Korean resentment of widening Japanese influence and infighting at the royal court led to a military mutiny that turned against the Korean queen and the Japanese. Suppression of the rebellion brought in Japanese and Chinese troops and humiliated Korea. A later coup by Japanese and progressive Koreans, who were keen on modernization, failed because of Chinese intervention, and Japan and China agreed to withdraw their troops from Korea.
After 1876, when Japan forcibly opened the kingdom of Korea to foreign trade with the Treaty of Kanghwa
Kojong, the Korean king who signed the treaty, was a weak person. Initially, he was dominated by his father, who is known by the name for “grand prince,” Taewon-gun. Taewon-gun selected a noble orphan girl, Myongsong Hwanghu, to be his son’s wife. She was from the powerful Min clan, whom Taewon-gun sought to dominate. Myongsong Hwanghu became Queen Min at her wedding in 1866 at the age of fifteen. Queen Min suspected that Taewon-gun had poisoned their firstborn son, and in 1873, he pushed Kojong to assume power for himself.
Li Hongzhang (right) with former U.S. president Ulysses S. Grant during the latter’s visit to China in June, 1879.
Queen Min permitted Japanese lieutenant Horimoto
Enraged by Min’s orders, soldiers stormed his house and broke into an armory. Freshly armed, mutineers stormed Seoul prison and freed their comrades. Augmented by poor and dissatisfied citizens, the rebellion rose to three thousand men and developed an anti-Japanese character. Soldiers killed Lieutenant Horimoto,
On July 24, the mob stormed the royal palace, killing Min Kyom-ho
Japan sent four warships and fifteen soldiers to accompany Minister Yoshimoto back to Seoul. Queen Min secretly contacted King Kojong to ask for Chinese help. Li Hongzhang, China’s viceroy responsible also for Korea, sent three warships. A Japanese ship reached Inchon before the three Chinese warships arrived on August 10. When the main Japanese fleet arrived on August 12, the Chinese withdrew and then returned with reinforcements of four thousand infantry on August 22 and two hundred soldiers the next day. On August 22, Yoshimoto had met with King Kojong and conveyed Japan’s demands. Among them, Korea was to pay 500,000 yen for the deadly anti-Japanese riot
On August 26, the Chinese asked Taewon-gun into their camp, but they kidnapped him upon his arrival and then deported him to China. He was interrogated by Li Hongzhang and kept for three years. After Chinese soldiers stormed the royal palace on August 29, killing nearly four hundred Korean soldiers and executing ten rebel leaders, Queen Min returned to power.
On September 30 Korea signed the Treaty of Chemulpo (now called Inchon) with Japan, agreeing to all Japanese demands, and Japan received the right to station soldiers to protect its rebuilt legation. Queen Min shifted her allegiance to the Chinese. In October, Korea and China signed an agreement on trade that restored Korea’s vassal status to China.
The conservative policies of Queen Min antagonized a group of progressive Koreans around their intellectual leader Kim Ok-kyun,
The plotters saw their chance after China reduced its troop strength in Seoul in May, 1884, so that it could have more soldiers to block French claims over Vietnam. With the outbreak of the Sino-French-Vietnamese War over the status of Vietnam in September, 1884, the plotters moved ahead. The new Japanese minister to Korea, Takezoe Shinichiro, arrived in Seoul on October 30 and sided with the plotters. On December 4, the Kapsin coup—named for the year of the event in Korean—was staged. The plotters used the inauguration of Seoul’s new post office to assassinate invited conservative politicians. The plotters failed to kill all their main targets but took King Kojong and Queen Min into custody in a small palace.
On December 5, the conspirators announced a new government. The Chinese contacted Queen Min, who agreed to receive their help. She advised King Kojong to ask to be moved to the large, less defensible main palace, and Takezoe agreed. On December 6, the king issued a fifteen-article reform proclamation drafted by the progressives. In the afternoon, Chinese troops and conservative Korean troops attacked the palace held by the insurgents. The troops of the progressives were overwhelmed. Under fire, the Japanese under Takezoe withdrew to Inchon after burning their legation, and they took Kim, Pak
Family members of the Korean plotters were executed in the plotters’ stead. Japanese forces returned to Korea with seven warships and three thousand infantry. Restitution demands were small because the Koreans did not mention Japanese complicity in the Kapsin coup. The Protocol of Seoul
By 1882, the failure of Queen Min to do the near impossible and modernize Korea without giving in to Japanese aggression subjected her country to hardship. What began as a riot against a corrupt court official quickly turned into anti-Japanese violence. The killing of Japanese people gave Japan a pretext to humiliate Korea. Turning from one foreign power to the next for her survival, Queen Min brought in the Chinese, who saw a chance to help China reassert its own lost authority.
The Korean progressives who staged the Kapsin coup of 1884 sincerely believed in the benefits of modernizing Korea along Japanese lines. Queen Min’s alignment with China was seen as a harmful tie to a stagnant nation. Kim Ok-kyun
The Treaty of Tientsin
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Hatada, Takahashi. A History of Korea. Translated by Warren Smith and Benjamin Hazard. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1969. Chapter 6 places the event in the context of foreign imperialist ambitions in Korea. Appendix, index, maps, and tables. -
Joe, Wanne. A Cultural History of Modern Korea. Elizabeth, N.J.: Hollym Press, 2000. Passionately pro-Korean, very detailed rendition of the event in chapter 2. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. -
Keene, Donald. Emperor of Japan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. Biography of the Meiji emperor of Japan. Chapter 36 and the beginning of chapter 44 give detailed accounts of the event from a Japanese point of view. Notes, index, bibliography, illustrations. -
Oliver, Robert. A History of the Korean People in Modern Times. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993. Chapter 3 examines the event, outlining foreign interests in Korea and competition between imperialist nations. Notes, references, indexes. -
Shin, Yong-ha. Modern Korean History and Nationalism. Translated by N. N. Pankaj. Seoul, Republic of Korea: Jimoondang, 2000. Chapter 2 provides a detailed analysis of the failed 1884 coup, which is seen as a progressive nationalist move independent of Japanese influence. Bibliography, glossary, index. -
Tennant, Roger. A History of Korea. London: Kegan Paul, 1996. Chapters 27 through 29 examine and discuss the event. Very readable, with notes, a bibliography, and an index.
Second Opium War
Sepoy Mutiny Against British Rule
Japan Expands into Korea
Former Samurai Rise in Satsuma Rebellion
French Indochina War
Kabo Reforms Begin Modernization of Korean Government
Sino-Japanese War
Cixi; Itō Hirobumi; Mutsuhito.