Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (85 page)

Unfortunately, there still were obstacles to friendship and trade with foreigners. According to the present treaties, foreigners were not allowed to live or trade outside the treaty ports. The government had long waited for the proper moment to remove these obstacles and believed that it had now arrived. On condition that foreigners obeyed Japanese laws, they would be free to travel throughout the country, live where they pleased, acquire movable and immovable property, engage in trade, and operate industries. On the day that this new system went into effect, foreign citizens would be subject to jurisdiction dissimilar to what they had experienced while in the treaty ports, but it would be fair. Inoue had not the slightest doubt that its fairness would be acknowledged. This would revolutionize the relations of Japanese and foreigners and build friendship between them. Trade would be free and foreign capital welcomed, in this way creating prosperity for industry and trade. He expected that a large-scale market for imported goods would be opened.
¹³

On June 1 Inoue formally presented to the preliminary conference a bill (based on his April speech) for revision of the treaties. The bill provided that five years after the revised treaties were signed, the entire country would be opened to foreigners to travel, live, and work where they pleased, with all the rights the Japanese enjoyed in trade or employment. In order to allay foreigners’ fears about Japanese laws, every effort would be made to secure their trust. The new laws would be based entirely on the legal principles prevalent in the West. All laws and regulations would be translated into at least one European language and would be distributed. Foreign judges would sit with Japanese judges. In the event that the jury system was adopted, in those cases involving foreigners, some jurors would be foreigners.

When the bill was read, the German minister at once expressed his admiration for the bill’s plans for mutual benefit, praising particularly the generous guarantees to foreigners. He said he would report the content of the bill to his government and recommend revision of the treaties. He was followed by the ministers of Belgium, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Holland, Spain, Italy, and Russia, all of whom agreed with the German envoy. The American envoy praised the reasonableness of the Japanese plan and said that he would be delighted to recommend that his government accept the plan. He added that the elimination of extraterritoriality would soften Japanese feelings of discontent and bitterness, preserve friendly relations with the Japanese people, and promote business and trade. Only Sir Harry Parkes, the British envoy, declined to join in the chorus of praise for the bill, saying that he would have to study it more carefully.
¹⁴

On July 18 Parkes replied to the preliminary conference that the British government was adamantly opposed to Inoue’s proposal and presented a memorandum explaining the reasons. He said that although Japan would commence having jurisdiction from the day after the approval of the revised treaties, it would not accord the promised privileges to foreigners for five years. During this time, the only advantage they would enjoy was the freedom to travel in the interior on business; they would not be able to live there, possess property, or use capital in their occupations. Moreover, the judicial system and judicial methods promised by the Japanese were extremely vague and by no means sufficient to guarantee foreigners’ rights and benefits. Because the Japanese government had yet to formulate a civil or commercial code and the new penal code had been in operation for only one year, it would be exceedingly difficult for his government to judge whether or not the new laws would be effective. He expected that it would take considerable time before the proposal could be approved and so recommended that the governments of Japan and the other countries involved give it their most careful attention. Parkes believed that the present proposal could not enjoy the trust of Englishmen and that it would not be able to attract the flow of foreign capital into Japan necessary for Japan’s future prosperity.
¹⁵
He quoted “an able Japanese publicist” who as late as the close of 1879 declared that “the laws did not duly protect the lives, liberties, and property of the Japanese themselves, and required very considerable reform before they could be generally approved by the Japanese people.”
¹⁶

Although England was the only country to speak out against the proposal, Parkes’s voice was decisive. He suggested that the ministers of other countries discuss the proposal freely, but they decided instead to refer the matter back to their governments. Thus ended the sixteenth session of the preliminary conference on July 27.

In reading Parkes’s objections to Inoue’s proposal for eliminating extraterritoriality, it is difficult not to recognize the force of his arguments. Neither he nor his government saw any reason to hurry with treaty revision, and they were reluctant to give up rights they enjoyed without being absolutely sure the new system would work equally to their advantage. Parkes said in his memorandum that he sympathized with the desire of the Japanese to abolish completely consular jurisdiction, but his sympathy does not appear to have been deep. He seems not to have shared the awareness of the American minister (John Bingham) of the resentment the Japanese felt over the extraterritoriality imposed by foreign governments, an unmistakable indication of their belief that Japan was still uncivilized. Parkes’s citation of the words of “an able Japanese publicist” did not allude to this resentment, which was probably more keenly felt by Japanese than any uncertainty over the new laws. In sum, Parkes was defending a system that had become odious to the Japanese as a negation of all they had achieved since the Restoration.

In the meantime, Japanese attention was diverted from the long-standing question of treaty revision to a more immediate problem, an uprising of Korean soldiers in Seoul on July 23. The ultimate cause was anger over reforms that the government had ordered in the armed forces. At the end of 1881, as part of their plan to modernize Korea, King Kojong and his consort, Queen Min,
¹⁷
had invited the military attaché of the Japanese legation, Lieutenant Horimoto Reiz
ō
, to serve as an adviser in creating a modern army. One hundred young men of the aristocracy were given Japanese-style military training, and it annoyed soldiers of the old army to see how much better equipped and treated these young men were than themselves. More than 1,000 soldiers, most of them old or disabled, had been discharged in the process of revamping the army, and the rest had not been given their pay in rice for thirteen months. In June, having been informed of the situation, the king ordered that a month’s allowance of rice be given to the soldiers. He directed Min Kyom-ho, the overseer of government finances, to make the payment. Min handed the matter over to his steward, who sold the good rice he had been given and used the money to buy millet that he mixed with sand and bran. It was so rotten and foul smelling as to be inedible.
¹⁸

The enraged soldiers headed for the residence of Min Kyom-ho, whom they suspected of having swindled them out of their rice. Min, getting word of the revolt, ordered the police to arrest some of the ringleaders and announced that they would be executed the next morning, assuming that this would serve as a warning to the others. When, however, the rioters learned what had happened, they broke into Min’s house to take revenge. He was not there, so they dissipated their frustration by destroying his furniture and other possessions.

The rioters moved on to an armory, from which they stole weapons and ammunition. Better armed than ever before in their careers as soldiers, they headed for the prison and, overpowering the guards, released not only the men who had been arrested that day by Min Kyom-ho but many political prisoners. Min, who was in the royal palace, summoned the army to quell the rebellion, but it was too late: the original body of rioters had been swelled by the poor of the city and other malcontents, and the revolt had assumed major proportions.

One group of rioters went to Lieutenant Horimoto’s quarters and took turns in stabbing the cowering military instructor, administering many small wounds until they slowly killed him.
¹⁹
Another group, some 3,000 strong, after arming themselves with weapons taken from a looted depot, headed for the Japanese legation. The royal palace had received word of the imminent danger, along with the admission that the king was powerless to subdue the rioters.
²⁰
Inside the legation were the minister, Hanabusa Yoshimoto (1842–1917), seventeen members of his staff, and ten police officers. The mob surrounded the legation, shouting its intention of killing all the Japanese.

Hanabusa gave orders to burn the legation. His secretary at once doused important documents with oil and set them afire. The flames quickly spread, and under cover of flames and smoke, Hanabusa and the others escaped through a rear gate. The Japanese fled to the harbor, where they boarded a boat that took them down the Han River to In’chon. At first they took refuge with the In’chon commandant, but when word arrived of the events in Seoul, the attitude of their hosts changed, and the Japanese realized they were no longer safe. They escaped to the harbor in a driving rain, pursued by Korean soldiers. Six Japanese were killed, and another five were seriously wounded. The survivors, carrying the wounded, boarded a small boat and headed for the open sea. Three days later they were rescued by a British surveyor ship, the
Flying Fish
.
²¹

On July 24, the day after the attack on the Japanese legation, the rioters forced their way into the royal palace. They found and killed Min Kyom-ho as well as a dozen other high-ranking officers. They searched for Queen Min, intending to kill her both because she belonged to the hated Min family and because they knew the corrupt government was completely under her control. The queen narrowly escaped, dressed as an ordinary court lady and carried on the back of a faithful guard who claimed she was his sister.
²²

The one member of the royal family on the side of the rioters was the
taewon’gun
,
²³
the father of the king. He hated the Min family, which had deprived him of his power over the throne. The hapless king, now that Queen Min was not there to guide him, was again dependent on his father. He asked his father to return, and the
taewon’gun
joyfully resumed his former post after nine years of exile. Among his first acts were to order a state funeral for Queen Min, who was presumed to have died in the attack on the palace, and to abolish the modern, Japanese-trained army unit.

It may be imagined the indignation with which the news of these events was received after Hanabusa’s return to Japan. Inoue Kaoru called a special session of the cabinet on August 30. The emperor commanded Inoue to go to Shimonoseki to take charge of the crisis. He also commanded Rear Admiral Nirei Kagenori to proceed with four warships, and Major General Takashima Tomonosuke to accompany him with a battalion of infantry, to Korea as an escort for Minister Resident Hanabusa when he returned to his post (and also to protect other Japanese who might be in Korea).

Inoue left T
ō
ky
ō
on August 2. He met Hanabusa in Shimonoseki and gave him his instructions, which described the anger aroused by the outrages of the Korean ruffians and the affront to the reputation of the Japanese nation. The document blamed the Korean government for its laxness in suppressing these unruly elements. It had failed to attach sufficient importance to the relations that should prevail between neighboring countries. The Japanese nevertheless had judged, in view of Korean national feelings, that it was premature to send a punitive expedition. The minister would return to Seoul. He would be protected by army and navy units because there was no predicting what further violence might be unleashed by the rioters.

Hanabusa was commanded to meet with senior officials in Seoul and persuade them to set a date by which the rioters would be disposed of in a manner satisfactory to Japan. If the rioters were bold enough to make surprise attacks, Japan would feel compelled to use military force to subdue them, regardless of what measures the Korean government might take.

As yet there was no threat of war, but it was implicit. Hanabusa was instructed that if the Koreans showed any signs of hiding the culprits and not punishing them or if they refused to take part in the discussions demanded by the Japanese, this would constitute a clear breach of peace. In that case, the envoy would send a final letter to the Korean government indicting it for its crimes and then proceed without delay to Inch’on, along with army and navy forces that would occupy the port. On arrival in Inch’on, the envoy would at once send a detailed report to T
ō
ky
ō
and await further orders. Hanabusa was advised that if China or any other nation offered to mediate, it should be refused. The instructions concluded on a surprisingly conciliatory note: the Japanese government did not consider that the Korean government had intentionally harmed peaceful relations. The envoy should therefore sincerely attempt to restore the traditional good relations between the two countries. The present incident might even provide a means of securing a lasting peace.
²⁴

Despite the optimism of these last remarks, the government authorized the call-up of reserves at the beginning of August. Inoue Kaoru notified ministers living in T
ō
ky
ō
of the Japanese government’s decision to send troops and ships to Korea to protect Japanese citizens. He emphasized that the government’s intentions were entirely peaceful. An offer by the American government to mediate was, however, immediately declined.
²⁵
The emperor, worried about the situation, sent Chamberlain Yamaguchi Masasada to Korea as a personal envoy. He remained in Korea until the Treaty of Chemulp’o
²⁶
was signed.