

KOREA. 



399 



medium of exchange. The telegraph lines from 

 Seoul to Wi-ju, on the Chinese frontier, and 

 thence to Shanghai and Pekin, and that from 

 Seoul to Fusan, and by cable to Nagasaki and 

 Tokio are also minor sources of revenue. Sur- 

 veys have been made for a railway from the sea- 

 port Chemulpo to Seoul, and thence to Fusan. 



The course of events from 1891 to 1894 may 

 be thus summarized. Various Government en- 

 terprises, under foreign auspices, in the interest 

 of the promotion of civilization have ruinously 

 failed. Intestine strife at the court and capital 

 has caused the collapse of such projects as the 

 reorganization of the army, a model American 

 farm, the introduction of agriculture, glass and 

 match factories, and a powder factory, while the 

 use by the nobles and partisans of dynamite 

 and gunpowder for the destruction of obnoxious 

 rivals has been mutual. While British and Ameri- 

 can vessels (except men-of-war) have rarely en- 

 tered Korean ports, the Japanese steamship serv- 

 ice and the Russian line of packets from Vladi- 

 vostok to Shanghai, calling at Gensan and B^usan, 

 have continued. The power and influence of 

 China over the King and the pro-Chinese faction 

 of the court, through the direct instrumentality 

 of Li-Hung-Chang and Yuan, his representative 

 in Seoul, steadily increased even to active inter- 

 ference until June, 1894. The change in the 

 tenure of office of the provincial governors sent 

 out from the capital from three years to one 

 year was the immediate cause of increased ex- 

 tortion all along the lines of salaried and unsal- 

 aried underlings. This increase of oppression 

 was, especially in the southern provinces, as- 

 cribed to the extravagance of the King and court 

 in the purchase of foreign luxuries and appli- 

 ances. Under the leadership of Che Weng Wo, 

 a man of holy reputation, who preached doc- 

 trines exalting the ancient creed and cult, a 

 party called the Tong Hak, having a quasi-re- 

 ligio'us organization, was formed. The ortho- 

 doxy of this person and his adherents was not 

 recognized at court, and, after examination, they 

 were branded as disturbers of social order, and 

 Che Weng Wo was put to death for heresy. In 

 March, 1893, the petitioners in Seoul who pleaded 

 for a revocation of the sentence were dismissed 

 in disgrace. A few months later rumors of re- 

 bellions in the south, which continued during 

 the year and into 1894, were heard by the for- 

 eigners in Seoul. In reality, the general move- 

 ment was an uprising against official despotism, 

 though aided by the Tong Haks. The native 

 troops sent from Seoul were defeated March 28 

 and May 16, and proved utterly inadequate to 

 suppress the revolt. The pro-Chinese faction at 

 court petitioned Li-Hung-Chang, of China, for 

 military aid, who dispatched 800 of his drilled 

 troops on three Chinese men-of-war, who landed 

 at Gensan, April 2. This action of China, after 

 some diplomatic correspondence, led to the dis- 

 patch of Japan's naval and military forces, and 

 of the Mikado's envoy, Mr. Iloshi Toru. The 

 latter, reaching Seoul, presented Japan's ultima- 

 tum, demanded and received July 23 a personal 

 interview with the King and a guarantee that 

 Korea was actually an independent nation in ac- 

 cordance with the tenor of her treaties made. 

 A programme of reform was then insisted upon 

 in order to secure permanent internal peace and 



good order. In response thereto the King and 

 court appointed a committee of reforms, who 

 early in August elaborated a programme that 

 amounts virtually to a new Constitution. Those 



A KOREAN GENERAL. 



immediately introduced are : Change of calendar 

 from that of China to that of Christendom ; abo- 

 lition of nepotism or of lineage as a prime quali- 

 fication for office; modernization of etiquette, 

 basing it on rank ; confinement of punishment 

 to the actual perpetrator, without implicating 

 relatives; abolition of child marriages, of sla- 

 very, whether for life or for a term of years, and 

 of unlimited right of choosing heirs; the right 

 of petition to people of all classes ; the reduc- 

 tion of the number of officeholders to the actual 

 needs of the state ; abolition of the ban against 

 priests and nuns ; definite determination of the 

 numbers and salaries of all Government func- 

 tionaries; registration in official ledgers of all 

 public expenditures, as well as of lands officially 

 held, and of all taxes. After their defeats at 

 Asan and Ping Yang the Chinese evacuated the 

 peninsula. Prince Wi-hwa, second son of the 

 King, bore the public thanks of the Korean Gov- 

 ernment to Japan for having secured Koreas 



