by Donald Keene
Despite the attempt of the Japanese officials to minimize their responsibility for the incident, it did more harm to Japan in the eyes of the Western world than anything else at that time. Japan, at one blow, lost all the influence in Korea which her success in the war with China had won for her. Indeed, it was not regained until she had fought another and a greater war against Russia.35
News of the murder was slow in reaching the rest of the world and might have been kept secret indefinitely had not two foreigners—General William M. Dye, the American who had trained the Self-Defense Unit, and the Russian electrical engineer Alexander Sabatin—witnessed the events.36 They told others what had happened, and rumors spread throughout the foreign community in Seoul.
The American and Russian ministers called on Miura to ask for an explanation. He was calmness itself and noted with wry pleasure that their knees were shaking. He told them, “You haven’t got any of your people living here, but I have a whole Japanese community to look after. With respect to what happened, I bear a heavy responsibility toward my home government, but there is no reason why I should be questioned by you about my responsibility. It may well be, as you say, that Japanese were involved in this incident, but we won’t know until an investigation has been completed whether they were all Japanese. Koreans sometimes deliberately pose as Japanese, aware that otherwise they will be looked down on. That’s why they sometimes use Japanese swords. And that’s why we must investigate, to discover how many were real Japanese and how many were fakes. To say that because they acted like Japanese and carried Japanese swords proves they were Japanese is jumping to conclusions. But that is my responsibility. And there is no reason why I must be subjected to questions by you.”37 He refused to submit to any further questioning.
Quite by accident, Colonel John Albert Cockerill, the celebrated correspondent of the New York Herald, happened to be in Seoul. Learning from Dye of the assassination, he attempted to cable a dispatch to his newspaper, but Miura applied pressure on the telegraph office to prevent the message from getting out. On October 14 word finally reached Washington. The Japanese legation, when asked to confirm the report, stated that it
merely received advices to the effect that a portion of the Corean army, excited by the report that the queen proposed to disarm and disband them, marched upon the castle, headed by Tai Won Kun. The dispatch failed to say whether or not the queen had been killed, but the attachés infer from its content that she has met such a fate.38
Miura intended that the world believe that what had happened was a purely Korean affair—the taewon’gun had staged a coup d’état with the help of Korean troops who were unhappy about the queen’s decision to disband them.39 This fabrication would probably have been believed if not for the two foreign witnesses who knew that Miura was lying. His first report to Tōkyō (which arrived on October 9) was so vaguely phrased that the Japanese government suspected that something was being concealed. The emperor was much disturbed by the extreme lack of clarity in the message sent to him from the Foreign Ministry.40 He is said to have remarked with a frown to the military attaché Kawashima Reijirō, who informed him of what had happened, “Once Gorō makes up his mind about something, he doesn’t hesitate to carry it out.”41 The emperor evidently surmised that Miura had been behind whatever had occurred.
On the evening of October 9 the emperor sent Kawashima to the General Staff Office to inquire about the incident in Seoul and to ask the army to investigate. Kawashima was received by the second in command, who promised to send someone at once to Seoul to investigate. On the thirteenth an order was issued prohibiting unauthorized Japanese from traveling to Korea, as it was feared that “lawless elements” might create fresh diplomatic problems.42 On October 17 Miura Gorō was recalled to Japan. He would be replaced as minister by Komura Jutarō, a career diplomat.
On October 19 an ambassador arrived in Tōkyō from Korea with gifts for the emperor and empress from the king. There was also a letter in which the king expressed his joy over the signing of the peace treaty between China and Japan and declared that the independence of Korea and the governmental reforms were thanks entirely to the depth of the emperor’s neighborly feelings. The ambassador, in turn, was given presents from the emperor and empress to take back to the king.43 The ritual exchange of presents at a most inappropriate time masked whatever real feelings were involved.
On October 21 Itō Hirobumi decided to send Inoue Kaoru to Korea as special ambassador. He said that the recent incident involving Queen Min not only was a violation of the policies that hitherto had been followed by the Japanese government but had given rise to extraordinary international reactions. For this reason, he was giving Inoue precise instructions concerning his powers and duties lest misunderstandings arise in the future. Inoue’s mission was to convey to the king the imperial household’s sympathy over the death of Queen Min and its regret that Japanese subjects had participated in the incident.44
As for future Japanese policy toward Korea, Itō believed that it served no useful purpose to aid internal reforms in Korea, much less attempt to force them on the Koreans. A policy of disengagement—leaving Korean affairs to the Koreans—would gradually be put into effect. He believed that Japanese policy toward Korea should be passive. If the necessity ever arose to take more positive measures, the resident minister should await instructions from the Japanese government before acting.
On October 24 when the Korean minister to Japan was about to return to his country, having completed his tour of duty, the emperor received him in audience and expressed regret over the death of Queen Min.45 On the same day Miura Gorō was officially relieved of his post because of his failure to obey government orders. On November 5 his privileges as a member of the nobility were suspended.
The assassination of Queen Min had brought disaster to almost everyone concerned. The king of Korea not only had lost his beautiful wife but had been forced to sign a royal edict in which he blamed Queen Min for having “made dull our senses, exposed the people to extortion, put Our Government in disorder, selling offices and titles.” He had accordingly deposed her from the rank of queen and reduced her to the level of the lowest class.46 Miura, the chief architect of the assassination, was in disgrace. Itō Hirobumi’s overarching plan for Japan to gain recognition as equal among the eminent countries of the world had been frustrated by an unseemly action. Inoue Kaoru’s hopes for reforming the Korean government would be annulled by the new policy of keeping hands off Korea’s internal policies. Furthermore, with the death of Queen Min, the Russians had lost influence at court.47
The only person likely to have felt satisfaction over these developments was the taewon’gun. No sooner had “his” coup succeeded than he demanded that Kojong replace members of the cabinet with pro-Japanese men of his choice.48 The Self-Defense Unit, the king’s personal guard, was amalgamated into the Training Unit, which kept the king a virtual prisoner. The king helplessly agreed to everything demanded of him, but he became convinced that people were trying to poison him and refused to eat food unless it had been prepared in the kitchen of one of the foreign legations.49
Pressure was mounting, however, to punish the Japanese who had been involved in the murder, and Miura could no longer pretend that no Japanese had participated. He decided to conduct an investigation that would result in severe punishment for “several people” and the banishment from Korea of some twenty more. Because Japan enjoyed extraterritoriality in Korea, the investigation would be conducted not by Koreans but by the Japanese police headed by a commissioner who himself was deeply involved in the incident.50
Shiba Shirō, another of Miura’s advisers,51 obtained 6,000 yen, supposedly from the taewon’gun, for distribution among his “benefactors.” This money probably came not from the taewon’gun but from Miura as a means of shoring up his claim that the taewon’gun had instigated the incident.52 It would also buy the silence of those banished from Korea. The Japanese government refused, however, to go along with this
plan, giving instructions that no disposition of those involved in the incident be made until the new minister, Komura Jutarō, arrived. Everyone suspected of involvement would be sent to Japan for trial, a demonstration by the government of its resolve to abide by international law.
Three groups of suspects were sent back to Japan—the sōshi, Minister Miura and his staff, and remaining elements. They left Seoul in three stages, on October 19, 20, and 21. The ships sailed directly to Ujina in Hiroshima Prefecture. On arriving at the army quarantine station, they were directed to take a bath, and on emerging from the bath, they were served with warrants of arrest and put in handcuffs, accused of premeditated murder and conspiracy.53
Miura was given the same treatment as the others when he arrived in Ujina. He naturally was enraged and refused to talk to anyone below the status of cabinet minister. He was escorted to a rather comfortable prison cell where he remained for some ninety days.54
On January 14, 1896, a court-martial was held for the Japanese army officers accused of participating in the murder of Queen Min. On January 20 the preliminary inquiry held at Hiroshima District Court to consider the charges against Okamoto Ryūnosuke, Miura Gorō, and Sugimura Fukashi found that “there is no sufficient evidence to prove that any of the accused actually committed the crime originally meditated by them.” The defendants were released.
The court’s findings were detailed and accurate insofar as they went. The decision made it clear that Japanese and not Koreans had planned and carried out the attack on the palace and the murder of Queen Min. For example, it stated that
Miura Gorō further issued instructions to Major Umayabara Muhon, Commander of the Japanese Battalion in Seoul, ordering him to facilitate the Tai Won-kun’s entry into the palace by directing the disposition of the Kunrentai troops, and by calling out the Imperial force for their support. Miura also summoned the accused Adachi Kenzō and Kunitomo Shigeakira, and requested them to collect their friends, meeting Okamoto at Yong-san, and act as the Tai Won-kun’s bodyguard on the occasion of His Highness’s entry into the palace. Miura told them that on the success of the enterprise depended the eradication of the evils that had done so much mischief to the kingdom for the past twenty years, and instigated them to dispatch the queen when they entered the palace.55
The report even mentions that after assembling “the whole party” outside the gates of the taewon’gun’s house, Okamoto declared that “on entering the palace the ‘fox’ should be dealt with as exigency might require, the obvious purport of this declaration being to instigate his followers to murder Her Majesty the queen.” The report follows Okamoto and the others into the palace through the Kwang-hwa Gate and then to the inner chambers but stops abruptly at this point. Having presented irrefutable evidence of the involvement of Miura and the others in the crime, the court could not seem to take the final step of finding them guilty. The Japanese jurists seemed to have tried to the utmost to preserve their integrity as men of the law but in the end submitted to the government’s order that they acquit the accused.
The failure of Miura’s policy in Korea was dramatically demonstrated on February 11, 1896, when Kojong escaped from the palace where he had been kept in confinement and took refuge in the Russian legation. The escape had been carefully planned. According to the “Official Report,”
His Majesty confided his intention to no official in the Palace nor to any one connected with the Cabinet, and though closely watched managed, early in the morning to go out through the East Gate of the Palace in a closed chair such as is used by the palace women. The Crown Prince accompanied him in a similar chair. It had been customary for ladies of the Court and the women connected with the Palace to pass in and out of this gate in such chairs and the guards, supposing that they contained women, permitted them to pass without question.
His Majesty and the Crown Prince had no escort, and the people in the Palace, supposing that they were asleep, did not discover for some time that they had left. They proceeded at once to the Russian Legation, where they arrived about twenty minutes past seven, and at once summoned a number of Koreans whom His Majesty knew to be faithful to himself, and issued edicts dismissing most of the members of the old Cabinet, appointing others in their place, and denouncing six persons…. The prime minister of the old Cabinet, Kim Hong Chip, and the Minister for Agriculture, Chung Pyung Ha, though not denounced in any proclamation, were arrested by the police and in the tumult and excitement were killed and their bodies exposed upon the street, where they were stoned and otherwise maltreated by the infuriated populace.56
The king’s reasons for taking refuge in the Russian legation were not revealed, but he apparently had heard the report that the taewon’gun intended to depose the king and put his own grandson on the throne. The king had not forgiven the Japanese for the murder of Queen Min, and his first statement emanating from the Russian legation was a call for extreme punishment to be meted out to the murderers.
Kojong’s dismissal of the pro-Japanese cabinet was the boldest action of his life. Japanese influence in Korea, which had seemed so strong a few months earlier, now dropped to its nadir, and the Russian legation became the core of the Korean government. At an audience with the king, Komura, the Japanese minister, urged him to return to his palace, but the king ignored this recommendation. The military units trained by the Japanese were disbanded, and most of the Japanese advisers to the government were dismissed.
These events naturally caused great consternation in Japan, where the king’s flight to the Russian legation was officially interpreted not merely as a serious blow to Japanese ambitions but as a threat to Korean independence, a matter of grave concern for the future of the Orient. General Miura, far from being punished for the fiasco, went on to have a distinguished political career. King Kojong left the Russian legation and returned to his palace in February 1897. In August he changed the reign-name to Kwang mu (Martial Brilliance) and in October proclaimed the establishment of the Great Han Empire.57 It is ironic that a king so little endowed with martial brilliance should have chosen such a time to proclaim himself an emperor.
Chapter 48
On January 1, 1896, Meiji once again did not perform the customary New Year ceremonies. Now in his forty-fifth year, he had apparently lost interest in the performance of traditional rituals. His mind was preoccupied not by the past but by the future role of Japan in a world of conflicting powers. Japan had won the war with China, its longtime mentor, but victory had not ended the tensions in East Asia. The situation in Korea remained confused and potentially dangerous, and although Taiwan had officially been pacified, there were still sporadic outbreaks of resistance to Japanese rule. A rare agreeable development, the reestablishment of friendly relations with China, may have inspired the cheerfulness of the poem the emperor composed at the first poetry gathering of the year:
ame no shita How delightful is
nigiwau yo koso The prosperity that reigns
tanoshikere Beneath the heavens:
yama no oku made Roads have been opened up
michi no hirakete To the depths of the mountains.1
On January 25 Princesses Masako and Fusako paid a visit to the palace.2 They were accompanied by Sadako, the wife of Sasaki Takayuki, their guardian. After the audience with the emperor had ended, the empress called Sadako to her and remarked that although all the emperor’s other children, including the crown prince, had been prone to illness, the two princesses looked the picture of health. This, she said, had greatly comforted the emperor, and he always praised the efforts of Sasaki and his wife. Despite his professed interest in his two daughters, however, the emperor could not find time to see them again that year until December 29, when, at an audience before their father, they displayed their skill at reading, conversation, and drawing.3
Granted that the emperor had many state duties to perform, it is surprising that he should have permitted almost a year to elapse without once seeing his daughters. Most of his children had died youn
g, and the crown prince’s frequent illnesses were a constant problem. One would suppose that the emperor would be eager to see two such healthy children. Early in September, Sasaki, confessing that he had great trouble looking after the princesses, asked when they would be permitted to return to the palace. He recalled that until 1891 it had been extremely easy for the princesses to have an audience with the emperor, but such occasions had gradually become fewer, and this year he had granted them an audience only once. Sasaki tried without success to communicate his disappointment to the emperor. Later that month, Sasaki took the princesses to the palace, hoping that the emperor would be pleased to see how they had grown, but he again declined to give them an audience.4 Perhaps the emperor felt that a display of special interest in his children would be unbecoming. As a result, he seemed a cold and unaffectionate father.5
The education of the two princesses remained a matter of concern throughout 1896. Sasaki Takayuki was informed in January that Masako would, after the summer vacation, be brought up at the Akasaka Palace under the guidance of Kagawa Keizō. Sasaki would continue to be responsible for Fusako’s education and for that of the next child, expected in May. Sasaki protested: first of all, he and his wife were no longer young and would probably be unequal to the task of raising a newly born infant. He also expressed the belief that Fusako was now old enough to leave his care. In any case, he did not think it was a good idea to separate the two princesses. The emperor yielded to the extent of allowing both princesses to be educated by Kagawa Keizō, but he was quite determined that Sasaki be in charge of raising his next child. Perhaps the emperor attributed the survival of the two princesses, after so many early deaths among his children, to Sasaki’s ministrations.6