past," declared a semi-Government organ. "The nation obviously has no leaders competent to execute and direct a crusade in the cause of independence. Whether that lack is due to adroit management on the part of the Japanese or to unpatriotic apathy on the part of the Koreans we cannot pretend to judge."

The Japanese decree announcing the annexation of the country was in itself an acknowledgment that the Japanese administration so far had been a failure. Here is the opening paragraph:--

"Notwithstanding the earnest and laborious work of reforms in the administration of Korea in which the Governments of Japan and Korea have been engaged for more than four years since the conclusion of the Agreement of 1905, the existing system of government of that country has not proved entirely equal to the work of preserving public order and tranquillity, and in addition a spirit of suspicion and misgiving pervades the whole peninsula.

"In order to maintain peace and prosperity and the welfare of the Koreans and at the same time to ensure the safety and repose of foreign residents, it has been made abundantly clear that fundamental changes in the actual regime of government are actually essential."

The declaration announced various changes. It abrogated all Korean foreign treaties, and brought the subjects of foreign nations living in Korea under Japanese law. In other words, extra-territoriality was abolished. The Government agreed to maintain the old Korean tariff for ten years both for goods coming in from Japan and abroad. This was a concession to foreign importers whose trade otherwise would have been swamped. It also allowed ships under foreign registers to engage in the Korean coasting trade for ten years more.

The annexation was put in the form of a treaty between the Emperors of Japan and Korea, as though the surrender of their land had been the act of the Koreans themselves, or their ruler.

His Majesty the Emperor of Japan and His Majesty the Emperor of Korea having in view the special and close relations between their respective countries and to ensure peace in the Extreme East, and being convinced that these objects can best be attained by the annexation of Korea to the Empire of Japan have resolved to conclude a Treaty of such annexation and have for that purpose appointed as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say, His Majesty the Emperor of Japan, Viscount Maskata Terauchi, His Resident General. And His Majesty the Emperor of Korea, Ye Wan Yong, His Minister President of State, Who, upon mutual conference and deliberation, have agreed to the following articles.

Article 1. His Majesty the Emperor of Korea makes complete and permanent cession to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan of all rights of sovereignty over the whole of Korea.

Article 2. His Majesty the Emperor of Japan accepts the cession mentioned in the preceding Article, and consents to the complete annexation of Korea to the Empire of Japan.

Article 3. His Majesty the Emperor of Japan will accord to their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of Korea and His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince of Korea, and Their Consorts and Heirs such titles, dignity and honour as are appropriate to their respective rank and sufficient annual grants will be made for the maintenance of such titles, dignity and honour.

Article 4. His Majesty the Emperor of Japan will also accord appropriate honour and treatment to the members of the Imperial House of Korea and their heirs, other than those mentioned in the preceding Article and the funds necessary for the maintenance of such honour and treatment will be granted.

Article 5. His Majesty the Emperor of Japan will confer peerages and monetary grants upon those Koreans who, on account of meritorious services, are regarded as deserving of such special treatment.

Article 6. In consequence of the aforesaid annexation, the Government of Japan assumes the entire government and administration of Korea, and undertakes to afford full protection for the property and person of Koreans, obeying the laws then in force, and to promote the welfare of all such Koreans.

Article 7. The Government of Japan will, so far as circumstances permit, employ in the public service of Japan in Korea those Koreans who accept the new regime of Japan loyally and in good faith, and who are duly qualified for such service.

Article 8. This Treaty, having been approved by His Majesty the Emperor of Japan and His Majesty the Emperor of Korea shall take effect from the day of its promulgation.

Some defenders of Japan have wasted much effort in attempting to show that in destroying the Korean Empire Japan did not break her word, although she had repeatedly pledged herself to maintain and preserve the nation and the Royal House. Such arguments, under the circumstances, are merely nauseating. Japan wanted Korea; so soon as she was able, Japan took it. The only justification was

"The good old rule ... the simple plan, That he shall take who has the power, That he shall KEEP, who can."

XI

"I WILL WHIP YOU WITH SCORPIONS"

The Japanese administration of Korea from 1910 to 1919, first under Count Terauchi and then under General Hasegawa, revealed the harshest and most relentless form of Imperial administration. When formal annexation was completed in 1910 all the hindrances which had hitherto stood in the way of the complete execution of Japanese methods were apparently swept on one side. The Governor-General had absolute power to pass what ordinances he pleased, and even to make those ordinances retroactive. Extra-territoriality was abolished, and foreign subjects in Korea were placed entirely under the Japanese laws.

Japanese statesmen were ambitious to show the world as admirable an example of efficiency in peace as Japan had already shown in war. Much thought had been given to the matter for a long time ahead. The colonial systems of other countries had been carefully studied. Service in Korea was to be a mark of distinction, reserved for the best and most highly paid. National pride and national interest were pledged to make good. Money was spent freely and some of the greatest statesmen and soldiers of Japan were placed at the head of affairs. Ito, by becoming Resident-General, had set an example for the best of the nation to follow.

Between the annexation in 1910 and the uprising of the people in 1919, much material progress was made. The old, effete administration was cleared away, sound currency maintained, railways were greatly extended, roads improved, afforestation pushed forward on a great scale, agriculture developed, sanitation improved and fresh industries begun.