The History of Korea by Kim Chun-Gil; Kim Djun Kil ;

Author:Kim, Chun-Gil; Kim, Djun Kil ;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC-CLIO, LLC
Published: 2014-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Queen Min Assassinated

This enlightened cabinet and a new Japanese envoy, Minister Inoue Kaoru (1835–1915), enforced the implementation of the Gabo Reforms in a very short period of time. This was done under the scrupulous supervision of more than 40 Japanese advisers in the cabinet, who had experience from the reforms of the Meiji Restoration. Nonetheless, unlike the judicial and administrative measures, the Korean people needed time to accept the socioeconomic reforms. Daewongun strongly protested the reforms and attempted to replace the king with help of the Qing forces and the Donghak peasant army, who had ironically included some of these reforms in their demands. When the Japanese detected his plot, he was again forced to retire. Minister Inoue Kaoru, a former foreign minister who was British-trained, modeled himself after Lord Cromer, Britain’s nineteenth-century consul-general to Cairo and de facto ruler of Egypt. Minister Inoue made Gojong reluctantly pardon the two leaders of the previous 1884 coup, Bak Yeonghyo and Seo Gwangbeom, who joined the Kim Hongjip cabinet as home and justice ministers as soon as they had returned from their exile. Moreover, Minister Inoue directed his Japanese troops to crush the Donghak peasant army for its involvement in Daewongun’s attempt at an anti-Japanese coup. Such a radical Japanese ambition over Korea, however, was curbed by the Western powers intervening in the Shimonoseki Sino-Japanese treaty in favor of Qing China. Meiji Japan had to change its Korea policy from a model of the British protectorate over Egypt to a noninterventionist approach. Accordingly, the Japanese government decided to replace Minister Inoue, the career diplomat, with Miura Goro (1847–1926), who was tactically chosen for his military background.

Not only did the Neo-Confucian yangban literati oppose the Gabo Reforms, but so did the people and the monarchy. King Gojong’s power as well as Queen Min’s influence had been reduced severely by the cabinet. For help, they looked to the Russians, who had effectively curbed Japanese ambition in Manchuria after the First Sino-Japanese War. Japanese minister Miura Goro began to plot to rid the court altogether of in-law influence. At midnight on October 7, 1895, a group of armed Japanese, mixed with Korean soldiers trained by Japanese officers, snuck into the palace and brutally murdered Queen Min.

During the tumultuous period that followed, the Gabo Reforms continued. On December 30, 1895, the cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Kim Hongjip, adopted the Western calendar, beginning with the year 1896. On the same day, the king was made to issue an edict that decreed that all Korean males were to cut off their traditional topknots. In this, Gojong himself took the initiative. The order was immensely unpopular among Koreans, who had long since been indoctrinated with the Confucian teaching “One dare not damage one’s body, hair, and skin received by one’s parents, for filial piety begins there.” The rustic yangban literati, already discontented over the removal of their privileges by the reforms, strongly protested. Choe Ikhyeon boldly exclaimed, “Cut off my head, but never my hair!” Literati activists in the countryside began to rise against the pro-Japanese government.

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