Historical Sketch. When Korea, or Cho-sen (Ch'ao Hsien -- 'Morning Calm ' or 'Fresh Morning'), became known to the Chinese (who called it Tung-kwo, or 'Eastern Kingdom') during the reign of Wuti, of the Han Dynasty (B.C. 206 to A.D. 221), it was peopled by the numerous groups of semi-savage tribes (perhaps nomadic Turanians) of different stock, language, and institutions, who are supposed to have entered the peninsula overland from that great hive of nations, Manchuria, at the north. The flimsy legends and tribal beliefs of these rude and unlettered peoples, though supposed to reach back to B.C. 2300, throw but little true light on their origin or provenience. After the lapse of an unrecorded period, history finds their descendants cemented into a number of fairly strong kingdoms ruled over by their own kings and all apparently animated by the wish to suppress or absorb their weaker neighbors. For the first 600 yrs. of the Christian era the history of the peninsula is practically that of three kingdoms, and for 400 yrs. thereafter that of Silla (Jap. Shiragi), which rose to such prominence that before its decay and downfall in A.D. 935 its sovereign unified the country and ruled it under one crown. The word Korea is derived from Kourai, the name of the most northern of the three old kingdoms which originally shared the peninsula between them. 'Each kingdom had a long line of kings of varying characters and fortunes, who worked weal or woe to their countries, some of whom fell beneath assassins' knives, while others, deposed or defeated, died by their own hands; some leaving behind them the memories of strong and efficient governments, which brought nothing but good to their subjects; others those of merciless tyrants, sunk in debauchery and cruelty, whose memories are akin to those of Nero and Caligula. Each had its episodes of national triumph and reverse, its incidents of heroic fortitude and craven submission, amidst which all steadily progressed on the paths of learning, art, and industry; each received its teachers and missionaries from China; each preserved throughout its history the characteristics that had marked its origin. Each contributed in its turn to the stream of emigrants that poured from the peninsula into Japan, bringing with them all that they themselves had learned from China, and assisting in laying the foundations of the sysems of religion, statecraft and literature, science and social life which formed the civilization of Japan for more than 1200 years, and wos only replaced in the latter half of the 19th cent. by the higher civilization of Europe.' (Longford.)

Conspicuous among these petty states was Pakché (Jap. Kudara) which rose in B.C. 17 and lasted until A.D. 660. It is of interest, for it is believed that from it the islanders got the first tincture of continental civilization. Japanese records refer to various embassies that passed between Japan and the peninsular kingdoms, particularly one in A.D. 284 when two horses (said to be the first to enter Japan) were sent from the mainland. In time this kingdom -- which stretched along the shores of the Yellow Sea from the neighborhood of the present Korean capital to the S.W. extremity of the peninsula -- served as the bridge over which much of the Chinese culture of the times passed to Japan. Thither went Buddhism along with its sutras, idols, temple fitments, and artisans to erect the first temples in Japan in A.D. 552, and later the first specimens of ceramic art (said to have come to Korea from Persia), with skilled potters, who settled in Kyuushuu and there established primitive potteries, destined later to send their wonderful products far afield and to make Satsuma ware celebrated throughout the world. Thither also went (about A.D. 725) the dread scourge smallpox, which soon spread all over the Island Empire and gained therein such a foothold that it has never been entirely dislodged. Prior to this, in A.D. 405, a celebrated teacher of writing named Wani went from Pakché to Japan and introduced in that country a system of writing and of preserving written records, thus laying the foundation of Japanese written language and history. He was but the forerunner of a long list of skilled emigrants who went o Japan during the succeeding centuries, and by their industrial, literary, and technical attainments founded most of the fine arts for which that empire is famous to-day. It was not until the 7th cent. that Japanese students began finding their way direct to the seats of learning in China, and thus getting their information at first hand. They adopted printing from Korea in the 12th cent., at which time a work of the Buddhist canon was printed from wooden blocks. 'A Korean book is known which dates authentically from the period between 1317 and 1324, over a century before the earlies printed book known in Europe.' -- In time the kingdom of Silla was swallowed up in the new kingdom of Koryuu, which, originating in the N. in A.D. 918, soon acquired such power that it extended its sway over the whole peninsula, and far beyond the Yalu, in Manchuria. With the rise of the great Kublai Khan in 1265, Koryuu (or Kourai, or Korea -- Chinese: Kaoli) was forced to acknowledge Mongol suzerainty, and the people of the peninsula were obliged to aid Kublai in his abortive descents against the Japanese coast. Koryuu came to political end in 1392 when the ancestor (Yi Taijo) of the line of sovereigns who ruled the country down to 1910 ascended the throne and established what was thenceforth known as Chosen. History records that Tai Jong (1418-50), the younger son of Taijo, first conceived and carried out the idea of movable copper types.

The Arabs, who were among the earliest races to trade with the Koreans, knew of the country in the 9th cent.; reference is made to it by an Arab geographer, Khordabeh, in his Book of Roads and Provinces. Marco Polo carried the news of it to Europe, and later did also the Portuguese and Franciscan friars. It soon became known to Europeans as 'The Hermit Kingdom,' from the circumstance that for centuries Korea successfully carried out the policy of isolation. Father Gregorio de Cespedes, a zealous Jesuit missionary, was the first recorded foreigner to enter the forbidden land, but he was deported soon after he had landed at Fusan in 1594. It was nearly 200 yrs. later before another missionary entered the kingdom, as during that long interval the Koreans made strenuous efforts to hermetically seal the country, laying waste the seacoast and inhospitable land zones, and killing or turning back all aspirants for admission. The unfortunate Dutch sailors of the Sparwehr (Sparrowhawk) who were wrecked off Quelpart in 1653 were enslaved and were detained as captives for 27 yrs. -- the face of a number of them being unknown. During its long isolation the peninsula was a constant bone of contention between the Chinese on one side and the Japanese on the other. The latter laid claim to the country in the 2d cent. A.D., and made frequent efforts to possess it. In lieu of possession they exacted yearly tribute, and it was not until Feb. 27, 1876, that the Mikado's Minister Plenipotentiary signed a treaty which recognized Chosen as an independent nation. For upward of 50 yrs. prior to this it had been the crux of the international policy of the Far East, while for centuries it had been the theater of prolonged internecine wars, and Japanese, Manchu, and Mongol raids. Dreadful persecutions of Christians, and misrule and cruelty that shock the sensibilities, are among the most salient episodes in the history of this backward nation. In 1592, Konishi Yukinaga and Katou Kiyomasa, Hideyoshi's most popular generals, invaded the kingdom at Fusan, and with more than 300,000 troops (50,000 of whom were killed) waged a tremendous war against the Koreans and their Chinese allies; nor did this oversea campaign (one of the greatest in the history of any country) cease until Hideyoshi's death in 1598.

Of peculiar interest in connection with this titanic invasion is the reference (made often by historians) to the Kwi-sun, or Tortoise-boat (invented by Admiral Yi Sun-sin), 'which had a curved deck of iron plates like a tortoise which completely sheltered the fighters and rowers beneath,' and which many authorities accept as the true prototype of the modern ironclad warship (particularly of the type used in the American War of Secession). Also of the wonderful new missile (invented by Yi Jang-son) called 'The Flying Thunderbolt.' This was projected from a kind of mortar (about 8 ft. long) made of bell metal, and having a bore of 12-14 in. History records that this could hurl itself through the air for 40 paces. When the 'Flying Thunderbolt' was thrown over the wall of a town, and when the Japanese inside flocked to see what it might be, it exploded with a terrifying noise, killing a score or more men instantly. 'The length of the fun compared with its caliber, the distance the projective was carried with the poor powder then in use, and the explosion of the shell all point to this as being the first veritable mortar in use in the East, if not in the world.' It is said that the Japanese were so enraged at the destructiveness of these new instruments of war, that at the final great battle of the campaign at Sochon (near Fusan), nearly 39,000 Korean and Chinese heads were gathered up from the field, the ears and noses were cut off and pickled in lime and water and forwarded to Hideyoshi, -- later to be buried in the famous Ear Mound (Mimi-zuka); p. 430) at Kyouto. One authority says that 214,752 human bodies were decapitated to furnish the ghastly material for this ear-mound, and he further adds: 'Thus ended one of the most needless, unprovoked, cruel, and desolating wars that ever cursed Korea, and from which it has taken her over two centuries to recover.' So far-reaching was the suffering this stupendous campaign entailed that thenceforth the Japanese were customarily referred to by the Korean commonalty as 'the accursed nation.'

In 1797, Captain Broughton, in his voyage of discovery in H.M.S. Providence, cruised along the E. coast of Korea and gave his name to the great bay in the S. of Ham-Gyong Province. He was soon followed by others, and Korean cruelty toward those who attempted to enter the country, and official arrogance toward the foreign gov't that essayed to protect its nationals, involved the authorities in frequent disastrous scrimmages. A fleet of 7 French ships commanded by Bellonet anchored off the mouth of the Han River in 1866, and the city of Kang hoa, on Kang hoa Island, the military headquarters of W. Korea, was bombarded and destroyed. When the crew of the American schooner General Sherman were murdered by Koreans at Ping-An, in 1866, the United States sent a punitive expedition (of 750 men) under Rear-Admiral John Rodgers, and after a rapid shrapnel demonstration (sometimes referred to as 'Our little war with the Heathen'), the Koreans made amends and the ships withdrew. The repeated breaches made by England, France, Germany, Japan, and the United States, soon broke down the wall of Chosenese seclusion, and after the signing of the treaty with Japan, the first Korean embassy (which since the 12th cent. had been accredited to the Mikado's Court) left for Japan, and reached Yokohama May 29, 1876. Other treaties were soon signed with foreign powers (that of the United States in 1882), the most important being that with Great Britain (in 1884), for, as is customary with that greatest of all colonizing powers, the intelligent and able representatives who trod in the footsteps of Sir Harry Parkes (prominent among them Dr. McLeavy Brown) left their indelible impress upon the country and its people. The first American minister to the Hermit Kingdom was General Lucius H. Foote. The events which led up to the final annexation of Korea (Aug. 22, 1910) by Japan were rapid and sanguinary; Russian greed, haughtiness, and duplicity were the underlying and accelerating motives.

The world knows how holy, peace-lowing Russia unmasked her batteries after the Japan-China War of 1895, and, aided by other powers, compelled Japan to give up all claims upon the continent and to be content with an indemnity from China and the cession of Formosa. Also how all administrative reforms instituted by Japan in Korea were nullified and rendered abortive by Muscovite intrigue. To remain in direst ignorance, but to join the Greek Church, recognize the supremacy of, and pay tribute to, the 'Little Father,' and later to aid him in a de-nationalizing campaign against Japan, comprised Russia's aims toward the Koreans. But more enlightened and progressive Japan had wider and more humanitarian ambitions -- ambitions similar to those of the United States in the Philippines, and Great Britain in India. For years the Mikado's unswerving policy has been to correct Korean maladministration, and to open the Hermit Kingdom to the world. 'Twice' (says Mr. Longford) 'the Japanese attempted to secure their own position in Korean vis-à-vis Russia, first by the convention negotiated at Toukyou in 1898, known from the names of their signatories, the first as the Yamagata-Lobanoff, and the second as the Nishi-Rosen, convention. All were in vain. Russia pursued her own course regardless of all treaty obligations, obtained and held control of the military and financial systems of Korea, and, while she had agreed to respect Korea's territorial integrity and not to obstruct the development of commercial and industrial relations with Japan, she was rapidly securing for herself concessions which placed the most valuable resources of Korea at her disposal. Her Minister at Seoul was always in the confidence of the King, and, backed both by gratitude which the King owed for the protection given to him in his time of peril (after the murder of his Queen) and by the prestige of Russia, was practically able to abtain all that he asked. It seeme only a question of time when Korea shoul beome in name, as she already appeared to be in fact, a Russian province, when a series of incidents occurred that were as insignificant in their origin as they were momentous in their results.

'Among the many concessions granted by the Korean King when a refugee in the Russian Legation (in 1896) was one to a Russian subject for cutting timber in the valley of the River Yalu, on the N.W. frontier. It was a valuable one, in view of the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the immense number of sleepers that would be required, and the rich forest of the Yalu Valley, which could furnish the material, while the river itself afforded easy and cheap facilities for transport from the forests to the borders of Manchuria. Members of the Imperial family of Russia and high officials in E. Siberia took large pecuniary interests in it, so that the concessionnaire became assured of strong political and official support whenever the time came at which it suited him to make used of it. It was never made public, and nothing was heard of it till the summer of 1903, when Chinese laborers from Manchuria began to fell timber on an extensive scale under Russian direction; and the laborers were soon followed by soldiers, to protect them from the mounted Chinese bandits who infested Manchuria immediately to the N. of the Yalu. The sale of land to foreigners outside the limits of the recognized settlements was forbidden by Korean law, but a large tract was purchased by the Russian timber concessionairy at Yongampho, a Korean port on the Yalu, about 15 M. from its mouth, from the Korean owners. Substantial dwellings, sawmills, and other buildings were erected on it, the river frontage was embanked, and every intention was manifested of founding a large settlement. A little farther up the river, on the Manchurian side, is the Chinese port af Antung. Yongampho is said to be one of the ten best harbors in Korea. If the possession of Yangampho was combined with that of Antung, which, like the rest of Manchuria, was at the time in Russian occupation, the river Yalu could be closed to all approach from the sea, and the Russians, with open contempt for both Japanese and Korean protests gave every indication of their intentions. A fort was erected on the highest part of the acquired land in Korea, guns were mounted, and a garrison established in it. A second fort was commenced on the Manchurian side, on a cliff commanding the river, a few miles farther up. The Korean Gov't was awakened by these proceedings to the danger which threatened their N. frontiers and their N.W. province. An old prophecy foretold that when the Tartar was in the N. and a shrimp in the S., and white pines grew in the vally of the Yalu, the end of Korean independence would be near. The configuration of Japan is supposed to resemble a shrimp, and Japanese settlements were now all over the S. -- at Fusan, Masampo, and Seoul. The Russian Tartar was establishing himself in the N. and lining the valleys of he Yalu with white telegraph-posts made of pine, and all combined to signify the realization of the prophecy. Korea was still under the thumb of Russia, the King (later the Emperor), both in gratitude and fear, subservient in all things to the masterful Russian Minister at Seoul; but both King and Gov't, pressed by the Japanese Minister, who was supported by the diplomatic representatives of the other powers at Seoul, especially by those of England and the United States, plucked up courage to send orders to the local governor of Wiju, the most important frontier town of Korea, and the capital of the prefecture, to stop the illegal sale of real estate. The Governor reported that the Russian methods rendered him powerless; that the Russians simply took possession of the land in the first instance, with or without the consent of the native owners, and went through the form of buying it afterwards. The Russian Minister in Seoul, in answer to the feeble protests of the Gov't, declared that the "valley of the Yalu" included not only the line of the river itself throughout its entire length, but all its tributaries and all the adjoining districts, and that a concession to cut timber implied the privilege of exercising every operation incidental to it, in no matter how remote a degree. He claimed, therefore, the right to construct rlys. or roads, erect telegraphs, acquire land for building purposes, and to take whatever military measures appeared to be prudent for the protection of the Russian settlers engaged in all or any of these works. He claimed, in fact, the fullest military control and very extensive proprietorial rights over the entire N.W. frontier.

'The Japanese Gov't was profoundly moved by the Russian proceedings and claim, recognizing that if both were permitted to pass without resistance, they would form stepping-stones for further extension of the Russian sphere of influence that might end in the absorption of the whole peninsula. She had before her many instances of Russian methods and of Russia's cynical disregard of the most solemn treaty obligations when it suited her to break them. Russia has already in her present action violated in their most essential items both of the conventions she had made with Japan for the regulation of their mutual dominions, though they were not necessary for the protection of existing settlements; and she had acquired land in places not open to the residence of foreigners in defiance of the provisions of Korean law; in both respects outraging the sovereignty of Korea as an independent kingdom, which she had solemnly bound herself to recognize. Japan tried in vain to rouse the Korea Gov't to take steps which would throw some moral obstacles in the way of Russia's encroachment, but neither the King nor his Ministers would go beyond their first feeble protests, and they blindly and fatuously yielded to the dictates of the Russian Minister. Japan then tried to safeguard her own interests by offering Russia a free hand, as far as she was concerned, in Manchuria, provided the safety and independence of Korea were adequately guaranteed, and she exhausted every step that was possible in patient diplomacy in her endeavor to procure Russia's assent to the guarantees which she considered essential. Russia treated her well-meant and courteous efforts with offensive indifference till her patience was exhausted, and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 began. Its results as completely put an end to Russia's further interference in Korea as the China-Japan War had to that of China 10 yrs. before.

'By two great wars Japan had freed Korea from all interference on he part of the two great neighboring empires, and she was now herself at liberty to start on the task of the regeneration of the unhappy kingdom which had been the ostensible object of all her interference in its affairs for thirty yrs. Korea henceforth stood toward Japan in the same relation as that of Egypt to Great Britain since 1882, and the task before her was very similar to that which faced Great Britain -- to reform a Gov't rotten with corruption to its very core, and to elevate a people reduced by ages of oppression and spoliation to the lowest abysses of unrelieved misery and hopeless degradation. All Korea's history in recent years left no hope that she could ever reform herself.' (The Story of Korea.)

The atrocious murder of the Queen consort by ruffians in the service of Yi Haeung (the Tai Won Kun, or Prince Parent -- of the King), aided by low Japanese assassins, in 1895, and the consequent flight of the King to the Russian Legation (where he remained for 2 yrs.), convinced the well-meaning Toukyou Gov't of the difficulties attending the introduction of reforms in a state not entirely under its control, so when by the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty (of Sept., 1905) Russia acknowledged Japan's 'paramount political, military, and economical interests' in the peninsula, a Protectorate with a Resident General vested with practically sovereign authority was established by Japan (1905-07), and the reformation of the country was begun. The administration of the Court, its property and revenues, was taken in charge by Japanese officials; a Cabinet was formed on the model of that in Japan; an elaborate scheme of local gov't was adopted; the judiciary was reformed; taxation readjusted; prisons cleansed and amplified torture abolished; primary; technical, law, language, agricultural, forestry, and other schools established; new highways, streets, and parks opened; an elaborate system of railways planned; and more abuses corrected and civic and other reforms instituted than China and Korea combined had perhaps thought of during the preceding two thousand yrs. When the Japanese undertook the work of reform there were but two classes in Korea, 'the robbers and the robbed.' Squeezing and peculation were the rule from the highest to the lowest, and every position was bought and sold. The peasants had neither rights nor privileges, except that of being the 'ultimate sponge.' 'Standards of official rectitude were unknown, and traditions of honor and honesty if they ever existed, had been forgotten for centuries.' In order to protect the peasantry, who where powerless to protect themselves, the Japanese punished grafters, and this so incensed the Korean officials that assassination, Korea's craven but popular method of political attack, was resorted to, and Prince Hirobumi Ito, whose splendid administration was in a fair way to regenerate the unhappy country, was shot (in the Harbin Station) Oct. 26, 1909. Prior to this the old Emperor had relenquished his crown (July 17, 1907), and his 'long, unhappy reign had come to an end (the reign of which commenced with the extermination of the Christians within his dominions and ended with these dominions in the firm graps of his traditional enemy) and a new Emperor had been installed; but his reign was destined to be brief.' Everything had been tending to one unavoidable end; Korean politics showed a perpetual repetition of the same tale: plot, counterplot, insurrection, and foreign complications. The brutal murder (March 24, 1908) of Mr. Durham White Stevens, the American Councillor to the Korean Gov't, and that of the lamented Prince Ito (one-time Resident General of Korea, and at the time of his death President of the Privy Council in Japan) were the last straws, and on Aug. 22, 1910, Korea was formally annexed to the Japanese Empire.

On introducing the new régime, the Mikado pardoned 1711 criminals, granted special gifts to 12,115 aged members of the Korean aristocracy and literati, and to 3209 faithful women and dutiful sons, and distributed special bounties (amounting to 17,398,000 yen) to 317 rural districts. In addition he ordered to be immediately established 35 cultural training schools, 21 for weaving, 8 for paper-making, 3 fishery training schools, 12 industrial workshops, 37 seedling nurseries, 4 mulberry farms, and several hundred primary schools, etc. The scientific, hygenic, educational, and other reforms instituted by the Japanese would require a book to catalogue. Nearly every city now has its industrial schools, and model farms and even model villages have been established throughout the country to teach the benighted people how to help themselves. A network of rlys. is being pushed in all directions; mines are being developed; hospitals and waterworks, telephones and telegraphs installed; the cities have been cleansed, beautified, and rendered safe for all; aliens are protected; the death-rate among the people has been materially diminished, and the public health has noticeably increased. Small manufacturing plants, museums, public libraries, and institutes for the aged, the helpless, and the blind are now to be found in several of the cities, along with courts where justice is dispensed and from which intrigue has been abolished.

The process of the erstwhile Hermit Kingdom -- once a 'going piggery,' but now something more than a geographical nonentity -- has been almost as great in its way as that of Japan after its opening to the world by Commodore Perry. That intelligent Koreans will later be as grateful to Japan as the Japanese now are to the United States, there is but little doubt. With customary astuteness and good will, Japan has adopted the admirable British idea in colonization of giving every man, British or alien, friend or foe, the same chance. The dog-in-the-manger policy -- one of the silliest ever practices -- is conspicuous by its absence. It is to her credit also that she has given practically a free hand in Korea to the right sort of missionaries (of whom there are 500 or more, 75% American) in their chosen but not always amply rewarded tasks. For since the days of Father Cespedes, certain missionaries have, by splendid work and continued self-abasement, striven for the uplift and betterment of the down-trodden Koreans, and not a little of the refinement noticed among certain classes to-day could easily be traced direct to their unremitting individual efforts. Japan is to-day repaying Korea for centuries of unjust invasion, by the introduction of civilization and enlightenment. The student may consult: The Story of Korea, by Joseph H. Longford (London, 1911). -- Corea the Hermit Nation, by William Elliot Griffis (New York, 1907). -- Korea, by Angus Hamilton (New York, 1904). -- Korea and Her Neighbors, by Isabella Bird-Bishop (New York, 1897). -- History of Korea, by Rev. John Ross )Paisley, 1880). -- History of Korea, by Homer Hulbert (Seoul, 1904); and others. The actual progress of Korea under the able administration of the Japanese is set forth annually in an interesting book (published at Seoul, by the Government General of Chosen) called Annual Report on Reforms and Progress in Korea.