Corea: The Hermit Nation

After a long breathing-spell—as one, in reading history, might call it—the old hive in the north was again ready to swarm. It was to be seen once more how useless was the Great Wall of China in keeping back the many-named invaders, known in history by the collective term Tâtars. A new people began descending from their homeland, which lay near the northern and eastern shores of Lake Baikal. This inland sea—scarcely known in the school geographies, or printed in the average atlas in such proportionate dimensions as to suggest a pond—is one of the largest lakes in the world, being 370 miles long and covering 13,300 square miles of surface. Its shores are now inhabited by Russian colonists and its waters are navigated by whole fleets of ships and steamers. It lies 1,280 feet above the sea.

Beginning their migrations from this point, in numbers and bulk that suggest only the snowball, the Mongol horsemen moved with resistless increase and momentum, consolidating into their mass tribe after tribe, until their horde seemed an avalanche of humanity that threatened to crush all civilization and engulph the whole earth. These mounted highlanders from the north were creatures who seemed to be horse and man in one being, and to actualize the old fable of the Centaurs. With a tiger-skin for a saddle, a thong loop with only the rider’s great toe thrust in it for a stirrup, a string in the horse’s lower jaw for a bridle, armed with spear and cimeter, these conquerors who despised walls went forth to level cities and slaughter all who resisted. In their raids they found food ever ready in the beasts they rode, for a reeking haunch of horse-meat, cut from the steed whose saddle had been emptied by arrow or accident, was usually found slung to their pommels. A slice of this, raw or warmed, served to sustain life for these hard riders, who lived all day in the saddle and at night slept with it wrapped around them.

For a century the power of these nomads was steadily growing, [71]before they emerged clearly into history and loomed up before the frontiers of the empire. The master mind and hand that moulded them into unity was Genghis Khan (1160–1227 A.D.).

Who was Genghis Khan? A Japanese writer, who is also a traveller in Corea and China, has written in English a thesis which shows, with strong probability, at least, that this unifier of Asia was Gen-Ghiké, or Yoshitsuné. This Japanese hero, born in 1159, was the field-marshal of the army of the Minamoto who annihilated the Taira family.1 In 1189, having fled from his jealous brother, Yoritomo, he reached Yezo and thence crossed, it is believed, to Manchuria. His was probably the greatest military mind which Japan ever produced.

That Yoshitsuné and Genghis Khan were one person is argued by Mr. Suyematz,2 who brings a surprising array of coincidences to prove his thesis. These are in names, titles, ages, dates, personal characteristics, flags and banners, myths and traditions, nomenclature of families, localities and individuals, and Japanese relics, coins, arms, and fortresses in Manchuria. Without reaching the point of demonstration, it seems highly probable that this wonderful personality, this marvellous intellect, was of Japanese origin.

Whoever this restless spirit was, it is certain that he gathered tribes once living in freedom like the wild waves into the unity of the restless sea. Out from the grassy plains of Manchuria rolled a tidal-wave of conquest that swept over Asia, and flung its last drops of spray alike over Japan, India, and Russia. Among the nations completely overrun and overwhelmed by the Mongol hordes was Corea.

In 1206, Yezokai—the word in Japanese means Yezo Sea—the leader of the Mongols, at the request of his chieftains, took the name of Genghis Khan and proclaimed himself the ruler of an empire. He now set before himself the task of subduing the Kitans and absorbing their land and people, preparatory to the conquest of China. This was accomplished in less than six years. Liao Tung was invaded and, in 1213, his armies were inside the Great Wall. Three mighty hosts were now organized, one to overrun all China to Nepal and Anam, one to conquer Corea and Japan, and one to bear the white banners of the Mongols across Asia into Europe. This work, though not done in a day, was nearly completed before [72]a generation passed.3 Genghis Khan led the host that moved to the west. In 1218 the Corean king declared himself a vassal of Genghis. In 1231 the murder of a Mongol envoy in Corea was the cause of the first act of war. The Mongols invaded the country, captured forty of the principal towns, received the humiliation of the king, who had fled to Kang-wa Island, and began the abolition of Corean independence by appointing seventy-two Mongol prefects to administer the details of local government. The people, exasperated by the new and strange methods of their foreign conquerors, rose against them and murdered them all. This was the signal for a second and more terrible invasion. A great Mongol army overran the country in 1241, fought a number of pitched battles, defeated the king, and again imposed heavy tribute on their humbled vassal. In 1256 the Corean king went in person to do homage at the court of the conqueror of continents.

In the details of the Mongol rule kindness and cruelty were blended. The most relentless military measures were taken to secure obedience after the conciliatory policy failed. By using both methods the great Khan kept his hold on the little peninsula, although the Coreans manifested a constant disposition to revolt.

About this time began a brilliant half century of intercourse between Europe and Cathay, which has been studied and illustrated in the writings of Colonel H. Yule. The two Franciscan monks Carpinini and Rubruquis visited China, and the camps of the great Khan, between the years 1245 and 1253. By their graphic narratives, in which the wars of Genghis were described, they made the name of Cathay (from Kitai, or Kitan) familiar in Europe. Matteo, Nicolo, and Marco Polo, who came later, as representatives of the commerce which afterward flourished between Venice and Genoa, and Ningpo and Amoy, were but a few among many merchants and travellers. Embassies from the Popes and the Khan exchanged courtesies at Avignon and Cambaluc (Peking). Christian churches were established in Peking and other cities by the Franciscan monks. The various Europeans who have saved their own names and a few others from oblivion, and have left us a romantic, but in the main a truthful, picture of mediæval China and the Mongols, were probably only the scribes among a host who traded or travelled, but never told their story. Among the marvels of the empire of the Mongols, in which one might walk safely from Corea to Russia, was religious toleration. When, however, the Mongols [73]of central Asia embraced the creed of Islam, bigotry closed the highway into Europe, and communications ceased. Cathay, Zipangu, and Corea again sunk from the eyes of Europe into the night of historic darkness.

Khublai Khan having succeeded his grandfather, Genghis, and being now ruler of all the Asiatic mainland, resolved, in 1266, to conquer Japan. He wrote a letter to the mikado, but the envoys were so frightened by the Corean’s exaggerated account of the difficulties of reaching the empire in the sea, that they never sailed. Other embassies were despatched in 1271 and 1273, and Khublai began to prepare a mighty flotilla and army of invasion. One hundred of the ships were built on Quelpart Island. His armada, consisting of 300 vessels and 15,000 men, Chinese, Mongols, and Coreans, sailed to Japan and was met by the Japanese off the island of Iki. Owing to their valor, but more to the tempest that arose, the expedition was a total loss, only a few of the original number reaching Corea alive.

Evidently desirous of conquering Japan by diplomacy, the great Khan despatched an embassy which reached, not the mikado’s, but only the shō-gun’s court in 1275. His ambassadors were accompanied by a large retinue from his Corean vassals. The Japanese allowed only three of the imposing number to go to Kamakura, twelve miles from the modern Tōkiō, and paid no attention to the Khan’s threatening letters. So irritated were the brave islanders that when another ambassador from the Khan arrived, in the following year, he disembarked as a prisoner and was escorted, bound, to Kamakura, where he was thrown into prison, kept during four years, and taken out only to be beheaded.

Upon hearing this, Khublai began the preparation of the mightiest of his invading hosts. To be braved by a little island nation, when his sceptre ruled from the Dnieper to the Yellow Sea, was not to be thought of. Various fleets and contingents sailed from different ports in China and made rendezvous on the Corean coast. The fleet was composed of 3,500 war junks, of large size, having on board 180,000 Chinese, Mongols, and Coreans. Among their engines of war were the catapults which the Polos had taught them to make. They set sail in the autumn of 1281.

From the very first the enterprise miscarried. The general-in-chief fell sick and the command devolved on a subordinate, who had no plan of operation. The various divisions of the force became separated. It is probable that the majority of them never [74]reached the mainland of Japan. The Mongol and Corean contingent reached the province of Chikuzen, but were not allowed to make a successful landing, for the Japanese drove them back with sword and fire. The Chinese division, arriving later, was met by a terrible tempest that nearly annihilated them and destroyed the ships already engaged. The broken remnant of the fleet and armies, taking refuge on the island of Iki, were attacked by the Japanese and nearly all slain, imprisoned, or beheaded in cold blood. Only a few reached Corea to tell the tale.

The “Mongol civilization,” so-called, seems to have had little influence on Corea. The mighty empire of Genghis soon broke into many fragments. The vast fabric of his government melted like a sand house before an incoming wave, and that wave receding left scarcely a sediment recognizable on the polity or social life of Corea. Marco Polo in his book hardly mentions the country, though describing Zipangu or Japan quite fully. One evil effect of their forced assistance given to the Mongols, was that the hatred of the Japanese and Coreans for each other was mutually intensified. After the Mongolian invasion begins that series of piratical raids on their coast and robbery of their vessels at sea, by Japanese adventurers, that made navigation beyond sight of land and ship-building among the Coreans almost a lost art.

The centuries following the Mongol invasion were periods of anarchy and civil war in Japan, and the central government authority being weak the pirates could not be controlled. Building or stealing ships, bands of Japanese sailors or ex-soldiers put to sea, capturing Corean boats, junks, and surf-rafts. Landing, they harried the shores and robbed and murdered the defenceless people. Growing bolder, the marauders sailed into the Yellow Sea and landed even in China and in Liao Tung. They kept whole towns and cities in terror, and a chain of coast forts had to be built in Shan-tung to defend that province.

The fire-signals which, in the old days of “the Three Kingdoms,” had flashed upon the headlands to warn of danger seaward, were now made a national service. The system was perfected so as to converge at the capital, Sunto, and give notice of danger from any point on the coast. By this means better protection against the sea-rovers was secured.

All this evil experience with the piratical Japanese of the middle ages has left its impress on the language of the Coreans. From this period, perhaps even long before it, date those words [75]of sinister omen of which we give but one or two examples which have the prefix wai (Japan) in them. A wai-kol, a huge, fierce man, of gigantic aspect, with a bad head, though perhaps with good heart, a kind of ogre, is a Japanese kol or creature. A destructive wind or typhoon is a Japanese wind. As western Christendom for centuries uttered their fears of the Norse pirates, “From the fury of the Northmen, Good Lord, deliver us,” so the Korai people, along the coast, for many generations offered up constant petition to their gods for protection against these Northmen of the Pacific.

This chronic danger from Japanese pirates, which Korai and Chō-sen endured for a period nearly as extended as that of England from the Northmen, is one of the causes that have contributed to make the natives dread the sea as a path for enemies, and in Corea we see the strange anomaly of a people more than semi-civilized whose wretched boats scarcely go beyond tide-water. [76]