Alger's posts with tag: 明成皇后
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Urged on by Queen Min, King Kojong asked the Chinese for help -- miscalculation, unfortunately. For when then Chinese entered the war, the Japanese did too, claiming that the Chinese presence was a pretext for a land grab. Ignoring Kojong's protests, both countries began to feed troops into Korea, which became a battleground between the Chinese and the Japanese. Japan won victory after victory. The peasants launched a major attack against Japan near the end of 1894 --- some sources put peasant forces att as which crushed them and left their bodies all over the countryside.
The Sino-Japanese lasted a year, ending in total defeat for the Chinese. Their relationship with Korea, and whatever help they might have been able to provide, was over. Japan was now the power to be reckoned with in East Asia.
The Japanese now imposed a constitution and parliament on Korea, peopling the latter with Japanese sympathisers. It wasn't quite a puppet government, however, and many Koreans who had been oppressed by the Min Clan welcomed its arrival. Queen Min, naturally, did not. To make more worse, the Japanese now began to conspire with her old enemy, the Taewongun. He didn't like the Japanese, but the Japanese knew, and counted on the fact, that he hated his daughter-in-law even more. Isabella Bird Bishop met the Taewongun around the same time she met Queen Min, later recording her impression of the 75-year-old former regent: "Able, rapacious and unscrupulous ...his footsteps have always been bloodstained...i was much impressed by the vitality and energy of his expression, his keen glance, and the vigour of his movements, even though he is an old man".
By the time Isabella Bird Bishop paid her visit, Queen Min had less than a year to live. An American missionary with medical training, named Lilias Underwood, had been allowed to act as the queen's doctor on occasion, and she described her as "slightly pale and quite thin, with somewhat sharp features, and brilliant piercing eyes. She did not strike me at first sight as being beautiful , but no-one could help reading force, intellect and strength of character in the face."
In the 20 years during which Queen Min had helped rule Korea, the country had changed dramatically. In some respects, as with the modernisation of the nation's infrastructure, it was for the better, but in others, such as the pernicious influence of Min corruption, it was not. Althought Min had urged her husband to resist Japanese expansionism, her clan's misdeeds had helped facilitate the takeover by foreigners. The queen realised that the danger of of the Japanese had to be countered. She also understood that, in the wake of the Sino-Japanese War, the Russians were alarmed by the spread of Japanese influence. So she began to cultivate close contacts with the Russians, asking members of the Russian legation to meet with her, attracting Russian students to Korea to study, encouraging the military to visit and importing Russian architects and engineers. It was also around this time, shortly before her death, that the queen began meeting with foreign missionaries, such as Underwood and Bishop. It was as if the captive queen was starting to show her face to the world. But it was too late.
By the fall of 1895, Min had become a seemingly immovable obstacle to Japanese expansion, and the Japanese decided that extreme measures were required. Their ambassador to Korea, Miura Goro, secretly began planning her assassination. The arrogance of this decision to murder the sovereign queen of a foreign nation is striking, although not unheard of --- one need only look to the US-backed assissination of Salvador Allende of Chile. But the way which the Japanese carried out the assassination was unparalleled in its brutality and misogyny.
Calling the plot "Operation Fox Hunt", Miura put together a mixed force of Japanese and Korean assisassins to attack the queen's quarters at Gyungbok Palace early in the morning. Another squad was sent to collect Taewongun , to have him ready to take over the government. At 5.30am, on the morning of 8th October, the operation began. Perhaps 50 killers --- Miura may even have been among them --- attacked the palace, with much shouting and shooting. Most of the Korean guards ran away; the majority of the remainder were Japanese and they simply let the assassins go by.
The killers first came to the king's sleeping quarters and took him captive, then went to the queen's sleeping area. According to an eyewitness report from Sergei Shabatin , a Russian architect who worked within the queen's palace: "Having been seized by soldiers myself, when i was standing in the courtyard i saw 10 to 12 court ladies being dragged by the hair before they were thrown out the window. Not a single lady let out a cry to break the complete silence. In the last moments...I stood in the courtyard, 5 Japanese men...dragged out one court lady by her hair." This last woman was apparently Queen Min.
For the next hundred years, it was believed that the Queen was the stabbed to death outside the palace and taken to a nearby pine forest, where her body was burnt. However documents recently uncovered by researchers in the records office of Japan's ministry of foreign affairs pain a fuller, more brutal picture. Most damning was a report which was written by one of the killers, Isujuka Eijoh.
Isukuja's report states that the killing was planned by Miura, the Japanese ambassador, right down to the last detail, and that the Japanese troops guarding the palace were more directly involved in the murders of the queen and her ladies than previously understood. It goes on to describe how "We rushed deep into the royal chamber and dragged out the queen. We stabbed her several times and stripped her naked. We examined her genitals, dishonoured her." The queen was then taken to a nearby chamber and her body placed on display so that several of the foreigners present, especially the Russians, would know that she was dead. Then, according to Isujuka, "we poured oil on her body and set her on fire". Then the assassins took the body to the forest, where they burnt it again and scattered the ashes.
At 9.30am, a telegram was sent to the Japanese Army Chief of Staff which read "Queen dead and king safe" Operation Fox Hunt had been a success.
In 1897, King Kojong, emboldened bu Russian support, returned to his throne and declared himself not just king but emperor. Seemingly unhinged, he forced subjects to bow to him as many as 9 times. He also spent "a fortune" having the remains of Queen Min properly buried, even though they consisted of just one finger bone. None of the foreign observers could understand why such a mourning procession --- which included 5,000 soldiers, 650 polices, 4,000 lanterns, hundreds of scrolls testifying to the queen's virtue and giant wooden horses intended for her use in the afterlife --- was necessary. But it appeared that the king, however ineffectual he had been, had loved his queen, and also wanted to reassert her royal rank, in part to spite his father. Her funeral procession was a way of telling the world that Min was truly a queen.
The death of Queen Min ended any possibility if an alliance with Russia that might have protected Korea from Japan. After Japan defeated Russia in the 1904-1005 Russo-Japanese war, Korea was annexed with by Japan, and the Chosen dynasty, by the headed by Min's son, Chok, was brought to an end.
Japan's ambitions in East Asia then went unchecked. The only major power not involved in World War I, Japan concentrated on colonising Korea and stationing a large army there. It became the first invasion force for the Japanese thrust into northern China in the 1930s, which in turn prompted a confrontation with Western powers and the spread of World War II to the Pacific region. During the war, Koreans died by thousands --- it is a little-known fact that over 10,000 captive Korean labourers perished at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Had Queen Min succeeded in her efforts and the Russians gained control of Korea, they might have been able to block Japanese expansion. A Korea controlled by the Russians during World War II would have had a powerful effect on Pacific Rim history in numerous ways --- placing a check on Japan in her ambitions against China, for instance but also extending the Iron Curtain around the whole of Korea immediately after the war.
In 2005, 2 Japanese descendants of the assassins who killed Queen Min returned to Korea to pay homage to the tomb of the murdered Queen. One of them was an 84-year-old doctor, Tasumi Kawano, the grandson of Shigeaki Kunitomo, a key figure in the assassinations, Another was a woman named Keiko Ieiri, the wife of the grandson of another assassin. The two were part of a group of descendants tracked down by a society in Japan seeking to redress the wrong of Queen Min's death. Their visit was paid for by a Korean televsion station.
Dr Kawano claimed that when he was young he used to play with Queen key's bad, which his grandfather had brought back from Korea. His grandfather had died before he was born, but the murder was talked about in the family as a patriotic act. Dr Kawano's grandfather had been right in the centre of the assassination, apparently pointing his sword at Queen Min and saying, "Are you the empress?" Although he expected to be a focus of hostility in Korea. Dr Kawano thought it was important to come to the country and make amends for the actions of his grandfather. When he visited the grave of Queen Min, he told a reporter:" I want to get on my knees and apologise that my grandfather did not understand the truth about Empress Myeoseong, She was simply using Russia for Korea's national interest."
When people nowadays looking at 100-year-old potrait that may or may be the Queen, you might sense the presence and power of her appearance. If you feel strongly about her, it's a good bet she's a Queen Min.
For five years after her wedding, the queen was unable to give birth. During this period of infertility, the Taewongun provided another woman for the king, a court lady, by whom he did have a son. Then, on 9th November 1871, Queen gave birth to a son, But he died within 3 days. Maddened with grief, Queen had invited hundreds of shamans of Buddhist monks prayed for the child's soul for weeks without stopping. Next Queen -- and is it any wonder there were some thought her a sorceress? --- ordered the shamans claimed that their divining had told them that it was the fault of the Taewongun, that he had poisoned her child. And so Queen decided to have her revenge. She was just 20 years old at the time and yet, from what can be gleaned from the record, she began to act like a veteran of political intrigue. She had probably realised early that her husband, King Kojong, was afraid of his father, the Taewongun, yet longed to step out from his shadow and rule the country himself. Seeking to clan, and, with the permission of her husband, put them in strategic positions of power in the government. She even managed to secretly gain the support of her husband neglected older half brother --- whom the Taawongun was apparently fond of referring to by a Korean phrase that means "the blockhead". Later, he would act as a spy of her in his father's court.
Then, in October 1873 a Confucian scholar and philosopher named Cho'Oe Ik Hyon wrote a letter to King Kojong in which he proclaimed that the Taewongun was "without virtue". Whether this was prearranged by the King and Queen is not known, but the king had previously received the philosopher and appointed him to a high position in his court. Predictably, the Taewongun protested, and even sent assassins to try to kill the man. King Kojong quickly sent Cho'Oe into flight, but not before the philosopher wrote one more letter, in which he said: "the Taewongun is the father of the king, and it is the law to respect him, but he can't rule the country forever. The king has grown up and must take the throne himself." In a society in which scholars like Cho'Oe were held in high repute --- they were akin to those biblical prophets to whose advice and chidings ancient Kings cocked an attentive ear --- these letters had an extraordinary impact.
On 5th November, the king announced that he was taking over the throne. Later that afternoon, the entrance to the Taewongun's place was bricked over. It's not known who gave the command to do this, but it seemed very much like the work of an angry Queen. The ousted regent moved to his house in Seoul to lick his wounds. A week later, there was an explosion in the queen's sleeping quarter that caused a fire, although no-one was hurt. Soon a beautiful box was delivered to Min Sung Ho, the queen closest relative. The box exploded when opened, killing him and his mother. Queen had no way to prove it --- and in any event. By Korean law, the father of a king could not be arrested --- but she was sure that the Taewongun was taking his own revenge.
In 1860, Japan, which had grown in military might under the Meiji government, had sent representatives to Korea claiming that, due to wars that occurred even before written records existed. Korea was, in essence, a tributary state of Japan, and therefore needed to pay Japan large sums of money every year. Not surprisingly, the Koreans --- then still under the control of the Taewongun --- had rejected this demand, arguing that, since the only true emperor was in China, the Japanese king held the same rank as the Korean King, and there could be no question whatsoever of paying tribute. Not only that, but --- what time did the Japanese envoy think to depart?
The Japanese renewed their demand in 1873. On the occasion, the Koreans noted with amusement that the Japanese representatives were dressed completely in Western clothing. People dressed in this fashion should not even be considered Japanese, a Korean prefect told them (and being Japanese was to be already pretty low in Korean eyes). Once again, the Japanese were forcibly removed from of the country.
The follow year, after Kojong's accession, Cho'Oe Ik-Hyon and fifty scholars, each carrying an axe, marched to Gyungbok Palace to convey their feelings on the matter. Telling Kojong that the Japanese were "wild animals that only crave material goods and are totally ignorant of human morality", they begged th king to keep them out of the country, and offered the use of their axes to cut off Japanese heads.
Unfortunately, Kojong decided --- aginst the wishes of Queen Min, who was no fan of the Japanese --- that the best way to contain Japan was to cooperate with it, and so he signed a treaty in 1874, giving the Japanese trading rights. This was all the Japanese needed. In 1875, they deliberately sailed a gunship, the Unyo, into an area that the Korean had declared off-limits to foreign ships. When Korean share batteries opened up near the island of Kanghwa, the Unyo destroyed them, and then went on to attack a fort in Inchon. Shortly thereafter, the Japanese landed a force of marines and took over Kanghwa, and then threatened a far larger invasion.
Despite being urged by Queen Min and some advisers to fight the Japanese, King Kojong again signed a treaty woith them in early 1876, known as "The Treaty of Kanghwa", which marked the beginning of the end of Korea's status as Hermit Kingdom --- and which would ultimately lead to Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910. The Japanese demanded and received rights to establish 5 new Korean ports, to survey Korean water, to trade without interference and to have Japanese nationals in Korea be subject only to Japanese law. The Koreans received nothing.
Once change come to Korea, it proceeded rapidly. In 1882,what the United States called "The Corean-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce" was signed at Inchon. Between 1882 to 1888, similar treaties followed with Germany, Italy, Russia, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary. All of these were trade agreements that gave these countries consular representation, fixed tariffs and port concessions in Korea. In return, Korea thought it would gain protection against Japan. But this didn't occur.
Historians are uncertain about how much influence Queen Min had over her husband at this point: but by signing agreements with so many foreign powers so quickly after the treaty with Japan, it seems apparent that Min, who strongly disliked the Japanese, was trying to protect her country. Meanwhile, she and King Kojong were busily modernising their country. After signing of the Corean-American Treaty, American companies were invited in, and Seoul became the first East Asian city to have water, electricity, telephones and trolley cars simultaneously. By 1900, there would be one hundred American firms doing business in Seoul.
By 1884, Queen Min had given birth to a son, Prince Chok, who would be the last king of the Chosen dynasty, and her Min Clan had taken very much of the government, which increased her power in the court immeasurably. People knew that in many matters, while King Kojong gave the orders, Queen Min formulated them. Unfortunately, like the Andong Kims, the Mins were corrupt, venal and vindictive in power. At one point in 1884, a short-lived revolt of the Korean military ousted the king and queen from power and they were forced to take refuge, ironically enough, in the Japanese embassy.
A much more serious revolt ensued in 1894: The TongHak, or "Eastern Learning" movement. This was a revolt of peasants, led by village schoolteachers, who could no longer bear the burden of being taxed on almost everything --- there were land taxes, fallow-field taxes, cloth taxes, taxes for military, taxes on having a baby, even a tax on dying --- and began attacking tax collectors and government officials. The movement was tinged with isolationism. A favourite slogan was "Drive out the Japanese dwarfs and the Western barbarians and praise righteousnes". Thousands of peasants rose up against the government of Seoul, won victories in the field and took over a provincial capital.
I never drive myself to reproduce some essays of history (stories) again but just, some people who have the enthusiasm to know the untold and dark side of "unwanted" anecdotes, there was one of the few westerners to meet the Korean Queen MyeongSeong HwangHu (명성황후 - 明成皇后) as western history knows her from the famous British travel writer Isabella Bird Bishop, who was granted an audience with the queen in January 1895, the very exception that write was no of royal family or aristocrat, only 10 months before the queen's famously savage murder. Bishop, known for the accuracy of her impressions, wrote that the queen was "a very nice looking, slender woman with glossy, raven-black hair and very pale skin." She went on to say that "her eyes were cold and keen, and the general impression (she gave was) was one of brilliant intelligence."
The actual appearance of Queen is still a mystery, there are no verified photos of her, and few images which we can say in a weak certainty, to bear any kind of likeness to her. In fact, a great deal about Queen's appearance and royal background remain its dispute of controversy. Myeongseong HwangHu was posthumous name given to her so that the living might speak the name of the dead. Her birth name may have been Cha Young, which means "Purple Beauty", but no-one knows for sure. After she became queen, she was simply called "Her Palace Majesty".
Despite all of the vague records, her fame or notoriety endures many questions and research. Some say that Queen was prepared to sell her country out to foreigners, notably the Chinese and the Russians, so that her clan, the Mins could stay in power and grow wealthier. Others see her as a neglected symbol of early Korean nationalism, a women bent on helping Korea progress into the 20th century , who was assassinated by the Japanese because she was a threat to their imperialistic designs on her country.
Koreans learnt from long experience that xenophobic tendency had its advantages. For centuries, their peninsula was the object of the attentions of the Japanese and the Chinese. During the so-called Three Kingdom period of Korea's history, roughly the first mllienium AD, the country was divided into three separate entities, the northernmost state being heavily influenced by the Chinese, the southern two interacting with the western Japanese islands. In AD 918,, the great warrior Wang Ko unified these three nations into one --- Koryo, as he called it, meaning "high mountains and sparking water" --- from which comes the modern name of Korea. Wang Ko's dynasty lasted until 1392, when it was replaced by the Chosen dynasty, which would endure until 1910, but was really brought to an end the morning the knives flashed over Queen's bed.
Despite its isolation, Korean culture advanced rapidly. By the mid-13th century, far in advance of Europe in general, Korea had invented some great things like mova-ble type printing, engineered sewage drains and water reservoirs in aristocrat's palace. The flair originated from the Arabs, classic Northern Chinese technology, Korean scientists also created astrological clocks, improved forms of gunpower and artillery and even several encyclopedias of medical, biological science.
Yet, at the same time, Korea was, and still is a country superstition is a powerful force. Sorcerers and witches abound in its history: spells are cast, nature is alive with spirits and ghosts routinely walk the land. Even in the 19th century, some scholars thought Queen Min was a witch.
In 1864, King CholChong died suddenly, with appoint the new king, but with dowager, Queen Cho, wife of a former king, schemed to put the 11 year-old son of Prince Hungson on the throne. This boy became King Kojong; his father, the price, became the all-poweful regent with the title Taewongun, or "Prince of the Great House". Almost certainly, Queen Cho had engineered this move to place her clan in ascendancy over the Andong Kims, and for a time this strategy worked.
The Taewongun essentially ruled the country from 1866 to 1873, before Kojong came of age. Despite trhe fact that he had a reputation as a drunk and wastrel, he became a firm ruler with a sense of history, who sought into to bring back the glory days of the early centuries of the dynasty. He began to rebuild Gyungbok Palace in Seoul, the city that had been Korea's capital since the beginning of the Chosen dynasty. The former home of the Chosen kings, the palace had been almost completely destroyed in fighting with the Japanese in the 16th century. But to finance the rebuilding, the Taewongun levied heavy taxs, which made him highly unpopular with the poor and extorted so called "voluntary offerings" from the well-to-do, which made him an enemy of the rich, as well. He also increased Korea isolationism just as other countries in Asia were opening up their harbours for trade with the West.
The Taewongun turned out to be a brilliant regent --- and not a bad artist, for he developed quite a reputation as a calligrapher and a delicate painter of orchids --- but he made a crucial error in 1866, when he chose as a wife for his 13-year-old son the future queen Miin of the Min Clan. She was 15 at the time of her marriage. Both her parents had died when she was 8, which suited the Taewogun, as it lessened her ability to form a power base. The wedding was a sumptuous royal festival. The slender Min could barely support the wig that usually adorned the head of royal brides --- an attendant had to stand behind her to hold it up.
The young queen was steeping into a highly charged and complex situation. On the one hand, she was the wife of the future ruler of the country. On the other, she was not from a ruling clan and was also subjected to some of the restrictions traditionally imposed on women in Korea. Despite this, Min was a formidable presence, and the Taewongun sensed it quickly, writing that she was a woman of great determination and much poise of manner". Noting that the young queen read a good deal --- usually history, and in particular histories of royal families of China -- the Taewongun said, sarcastically : "She evidently aspires to be a doctor of letter, look out for her." This was prescient, for the Taewongun and the queen soon became rivals, then deadly enemies.
(to be continued...)
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