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A valuable account from the Japanese point of view was found among the posthumous papers of Mr. "We are not ready to fight China yet," said the Japanese Foreign Minister to the impetuous young Korean. It was ten years later before Japan was ready, ten years of steady preparation, and during that time the real focus of the Far Eastern drama was not Tokyo nor Peking, but Seoul.
The American ships, the Monacacy and the Palos bombarded the forts. The Korean brass guns, of one and one-half inch bore, and their thirty pounders, could do nothing against the American howitzers, throwing eight and ten inch shells. The American Marines and sailors landed, and in capturing a hill fort, had a short, hot hand-to-hand battle with the defenders.
There are other evidences to the same effect, and taken in conjunction with the remarkable similarity of the Korean and Japanese languages, these facts are held to warrant the conclusion that the most important element of the Japanese nation came via Korea, its Far Eastern colony being the ultima thule of its long wanderings from central Asia.
That is marvellous enough, but to add to the perplexity the Nihongi says that Chuai died at fifty-two. The legend says of this child that its birth was artificially delayed until the return of the empress from the Korean expedition, but the fact seems to be that the Emperor died at the end of June and the Empress' accouchement took place in the following April.
The idea it conveyed to him was that a man had tripped or fallen over something; and this suggestion was strengthened when, immediately afterward, certain low muttered words in the Korean tongue, which sounded remarkably like a string of hearty expletives, issued from the same quarter. And the voice was undoubtedly that of Ling.
I looked at the guns they were carrying. The six men had five different patterns of weapons, and none was any good. One proudly carried an old Korean sporting gun of the oldest type of muzzle-loaders known to man. Around his arm was the long piece of thin rope which he kept smouldering as touch-powder, and hanging in front of him were the powder horn and bullet bag for loading.
They were not, however, absolutely united as to policy. Saigo Takamori held some conservative opinions, the chief of which was that he wished to preserve the military class in their old position of the empire's only soldiers. He had, therefore, greatly resented the conscription law, and while his discontent was still fresh, the Korean problem presented itself for solution.
The visitor would note them sleeping in the streets of the cities at noon. But Europeans soon found that Korean labourers, properly handled, were capable of great effort. And young men of the cultured classes amazed their foreign teachers by the quickness with which they absorbed Western learning.
Gradually the complaints of the foreign community became louder and louder, and visiting publicists began to take more notice of them. The main credit for defending the cause of the Korean people at that time must be given to a young English journalist, editor of the Korea Daily News, Mr.
I'll wager he counted every chest and case that we took aboard; and I feel convinced in my own mind that he is a Korean spy. If so, we may be in for a lot of trouble when we arrive out there; for he can easily cable, or even get there before us by catching a fast mail-boat.
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