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THE PHANTASM OF THE WESTERN CAPITAL (SŎGYŎNG): IMPERIAL KOREA'S REDEVELOPMENT OF P'YŎNGYANG, 1902–1908

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2015

Eugene Y. Park
Eugene Y. Park*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania E-mail epa@sas.upenn.edu
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Abstract

The Western Capital (Sŏgyŏng) project was of ideological, cultural, and strategic significance for the Empire of Korea (1897–1910) struggling for survival in the age of imperialism. This study argues that Imperial Korea's understanding of its place in the civilized world of the past, present, and future inspired redeveloping P'yŏngyang as the secondary capital. The advocates cited the history of the city in particular and of the nation in general to legitimize the project. Also, status-conscious specialist chungin (“middle people”), a newly prominent social group with loyalist members, played active roles. Moreover, responding to the deteriorating Russo-Japanese relations, Korea began preparing the nation's secondary capital, located within a neutral zone that Russia proposed to Japan. From the outset, the critics of the project highlighted funding constraints, a heavy tax burden on the local population, and rapacious officials exploiting the situation. The Japanese victory over Russia in 1905 effectively ended the project, but the memory of P'yŏngyang's status as the secondary capital outlived the Empire of Korea and the subsequent Japanese colonial rule before the city became the national capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, established in 1948.

Keywords

KoreaChosŏnKojongKwangmuP'yŏngyang, Seoulchunginyangban
Type
Law, State and Society in China [9]
Information
International Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 167 - 191
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

On October 12, 1897, an Asian king assumed an imperial title and inaugurated the Empire of Korea (1897–1910), a short-lived yet controversial entity in history.Footnote 1 According to older studies, Korea became a Japanese colony in 1910 due to inept leadership, internal strife, retarded socioeconomic development, or any combination thereof.Footnote 2 In the past two decades or so, an increasing number of historians have demonstrated that the ruler of Korea at the time, the Kwangmu 光武 emperor (temple name Kojong 高宗, r. 1864–1907), proactively led the modernization effort.Footnote 3 Externally, the reform entailed alignment toward Russia, but the latter's defeat in 1905 by Japan, which was determined not to allow Korea to be controlled by a power hostile to Japan, sealed Korea's fate. Turning Korea into a protectorate in that year, Japan formally annexed Korea in 1910.

Before its passing, Korea explored more political possibilities than have been widely acknowledged, and establishing a secondary capital was one such strategy. In May 1902, the emperor designated P'yŏngyang 平壤, a city with an illustrious past and the present capital of North Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea), the “Western Capital” (Sŏgyŏng 西京).Footnote 4 Previously P'yŏngyang had been the final capital of the ancient kingdom of Koguryŏ 高句麗 (second century BCE?–668 CE) and the Western Capital of the self-consciously Koguryŏ successor state, the Koryŏ 高麗 dynasty (918–1392).Footnote 5 Throughout the post-Koguryŏ history of the city, some rulers, officials, scholars, monks, and others emphasized its importance in expressing a continental ambition for Korea rather than settling for peninsular comfort.Footnote 6 In reality since the tenth century, Korea's western central region continuously hosted a national capital, initially Kaesŏng 開城, the capital of the Koryŏ, and then Seoul, the capital of the succeeding Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty (1392–1910), the Japanese Government-General of Korea (1910–1945), the United States of America Military Government in Korea (1945–1948), and presently South Korea (the Republic of Korea, since 1948).Footnote 7

Documented official discussions at the time of Imperial Korea do not overtly state that the court intended to transfer the nation's capital. What is clear, though, is that in 1902, the court designated P'yŏngyang as the secondary capital and began constructing a royal palace to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Kwangmu emperor's accession to the throne. The occasion also entailed enshrinement of the portraits of the emperor and the crown prince in the city's newly built royal palace. Moreover, with the looming prospect of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) and subsequent Japanese incursions, the court considered the possibility of taking refuge in P'yŏngyangFootnote 8 or a location in Kangwŏn 江原 province.Footnote 9

This study argues that Imperial Korea's understanding of its place in the civilized world of the past, present, and future inspired the Western Capital project.Footnote 10 Its supporters cited the history of the city in particular and the nation in general to legitimize the project. Collaborating with aristocratic officials during the course of the project, a newly prominent, status-conscious social group, the specialist chungin 中人 (“middle people”), played active roles.Footnote 11 Including the loyalists who advocated imperial authority, the leadership began redeveloping P'yŏngyang as the secondary capital located within a Russian-proposed neutral zone—in closer proximity to Russia and Russian-occupied Manchuria—as a part of an overall strategic effort toward facilitating Russia's military aid or protection, if needed.Footnote 12 Substantiating my overall contention requires the perspectives of Korea's sociocultural history as well as international relations.

HISTORICAL JUSTIFICATION

Imperial Korea was an abortive yet earnest, indigenous effort to build a thriving, modern nation-state in the world of imperialism. Ending a year-long sojourn at the Russian legation (February 11, 1896–February 20, 1897) after Japanese commandos raided Kyŏngbok 景福 Palace and killed his wife in cold blood in October 1895, from Kyŏngun 慶運 (later renamed Tŏksu 德壽) Palace near the Russian legation, the Korean monarch promulgated the inauguration of the Empire of Korea.Footnote 13 Adopting “Kwangmu” (“resplendent martial prowess”) as the new era name, the emperor launched a modernization program of unprecedented scope and scale. As such, the Kwangmu Reform (1897–1904) accelerated Westernization of Korea's bureaucracy, military, economy, infrastructure, industries, education system, and social norms.Footnote 14

All the same, the Western Capital project proposal cited history and geomancy. On May 1, 1902, Kim Kyuhong 金奎弘 (1845–1905), a special entry officer (t'ŭkchin'gwan 特進官) of the Household Department (Kungnaebu 宮內府), submitted a memorial arguing that historical empires had had two capitals. Citing the Zhou 周 (1045–256 BCE), the Han 漢 (202 BCE–220 CE), the Tang 唐 (618–907), and the Ming 明 (1368–1644) dynasties of China, he concluded that the practice culminated with the Ming system of Beijing 北京 (“Northern Capital”) and Nanjing 南京 (“Southern Capital”). In advocating a Western Capital for Imperial Korea, Kim used Nanjing as the case in point, and references to the latter would recur in subsequent discussions. His rhetoric was sensible in light of the importance of the Ming for the Little China (So Chunghwa 小中華) ideology upheld by Korea's mainstream elite who saw Korea as the standard-bearer of civilization ever since the “barbarian” Manchu conquest of China proper in the seventeenth century.Footnote 15 Also, stressing that its qi 氣 (Ko. ki) and water element made P'yŏngyang worthy as a dynastic capital for “a myriad years,” as well as the, by then, well-established Korean understanding that it had been the country's earliest cultural center, Kim reminded the emperor that the city had been the capital for Old Chosŏn (seventh century?–108 BCE), Koguryŏ, and Koryŏ kings. In response, the emperor expressed his desire to pursue the matter further.Footnote 16 He must have readily understood that according to the concept of Five Elements, the city's water element would nourish his Yi 李 house's wood element (as represented by the “wood” above the “child” in the ideograph for Yi) while counteracting the spreading fire of Japan, the “Land of the Rising Sun” (Nippon 日本), capable of subsuming the wood.

Looking beyond East Asia, the Kwangmu emperor, who perused Western-language newspapers by having them translated,Footnote 17 envisioned his new empire in a broader context of world history. Possessing mental profiles of major monarchs in the world at the time,Footnote 18 the emperor likely saw himself and Wilhelm II (r. 1888–1919) as distinct from, for example, Japan's Meiji 明治 emperor (r. 1867–1912), China's Guangxu 光緖 emperor (r. 1875–1905), Russia's Emperor Nicholas II (r. 1894–1917), and Austria-Hungary's Emperor Franz-Joseph I (r. 1848–1916)—all of whom exercised authority limited by political or institutional circumstances. Given his acumen, the Kwangmu emperor also understood Rome, Constantinople, and Moscow as a continuum of the Roman imperium. Thus in 1897 when urging him to assume an imperial title, the officials had made references to Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia as inheritors of the Roman imperium,Footnote 19 and for sure Korea's imperial project resonated with a Western historical precedent of Emperor Constantine I (r. 306–337) renaming Byzantium after himself and developing it as New Rome. Even more so, the notion of Moscow as the Third Rome, expressed by the Russian Monk Philotheus (1465–1542) of Pskov around 1520 (“Two Romes have fallen, but the third stands, and a fourth there will not be”), mirrors Korea's self-identity as the Little China, the standard bearer.Footnote 20

The swiftness with which the Kwangmu emperor approved the project—just five days (May 6, 1902)—suggests that Kim's memorial was a coup de théâtre. Its tone exudes Kim's faith in the dignity of both the empire and the emperor, a position well in line with his former stance against the Independence Club (Tongnip hyŏphoe 獨立協會, 1896–1898), which pro-Anglo-American leaders stressing civic rights had come to dominate before being disbanded by the government.Footnote 21 The emperor professed that he had been considering the project for a long time, citing Chinese historical precedents and noting that of late foreign countries too maintained dual capitals—perhaps mindful of the fact that in the 1860s Japan had considered the possibility before settling on the “Eastern Capital,” Tokyo 東京, as the lone capital.Footnote 22 He ordered that appropriate officials discuss building a new palace in P'yŏngyang and designating the city as the “Western Capital.”Footnote 23 Four days later, on May 10, the emperor appointed officials to oversee the project, including the governor of South P'yŏngan 平安南 province, Min Yŏngch'ŏl 閔泳喆 (1864–n.d.), as the senior supervising official for construction work (kamdong tangsang 監董堂上).Footnote 24 Then on May 14, reiterating the importance of a secondary capital, the monarch authorized spending 500,000 yang 兩 of cash out of the royal treasury fund (naet'angjŏn 內帑錢).Footnote 25 As de facto start-up money, this was no small amount: excluding it, the total revenue for the project as secured through various taxes levied from June 1902 to October 1903 in South and North P'yŏngan provinces was some ten million yang.Footnote 26

In undertaking the project, the court utilized segments of new railroads.Footnote 27 After earlier French (1896–1899) and Korean (1899) private initiatives had failed due to inadequate capital, in September 1900 the Household Department established the Northwest Railroad Bureau (Sŏbuk ch'ŏltoguk 西北鐵道局) to oversee construction of a rail line from Seoul to the Sino-Korean border city of Ŭiju 義州, and the new railroad linked the capital and Kaesŏng by July 1901.Footnote 28 The next phase of extending the line to Ŭiju began in March 1902 with additionally secured funding from both governmental and private sources, though the progress of construction was slow due to limited technology and budget.Footnote 29

Building the new capital's centerpiece, P'unggyŏng 豊慶 Palace, took fourteen months, accompanied by much pomp and ceremony. In June 1902 as soon as the emperor approved the proposed names for various edifices of the new palace, construction work on the main audience building, T'aegŭk 太極 Hall, began with initial preparation of the ground. In September, a procession of officials transported recently completed portraits of the emperor and the crown prince to P'yŏngyang (Figure 1).Footnote 30 Thirteen months later in October 1903, the palace comprising six halls was complete,Footnote 31 and on November 10, the officials enshrined the royal portraits at T'ae'gŭk and Chunghwa 重華 halls, the latter designated as the crown prince's residence (Figures 2a and 2b).Footnote 32 A senior official returning from P'yŏngyang, Yi Kŭnmyŏng 李根命 (1840–1916), reported: “On the day of enshrinement, officials and Confucian students of South and North P'yŏngan 平安北 provinces accompanied, and they numbered one thousand. Gathering like clouds, literati and women [alike] watched from roadsides, dancing and cheering with joyful countenances.”Footnote 33

Figure 1. (left) Head of the 1902 procession as depicted in a royal protocol manual (ŭigwe 儀軌). Source: Kojong ŏjin tosa togam ŭigwe 高宗御眞圖寫都監, pp. 351–52. (right) Procession personnel surrounding the imperial portrait. Source: Kojong ŏjin tosa togam ŭigwe, pp. 343–44. In both illustrations, the soldiers in grey uniform, holding bayonetted rifles, accentuate the procession as an occasion grounded in both past and present.

Figure 2a. T'aegŭk Hall. Source: P'yŏngyang yoram 平壤要覽 (1909) as cited by Sŏul sinmun, November 4, 2009.

Figure 2b. Hwanggŏn 皇建 Gate, the main entrance of P'unggyŏng Palace. Source: P'yŏngyang yoram 平壤要覽 (1909) as cited by Sŏul sinmun, November 4, 2009.

Enshrining the portraits sanctified the new capital with the metaphysical presence of the emperor as the Son of Heaven and his heir,Footnote 34 as well as celebrating a timeless Empire of Korea. Unlike Imperial Japan's establishment of Tokyo as a modern capital in 1869 and signaling a break with the ancien régime of the Tokugawa 德川 shogunate (1603–1868), P'yŏngyang was not to replace Seoul, at least not immediately. In fact, construction of P'unggyŏng Palace proceeded in tandem with the renovation and expansion of the Kwangmu emperor's residence in Seoul, Kyŏngun Palace,Footnote 35 especially to the south and the west of which in 1896 the government had significantly improved roads, sanitation, and overall appearance.Footnote 36 By building a new palace in P'yŏngyang while modernizing the infrastructure of Seoul,Footnote 37 the court was reaffirming the former's special place in the nation's history as Koguryŏ's former capital and Koryŏ's secondary capital. The construction also reaffirmed the city's association with Kija 箕子 (Ch. Jizi), a Shang 商 dynasty (ca. 1600–1045 BCE) prince whom educated Koreans and Chinese alike had been honoring as the sage bringing civilization from the Middle Kingdom (中國, Ko. Chungguk, Ch. Zhongguo) to the Eastern Kingdom (東國, Ko. Tongguk, Ch. Dongguo).Footnote 38 Ultimately, the Western Capital project was paying tribute to Imperial Korea's illustrious history hearkening back to the ancient heartland of civilization in the Central Plain of China—“China” in this context not so much the modern Chinese nation-state as a universal civilization transcending time and space.

If the Western Capital was to be a monumental celebration of Korea's connection to the heartland of civilization, then this raises some pertinent questions. Who were those most enthusiastically involved in redeveloping P'yŏngyang at the time? Did they hail from a particular background? Besides ideological justifications such as those we have seen, what motivated them to participate in the imperial project? The following discussion addresses these and related questions by focusing on the roles of Seoul's specialist chungin who, as a whole, benefitted from Imperial Korea's modernizing reform conducive to their upward mobility, whereas the critics hailed from the southern local elite.

THE SUPPORTERS

At the inception of the Western Capital project, Korean society was undergoing a sweeping change. For sure, a status hierarchy of aristocracy (yangban 兩班), chungin, commoners (yangin 良人), and “lowborn” (ch'ŏnmin 賤民) continued to determine opportunities in life for individuals and families. All the same, an increasingly commercialized economy allowed those other than the state and its proprietors—originally the aristocracy and their agents—to profit from private business enterprises. As more cultivators utilized cash crops, profits from selling surplus produce financed expanding trade. Besides the Seoul aristocracy, those especially capitalizing on the economy of early modern Korea (ca. 1500–ca. 1880) were commoner merchants, capital regiment soldiers who pursued private commerce of various types when not on duty, and specialist chungin such as interpreters who were members of tributary missions to China.Footnote 39 While social newcomers were converting their economic capital to sociocultural capital, southern Korea's rural yangban, most of whom were no longer holding degrees, court ranks, or offices, had to be content with local elite status defined by birth—manifested through various cultural activities.Footnote 40

In contrast to the overall conservative, southern local elite, the specialist chungin of Seoul welcomed the new Enlightenment (Kaehwa 改化) thought.Footnote 41 Stymied by aristocratic prejudices and an institutionalized glass ceiling excluding them from the more powerful positions in officialdom, specialist chungin as a whole welcomed Western ideas and institutions, including new education content, civic values, and Protestantism, which the converts saw as a liberating faith vis-à-vis the oppressive old order of Korea dominated by the aristocracy.Footnote 42 As the Kwangmu emperor's effort to build a strong, modern nation-state mobilized those with a sound knowledge of the West, status-conscious Seoul chungin found opportunities for advancement. In contrast to figureheads such as the Meiji emperor, dowager-controlled monarchs such as the Guangxu emperor, or the likes of Nicholas II and Wilhelm II whose exercise of royal prerogatives were constrained by the cabinet, domestically the Kwangmu emperor enjoyed greater freedom. Indeed, the Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat (Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi 承政院日記) covering the period show that the emperor was knowledgeable about even the minutiae of major projects and remained deeply involved in policy discussions. All the same, as the monarch could use additional political support, he tended to trust those not from an aristocratic background yet loyal and supportive of his initiatives.Footnote 43 The capital aristocracy belonging to the dominant Patriarchs (Noron 老論) faction comprised erudite yet strongly opinionated Confucian scholar-officials not necessarily in agreement with the emperor on all issues; in contrast, men from less distinguished families had a vested interest in the success of monarchist reforms geared toward a modern nation-state with a broader social base of political participation. For sure, any major decision of the emperor had to be faithful to Confucian ideology, and hence this was reflected in memorials to the throne at critical moments, but the personal wealth that could potentially finance the kind of projects that he favored put chungin in a position to assume prominent roles in Imperial Korea.

Using two sets of criteria, the court categorized the individuals mobilized for the Western Capital project. The categories according to assigned duties were: (1) incumbent government officials, most of whom were aristocrats but some specialist chungin; (2) soldiers (kunbyŏng 軍兵) and policemen (sun'gŏm 巡檢), a mixture of broader-definition chungin and commoners; and (3) master craftsmen (changin 匠人), presumably all commoners.Footnote 44 When rewarding those who transported royal portraits, the court again recognized three categories: (1) “escorting high officials” (paejong taesin 陪從大臣), most of whom were incumbent aristocratic officials; (2) “escorting personnel” (paejong inwŏn 陪從人員), evidently court rank-holding chungin; and (3) police and “staff personnel” (wŏnyŏk 員役), generally commoners.Footnote 45

Both lists show that status distinctions still mattered even as the social base of political participation for a government initiative such as the Western Capital project widened. Throughout the early modern era, government projects concerning the royal house mobilized men from diverse backgrounds, as recorded in royal protocol manuals. Concrete measures that the state took in dismantling the rigid status hierarchy include allowing illegitimate (sŏŏl 庶孼) sons of aristocratic men to receive appointments to prestigious key offices (1851); prohibition of slave (nobi 奴婢) status being passed down from a parent to a child (1886); and abolition of slavery as well as the traditional government service examination system which overwhelmingly favored the aristocracy (1894). Thus the Kabo 甲午 Reform (1894–1896) was not so much a revolutionary spark as the culmination of earlier developments that were providing more advancement opportunities for non-aristocrats.

Upwardly mobile Seoul chungin stand out among those who played recognized roles during the Western Capital Project. On the list of escorting personnel, mixed among the regular members of officialdom are fourteen men of high court ranks yet without politically significant careers. None appears in the Daily Records of the Royal Secretariat, a primary source which records most, if not all, of those who received high-level “actual posts” (silchik 實職), that is salaried, incumbent positions.Footnote 46 This suggests that the court was honoring even chungin who apparently had never held politically meaningful posts. Most likely, a financial contribution or some other form of service, if not a more personal tie to the throne, justified honoring a particular chungin.

Among the fourteen, the case of Pak T'aesik 朴泰植 (1855–1933), whose track record falls somewhere between the careers of an aristocrat and a commoner, is revealing in many ways. Hailing from an illegitimate-son branch of a Seoul chungin family with marriage ties to technical specialists and low-ranking military officers (kun'gyo 軍校, changgyo 將校), in January 1881 the Military Guard Office (Muwiso 武衛所) appointed him as a special military officer (pyŏlmusa 別武士).Footnote 47 In May 1882, he passed a military examination (mukwa 武科) that recruited some 2,600 men of various social backgrounds.Footnote 48 This competition contrasts sharply with the companion civil examination (munkwa 文科) that selected twenty-three from the aristocracy, including a future leader of the Independence Club, Sŏ Chaep'il 徐載弼 (Philip Jaisohn as naturalized American, 1866–1951).Footnote 49 Sometime between the end of his service as a special military officer in July 1882 and his P'yŏngyang visit in 1902 transporting the royal portraits, Pak attained a senior third rank military post, the Five Guards (Owi 五衛) general (chang 將).Footnote 50 Along with thirteen others of the same rank on the list, he received promotion to the junior-second civil court rank of Kasŏn taebu 嘉善大夫 (“admirably good official”).Footnote 51

That the state mobilized the chungin commanding significant social or economic capital is clear thanks to Pak's two relatives by marriage who participated in the Western Capital project. The two were U Hangjŏng 禹恒鼎 (1854–1926), whose son took in Pak's daughter as a concubine, and P'aeng Hanju 彭翰周 (1856–n.d.), the brother of U's brother's wife. Such ties made both U and P'aeng socially meaningful relations to Pak at the time. Active members of the Independence Club and pro-emperor reformists, for the Western Capital project U and P'aeng served as, respectively, a construction supervising official (kamdong 監董) and the P'yŏngyang magistrate (kunsu 郡守), concurrently superintendent of trade (kamni 監理).Footnote 52

U Hangjŏng hailed from a capital chungin family producing many individuals of prominence in political, cultural, and business circles once Korea came under the pressure of imperialism in the nineteenth century.Footnote 53 His nominal career in central officialdom typifies those of his kin, as the posts that he held were largely honorary. Most of his office tenures were less than a year.Footnote 54 All the same, before 1902, U had participated in many projects of a more personal significance to the monarch. In December 1898, he received a promotion that allowed him to leap from the fifth to the senior third court rank upon the repair of Kyŏnghyo 景孝 Hall, the shrine housing the spirit tablet of the emperor's late wife, Queen Myŏngsŏng 明成 (1851–1895), killed by the Japanese.Footnote 55 In November 1899, after serving as the secondary court chamberlain (pun sijong 分侍從) upon the elevation of the status of Kyŏngmo 景慕 Hall housing the spirit tablets of Crown Prince Sado 思悼 (1735–1762) and Crown Princess Hyegyŏng 惠慶 (1735–1815), the great-great-grandparents of the emperor, U again received a reward.Footnote 56

A man of enormous wealth, U used it for various causes, including Korea's modernizing reform. A household register (hojŏk) from 1903 records the size of his father's abode as having a measurement of sixty-two k'an 間 (equivalent to about 366 feet) in length—a scale comparable to those of the homes of the most affluent, highest-ranking aristocratic officials at the time.Footnote 57 In fact, during a court trial in 1908, the judge described him and his associate, also a chungin, as the city's richest individuals.Footnote 58 Earlier in May 1906, the Seoul Chamber of Commerce (Kyŏngsŏng sangŏp hoeŭiso 京城商業會議所) honored him for donating fifty wŏn 圓 to help finance its building construction.Footnote 59 (One Imperial Korean wŏn at the time is comparable to roughly thirty thousand South Korean won or thirty American dollars as of 2007–2008.)Footnote 60 In March 1907, together with all five of his sons and both sons-in-law, he made a contribution to the Repay the National Debt Movement (Kukch'ae posang undong 國債報償運動).Footnote 61 On at least ten occasions from March 1908 to November 1909, he made gifts to various private schools.Footnote 62

Just as importantly, U's noteworthy place in the economic history of modern Korea suggests that he and other chungin were significant supporters of the Western Capital project. In 1897 in Seoul, he and twenty-nine others (Koreans and Westerners) launched the Korean Ramie Spinning (Tae Chosŏn chŏma chesa hoesa 大朝鮮苧麻製絲會社), arguably Korea's first modern joint-stock company. They founded the company to plait hemp and ramie fabric thread for export to weaving factories abroad.Footnote 63 Since U's kin by marriage, Pak T'aesik, had at least 10,000 p'yŏng 坪 (about eight acres) of land in the southwestern Ch'ungch'ŏng 忠淸 region known for ramie, the company most likely could count on a steady supply of the raw material.Footnote 64 Mindful of Korea's perilous position in the world of unequal treaties, U and other leaders launched the company with a sizable capital. With the total investment comprising 40,000 wŏn of foreign and 35,000 wŏn of Korean capital, public sale of company stocks brought in some 17,000 wŏn in one day.Footnote 65

Also involved in the Western Capital project, P'aeng Hanju, the brother of U Hangjŏng's brother's wife, was of even greater fame. Coming from a capital chungin family that had been marrying the Us and the Paks for generations, in 1887 he was one of two Korean representatives participating in the second Korean–Chinese border negotiation.Footnote 66 Evidently endowed with a broad knowledge of world affairs, in 1895 he served as an interpreter (pŏnyŏkkwan 飜譯官) for the Foreign Ministry (Oebu 外部).Footnote 67 Then in 1896 when the Independence Club formed, P'aeng participated as a founding member (palgiin 發起人) and a managing officer (kansawŏn 幹事員).Footnote 68

Supported by social newcomers as well as aforementioned ideological and historical justifications, the Western Capital project was a significant component of Imperial Korea's survival strategy vis-à-vis the major powers. Spurred on by the urgings of China, Korea had initially invested effort into obtaining American support, even choosing the United States as the first Western nation as a treaty partner in 1882.Footnote 69 In addition, the monarch personally trusted American Protestant missionaries. In 1884 after Presbyterian physician and diplomat Horace N. Allen (1858–1932) helped Queen Myŏngsŏng's nephew, Min Yŏngik 閔泳翊 (1860–1914), recover from a critical condition following attacks by rioting soldiers in 1882, the monarch granted American Protestants de facto freedom to propagate their faith even though foreign missionary activities were not legal at the time. Later, in his darkest hours following the Japanese raid on Kyŏngbok Palace and the murder of the queen in October 1895, some American missionaries took turns in performing watch duty around the monarch's bedchamber.Footnote 70 In contrast to the U.S. government that nonetheless pursued increasingly pro-Japanese policies in the Far East, Russia by then had emerged as the region's only power challenging Japanese interests in Korea.

FOREIGN POLICY: PIVOTING TOWARD RUSSIA

When Korea began entering into treaty relations with various countries, beginning with Japan in 1876, both China and Russia were the Far East's major stakeholders, and this remained true for almost two decades. Regarding Russia as the only Western power with significant strategic interests in Korea, in the 1880s Paul Georg von Möllendorff (1847–1901), a German sent to Korea by China to advise the Korean monarch, soon earned the latter's trust and laid the ground for Korea's pro-Russia policy.Footnote 71 When the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) ended with Japan as the victor after an ongoing effort to expand its presence in Korea since 1876, Russia replaced China as Japan's rival in the Far East. Concerned that Japan's sudden ascent was threatening the balance of power in the region as well as their own opportunities, the Triple Intervention undertaken by France, Germany, and Russia (April 23, 1895) stripped Japan of its territorial gain, the Liaodong Peninsula, as well as allowing Russia to enhance its positions in Manchuria and Korea.Footnote 72

The immediate aftermath of the Triple Intervention also offered Korea a window of opportunity to pursue greater autonomy and more radical reform while Russia held Japan in check. Overcoming the initial Japanese maneuvers such as the killing of pro-Russian Queen Myŏngsŏng (October 1895), holding the monarch in effect hostage (October 1895–February 1896), his subsequent escape to the Russian legation, a year-long sojourn there (February 1896–February 1897), and Japan's begrudging acceptance of the Russo-Korean arrangement further increased Russian influence on Korea (Figure 3). In October 1896, after attending the coronation of Nicholas II, Min Yŏnghwan 閔泳煥 (1861–1905), the queen's kinsman, returned with fourteen Russian military instructors. Subsequently Korean army units began adopting the Russian model for training (Figure 4). In addition, the government established P'yŏngyang as the command headquarters for the northwestern defense troops.Footnote 73 In October 1897 when the monarch assumed the imperial title, all foreign legates in Seoul attended the ceremony albeit without referring to the new title per se. However, two months later in December 1897, in response to the Kwangmu emperor's personal telegram of greeting to Nicholas II who was celebrating his name day, the latter became the first foreign head of state to acknowledge the former's new status, addressing him as “His Majesty, the Emperor of Korea.”Footnote 74 Before long, all treaty powers followed suit.Footnote 75

Figure 3. The Russian legation. Source: Hulbert Reference Hulbert1906, facing p. 150.

Figure 4. “Korean cadet corps and Russian drill instructors” (first and second from right). Source: Bishop Reference Bishop1897, facing p. 434.

Until the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, Korea sought to capitalize on the expanding Russian presence in the Far East. In December 1897, a Russian fleet docked off Port Arthur in Manchuria. Three months later in March 1898, the Sino-Russian Convention leased Port Arthur, Dalian Bay, and the surrounding waters to Russia.Footnote 76 By then, Russia had also acquired mining and forestry concessions near the Yalu and Tumen rivers, thus alarming Japan.Footnote 77 To enhance land access to Port Arthur, Russia's only warm water port on the Pacific coast and now a base for its expanding fleet in the region, a year later in 1898 Russia began constructing a railway from Harbin to Port Arthur.Footnote 78 The project incited the Boxer Rebellion (August 1899–September 1901) when the Boxers, anti-foreign, proto-nationalist Chinese forces, burned train stations, and Russia used the need for protection of the rail line as the pretext to occupy Manchuria, completed by September 1900.Footnote 79 Russia suffered its first setback with the First Anglo-Japanese Alliance (January 1902), which stipulated British aid in the event of another power aiding Russia during a Russo-Japanese war.Footnote 80 With France but without Germany, which had withdrawn its troops from China in 1901 after suppressing the Boxers, in March 1902, Russia declared its support for the independence of Korea and China.Footnote 81 Emboldened by the British support, though, in August 1903 Japan requested Russia's recognition of Japanese interests in Korea in exchange for Japan's recognition of Russian interests in Manchuria. In October, Russia responded by proposing Russia's sole control of Manchuria, while turning that part of Korea to the north of the thirty-ninth parallel—including most of P'yŏngyang—into a neutral zone between Russia and Japan, with neither using Korea for any military purpose.Footnote 82 Alarmed by the progress of both Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway construction project (1891–1916) and Korea's Kwangmu Reform, in December, Japan's cabinet decided to declare war on Russia.Footnote 83

The Japanese ascendancy was the death knell of the Western Capital project. Seeing no future in Russo-Japanese negation and anticipating the Russo-Japanese War, Korea declared neutrality on January 21, 1904, but at the outbreak of the war on February 8, 1904, Japan moved swiftly to tighten its stranglehold on the Korean government.Footnote 84 Thirteen days later, on February 21, the Japanese established a temporary commission to oversee construction of the Seoul-Ŭiju Railway. The commission took over the project on March 4—forcing the Korean government on March 12 to yield the right to the project for fifty years.Footnote 85 In the meantime, the First Korea–Japanese Agreement, forced upon the Korean government earlier on February 23, guaranteed virtually free movement of Japanese troops in Korea. By June they were in occupation of all the major administrative, communication, and military facilities in South P'yŏngan province, among others, and by August much of the northwest, including P'yŏngyang. Various halls of P'unggyŏng Palace became makeshift barracks for the Japanese army.Footnote 86

A series of developments abroad in 1905 assured that no foreign power assisted Korea. Besides Russia, for which the war went badly, Germany too shared with Korea an interest in checking the expanding influence of Japan. Deeming the German navy strong enough to confront the British in East Asia, the Kwangmu emperor took note when in March 1905 Wilhelm II publicly expressed support for Morocco's independence from France.Footnote 87 However, after the Taft-Katsura Agreement between the U.S. and Japan (July 29, 1905), the Second Anglo-Japanese Alliance (August 12, 1905), and the Treaty of Portsmouth formally concluding the Russo-Japanese War with Russia's recognition of Japan's special interests in Korea (September 5, 1905), Germany could maintain only a discreet line of communication with Korea. Anything more could mean confronting Japan, the U.S., and Britain all at once.Footnote 88 The Kwangmu emperor sought to steer U.S. foreign policy in favor of Korea through the American missionaries, but the latter were hardly in a position of influence vis-à-vis the U.S. political leadership. Not only did the teachings of theologically conservative Protestant missionaries reflect the conflict raging in the American church between fundamentalism and “modernism,”Footnote 89 by then the U.S. government's pro-Japanese policy was irreversible. Thus in October–November 1905 when Homer Hulbert (1863–1949), an American missionary, journalist, and political activist advocating the independence of Korea, traveled from Seoul to the U.S. State Department with the emperor's letter to speak with President Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), the latter refused to see him.Footnote 90

From the outset, the Western Capital project attracted internal criticism as well. In contrast to the aristocratic officials and capital chungin employed for the project, others contended that those in charge of the project were corrupt—rapaciously exploiting the local population and burdening it with undue hardship. According to Hwang Hyŏn 黃玹 (pen name Maech'ŏn 梅泉, 1855–1910), a rural Confucian scholar whose diary is full of insights on his time and world, the avaricious governor of South P'yŏngan province, Min Yŏngch'ŏl, appropriated one-third of provincial residents' properties for the purpose of the P'unggyŏng Palace construction without using them for the project. As the people became restless, he announced that the fund was for enshrining royal portraits in the city and managed to persuade the emperor to order the transport of the portraits in the fall of 1902.Footnote 91

In July 1904, An Chongdŏk 安鍾悳 (1841–1907), a southern local aristocrat and a privy councilor (Chungch'uwŏn ŭigwan 中樞院議官), submitted a lengthy memorial urging the emperor to call off the project. Accusing the project's advocates of deceiving the emperor and exploiting the people, An questioned the merit of pursuing a costly project in spite of widespread local discontent and the raging Russo-Japanese War. Warning that a catastrophe might fall on P'yŏngyang, he pleaded for speedily bringing the portraits back to Seoul. In addition, to reassure local residents that they no longer had to worry, he argued that the government should not resume the palace construction work.Footnote 92 An clearly did not believe that potential benefits of the project justified the cost, albeit without mentioning that Japan had rejected Russia's proposal to turn that part of Korea to the north of the thirty-ninth parallel into a neutral zone. If An was indeed mindful of the latter development, then he was no different from the rural literati who, as a whole, tended to be skeptical of the notion of using one major power against another in order to protect Korea. Their stance was that Koreans must defend their own country against all aggressors, pure and simple.Footnote 93

Amidst internal criticism and Japanese ascendancy, the project effectively ended without an official announcement, sharing its fate with Imperial Korea as an independent nation. Presumably mindful of the 1895 Triple Intervention and the voices of gradualists such as Itō Hirobumi (1841–1909), the Japanese leadership first turned Korea into a protectorate (November 17, 1905), depriving it of representation in the international community of sovereign nations. Curiously, up to May 1906 the court continued to appoint managing officials (ch'amsŏgwan 參書官) for P'unggyŏng Palace, but each appointee's brief tenure—some as short as one day—suggests that these were honorary assignments.Footnote 94 In July 1907, after the Kwangmu emperor had dispatched a delegation to plead Korea's case at the Second Hague Convention where the delegates were denied entry, the Japanese deposed him—replacing him two weeks later in early August with the crown prince, the Yunghŭi 隆熙 emperor (temple name Sunjong 純宗, r. 1907–1910). In the same month, the Japanese disbanded the Korean army, depriving P'yŏngyang of the garrison army (chinwidae 鎭衛隊) protecting P'unggyŏng Palace. Then in April 1908, the Korean government under Japanese sway brought the royal portraits back to Seoul and abolished all official posts associated with the palace. Promulgated in August 1909, a new law establishing medical clinics (chahye ŭiwŏn 慈惠醫院) throughout Korea eventually turned the bare bones palace into one of them.Footnote 95 Japan's formal annexation of Korea with the Yunghŭi emperor's abdication on August 22, 1910 was the coup de grace.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Struggling for survival in the age of imperialism, the modernizing Empire of Korea pursued the Western Capital project with ideological, cultural, and strategic considerations. The 1902 Kim Kyuhong memorial preceding the beginning of the palace construction in P'yŏngyang addressed historical and geopolitical concerns alike. Almost from the outset, the critics of the project noted funding difficulties, a heavy tax burden on the local population, and rapacious officials exploiting the situation, but the project found support especially among the upwardly mobile, specialist chungin eager for recognition. Also, the Western Capital project—with the new royal palace located within the Russian proposed neutral zone to the north of the thirty-ninth parallel and thus closer to both Russia and Russian-dominated Manchuria—was well in line with Korea's foreign policy seeking to take advantage of the expanding Russian presence in the Far East.

Although the Japanese victory over Russia in 1905 effectively ended the project, the memory of P'yŏngyang's status as the Western Capital (Sŏgyŏng) far outlived the Empire of Korea. In 1926, a newly founded joint-stock company based in P'yŏngyang registered itself as “Sŏgyŏng Commercial and Industrial Company, Ltd.” (Sŏgyŏng sanggongŏp chusik hoesa 西京商工業株式會社).Footnote 96 In 1938, the city with its avid football fans and players launched Sŏgyŏng Football Club (Sŏgyŏng ch'ukkudan 西京蹴球團).Footnote 97 As of 1939, Sŏgyŏng Transportation Company, Ltd. (Sŏgyŏng unsu chusik hoesa 西京運輸株式會社) was still conducting business.Footnote 98

The enduring memory of the ambitious yet controversial Western Capital project highlights Imperial Korea's position in history. A modernization effort required of Korea at the time demanded an effective state-centered program capable of mobilizing the people to build a modern nation-state of hallowed tradition and renewed glory. Rather than focusing on Korea's loss of independence to Japan and seeking to explain what went “wrong,” as older studies on Imperial Korea have done, scrutinizing various enterprises of the Empire of Korea such as the Western Capital project provides a strategic window through which historians can better understand precolonial Korea's agency as well as multiple meanings of modernization.

The Western Capital project likely facilitated the resurrection of P'yŏngyang as an alternative national capital for modern Korea. After the September 1931 Mukden Incident preceding the Japanese take-over of Manchuria (September 1931–February 1932) and eventual invasion of China proper (July 1937), some Japanese argued for moving the Japanese empire's capital to Korea as a way of facilitating Japan's continental expansion. For example, Akagi Kakudō 赤木格堂 (1879–1948), who was a poet and a member of the Diet, advocated siting the capital in P'yŏngyang.Footnote 99 The seemingly intriguing idea of moving the capital of Imperial Japan to Korea is beyond the scope of this study, but without a doubt P'yŏngyang was attractive to those who thought strategically about the enlarged empire. When the Japanese empire crumbled at the end of the war and two rival Korean regimes emerged, Seoul and P'yŏngyang became their respective capitals. South Korea's choice of Seoul was hardly debatable, and North Korea too was mindful of Seoul in that until 1972, its constitution regarded the city as the official capital while P'yŏngyang remained the “temporary capital.” All the same, temporary or official, P'yŏngyang was North Korea's logical choice based on the city's illustrious past. Imperial Korea's Western Capital project could only have strengthened P'yŏngyang's candidacy.

Footnotes

1 Date citations in this article are according to the Gregorian solar calendar unless noted otherwise. In Korea, the East Asian lunar calendar was the official standard until the seventeenth day of the eleventh lunar month of 1895, the Gregorian New Year's Day of 1896, when the government went solar. My primary source citations throughout this study use the format of, for example, “January 1, 1800” for Gregorian dates and “1800.1.1” for lunar ones. At a more personal level, too, the method of keeping track of time varies among cultures. Traditionally, according to the lunar calendar and now the Gregorian, customary Korean age count regards a person at birth to be one se 歲 (Ch. sui) in age, gaining a year upon each New Year's Day. Thus, one's age in se is either one or two years more than the age according to Western practice.

2 For example, see Lee Reference Lee1963 (Chong-sik Lee); Fairbank et al. Reference Fairbank, Reischauer and Craig1973, pp. 612–14; and Chandra Reference Chandra1988, pp. 24–84, pp. 211–19. Though not discussing Imperial Korea per se, James B. Palais offers a classic diagnosis of what he views as Chosŏn 朝鮮 Korea's inevitable structural demise. See Palais Reference Palais1991, pp. 285–86.

3 Chu 2003, pp. 46–67; and Hwang Reference Hwang, Dong-no, Duncan and Do-hyung2006, pp. 171–74.

4 English-language sources on the period are inconsistent on the spelling of the city name. More commonly used ones include Phyong-yang (Isabella Bird Bishop), Pyengyang (Korean Customs Report), and P'ing-yang (British consular report). James H. Grayson, personal email message, November 17, 2011; and Kirk W. Larsen, personal email message, November 17, 2011. Citing Henry Merrill's “Ping an” as an example, Larsen also observes: “As is often the case, there didn't appear to be much in the way of standard spelling in English-language literature on Korea, nor was there a clear distinction or understanding between the city of P'yŏngyang 平壤 and the province of P'yŏngan 平安.” Larsen, personal email message, November 17, 2011.

5 Traditionally in East Asia, the name “Koryŏ” 高麗 often functioned as an abbreviation for Koguryŏ 高句麗, if not referring to the Koryŏ dynasty itself. The name “Korea” and other Western-language variants of it derive from “Koryŏ.”

6 This especially is true with Myoch'ŏng 妙淸's vain effort to persuade the king to move the capital to P'yŏngyang and his subsequent rebellion of 1135–1136. Rogers Reference Rogers and Rossabi1983, pp. 152–66; and Breuker Reference Breuker2010, p. 442.

7 After the 1392 Koryŏ-Chosŏn dynastic change, Kaesŏng 開城 remained the capital until 1394 when Seoul (then Hansŏng 漢城, also known as Hanyang 漢陽) became the new capital. Briefly from 1398 to 1400, Kaesŏng was again the capital, but since 1400 Seoul has retained the legal status of national capital—though during the Korean War (1950–1953), Taejŏn 大田 (June–July 1950), Taegu 大邱 (July–August 1950), and Pusan 釜山 (August–October 1950, January 1951–July 1953), in turn, served as South Korea's temporary capitals. Han'guk minjok munhwa tae paekkwa sajŏn p'yŏnch'anbu 1991, s.v. “Sŏul” [Seoul].

8 Kikuchi 1939, pp. 568–69.

9 I would like to thank one of the anonymous readers of an earlier version of this study for emphasizing these points.

10 This study is based on its earlier versions that I presented as papers from June 2008 to May 2011. Each time, I cited a study on the same subject: Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2006, pp. 493–96. In May 2012, I learned that the same co-authors had published a more expanded version of their earlier article, and its content overlaps with mine. See Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2009, pp. 177–86. Published in September 2009, their revision reduplicates—without citing—some of the content of the publicly available version of my earlier paper posted at the website of the International Association for Korean Historical Studies (http://inter-history.tistory.com/30), for which I had presented the paper in July 2009 and received media coverage (Yonhap News Agency, July 17, 2009). While citing their earlier publication as well as mine, in this study I refer to their expanded 2009 study only in reference to any content unique to theirs.

11 Besides government technical specialists in various expertise areas, the chungin status group also encompassed lower-ranking military officers (kun'gyo 軍校, changgyo 將校), higher-ranking administrative functionaries (ajŏn 衙前), the illegitimate children (sŏŏl 庶孼) of aristocratic men, and the northern regional elite. For a recent English-language discussion of how chungin as a status category evolved in medieval and early modern Korea, see Park Reference Park2014, pp. 14–18.

12 For a critical recent discussion of how Russian-occupied Manchuria loomed large in Japan's rejection of a proposal to turn Korea into a neutral power before the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), see Okamoto 2009, pp. 243–51.

13 For the court's discussion of upgrading Korea's status to that of an empire, see Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 13.593 (86b)–594 (91a) (October 11, 1897); and Kojong sillok, 35.28b–29a, 36.20a–21a.

14 For critical reviews of various perspectives on the Empire of Korea, see Kwangmu kaehyŏk yŏn'guban Reference yŏn'guban1992, pp. 342–66; and Chŏn Uyong 2000.

15 For a helpful English-language discussion of how the elite of early modern Korea reconceptualized their country's place in the world, see Haboush Reference Haboush, Haboush and Deuchler1999, pp. 74–81.

16 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 14.855 (81a)–856 (82b) (May 1, 1902).

17 Chŏng Sangsu 2008a; and Chŏng Sangsu 2008b.

18 Throughout his reign, the monarch inquired about a foreign ruler's bearings or persona whenever meeting anyone who had received the latter's audience. Examples include conversations on Germany's Wilhelm II who had just ascended the throne and China's Guangxu 光緖 emperor (r. 1875–1905). See Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 10.410 (13a) (1888.7.4); 15.135 (32a–32b) (March 26, 1904).

19 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 13.575 (4a–5a) (September 26, 1897); 13.579 (20a–22a) (September 29, 1897).

20 On the notion of Moscow as the “Third Rome,” see Nicol Reference Nicol1993, p. 72.

21 The leadership comprised two distinct groups: one, those primarily from aristocratic backgrounds advocating civic rights and pro-Japanese, pro-American, and pro-Western European policies; and another from educated chungin 中人 and other nonaristocratic backgrounds who supported various modernization programs of the monarch and showed flexibility vis-à-vis foreign policy if not an openly pro-Russian stance. Chu 1995, pp. 91–103, pp. 131–55, pp. 171–221; and Chu Reference Kie-Chung and Shin2005, pp. 72–77.

22 For pointing this out, I would like to thank one of the anonymous readers of an earlier version of this study.

23 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 14.862 (3b–4a) (May 6, 1902).

24 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 14.866 (9a)–867 (9b) (May 10, 1902).

25 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 14.869 (22b) (May 14, 1902).

26 Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2009, p. 183.

27 Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2009, pp. 181–85.

28 Han'guk minjok munhwa tae paekkwa sajŏn p'yŏnch'anbu 1991, s.v., “Kyŏng-Ŭi sŏn” [Seoul–Ŭiju Railway].

29 Hulbert Reference Hulbert1906, pp. 178–79; and Chŏng Chaejŏng 1999, pp. 86–88.

30 Kojong ŏjin tosa togam ŭigwe, pp. 291–304.

31 Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2009, pp. 182, 185.

32 Kojong sillok, 43.49b.

33 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 15.57 (66b) (December 10, 1903); and Ch'inil inmyŏng sajŏn p'yŏnch'an wiwŏnhoe 2009, 2:769.

34 Such an understanding of official representations of the Son of Heaven and the heir apparent arguably is comparable to the better-known Orthodox Christian veneration of icons. Though not the same as the subject itself and thus commanding veneration rather than worship, an Orthodox icon embodies the holiness of the depicted subject—to the degree generally not recognized in Catholic and Protestant traditions. Eastern Christianity underwent various phases of debates and conflict over the meaning of images depicting holy figures, and each phase had political and theological dimensions, among others. For a classic discussion, see Brown Reference Brown1973, pp. 5–34. Depicted personalities so honored in the Orthodox Christian view include not just those officially recognized as saints but also the Byzantine emperors as universal Christian rulers—each the vicar of God. Dix Reference Dix1945, pp. 204–5.

35 Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2009, p. 181.

36 Bishop Reference Bishop1897, pp. 435–37.

37 For an English-language overview of the infrastructural modernization of Seoul at the time, see Yi T'aejin 1999, pp. 103–18.

38 Shim Reference Shim2002, pp. 271–305.

39 Yi Sŭngnyŏl 2007, pp. 45–50.

40 For an English-language overview of the trend, see Park Reference Park2007, pp. 88–90, 96–97.

41 Kim Yangsu 1999, pp. 194–98, 244–46; and Hwang Reference Hwang2004, pp. 119–22.

42 Andrew Eungi Kim Reference Kim2001, pp. 267–71, pp. 276–79.

43 Yi T'aejin made this observation during a private conversation on August 3, 2001 at Seoul National University.

44 Kojong ŏjin tosa togam ŭigwe, pp. 293–305.

45 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 14.991 (9a) (October 5, 1902), 14.991 (10a)–992 (16a) (October 5, 1902); and Kojong ŏjin tosa togam ŭigwe, pp. 305–12.

46 For the list recording the fourteen men, see Kajarok, pp. 181b–182a; Kwanbo, February 14, 1903, hooe [extra]; and Ilsŏngnok, 12816-498.12b–15a.

47 Chigugwanch'ŏng ilgi, 7.189b; and Park Reference Park2007, p. 151.

48 Chigugwanch'ŏng ilgi, 9.54b; and Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 7.959 (25a)–960 (26a) (1882.4.5).

49 Unlike the civil examination passers, all of whom were presented to the king during the degree ceremony, somehow only Pak T'aesik 朴泰植 and several other Military Guard Office-affiliated officers received the honor while all other military examination passers stood outside the gate. Chigugwanch'ŏng ilgi, 9.54b.

50 Presumably this is why the 1902 promotion list indicates the same rank, though the lack of any mention of the office itself means that he was no longer holding it. Pak's grandson who grew up in a rural village in Puyŏ 扶餘 county, South Ch'ungch'ŏng 忠淸南 province, recalls that when he was a child (early 1930s), neighbors referred to his grandfather as “Five Guards General Pak” (Pak Owi chang 朴五衛將). Pak Pyŏnghae 1995.

51 Kajarok, p. 181b; Kwanbo, February 14, 1903, hooe; Ilsŏngnok, 12816-498.12b–15a; and Kojong ŏjin tosa togam ŭigwe, p. 309.

52 Kwanbo, June 10, 1895; November 17, 1897; January 29, 1898; June 8, 1898; June 28, 1898; June 30, 1898; July 7, 1898; July 26, 1898; August 6, 1898; October 12, 1898; January 12, 1899; February 18, 1899; March 24, 1899; April 1, 1899; April 6, 1899; May 13, 1899; May 17, 1899; May 22, 1899; May 23, 1899; May 24, 1899; June 14, 1899; June 26, 1899; June 30, 1899; November 17, 1899; November 28, 1899; January 28, 1900; June 28, 1900; July 14, 1900; August 11, 1900; August 20, 1900; August 23, 1900; September 8, 1900; September 11, 1900; October 8, 1900; February 9, 1901; March 18, 1901; July 10, 1901; July 26, 1901; August 2, 1901; August 30, 1901; October 25, 1901; November 29, 1901; January 2, 1902; January 17, 1902; January 22, 1902; May 7, 1902; June 7, 1902; August 26, 1902; December 26, 1902; February 14, 1903; March 16, 1903; June 1, 1903; June 12, 1903; July 9, 1903; August 22, 1903; March 29, 1904; March 31, 1904; April 4, 1904; May 16, 1904; October 8, 1904; December 7, 1904; and March 4, 1905; Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 14.133 (41a) (November 15, 1899), 14.143 (89b) (November 25, 1899); and Tanyang U-ssi taedongbo, 4.412.

53 For example, U Hangjŏng 禹恒鼎's first cousin, U Kyŏngsŏn 禹慶善 (1862–n.d.), managed Korea's arguably first modern shipping companies, the Iunsa 利運社 and the Kwangt'ongsa 廣通社. Also, U Pŏmsŏn 禹範善 (1857–1903) who, in October 1895, led his troops alongside the Japanese raiding Kyŏngbok Palace and killing Queen Myŏngsŏng 明成 (1851–1895), was a distant cousin. Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 11.341 (42b) (1890.11.6), 12.538 (49a) (1893.4.12); Kojong sillok, 30.23b; Tanyang U-ssi taedongbo, 1.479, 2.394–95, 4.410–12; Tongnip sinmun, April 27, 1897; Taehan maeil sinbo, November 14, 1907 and April 17, 1910; and Han'guk minjok munhwa tae paekkwa sajŏn p'yŏnch'anbu 1991, s.v. “Sŭngnyuk” [Rising to the sixth rank], “Iunsa,” “Kwangt'ongsa,” “Min Yŏngjun,” and “Chŏng Pyŏngha.”

54 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 14.133 (41a) (November 15, 1899), 14.143 (89b) (November 25, 1899); Kwanbo, October 12, 1898; June 14, 1899; November 17, 1899; November 28, 1899; January 28, 1900; and June 7, 1902; and Tanyang U-ssi taedongbo, 4.412.

55 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 13.950 (179a) (December 12, 1898); and Kwanbo, June 14, 1899.

56 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 14.143 (89b) (November 25, 1899); and Kwanbo, November 17, 1899.

57 Hojŏk (1903).

58 The judge describes U as such along with another prominent businessman of specialist chungin background and the co-founder of the Seoul Electric Company (Hansŏng chŏn'gi hoesa 漢城電氣會社), Yi Kŭnbae 李根培 (1849–n.d.). Taehan maeil sinbo, January 19, 1908; and Tongnip sinmun, February 26, 1898. As of 1906, the size of Yi Kŭnbae's tile-roofed mansion was 69 k'an 間. Hojŏk (1906b). Even his concubine's house, also tile-roofed, stretched 42 k'an. Hojŏk (1906a).

59 Hwangsŏng sinmun, May 19, 1906.

60 Tonga ilbo, January 17, 2007; and Tonga ilbo, October 15, 2008.

61 Hwangsŏng sinmun, March 27, 1907.

62 Hwangsŏng sinmun, March 6, 1908; April 23, 1908; May 26, 1908; September 15, 1908; October 22, 1908; February 17, 1909; February 21, 1909; May 19, 1909; May 25, 1909; and November 30, 1909.

63 Tongnip sinmun, June 12, 1897. I would also like to thank Kent Davy, Barbara Wall, Frank Hoffmann, and Wayne K. Patterson for helping me identify the British and the Americans mentioned only by their surnames in the newspaper. Kent Davy, email message, May 11, 2012; Barbara Wall, email message, May 11, 2012; Frank Hoffmann, email message, May 11, 2012; and Wayne K. Patterson, email message, May 11, 2012.

64 On the scale of Pak's landholding in Puyŏ and Imch'ŏn 林川, see Pak Kŭndong 2004. Adjacent to Imch'ŏn 林川, Hansan 韓山 in particular was famous for fields producing highly profitable ramie fabric. Advocating more commercialized farming, in the early nineteenth century, a prominent social critic, Chŏng Yagyong 丁若鏞 (pen name Tasan 茶山, 1762–1836), had noted that a given ramie fabric-producing field in the locale was ten times more profitable than the highest-grade rice paddy of the same size. Kyŏngse yup'yo, 8.16b–17a.

65 They believed that business would be very profitable, calculating that producing one ton of plaited ramie fabric threads would cost 500 wŏn but they would be able to export it at the price of 1,400 wŏn. Praising the company, an editorial of The Independent (Tongnip sinmun), published by Philip Jaisohn (originally Sŏ Chaep'il 徐載弼 before being naturalized as an American citizen, 1866–1951) of the Independence Club, urged Koreans to invest in the company. He argued that ramie fabric manufacturing produces a hundred-fold profit that is 300 times greater than the profit from buying a superior-quality rice paddy. The company proceeded to hire more than seventy employees, but ultimately it was unable to build a factory. Nonetheless, since the government's primary motive behind modernization through industry and establishment of production factories was to domestically produce items of daily necessity and thus minimize the country's economic servitude to the great powers, the company's goal of exporting products is noteworthy; Tongnip sinmun, June 12, 1897. Later, U would also become an active player in Korea's emerging banking industry. From June 1906 to July 1918, he was a founding board member and a major shareholder of Seoul Agro-Industrial Bank (Hansŏng nonggong ŭnhaeng 漢城農工銀行) and its successor, Seoul-Ch'ungch'ŏng Agro-Industrial Bank (Hanho nonggong ŭnhaeng 漢湖農工銀行). On June 1, 1906, when U and a few investors established the bank as a joint-stock company with capital of 200,000 wŏn 圓, he was a founding board member. Tongnip sinmun, June 12, 1897. Then in June 1907 Seoul Agro-Industrial Bank merged with similar banks in Kongju 公州 in South Ch'ungch'ŏng province and Ch'ungju 忠州 in North Ch'ungch'ŏng 忠淸北 province to form Seoul-Ch'ungch'ŏng Agro-Industrial Bank, Ltd. Hwangsŏng sinmun, June 3, 1906; June 4, 1906; June 5, 1906; June 6, 1906; June 7, 1906; June 8, 1906; and June 10, 1906. In May 1909, U even became a new major shareholder of the Ch'ŏnil Bank of Korea (Taehan ch'ŏnil ŭnhaeng 大韓天一銀行) which, founded in January 1899 evidently as Korea's third joint-stock company, suffered relatively less than other Korean banks did from Korea's economic recession from 1906 to 1911, thanks to a large number of Japanese shareholders hardly affected by the recession. Yi Sŭngnyŏl 2007, 221–25.

66 Zhong-Han kanjie ditu (1887), as cited by “‘Kando nŭn Chosŏn ttang’ Chungguk chido palgyŏn” [“Jiandao is a Chosŏn territory,” a Chinese map discovered], Chosŏn ilbo, October 21, 2004.

67 Kwanbo, June 10, 1895.

68 Chu 1995, p. 91, p. 97, p. 239.

69 Lee Reference Lee, Lee and Patterson1999 (Yur-Bok Lee), pp. 12–13.

70 During one stretch of the ordeal, he and the crown prince only ate food sent to him by the Western missionaries in locked boxes. Longford Reference Longford1911, p. 341; and Shaw Reference Shaw2007, pp. 38–40.

71 Mun 2000, pp. 232–52; Kim Soyŏng 2004, pp. 148–57; Hŏ 2005, pp. 58–61; Pae 2007, pp. 147–48; Kim Hyŏnsuk 2008, pp. 86–87; Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2009, pp. 178–79; and Kim Chonghŏn 2009, pp. 368–88. For a classic English-language study of Möllendorff's career in Korea, see Lee Reference Lee1988 (Yur-Bok Lee), especially pp. 89–112.

72 Okamoto 2009, pp. 215–23.

73 Hulbert Reference Hulbert1906, p. 156; Cho 1996, pp. 108–10; Sŏ Inhan 2000, pp. 205–7; Yi Minwŏn 2002, pp. 179–82, pp. 184–94; and Yang 2006, p. 186, p. 190, pp. 199–200.

74 Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (Reference Allen1898a), pp. 484–85; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (Reference Sherman1898b), p. 485; and Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (Reference Allen1898c), pp. 485–86.

75 Hulbert Reference Hulbert1906, p. 157. In personal letters to the Kwangmu emperor (1902, 1903), Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany (r. 1888–1919) addressed him as “Kaiser von Korea.” Chŏng Sangsu 2009.

76 Yi Minwŏn 2002, p. 234; and Okamoto 2009, pp. 241–42.

77 Hulbert Reference Hulbert1906, p. 167; and Longford Reference Longford1911, pp. 346–49.

78 Chŏng Sangsu 2010, p. 117.

79 Okamoto 2009, pp. 243–44.

80 Hulbert Reference Hulbert1906, pp. 176–77.

81 Chŏng Sangsu 2010, p. 118.

82 Chŏng Sangsu 2010, pp. 122–23.

83 Yi T'aejin 1996, p. 58; and Sŏ Yŏnghŭi 2012, pp. 20–28. On the critical importance of the Trans-Siberian Railway to Russia's foreign policy in the Far East, see Yi Minwŏn 2002, pp. 30–34, pp. 244–45.

84 Hulbert Reference Hulbert1906, pp. 189–95.

85 Han'guk minjok munhwa tae paekkwa sajŏn p'yŏnch'anbu 1991, s.v., “Kyŏng-Ŭi sŏn.”

86 Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2009, p. 185, p. 186.

87 Chŏng Sangsu 2008a; Chŏng Sangsu 2008b; Chŏng Sangsu 2009; and Chŏng Sangsu 2010, pp. 118–20.

88 Chŏng Sangsu 2010, pp. 135–36.

89 Clark Reference Clark, Lancaster and Payne1997, pp. 172–73.

90 Hulbert Reference Hulbert1906, p. 221; and Shaw Reference Shaw2007, pp. 171–75.

91 Maech'ŏn yarok, 3.2. Allen too complained about Min, reporting that the governor's staff took lumber from local American Presbyterian missionaries and severely beat their resisting Korean servants. Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States (1903), p. 626. Likewise, the P'yŏngyang magistrate at the time (1901–1904), P'aeng Hanju, reportedly was corrupt and greedy. Yun Ch'iho ilgi, 5.245.

92 Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 15.197 (6b)–200 (23a) (July 15, 1904); and Maech'ŏn yarok, 3.298.

93 For an English translation of such an argument cautioning the monarch of dangers of allying Korea with one power against another, see Yi Manson Reference Choe, Lee and de Bary1881, pp. 242–44.

94 Such appointments appear in Sŭngjŏngwŏn ilgi: Kojong, 15.399 (61b–62a) (March 23, 1905), 15.404 (85a–b) (April 1, 1905).

95 Kim Yunjŏng and Sŏ Ch'isang 2006, p. 493, p. 496.

96 Tonga ilbo, January 12, 1929.

97 Tonga ilbo, May 28, 1938.

98 Nakamura 1939.

99 Toyokawa 1934, pp. 95–104; and Konishi 1941, pp. 7–11. Both citations refer to editions housed in the “private literary collections” (kaein mun'go 個人文庫) of the “old documents section” (ko munsŏ 古文書) of Seoul National University's main library. I would like to thank Todd A. Henry and Lee Youjin for helping me access these sources.

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Figure 0

Figure 1. (left) Head of the 1902 procession as depicted in a royal protocol manual (ŭigwe 儀軌). Source: Kojong ŏjin tosa togam ŭigwe 高宗御眞圖寫都監, pp. 351–52. (right) Procession personnel surrounding the imperial portrait. Source: Kojong ŏjin tosa togam ŭigwe, pp. 343–44. In both illustrations, the soldiers in grey uniform, holding bayonetted rifles, accentuate the procession as an occasion grounded in both past and present.

Figure 1

Figure 2a. T'aegŭk Hall. Source: P'yŏngyang yoram 平壤要覽 (1909) as cited by Sŏul sinmun, November 4, 2009.

Figure 2

Figure 2b. Hwanggŏn 皇建 Gate, the main entrance of P'unggyŏng Palace. Source: P'yŏngyang yoram 平壤要覽 (1909) as cited by Sŏul sinmun, November 4, 2009.

Figure 3

Figure 3. The Russian legation. Source: Hulbert 1906, facing p. 150.

Figure 4

Figure 4. “Korean cadet corps and Russian drill instructors” (first and second from right). Source: Bishop 1897, facing p. 434.