The Shan-yan Alin, or Ever-White Mountains, stand like a wall along the northern boundary of the Corean peninsula. Irregular mountain masses and outjutting ranges of hills form its buttresses, while, at intervals, lofty peaks rise as towers. These are all overtopped by the central spire Paik-tu, or Whitehead, which may be over ten thousand feet high. From its bases flow out the Yalu, Tumen, and Hurka Rivers.

From primeval times the dwellers at the foot of this mountain, who saw its ever hoary head lost in the clouds, or glistening with fresh-fallen snow, conceived of a spirit dwelling on its heights in the form of a virgin in white. Her servants were animals in white fur and birds in white plumage.

When Buddhism entered the peninsula, as in China and Japan, so, in Corea, it absorbed the local deities, and hailed them under new names, as previous incarnations of Buddha before his avatar in India, or the true advent of the precious faith through his missionaries. They were thenceforth adopted into the Buddhist pantheon, and numbered among the worshipped Buddhas. The spirit of the Ever-White Mountains, the virgin in ever-white robes, named Manchusri, whose home lay among the unmelting snows, was one of these. Perhaps it was from this deity that the Manchius, the ancestors of the ruling dynasty of China, the wearers of the world-famous hair tails, took their name.

According to Manchiu legend, as given by Professor Douglas, it is said that “in remote ages, three heaven-born virgins dwelt beneath the shadow of the Great White Mountains, and that, while they were bathing in a lake which reflected in its bosom the snowy clad peaks which towered above it, a magpie dropped a blood red fruit on the clothes of the youngest. This the maiden instinctively devoured, and forthwith conceived and bore a son, whose name they called Ai-sin Ghioro, which being interpreted is [156]the ‘Golden Family Stem,’ and which is the family name of the emperors of China. When his mother had entered the icy cave of the dead, her son embarked on a little boat, and floated down the river Hurka, until he reached a district occupied by three families who were at war with each other. The personal appearance of the supernatural youth so impressed these warlike chiefs that they forgot their enmities, and hailed him as their ruler. The town of O-to-le [Odoli] was chosen as his capital, and from that day his people waxed fat and kicked against their oppressors, the Chinese.”

The home of the Manchius was, as this legend shows, on the north side of the Ever-White Mountains, in the valley of the Hurka. From beyond these mountains was to roll upon China and Corea another avalanche of invasion. Beginning to be restless in the fourteenth century, they had, in the sixteenth, consolidated so many tribes, and were so strong in men and horses, that they openly defied the Chinese. The formidable expeditions of Li-yu-sun, previous to the Japanese invasion of Corea, kept them at bay for a time, but the immense expenditure of life and treasure required to fight the Japanese, drained the resources of the Ming emperors, while their attention being drawn away from the north, the Manchiu hordes massed their forces and grew daily in wealth, numbers, discipline, and courage. The invasion of Chō-sen by the Japanese veterans was one of the causes of the weakness and fall of the Ming dynasty.

To repress the rising power in the north, and to smother the life of the young nation, the Peking government resorted to barbarous cruelties and stern coercion, in which bloodshed was continual. Unable to protect the eastern border of Liao Tung, the entire population of three hundred thousand souls, dwelling in four cities and many villages, were removed westward and resettled on new lands. Fortresses were planned, but not finished, in the deserted land, to keep back the restless cavalry raiders from the north. Thus the foundation of the neutral strip of fifty miles was unconsciously laid, and ten thousand square miles of fair and fertile land, west of the Yalu, was abandoned to the wolf and tiger. What it soon became, it has remained until yesterday—a howling wilderness. (See map on page 155.)

Unable to meet these cotton-armored raiders in the field, the Ming emperor ordered, and in 1615 consummated, the assassination of their king. This exasperated all the Manchiu tribes to vengeance, and hostilities on a large scale at once began by a southwest movement into Liao Tung. [157]

China had now again to face an invasion greater than the Japanese, for this time a whole nation was behind it. Calling on her vassal, the Eastern Kingdom, to send an army of twenty thousand men, she ordered them to join the imperial army at Hing-king. This city, now called Yen-den, lies about seventy miles west of the Yalu River, near the 42d parallel, just beyond what was “the neutral strip,” and inside the palisades erected later. In the battle, which ensued, the Coreans first faced the Manchius. The imperial legions were beaten, and the Coreans, seeing which way the victory would finally turn, deserted from the Chinese side to that of their enemy. This was in 1619.

The Manchiu general sent back some of the runaway Coreans to their king, intimating that, though the Coreans were acting gratefully in assisting the Chinese, who had formerly helped the Coreans against the Japanese, yet it might hereafter be better to remain neutral. So far from taking any notice of this letter, the government at Seoul allowed the king’s subjects to cross the Yalu and assist the people of Liao Tung against the Manchius, who were making Hing-king their capital. At the same time the Chinese commander was permitted to enter Corea, and thence to make expeditions against the Manchius, by which they inflicted great damage upon the enemy. This continued until the winter of 1827, when the Manchius, having lost all patience with Corea, prepared to invade the peninsula. Compelling two refugees to act as their guides, they crossed the frozen Yalu in four divisions, in February, and at once attacked the Chinese army, which was defeated, and retreated into Liao Tung. They then began the march to Seoul. Ai-chiu was the first town taken, and then, after crossing the Ching-chong River, followed in succession the cities lining the high road to Ping-an. Thence, over the Tatong River, they pressed on to Seoul, the Coreans everywhere flying before them. Thousands of dwellings and magazines of provisions were given to the flames, and their trail was one of blood and ashes. Among the slain were two Hollanders, who were captives in the country.

Heretofore a line of strong palisades had separated Corea from Manchuria, on the north, but large portions of it were destroyed at this time in the constant forays along the border. Those parts which stood yet intact were often seen by travellers along the Manchurian side as late as toward the end of the last century. Since then this wooden wall, a pigmy imitation of China’s colossal embargo in masonry, has gradually fallen into decay. [158]

The Manchius invested Seoul and began its siege in earnest. The queen and ladies of the court had already been sent to Kang-wa Island. The king, to avoid further shedding of blood, sent tribute offerings to the invaders, and concluded a treaty of peace by which Chō-sen again exchanged masters, the king not only acknowledging from the Manchiu sovereign the right of investiture, but also direct authority over his person, that is, the relation of master and subject.

The Coreans now waited to see whether events were likely to modify their new relations, so reluctantly entered into, for the Chinese were far from beaten as yet. When free from the presence of the invading army the courage of the ministers rose, and by their advice the king, by gradual encroachments and neglect, annulled the treaty.

No sooner were the Manchius able to spare their forces for the purpose, than, turning from China, they marched into Corea, one hundred thousand strong, well supplied with provisions and baggage-wagons. Entering the peninsula, both at Ai-chiu and by the northern pass, they reached Seoul, and, after severe fighting, entered it. Being now provided with cannon and boats, they took Kang-wa, into which all the royal, and many of the noble, ladies had fled for safety.

The king now came to terms, and made a treaty in February, 1637, in which he utterly renounced his allegiance to the Ming emperor, agreed to give his two sons as hostages, promised to send an annual embassy, with tribute, to the Manchiu court, and to establish a market at the Border Gate, in Liao Tung. These covenants were ratified by the solemn ceremonial of the king, his sons and his ministers confessing their crimes and making “kow-tow” (bowing nine times to the earth). Tartar and Corean worshipped together before Heaven, and the altar erected to Heaven’s honor. A memorial stone, erected near this sacred place, commemorates the clemency of the Manchiu conqueror.

In obedience to the orders of their new masters, the Coreans despatched ships, loaded with grain, to feed the armies operating against Peking, and sent a small force beyond the Tumen to chastise a tribe that had rebelled against their conquerors. A picked body of their matchlock men was also admitted into the Manchiu service.

After the evacuation of Corea, the victors marched into China, where bloody, civil war was already raging. The imperial army [159]was badly beaten by the rebels headed by the usurper Li-tse-ching. The Manchius joined their forces with the Imperialists, and defeated the rebels, and then demanded the price of their victory. Entering Peking, they proclaimed the downfall of the house of Ming. The Tâtar (vassal) was now a “Tartar.” The son of their late king was set upon the dragon-throne and proclaimed the Whang Ti, the Son of Heaven, and the Lord of the Middle Kingdom and all her vassals. The following tribute was fixed for Chō-sen to pay annually:

100 ounces of gold, 1,000 ounces of silver, 10,000 bags of rice, 2,000 pieces of silk, 300 pieces of linen, 10,000 pieces of cotton cloth, 400 pieces of hemp cloth, 100 pieces of fine hemp cloth, 10,000 rolls (fifty sheets each) of large paper, 1,000 rolls small sized paper, 2,000 knives (good quality), 1,000 ox-horns, 40 decorated mats, 200 pounds of dye-wood, 10 boxes of pepper, 100 tiger skins, 100 deer skins, 400 beaver skins, 200 skins of blue (musk?) rats.

When, as it happened the very next year, the shō-gun of Japan demanded an increase of tribute to be paid in Yedo, the court of Seoul plead in excuse their wasted resources consequent upon the war with the Manchius, and their heavy burdens newly laid upon them. Their excuse was accepted.

Twice, within a single generation, had the little peninsula been devastated by two mighty invasions that ate up the land. Between the mountaineers of the north, and “the brigands” from over the sea, Corea was left the Issachar among nations. The once strong ass couched down between two burdens. “And he saw that the rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute.”

The Manchius, being of different stock and blood from the Chinese, yet imposed their dress and method of wearing the hair upon the millions of Chinese people, but here their tyranny seemed to stop. Hitherto, the Chinese and Corean method of rolling the hair in a knot or ball, on the top of the head, had been the fashion for ages. As a sign of loyalty to the new rulers, all people in the Middle Kingdom were compelled to shave the forefront of the head and allow their hair to grow in a queue, or pig-tail, behind on their back. At first they resisted, and much blood was shed before all submitted; but, at length, the once odious mark of savagery and foreign conquest became the national fashion, and the Chinaman’s pride at home and abroad. Even in [160]foreign lands, they cling to this mark of their loyalty as to life and country. The object of the recent queue-cutting plots, fomented by the political, secret societies of China, is to insult the imperial family at Peking by robbing the Chinese of their loyal appendage, and the special sign of the Tartar dominion.

As a special favor to the Coreans who first submitted to the new masters of Kathay, they were spared the infliction of the queue, and allowed to dress their hair in the ancient style.

The Corean king hastened to send congratulations to the emperor, Shun Chi, which ingratiated him still more in favor at Peking. In 1650 a captive Corean maid, taken prisoner in their first invasion, became sixth lady in rank in the imperial household. Through her influence her father, the ambassador, obtained a considerable diminution of the annual tribute, fixed upon in the terms of capitulation in 1637. In 1643, one-third of this tribute had been remitted, so that, by this last reduction, in 1650, the tax upon Corean loyalty was indeed very slight. Indeed it has long been considered by the Peking government that the Coreans get about as much as they give, and the embassy is one of ceremony rather than of tribute-bringing. Their offering is rather a percentage paid for license to trade, than a symbol of vassalage. Nevertheless, the Coreans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries found out, to their cost, that any lack of due deference was an expensive item of freedom. Every jot and tittle, or tithe of the mint or anise of etiquette, was exacted by the proud Manchius. In 1695, the king of Chō-sen was fined ten thousand ounces of silver for the omission of some punctilio of vassalage. At the investiture of each sovereign in Seoul, two grandees were sent from Peking to confer the patent of royalty. The little bill for this costly favor was about ten thousand taels, or dollars, in silver. The Coreans also erected, near one of the gates of Seoul, a temple, which still stands, in honor of the Manchius general commanding the invasion, and to whom, to this day, they pay semi-divine honors. Yet to encourage patriotism it was permitted, by royal decree, to the descendants of the minister who refused, at the Yalu River, to allow the Manchius to cross, and who thereby lost his life, to erect to his memory a monumental gate, a mark of high honor only rarely granted.

The Jesuits at Peking succeeded in ingratiating themselves with the conquerors, and Shun-chi, the emperor, was a pupil of Adam Schall, a German Jesuit, who became President of the Board [162]of Mathematicians. Nevertheless, in the troubles preceding the peace, many upright men lost their lives, and hundreds of scholars who hated the Tâtar conquerors of their beloved China—as the Christians of Constantinople hated the Turks—fled to Corea and Japan, conferring great literary influence and benefit. In both countries their presence greatly stimulated the critical study of Chinese literature. With the Mito and Yedo scholars in Japan, they assisted to promote the revival of learning, so long neglected during the civil wars. At Nagasaki, a Chinese colony of merchants, and trade between the two countries, were established, after the last hope of restoring the Mings had been extinguished in Kokusenya (Coxinga), who also drove the Dutch from Formosa. This exodus of scholars was somewhat like the dispersion of the Greek scholars through Europe after the fall of the Byzantine empire.

To the Jesuits in Peking, who were mostly Frenchmen, belongs the credit of beginning that whole system of modern culture, by which modern science and Christianity are yet to transform the Chinese mind, and recast the ideas of this mighty people concerning nature and Deity. They now began to make known in Europe much valuable information about China and her outlying tributary states. They sent home a map of Corea—the first seen in Europe. Imperfect, though it was, it made the hermit land more than a mere name. In “China Illustrata,” written by the Jesuit Martini, and published in 1649, in Amsterdam—the city of printing presses and the Leipsic of that day—there is a map of Corea. The same industrious scholar wrote, in Latin, a book, entitled “De Bello inter Tartaros et Seniensis” (On the War between the Manchius and the Chinese), which was issued at Antwerp in 1654, and in Amsterdam in 1661. It was also translated into English, French, and Spanish, the editions being issued at London, Donay, and Madrid. The English title is “Bellum Tartaricum; or, the Conquest of the Great and Most Renowned Empire of China by the Invasion of the [Manchiu] Tartars,” London, 1654, octavo.

The Dutch had long tried to get a hand in the trade of China, and, in 1604, 1622, and 1653, had sent fleets of trading vessels to Chinese ports, but were in every instance refused. The Russians, however, were first allowed to trade on the northern frontier of China before the same privileges were granted to other Europeans. The Cossacks, when they first crossed the Ural Mountains, in 1579, with their faces set toward the Pacific, never ceased their advance [163]till they had added to the Czar’s domain a portion of the earth’s surface as large as the United States, and half of Europe. Once on the steppes, there began that long duel between Cossack and Tartar, which never ended until the boundaries of Russia touched those of Corea, Japan, and British America. Cossacks discovered, explored, conquered, and settled this triple-zoned region of frozen moss, forest land and fertile soil, bringing over six million square miles of territory under the wings of the double-headed eagle. They brought reports of Corea to Russia, and it was from Russian sources that Sir John Campbell obtained the substance of his “Commercial History of Chorea and Japan” in his voyages and travels, printed in London, 1771.

In 1645, a party of Japanese traversed Chō-sen from Ai-chiu to Fusan, the Dan and Beersheba of the peninsula. Returning from their travels, one of them wrote a book called the “Romance of Corea” (Chō-sen Monogatari). Takéuchi Tosaémon and his son, Tozo, and shipmaster Kunida Hisosaémon, on April 26, 1645, left the port of Mikuni in the province of Echizen—the same place to which the first native of Corea is said to have reached Japan in the legendary period. With three large junks, whose crews numbered fifty-eight men, they set sail for the north on a trading voyage. Off the island of Sado a fearful storm broke upon them, which, after fifteen days, drove them on the mountain coast of Tartary, where they landed, May 12th, to refit and get fresh water. At first the people treated them peacefully, trading off their ginseng for the saké, or rice-beer, of the Japanese. Later on, the Japanese were attacked by the natives, and twenty-five of their number slain. The remainder were taken to Peking, where they remained until the winter of 1646. Honorably acquitted of all blame, they were sent homeward, into the Eastern Kingdom, under safe conduct of the Chinese emperor Shun-chi. They began the journey December 18th, and, crossing the snow-covered mountains and frozen rivers of Liao Tung, reached Seoul, after twenty-eight days travel, February 3, 1647.

The Japanese were entertained in magnificent style in one of the royal houses with banquets, numerous servants, presents, and the attendance of an officer, named Kan-shun, who took them around the city and showed them the sights. The paintings on the palace walls, the tiger-skin rugs, the libraries of handsomely bound books, the festivities of New Year’s day, the evergreen trees and fine scenery, were all novel and pleasing to the Japanese, but still they longed [164]to reach home. Leaving Seoul, February 12th, they passed through a large city, where, at sunset and sunrise, they heard the trumpeters call the laborers to begin and cease work. They noticed that the official class inscribed on their walls the names and dates of reign and death of the royal line from the founder of the dynasty to the father of the ruling sovereign. This served as an object lesson in history for the young. The merchants kept in their houses a picture of the famous Tao-jō-kung, who, by skill in trade, accumulated fortunes only to spend them among his friends. On February 21st, they passed through Shang-shen (or Shang-chiu?), where the Japanese gained a great victory.

In passing along the Nak-tong River, they witnessed the annual trial of archery for the military examinations. The targets were straw mannikins, set up on boats, in the middle of the river. On March 6th they reached Fusan. The Japanese settlement, called Nippon-machi, or Japan Street, was outside the gates of the town, a guard-house being kept up to keep the Japanese away. Only twice a year, on August 15th and 16th, were they allowed to leave their quarters to visit a temple in the town. The Coreans, however, were free to enter the Japanese concession to visit or trade. The waifs were taken into the house of the daimiō of Tsushima, and glad, indeed, were they to talk with a fellow countryman. Sailing to Tsushima, they were able there to get Japanese clothes, and, on July 19th, they reached Ozaka, and finally their homes in Echizen. One of their number wrote out an account of his adventures.

Among other interesting facts, he states that he saw, hanging in the palace at Peking, a portrait of Yoshitsuné, the Japanese hero, who, as some of his countrymen believe, fled the country and, landing in Manchuria, became the mighty warrior Genghis Khan. Whether mistaken or not, the note of the Japanese is interesting.

Mr. Leon Pages, in his “Histoire de la Religion Chrétienne au Japon,” says that these men referred to above found established in the capital a Japanese commercial factory, but with the very severe restrictions similar to those imposed upon the Hollanders at Deshima. This is evidently a mistake. There was no trading mart in the capital, but there was, and had been, one at Fusan, which still exists in most flourishing condition.

The Manchius, from the first, showed themselves “the most improvable race in Asia.” In 1707, under the patronage of the [165]renowned emperor Kang Hi, the Jesuits in Peking began their great geographical enterprise—the survey of the Chinese Empire, including the outlying vassal kingdoms. From the king’s palace, at Seoul, Kang Hi’s envoy obtained a map of Corea, which was reduced, drawn, and sent to Europe to be engraved and printed. From this original, most of the maps and supposed Corean names in books, published since that time, have been copied. Having no Corean interpreter at hand, the Jesuit cartographers gave the Chinese sounds of the characters which represent the local names. Hence the discrepancies between this map and the reports of the Dutch, Japanese, French, and American travellers, who give the vernacular pronunciation. To French genius and labor, from first to last, we owe most of what is known in Europe concerning the secluded nation. The Jesuits’ map is accurate as regards the latitude and longitude of many places, but lacking in true coast lines.

While making their surveys, the party of missionaries, whose assignment of the work was to Eastern Manchuria, caught something like a Pisgah glimpse of the country which, before a century elapsed, was to become a land of promise to French Christianity. In 1709, as they looked across the Tumen River, they wrote: “It was a new sight to us after we had crossed so many forests, and coasted so many frightful mountains to find ourselves on the banks of the [166]river Tumen-ula, with nothing but woods and wild beasts on one side, while the other presented to our view all that art and labor could produce in the best cultivated kingdoms. We there saw walled cities, and placing our instruments on the neighboring heights, geometrically determined the location of four of them, which bounded Korea on the north.” The four towns seen by the Jesuit surveyors were Kion-wen, On-son, and possibly Kion-fun and Chon-shon.

The Coreans could not understand the Tartar or Chinese companions of the Frenchmen, but, at Hun-chun, they found interpreters, who told them the names of the Corean towns. The French priests were exceedingly eager and anxious to cross the river, and enter the land that seemed like the enchanted castle of Thornrose, but, being forbidden by the emperor’s orders, they reluctantly turned their backs upon the smiling cities.

This was the picture of the northern border in 1707, before it was desolated, as it afterward was, so that the Russians might not be tempted to cross over. At Hun-chun, on the Manchiu, and Kion-wen, on the Corean side of the river, once a year, alternately, that is, once in two years, at each place, a fair was held up to 1860, where the Coreans and Chinese merchants exchanged goods. The lively traffic lasted only half a day, when the nationals of either country were ordered over the border, and laggards were hastened at the spear’s point. Any foreigner, Manchiu, Chinese, or even Corean suspected of being an alien, was, if found on the south side of the Tumen, at once put to death without shrift or pity. Thus the only gate of parley with the outside world on Corea’s northern frontier resembled an embrasure or a muzzle. When at last the Cossack lance flashed, and the Russian school-house rose, and the church spire glittered with steady radiance beyond the Tumen, this gateway became the terminus of that “underground railroad,” through which the Corean slave reached his Canada beyond, or the Corean Christian sought freedom from torture and dungeons and death. [167]