Kitasawa, Sukeo, The Life of Dr. Nitobe, Toyko: Hokuseido Press, 1953, 93 pp.

Kitasawa, Sukeo, The Life of Dr. Nitobe, Toyko: Hokuseido Press, 1953, 93 pp.



Beginnings. Inenosuke (who later changed his name to Inazo) Nitobe was born in 1862 in Morioka in the northeastern part of the island of Honshu. His father, Jujiro Nitobe, was a high official of the samurai clan of Lord Nambu. However, his father’s influence was short lived; he died when Inazo was five years of age. Inazo studied with local teachers in Morioka, but was not satisfied with them. This was the Meiji Era where Japanese society was in transition from feudalism to new structures in internal politics, economy, military, and foreign relations. Inazo wanted to be part of this and nagged his mother to let him go to Tokyo. His uncle Ota lived in Tokyo and wished to adopt Inazo to educate him to become a leader for the new age. So in his early teens he and his elder brother and a servant made the trip of 400 miles to Tokyo. At age 14 he entered the Tokyo English School, the precursor of Tokyo Imperial University.



Inazo’s grandfather,Tsuto, was well known for building a long tunnel and canal which made it possible to develop a vast barren tract of land in Aomori Prefecture into fertile rice fields, saving thousands of poverty-stricken farmers. In 1876 the Emperor Jeiji, honored the Nitobe family in his visit to the northeastern district for Tsuto’s achievement. The Emperor expressed the wish that the family would inherit Tsuto’s noble spirit and contribute to the agricultural development of the country. Although Inazo was in Tokyo at the time, he took this as an imperial command and gave up his idea of studying law in favour of pursuing agricultural science. The Emperor left a generous gift of money to the family and Inazo, being the youngest, received a small portion of it. He used his gift to purchase a copy of the English Bible. He was studying the Bible at the time with one of the foreign teachers at Tokyo English School, M. M. Scott. The story of Jesus’ selfsacrificing mission deeply impressed him and he believed that Christianity would make Japan a strong and civilized nation.



After two years of study, Inazo passed a competitive examination and entered Sapporo Agricultural College in Hokkaido. Among his classmates were Kingo Miyabe, Kanzo Uchimura, Takajuro Minami, Isamu Hiroi and others, who became distinguished leaders. One month after matriculation Inazo became a Christian. Inazo placed second as a scholar his first year and first in his second year at Sapporo. He was also a keen competitor in sports. He was known for his temper outbursts and indignation against unrighteousness of any kind. He later overcame this.



In his second year his beloved mother died. He became depressed. It was by reading Thomas Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus that his melancholia lifted.



Upon graduation Inazo took the entrance examination to study at Tokyo University. He told the examining professor that he wanted to study English and be a bridge across the Pacific. By amalgamating Western and Japanese cultures a better one may emerge. He achieved an excellent record at Tokyo University, but after finishing he resolved to go to America to continue his studies. His uncle Ota approved of this idea and provided funds for him to do this. He did graduate studies in economics, history and literature at Johns Hopkins University. Among his classmates were Woodrow Wilson, Shosuke Sato and John Dewey. He needed funds to live on and history Professor Herbert Adams employed him so that Inazo could support himself. Inazo also earned money by giving public lectures on Japan and the need to revise the unequal treaty imposed on Japan by the West in 1857.



He was invited to speak to the Friends Foreign Missionary Society in Baltimore and met

Mary Patterson Elkinton there. She was the daughter of a well-known Quaker family in Philadelphia (her father, Joseph Scotton Elkinton, was involved with the resettlement of the Doukhobors in Canada). She told him that she wanted to work with her friends to revise the treaty.



Out of the blue in 1887 Inazo received a letter from his former classmate Shosuke Sato, who was then secretary and professor at Sapporo Agricultural College, informing Inazo that he had been appointed assistant professor and would be allowed three years further study in Germany at government expense. This meant that he would have to leave American soon. Also at this time Inazo received a request to write an article for a journal in Japan on the position of women in America. This was a subject with which he was unfamiliar, so he sought the help of Mary Elkinton. Their collaboration gave him the opportunity to get to know more about her character as well as her literary skills and intellectual depth. She made an unforgettable impression on him and he wrote to her as he travelled through Ireland, Scotland, England and Holland on his way to Germany. Shortly after he arrived in Bonn, Mary sent him a report that she and her friends had won over several Congressmen to vote to revise the Japanese treaty.



Many letters of intimate affection must have traversed the Atlantic. Inazo outlined his hopes and aspirations and also the difficulties that lay ahead. Near the end of the year they decided to get married. However there was opposition from both Uncle Ota and the Elkintons. But all attempts to dissuade them were in vain.



Inazo spent his first year at the University of Bonn, the second at the University of Berlin and the third year at the University of Halle. He studied agrar-politics, history of agriculture, economics, and statistics. He finished his thesis, Intercourse Between the United States and Japan, after Mary had corrected his English, he submitted it to Prof. Adams at John Hopkins University. It was published in the Johns Hopkins Historical Series.



In 1888 the government sent him to Belgium where he was influenced by the great scholar Professor de Lavelleye at the University of Liège. One day Prof. de Lavelleye asked him, ‘What moral and religious education is offered in the schools of Japan?’ Inazo replied that religious education was not permitted. ‘How can a nation be led in the way of righteousness without religion?’, asked Prof de Lavelleye. Inazo was unable to adequately reply. Years later he wrote, Bushido, The Soul of Japan, in an attempt to answer this question, but by then Prof de Lavelleye has passed away.



At the end of his three years, Inazo wrote his German thesis, Land Possession and Distribution, and its Agricultural Use in Japan, and received his Ph. D. from the University of Halle in 1890.



Inazo returned to Philadelphia to marry Mary, but her father was bitterly opposed to the marriage would not permit Inazo to enter the house. Joseph Elkinton feared Inazo would take his daughter away from America. The weighty Quakers of the Meeting sided with Elkinton and did not grant permission when the intention was laid before the Meeting in 1890. But the couple persisted and gradually won over Mary’s brothers and then other relatives and influential members of the Meeting. When the marriage proposal was presented to the Meeting for the third time consent was given in spite of parental opposition. Inazo and Mary were married on New Year’s Day 1891.



Marriage and a new life. The wedding took place at Arch Street Meeting House. In addition to Mary’s brothers, and Aunt Sara and Uncle Ephriam Smith, who took the place of her parents, Rendall and Helen Harris, Friends from England attended. A few days prior to the couple sailing to Japan, Mary’s parents relented and gave their approval and invited Mary and Inazo to their home. The journey took 18 days to reach Yokohama. Inazo’s relatives met them at the docks. It was a big task for Mary to adapt to the strange customs and new language. Inazo’s younger sister, Kisa, helped her. At the family welcoming formal dinner, Mary was surprised when Inazo slipped off his shoes, but Kisa brought knitted covers to put on Mary’s shoes as a compromise for her. When Mary was unable to kneel properly, Kisa brought a short stool and put cushions over it. Kisa was more progressive than Inazo and contrasted with her elder sister, Mine, who was quite conservative. Mary was delighted when Uncle Ota took her to a high-class store to order a silk kimono and an obi (belt) and haori (coat) with the crests of the Nitobe family on them, symbolizing she was part of the family.



The Nitobes were invited to a formal tea ceremony by Count Matsuura and on another occasion Prince Konoye, Sr., president of the House of Peers, invited them to the Diet. They met Prince Shimazu and other former feudal lords with the traditional regalia. They also visited the Friends Centre in Mita (Quakers and other Christian missionaries were active in Japan at this time).



Inazo had been appointed full professor at Sapporo Agricultural College. There were almost no railways in northeastern Japan in those days, so the couple travelled mostly by steamer to Hokkaido. At Sapporo all of the professors, some of their wives and two American women missionaries came to greet them. It was an overwhelming reception for both of them and marked the beginning of their new life together. They were provided with a residence with five rooms.



Inazo deeply impressed Mary by the value and magnitude of his work and the true greatness of his spirit. She made him the heart and centre of her life. The strong faith in God and love of humanity she practiced impressed her friends and Japanese relatives, including the admiration of Uncle Ota who had initially opposed the match.



In January 1982 a baby was born to them, but in spite of expert medical help, Thomas died within a week. This was a time of deep sorrow. Mary did not regain her health for some years. Inazo had lost his father at five and been separated from his mother at nine, however this grief was so deep, it became a cause for his breakdown a few years later. The words of Goethe and Carlyle helped him. He considered Buddha’s approach of lifting himself above the suffering of life in an attempt to free life of it, and the Christian approach of bearing the cross, which he thought was noble. He continued to test the truth of both. He adored Abraham Lincoln, who suffered profound melancholy,



The death of Thomas drew the Nitobe family close together. Mary won her Japanese relatives and friends to her because they saw in her the ideal Japanese wife devoted to her husband’s welfare and fully content to submerge her life in his. She abandoned her study of the Japanese language to have more time to help Inazo in English, protect his health and encourage and inspire him. He could never have gained his balanced and saintly character, nor accomplished his great work and service as a scholar, educator, journalist and internationalist without her intelligent devotion to all of his life and activities.



Educator and administrator. Four of the nine full professors had higher degrees from America or Germany. There was one American member of the faculty, Arthur Brigham, from Harvard. Inazo became head of the Instruction Department and revised the curriculum to raise the academic standards. He attracted students for his wide knowledge and humour. In addition to teaching History of Agriculture, Agrar-politics, economics, German and English, he also gave lectures on Thomas Carlyle, Goethe and others. He saw these outside lectures as important opportunities to guide the minds and hearts of the students to the best the West had to offer. He tried to establish friendly relationships with the students and he encouraged them to come to his home. His reputation as a teacher spread and students from Tokyo transferred to the College. In 1891 he was appointed principal of Hokumei Middle School and he enjoyed the chance to teach teenagers. He spent many hours giving them guidance about personal problems. One evening a week he would invite the middle school boys to his home where he would share his favorite stories from Western literature and from his personal experience in America and Europe with them. He taught a group of non-Christian students the Bible as literature and wrote a series of articles on the life of William Penn. This appealed to the people of Hokkaido, because they were themselves colonists and they were impressed by his strong faith and leadership in organizing the Quaker colony.



Inazo also acted as the technical adviser of the prefectural government and gave practical guidance to farmers. A night school was started for the young boys and adults unable to go to day school. Inazo contributed $2,000 to start it. He was deeply concerned about the life of the Ainu tribe in Hokkaido, and wrote articles to promote awareness of the need to protect them. He did at least the work of five men. In 1897 fatigue finally caught up with him. His grief over the loss of his child and Mary’s long illness and temporary absence for convalescence in America culminated in Inazo having a serious nervous breakdown. His doctors advised him to stop all work and reading of any kind and to rest for three to five years. It looked like the brilliant career of this young professor was over at age 36.

He looked haggard. Friends and students gathered weeping to see him off to Ikaho spa, but he was smiling and waving his Sartor Resartus in his hand as the train left the station.



At Ikaho hot spring he had long hours of rest and meditation, and his health improved rapidly. The next year Inazo and Mary settled in Monterey, California, among the pine forests and white sandy beaches. The mild climate and refreshing sea breeze were very effective in promoting his healing. During his convalescence, the question Dr. de Lavelleye raised came to mind. As his health improved, his thoughts crystallized and he got the idea of writing a book to respond to the question, ‘How can one acquire the idea of right and wrong without moral instruction based on religious belief?’ Unable to write, he dictated it to Anna Hartshorne, his friend and secretary. In the following year, 1899, Bushido, the Soul of Japan, was published.



Little was known about Japan in the West. When Japan had a military victory over Russia in 1905 there was great surprise and it was discovered that in Japan there was a strong spiritual quality known as Bushido. To understand this spirit, people read Inazo’s book, and the English version was rapidly translated into German, French, Bohemian, Polish, Norwegian, Mahratti, Chinese and other languages. It was read by many influential people, among them President Theodore Roosevelt, President John F. Kenney and Robert Baden-Powell. He became world famous.



As soon as he finished writing Bushido, he began work on his unfinished History of Agriculture, the second volume of a trilogy on agriculture. In March 1899 the Japanese Government awarded him the degree Doctor of Agriculture for his scholarly contribution to agriculture.



After two years of convalescence as Inazo was about to leave the Pacific coast, he received an invitation to take a position in Formosa. Japan was administering Formosa after the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95). After consulting with his friends at Sapporo he decided to accept the offer, but allow his health to improve and to study colonial administration and industrial developments in other parts of the world, he decided to take a leisurely trip around the world. In 1899, Inazo, Mary and their adopted son, Yoshio, first went to visit Mary’s parents in Philadelphia, who were exceedingly glad to see them.

In 1900 they left America for Spain, London, Paris, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Egypt. In 1901 they returned to Japan. The military occupation of Formosa had ended and Shimpei Goto, the Civil Administrator, had been given a free hand in selecting the best personnel for the Taiwan Government. His first choice was Inazo for the head of the Industrial Bureau with a salary equivalent to that of a minister of a department.



Inazo had thoroughly studied the history, soil, climate, crops and methods of native cultivation. He had conducted a research tour to the Philippines, Java and Australia and prepared a report on Taiwan Sugar Policy for Governor General Kodama. He told Kodama that it would take strong leadership to implement the policy of reform. The Diet wanted to reduce the appropriations required, but when they learned that the bill was based on Inazo’s careful research over years, passed it at once. The sugar policy enabled Taiwan to become economically independent and increased the Japanese national income by several billions of yen.



In 1903 he was offered a professorship at Kyoto Imperial University. He accepted and gave lectures on Agronomics and Statistics. His first speech was on Japan’s Mission in the Orient, and it inspired the entire student body. They adopted a 16-year old niece, Kotoko, a daughter of Mine. Mary had little aptitude to learn Japanese and Kotoko served

as her interpreter. In 1906, Kyoto University conferred the degree Doctor of Jurisprudence on Inazo.



President of the Fist National College. Baron Makino, the Minister of Education, asked Inazo to become president of The First National College in Tokyo. Inazo was reluctant to accept and stipulated three conditions: the appointment be two years at most, an additional post at Tokyo Imperial University be provided, and he be allowed to take a 30 minute nap after lunch. These were agreed to and Inazo moved to Tokyo, where he had the opportunity to teach the cream of youth selected by rigid, competitive examinations. Inazo gave lectures on ethics and morals as well as lectures on Lincoln, Carlyle, Goethe, Schiller, Milton and others. He also held weekly conferences with the students. The twoyear term stretched to eight years. In his time as president, the College rose to its greatest prominence. His speeches of idealism were addressed to all the young men and women in the nation.



There were some who resented Inazo’s popularity. Inazo was the first exchange lecturer from Japan and delivered a series of lectures at Brown, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Virginia, Illinois and Minnesota Universities. He also spoke to the Japanese living on the Pacific coast and advised them to observe their obligations to America and to respect the habits and customs of their American neighbours. A few ultra-patriotic Japanese thought his remarks were unpatriotic. When he returned home he found the secret police dogged his steps whenever he made a public speech. After one speech a young man, dressed in formal Japanese dress, asked permission to meet with him. When he entered, the young man bowed in perfect samurai fashion with his forehead on the mat. Coming nearer he presented his visiting card to Inazo, and again bowed his head to the mat. Straightening up he said, ‘Dr. Nitobe, I have come to make my most profound apologies. The fact is, I came here tonight prepared to kill you before you left the premises.’ At this point the young man took out a short dagger from concealment under his silk coat. He presented to Inazo, handle first. ‘On account of things which I heard that you had said in America, I thought you were a traitor to our Emperor, but I have patiently listened to your address, and as I heard your words and felt your spirit, I realised I was mistaken. I present to you this dagger as evidence of my sincerity in this apology, and I give you my pledge that as long as you live I shall be one or your protectors.’



Shortly after this incident Inazo was offered the position of Minister of Education. However knowing the Government’s conservative educational policy and the conditions of Emperor Worship and ultra-nationalism that had been fostered in the country, ignoring human rights and disregarding civil rights, he declined.



Inazo contributed to popular journals, including magazines for women. In contrast to other scholars he tried to present difficult philosophical ideas in plain, readable language. He displayed great learning and brought the ideas of East and West, ancient and modern together. He had a deep appreciation of oriental culture, but as a Quaker he loved hours of prayer and meditation, waiting in holy expectancy, communing with God. He had a never-ceasing interest in agriculture.



When he retired from the College, the entire student body followed him to the school gate to bid him farewell. About 600 of them followed him home. The students asked Mary and Inazo to stand on the porch while they gathered in the garden to sing a farewell song, especially composed by a student for the occasion. A representative thanked Inazo and Mary for their love and guidance, and expressed the earnest desire of the students to follow the teachings of Inazo. They presented Inazo and Mary with a basket of azaleas. Inazo requested three minutes of silent prayer in response.



The following year some of the same boys, who had entered Tokyo University, invited Inazo to meet with them. Inazo arrived with a pot of azaleas. When Inazo came to speak, he told them that Mary had planted the azaleas in the garden that they brought the previous year at the farewell party, and they spread their roots and grew, and this blossomed again. Everyone at the banquet was electrified at the thought that the azaleas they had thought had faded and gone away, still survived with fresh vigor. They realised that Inazo and Mary had loved and thought of the boys far more than they had loved and thought of Inazo and Mary. They named this gathering the ‘Azalea Society’ and they met every year thereafter.



Mary had also planted the green cedar branches which were mixed with the azaleas in the basket. These grew into tall trees and were a delight to Inazo and Mary. Today one can find distinguished disciples of Inazo in almost any field or profession in Japan. These include a former Prime Minister, a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, several University Presidents and former Cabinet members. Education was the prime interest of his life and for seven years he showed his ability as a young professor and principal at Sapporo, for eight years as president of the First National College he fought for school reform, and in his sixties, he created a spiritual foundation of Tokyo Woman’s Christian College as its first president. He improved agriculture and increased the production of the country as an expert advisor in Hokkaido, in Formosa, and the northeastern district of Honshi, but his best crops were the students he taught.



As true world citizen. Inazo and Mary made a tour of America and Europe in 1919 to survey the world situation after World War I. When they visited Paris, the League of Nations had already been formed. Japan was one of the four permanent members (Great

Britain, France, Italy and Japan) of the League Council, and thus was given the post of

Under-Secretary General of the League. Japan’s chief and associate delegates, Prince Saionji and Count Makino, were unable to find a suitably qualified person. Just at that time, Inazo made a formal visit to the Embassy. Count Makino looked at him and exclaimed, ‘Here is a splendid candidate.’ Count Makino had previously appointed Inazo as president of the First National College in 1906, which had given Inazo an opportunity to address the entire nation from the capital. Now in 1919 he was giving Inazo an opportunity to become a figure of international importance.



Inazo’s contribution to the League of Nations was acknowledged in America and Europe. Of particular note was his contribution to the creation of the Committee for Intellectual Cooperation. The League sent lecturers to different countries in Europe to promote the aims of the League. Nine times out of ten Inazo was chosen to be the lecturer from the Secretariat, because he was the most qualified and made the deepest, lasting impression. He became the most loved and respected person in Geneva. The University of Geneva, which rarely conferred honorary degrees, granted a Doctor of Laws degree to Inazo. Inazo was seen as a true world citizen, taking the best in wisdom and culture from Japan, America and Europe and became an intellectual bridge between East and West.



In Japan, however, the Japanese militarists ignored the liberalism and internationalism Inazo stood for, and embraced Fascism instead. This led to the invasion of China and the Pacific War, and finally the complete defeat of the country.



Inazo was respected for his gentleness and spirituality. His love of children was instinctive. He could not refuse requests for personal help or for a lecture or manuscript. However in addition to his meekness, he was also able to be stern and stand up for his principles. This quality was nurtured from his boyhood as the son of a samurai.



Last eight years. In 1924 the US Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Act which limited the annual number of immigrants who could be admitted from any country to 2% of the number of people from that country who were already living in the United States in 1890. The aim was to restrict Southern and Eastern Europeans who were immigrating in large numbers starting in the 1890s. The Act barred specific origins from the Asia–Pacific Triangle, which included Japan, China, the Philippines, Thailand, Indochina, Singapore, Korea, Dutch East Indies, Burma, India, Ceylon and Malaya. Inazo, Viscount Shibusawa and others were deeply disappointed but kept silent. The ultra-nationalists and militarists vigorously proclaimed their judgment against America was correct. Resentment against America steadily grew and rearmament programs were carried out with renewed vigour on a large scale. Inazo resolved to himself that he would not step on US shores until this law was repealed.



After serving six years at the League of Nations, Inazo resigned to return to Japan. He was soon lecturing on world peace and internationalism in the face of the rising tide of militarism.



Inazo was made a member of the House of peers. In his maiden speech he reproached General Tanaka’s Cabinet, where one of the Cabinet members had abused the imperial prerogative to save his term of office. He was so effective that scores of votes supported his position and the overbold general was ousted from office quite precipitately. This was a surprise to many of the Diet members, who had not expected such a result, but Viscount Ishii, also a member of the House of Peers, knew of his outstanding reputation in Europe as a powerful speaker.



In 1929 Inazo became the director of the Institute of Pacific Relations. In 1931 the Institute met in Shanghai for the Fourth Conference. A few days prior to the opening of the Conference, Japan invaded Manchuria. Anti-Japanese riots broke out in Shanghai and they became so violent that Japan landed marines and placed them in the Japanese quarters in the International Concession. Inazo was in poor health and had a nurse accompany him. During the Conference, the Chinese delegates had much to say against the Japanese action. When one delegate made an abusive attack, Inazo rose to his feet with deep indignation and silenced the speaker and extracted a written confession from him.



Three years later Inazo gave an interview in Matsuyama and said, ‘Two insidious dangers confront Japan today --- militarism and communism.’ This remark provoked the military and ultra-nationalists. Some of the young officers, particularly, saw him as unpatriotic and severely criticized and even threatened him. Inazo was ill at the time and confined in St. Luke’s Hospital, when Admiral Sakonji, the Vice Minister of the Navy and Colonel Tetsuzan Nagata of the Army Department come to visit him at the hospital for a frank conference on the issue. They wanted to know what his purpose was in his speech at Matsuyama. They also wanted to know what the international reaction was to Manchurian military action and the recent confrontation between the Chinese army and the Japanese marines at Shanghai. Inazo was a recognised authority on the matter and had an international reputation. He must have convinced them of his patriotism, because after this meeting the press dropped the issue completely.



In April of 1932 Inazo decided to revoke his earlier resolve not to step on the shores of America until the Anti-Japanese Immigration Law was repealed. His Inner Light led him to travel to America to explain the purport of the Manchurian Affair. Chinese propaganda was sweeping America from coast to coast and Inazo was denounced as supporting the militarists. He met with President Hoover and other dignitaries and gave over one hundred lectures on this trip. The Secretary of State, Mr. Stimson, offered Inazo a 30 minute reply to be broadcast on radio right after he delivered his own speech on the Manchurian Affair. Inazo was deeply grateful for this rare opportunity.



In March 1933 Inazo and Mary returned to Japan. Four months later Inazo, age 72, attended the Institute of Pacific Relations Conference in Canada. On 13 September he had an attack of acute indigestion and entered Jubilee Hospital. He underwent an operation, but didn’t rally. He died that evening.



He once said, ‘One of my ambitions is to be remembered by at least one person with affection and gratitude twenty years after my death.’ Thousands of people joined his funeral procession.



One day when Michiko Kawai was hard pressed by her school finances, a man named Okoshi Komuro sent her 1,000 yen. He included a note saying that Inazo had helped his widowed mother with finances during his high school and university time, but had forbidden her to tell him. He had learned about Inazo’s generosity only recently. When he tried to send the money to Inazo, it was returned a note: ‘There is a queer woman named Michiko Kawai who has started a school within funds. If you and your mother do not object to helping her, I should be grateful.’ Komuro had known Miss Kawai, because when he was a student, she would teach him how to use a knife and fork, and other table manners at the Nitobes’ house. He was so impressed with her that he had named his first daughter Michiko.





Sukeo Kitasawa published this biography twenty years after the death of Inazo Nitobe. 



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The Life of Dr. Nitobe 

Hardcover – 1953
by Sukeo Kitasawa (Author), Frontispiece (Illustrator)
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Dr. Inazo Nitobe, who was known as an exceptional product of modern Japan, had a dream in his youth to become a "bridge across the Pacific." This dream was realized far beyond his early expectations. His conversion to the Christian faith in his college days, his studies at Sapporo, Johns Hopkins, Halle, Bonn and Berlin, and his marriage to an American woman of Quaker faith- all these made Dr. Nitobe a competent teacher and scholar of lovable character and personality. While he was yet in his thirties, he wrote Bushido, the Soul of Japan which made his name known throughout the world. His experiences as administrator of the colonial government, as college president and university professor, and as popular journalist and the most noted public lecturer in the Meiji and Taisho eras, prepared Dr. Nitobe for a greater task. Quite providentially he was appointed Under-Secretary General of the League of Nations. He was the moving spirit and the outstanding figure at Geneva. Dr. Nitobe was a true world citizen. Japan, America, and Europe, from each of these, he took the best in wisdom and culture, and became a true intellectual bridge between East and West.

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Editorial Reviews


Dr. Inazo Nitobe, who was known as an exceptional product of modern Japan, had a dream in his youth to become a "bridge across the Pacific." This dream was realized far beyond his early expectations. His conversion to the Christian faith in his college days, his studies at Sapporo, Johns Hopkins, Halle, Bonn and Berlin, and his marriage to an American woman of Quaker faith- all these made Dr. Nitobe a competent teacher and scholar of lovable character and personality. While he was yet in his thirties, he wrote Bushido, the Soul of Japan which made his name known throughout the world. His experiences as administrator of the colonial government, as college president and university professor, and as popular journalist and the most noted public lecturer in the Meiji and Taisho eras, prepared Dr. Nitobe for a greater task. Quite providentially he was appointed Under-Secretary General of the League of Nations. He was the moving spirit and the outstanding figure at Geneva. Dr. Nitobe was a true world citizen. Japan, America, and Europe, from each of these, he took the best in wisdom and culture, and became a true intellectual bridge between East and West.




Product details

Hardcover: 93 pages
Publisher: Hokuseido Press; First Edition edition (1953)
Language: English
ASIN: B000O97H08
Package Dimensions: 8.2 x 6 x 0.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces

Ham Sok Hon Resource Site

Ham Sok Hon Resource Site





Ham Sok-Hon
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Updated August 7, 2010

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Letters from Ham Sok-Hon during his travels in America in the early 1960's - 22 letters


Five Poems by Ham Sok-Hon - in original Korean and in English translation with forward

Message from Sok Hon Ham of Seoul Friends Meeting to the Triennial of the Friends World Committee for Consultation, Sydney,Australia, August 18-25, 1973

Ham Sok-Hon Fought Against Injustice, Corruption By Kim Sung-soo, Korea Times, March 12, 2006

























Seoul (Korea) Monthly Meeting of Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)



Ham Sok-Hon (family name = Ham; sometimes Romanized as Ham Seok-Heon)was one of Asia's most important voices for democracy and non-violence during the 20th century. He lived from 1901 to 1989.

Imprisoned by the Japanese, the Russians and later Park Chung-Hee for courageously yet gently maintaining a sense of integrity, he was and continues to be widely respected by people within a remarkably wide spectrum of political, philosophical and religious beliefs.

Though formally a Quaker, he concluded that all religions are one. Within his unique perspective one can find a complimentary mixture of Christianity, Taoism and other Asian philosophies.

Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and often called the "Gandhi of Korea," Teacher Ham left a legacy of over 20 books in Korean. This site is dedicated to collecting, preserving and sharing English translations of his work as well as other pieces written about him.

In October 2000 Ham Sok-Hon was selected by the Republic of Korea as a national cultural figure to be posthumously honored by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in April 2001. The MOE published 20,000 60-page booklets and distributed them to all Korean middle and high schools during the spring of 2001.

Should the viewer wish to contribute to this site, please contact Tom Coyner at tomcoyner@gmail.com

© Tom Coyner 2010

This site was featured in a Korea Broadcasting System documentary on Ham Sok Hon aired on Sunday, March 15, 2001.

Korean Language Ham Sok Hon Sites:
http://ww.ssialsori.net
http://www.religionstheology.org/http://user.chollian.net/~hephziba/ham.htmlhttp://myhome.shinbiro.com/~hansranghttp://user.chollian.net/~hephziba/ham06.html

English language books may be available for order from this web site. Please click here to order the following English books:

* An Anthology of Ham Sok Hon - US$20.00 or KRW25,000 each
An English language collection of three interviews of Ham Sok Hon, eight essays by Ham Sok Hon, nine essays about Ham Sok Hon and two papers on Ham Sok Hon (339 pages; Samin Books, 2001)

* Biography of a Korean Quaker, Ham Sok Hon - Voice of the People and Pioneer of Religious Pluralism in Twentieth Century Korea by Kim Sung Soo - US$20.00 or KRW25,000 each
An English language biography with 20 photographs, extensive notes, bibliography and life chronology table by Dr. Sung-Soo Kim (360 pages, Samin Books, 2001)

Chapter VI The Just and the Unjust

Chapter VI The Just and the Unjust




Chapter VI
THE JUST AND THE UNJUST

When Suyarig took the throne with bloody hands as King Sejo, all standards of right and wrong, good and evil, were overturned. Fierce and ruthless men and sly sycophants were pronounced to have been meritorious in introducing a new order under Sejo, and officials of integrity and courage were charged with treason. The court was now a place where evil and disorder reigned.

A few men of justice could not bear the spectacle much longer. Their position was one of loneliness and extreme precariousness. They had only one alternative: to protest by throwing themselves bodily at the enemy, just as Jesus two millenia before them attacked the stronghold of Satan which was devouring the spirit and life of the nation. Such was the cause of the six ministers who plotted to reinstate Tanjong.

Suyang had staged his coup with an eye on the crown that was on the head of his nephew, but even he could not openly defy propriety, so he decided to go through the motions of having Tanjong abdicate the throne in his favor. The date of abdication was set for June of the third year of Tan- jong's reign. Suyang prostrated himself before the king, indicating, according to custom, his desire to decline the offer. A hush fell over the court, all faces turning ashen, when Suyang was about to receive the royal seal proffered from the throne. At his moment Seong Sam-mun, keeper of the seal, who was to get the seal from the king to hand it over to Suyang, broke down and burst out in loud wailing. Suyang, pretending to decline the seal, erked his head up and fixed Seong Sam-mun with a long stare. In a sepulchral air the ceremony came to a close without further mishap. If even at this late hour several more, ready to face death, had sided with Seong Sam-mun in his protest and so disrupted the ceremony and if the populace had joined in the cry against the abdication, even the determin- ed Suyang may well have been stopped. They merely let Seong Sam-mun wail on. Suyang ignored it and proceeded with the ceremony of ascen- sion. Tanjong became ex-king, but only in form. Actually he was held under house arrest. He rued his plight and there were many who shed tears in pity. But the general situation was too far gone for any hope of a reversal. Seong Sam-mun dissuaded his Ue-minded friend, Pak Paeng-nyeon, from committing suicide. The two discussed ways to reinstate the deposed king. They were biding their time.

An opportunity came two years later. A party was being prepared court to honor an envoy of the Ming court from China. Seong Sam-mun and Pak P'aeng-nyeon discussed plans for a coup with Ha Wi-ji, Yu Ung-bu Yu Seong-weon, Yi Kae and Kim Chil. Again, destiny intervened to set a different course. A minor incident happened at the last-minute, and the majority decided to hold off action, except for Yu Ung-bu who, perhaps because he was a soldier, insisted on going through with it even if it was dangerous. Seong Sam-mun rejected it on the ground that the plan was not foolproof. Then Kim Chil changed his mind. He told the king everything. The plan was upset and all six men were arrested. They underwent Sejo's personal interrogation punctuated with the worst conceivable torture.

The noble tragedy of the Six Martyred Ministers to which no human tongue can do justice is required reading for all Koreans. This at least they must know, even if they cannot read Shakespeare or are ignorant of Goethe. This is so because in this event we discern Korea's spirit at its best, in all its vividness, amidst the intensity of suffering. Beneath the layer of dirt and the rotted skin we are witnessing the quick flesh and the warm blood. We catch a glimpse of the shining core deep inside the weathered, eroding crust. One of them scrupulously stored away every grain of rice he received in pay because he did not wish to have anything to do with a stipend paid by the unjust. By way of furniture in his room, the keeper of the royal seal had only a straw mat. Is this not an instance of the integrity of Korea's spirit? With a red-hot iron rod the thigh was stabbed and the navel was burned out, and the arm was slashed off with a sword. Yet no flicker of feeling showed on the countenance. Is this not the fortitude of Korea's spirit? With the vastness of an ocean of a heart, they withstood the torture, laughing it off.

Their souls purer than gold, their devotion warmer than fire, they were able to say, in all seriousness, to Sejo's face: "Sir, you have finished off every important official of the former king except this one, who is innocent of the plot. Keep him alive and make good use of him; he is a very good man.' Again, to the soldier applying torture: "This iron is cold now. Put it back in the fire.' If this is what Korea's soul is capable of, there is little point in being concerned about Koreans being weak. Yu Ung-bu, the soldier, kept standing as the skin on his back was flayed. Faced with his remark, one may rest assured about Korea's unbending will and endurance. He said, "I tried to drive you out with my one sword and bring the king back to the throne. Unfortunately, a treacherous one gave us away to you. I have nothing further to say to you. On the day of the plan," he continued to his fellow plotters, "I wanted to use my sword but you fellows talked me out of it because you thought my proposal was not foolproof, and you brought this on us ... They are no better than beasts. All right, if you want to know more, ask these fellows, these would-be scholars."

Without such statements, the span of five millennia would lose much of its luster. The shame of the five centuries of Yi Korea were more than offset by this event. These six martyrs still live on to exalt us all to pride worthy of Korea.

The mission of the six ministers was not to succeed but to die. They were chosen to die. God had decided on the six ministers for a sacrifice to be offered on the altar of justice, a sacrifice on behalf of the nation. By their death they would repay the debt of injustice and revive the seeds of the just. God is not cruel nor did he particularly hate Korea when he demanded the blood of the Six. The death of the just only partially signifies punishment of the nation's sin. Justice is as much a principle of history as is charity. Therefore, the demand for the blood of the just has a meaning that goes deeper than exacting a price: keeping justice alive.

What King Sejong had failed to nurture in the Chiphyeonjeon by providing its members with clothing and food, liquor, money and power, these six ministers revived by shedding their blood at their place of execution on the southern bank of the Han: Korea's spirit is what they regained. Here is the poem Seong Sam-mun composed just before going to the place of execution:



I will not swerve from principle
But will die to realize my loyalty.
In my dreams the pines
By the king's tomb are green as ever.

Yi Kae, too, wrote:



When life has its proper weight
Then great is life.
But when life is light as a feather
Then glory is in death.
I go out after a sleepless night.
My dreams were of the king's tomb
Where the pines stay vivid and green.

The king's tomb refers to Munjong's. The more we read the story of the six martyrs, the more we find ourselves gritting our teeth and clench- our fists, but as we come to recite these two poems, we feel our hearts heaving, the tears coursing down our cheeks but neither from indignation nor from sorrow. It is our admiration that knows no bounds. Our hearts go out to them for they are so dear to us. It is because they are still living, and it is because we realize that we find our lives in them.

After the martyrdom, on the recommendation of Cheong In-ji and Sin Suk-chu, the king Tanjong was demoted and called Prince Nosan and exiled to Yeongweol in Kangwon-do. A man in his service, Wang Pang-yon, bared his heart:



I drift so far from my lord.
As I sit alone by the wandering stream,
The stream weeps, too, passing by in the dark.

Tanjong, too, was sad:



The cuckoo wails,
The moon hangs over the hills,
As I look out from the pavillion
Reflecting on the dear ones I left.
Your cry fills me with sorrow,
And when it dies down so do my cares.
To those who have parted, I say:
Never go to the pavillion on a spring night
When the cuckoo is crying.

Unable to bear his sorrow, he would go to the pavilion at night and have someone play the flute or sing a song. But his days of washing his tears in the stream of Seogang could not last long. The "loyal" Cheong In-ji, backed by a whole court of officials, made strong representations that Prince Nosan, the former king, should be killed. To them, even the shadow of this helpless young man was a source of irritation. They would not be able to sleep until his image was wiped away. Why were they so uneasy? Tanjong did not have even a needle to defend himself with. It was the populace behind him that they feared. Or perhaps the youthful figure in white pricked their conscience, which they could not entirely smother after all.

Finally, they sent men who strangled him in broad daylight, much as one kills a puppy; he was seventeen. Were Sejo and Cheong In-ji so heartless and ruthless? Rather, it was God, who wished to make this youth a man of sorrow to the full, as a symbol, needless to say, of the Korean nation. His short stay in Yeongweol inspired a great deal of sympathy in the villagers. Many a story was told of him: in the middle of the drought he made it rain by praying for rain; his body was thrown into the river but it did not float away, and someone recovered it for burial; his soul hurried off to Mt. T'aebaek on a white steed.

Sejo may have ruled over his ministers and officials; the young king, although dethroned, ruled the populace. Sejo may have been called "illustrious sovereign" but only for a time; his young nephew continues to rule for all time. Like a child who had the misfortune of parting from his mother, he was given, by dint of his lost life, the job of inscribing on Korea's heart that eternal agape. The sacrificial lamb was slain and the blood of the just was shed.

As if some bloodthirsty devils inhabited the palace, the ministers and officials demanded more blood. Scores more were implicated in the restoration plot and were executed. One of the princes, Keumseong, brother of Sejong, and several others were also executed on charges of conspiracy with the ousted king. Yet for all that, Sejo struggled on to become a good king.

After a complete success in his seizure of the throne by shedding the blood of loyal courtiers as well as his own relatives, Sejo devoted his remaining years to being a model king, as he was later to be known. Then came Yejong, followed by Seongjong. Peace prevailed for some forty years. Seongjong. was so good-hearted and generous that he was widely admired as a sage-king. Between Sejo and Seongjong. it appeared as if a period of advanced culture was brought forth which wiped clean the stains of the blood of the just. But the appearance was superficial. The bloodstains were not to be wiped away that easily or cheaply. The situation was like a whited sepulchre. Attempts at promoting industry, encouraging learning, compiling codes, printing books and enhancing national strength by foreign expeditions-all worthy as far as they went-were far from adequate -to conceal the bones of the just on which all these activities were based.

Conventional historians given to superficial observations like to present Sejo as a king of outstanding ability and his reign as an age of peace and prosperity. The meaning of a period can never be known merely from government rhetoric or tables of figures. One has to go to the hidden, less known side of society, to the back alleys rather than the main streets, to the provinces rather than the capital. One has to look at obscure little people rather than celebrities before one can hope to view the age in its true aspect, to discern its true meaning. On this basis, we must acknowledge that the reigns of Sejo and Seongjong. were a whited sepulchre.

At the time of Sejo there lived an eccentric by the name of Kim Si-suep, one of a group known as the Six Living Ministers; Weon Ho, Yi Maeng-jeon, Cho Yeo, Seong Tam-su and Nam Hyo-on were the others. The Six Living Ministers lived out their lives refusing to enter into government service contrasted with the Six Martyred Ministers who refused to kneel before Sejo. This group of the Living Six was of one mind with the dead six.

Kim Si-suep, was declared a child prodigy as early as his fifth year. He impressed King Sejong who felt a deep attachment to him. A man of magnanimous heart and superior intelligence, he was upright and unassuming, with unyielding rectitude. He was well read and was adept at poetry. He was twenty-one and was reading books in the quiet of the mountains near Seoul when Tanjong was deposed. He broke down in tears at the news. He burned all his books and became a half-crazed monk. He began a career of lifelong wandering, visiting places of beauty and temples. He sought to express in poetry his unrelieved feelings of indignation and frustration.

If someone followed him he would be seen sitting in a temple whiling the time away with the monks, or he would be frolicking with children, or he would be found drunk, wallowing in some ditch. A crazy monk, but 1 he was more than just crazy. He would go with writing paper to the side of a stream, where he would scribble out a verse in fury and grief. then burst out wailing, rip the piece off the roll and let it float away in the stream. He would build a wooden effigy of a farmer and set it up on his desk; he would keep staring at it, then cry aloud. Sometimes, he would plant crops and when they grew up he would suddenly grab a sickle and whack them down, then himself break down and wail. At the sight of of- ficials conducting themselves improperly he would give a scream: what have these poor people done wrong? Again he would collapse wailing. One can gather what he had in mind.

He was crazy, yes, but crazy with his sense of justice. He became crazy because his heart ached so helplessly. He was much too ashamed to live in society to remain sober. Once Sejo picked him for attendance at a Buddhist ceremony but he was nowhere to be found early that morning. He was finally located submerged in a cesspool with only his face above the muck. Such was his way of showing how ashamed he was of the times. He was well acquainted with Sin Suk-chu, who once tried to console him. Sin had someone ply him with drinks and when he was properly drunk had him carried over to his house. The moment he realized where he was up he stood and started to leave. As Sin Suk-chu tried to de- him by tugging at his sleeve, he cut off the sleeve and ran away. So aloof was he in his- dignity. He was the one who laughed at Sejo and his work with such cold if ghastly cynicism. As he urinated by the roadside he felt he was doing it on Sejo's face. When he fell into the cesspool, it symbolized the age, not his body, that was submerged.

There is a story that belies the so-called age of peace and prosperity under Seongjong. Two of Seongjong's ministers brought their dispute before the king with the request that he pass judgment on it. Their quarrel was over, a female entertainer whom each desired for his concubine. Seongjong. ruled: that two ministers should be fighting over a concubine was only conceivable in a time of decline and decay; his reign was no such age; and therefore both ministers should forget the whole matter. But burying a dispute does not bury the fact. These two episodes are facets of the age of Sejo and Seongjong. respectively.

The supposed age of prosperity comes to an abrupt end with Seongjong's passing. The dread disease surfaced on that very day.

Prince Yeonsan with his mad undertakings laughed diabolically at the prosperous age of Seongjong. The reigning prince sent out special envoys to collect young girls of beauty from across the country for his own gratification. Through many another such undertaking he caused the death of numerous innocent people. In addition, coups were staged repeatedly by one faction to oust another, involving exiles and executions of leaders of the defeated faction. Since executions included not only prin- but also their relatives by blood or by marriage, each such coup was a veritable carnage. Such sanguinary feuding continued into the years of the following King Myongjong. At this spectacle who cannot help recalling the Biblical passage: "I come quickly ... with my reward"? Whoever disbelieves this judgment of justice simply because no penalty was visited upon Sejo himself nor was made visible to Tanjong, has no idea what- how Providence works, and lacks an eye for history.

The eternal design of God who rules over history cannot be fathomed any standards of individual, temporal, relative morality. In the absolute aspect where a day is like unto a thousand years there are individuals, and yet a whole nation or even mankind as a whole is taken as one individual. The eye of truth sees a whole in individuals and in- in a whole; for in truth there is no difference of one and many, or of you and me, or of past and present. They do not exist and at the same they do exist. Therefore, what we call blessing is not necessarily blessing. What we call misfortune is not misfortune. What we call a reward is not necessarily reward.

I do not have to tell in detail of Yeonsan's wild wayward conduct, of the numerous cases of carnage among feuding factions. Nor do I have to point to who was right or who was wrong, who deserved to die or who was wronged.

Be they murderers or murdered, all took part in the bloody drama, all plunged into a tangle of deranged minds. One who kills the body in is murdered in the spirit. A man who kills another does so with a loss his mind, and after the act of murder his mind remains deranged. The nation which destroys a righteous man cannot but experience derangement of its mind. That was how there came about the enormous bloodshed, in which murder seemed pursued for its own sake or as some surd pastime. No one can possibly look upon the events of this period the work of normal, intelligent human beings. Murder has been known other histories and factional strifes in other nations. Yet nowhere else can we find such acts of murder done purely out of hate and jealousy without any other motive. It was neither religious persecution nor party struggle, neither ideological fight nor conflict of principles, nor even quarreling between clans. At this time God dealt a blow to Korean conscience.

No, God did not deal the blow; man brought it on himself. That conscience which failed to recognize a righteous man could only lose its sanity. For conscience judges itself. So conscience which committed murder, while knowing full well what it was doing, had no choice but to go mad. It is in this sense that God made men mad. In historical terms, the consequence of defying conscience during the years of Sejo and Seongjong surfaced in the mentality of the time of Yeonsan People's minds were deranged, twisted, paralyzed, and God placed a perverted mind, Yeonsan on the throne over that society. Through this man God handed down a severe judgment on the culture fabricated by Sejo and Seongjong. the whitewash was all scraped off and the putrid corpses were laid bare. The cultu re was shown for what it was: false and worthless.

Many historians may object to the theory that the misfortunes of Yeondan's time go back to Sejo's iniquity. They may pronounce it to be a misunderstanding or forced speculation. It is not because they lack sufficient reason to see it that way. But think a little more and you will see that they are shortsighted.

The name Yeonsan brings to mind lechery and abandon, yet all the blame cannot be laid on him as an individual. In him there were evidently three strains of bad blood-cruelty, lasciviousness and nihilism. The first quality he inherited from his mother, the second he learned from life in the court, the third came from the influence of society. His mother, of the Yuri clan, was so fierce in temperament that she scratched the face of her husband Seongjong. which led to her loss of status. In the complexity of court life the woman may well have had reason to act as she did. Nevertheless, that she should have left scratch marks on the face of none other than her husband, much less the king of a country, tells a great deal about her disposition. Yeonsan seems to have taken after his mother, and besides he must have brooded over the story that her mother had been unjustly demoted and died by foul play. His father Seongjong. was good-natured but he indulged in merrymaking. The name, Age of Peace, was fine, but not a single day at the palace passed without wine flowing and dancing girls entertaining. Yeonsan was brought up in such an atmosphere so his lasciviousness was only to be expected. Men of letters gained the upper hand in the supposed age of peace, but already factionalism had begun to develop among them. Confucianism, which set store by form and formality, also fostered the practice of condemning rivals by stern moral precepts. In reaction, there were signs that small souls were gaining ground with their unprincipled ways. Not a little of his dislike of learning 'and his penchant for nihilistic thinking were due to the kind of trends that 'prevailed in society. Such was Yeondan's personality: he was the one chosen to bear the burden of all the iniquities of the age. This historical duty was imposed on him by Sejo and Seongjong.

Following the drama of madness, relative peace set in throughout the reigns of Myeongjong and Seonjo. Yi Hwang and Yi I, two outstanding Conucians, set the stage for Neo-Confucianism in Korea. Many who had been wronged were vindicated. It seemed as if things in general were looking up. That does not mean that the malaise of the age was cured. Far from it; it was well advanced, affecting, as it were, the very nerve center. The affliction became chronic. Factional feuding was the disease that was for the next three centuries to eat away at the vitals of the nation, paralyze its vitality and spirit, smother its conscience, poison its very life.

This is one subject in Korean history which a foreign reader will be at a loss to appreciate. Only Koreans may be able to do justice to the psychology behind such feuding because it is a property of Korean history and because this feuding arises from abnormal psychology. On the face of it, Korean feuding appears to be partly a fight between younger and older generations, partly a fight between political groups, and partly a fight between old and new ideologies. These differences were merely a matter for contention or a pretext for fighting, or a triggering that, set off a feud, but were not the cause. For the origins of factional feuding one has to go, I believe, all the way back to the Three Kingdoms period. It was during that period that the originally grand scale of national life dwindled. Its broadminded outlook was foreshortened, and the high soaring spirit flagged. As for more immediate causes, one may cite the well-known quarrel between the Kim Chong-jik group and its rival group.

Kim Chong-jik was a man of probity, who held himself so aloof that he aroused jealousy and resentment in Seo Keo-jeong, and this hostility, according to some, paved the way for a flareup that soon followed. Kim Chong-jik's disciples on the whole were overly critical of others and gave rise to serious reaction. Partisan exclusiveness became rife. This practice went from bad to worse until Yi Chun-gyeong, prime minister to King Seonjo. was moved to make dire predictions about the prospects of ferocious factional fighting. From hindsight, it was not even a prediction. All he did was point out what was already visible in the offing.

This is far from an adequate explanation of the causes. One must return to the periods before Seongjong. There is ample proof in the case of Nam I, a youthful commander of legendary fame. A line in a poem by him provided an opening for his enemy:



All the stones on Mt. Paektu
Have been used to sharpen the blades;
The Tumen ran dry for so many steeds
Have been watered.
If you fail to bring peace to the land
Before the age of twenty,
Who will call you hero afterward?

A fellow by the name of Yu Cha-gwang was jealous, and by changing "bring peace" to "seize' (by replacing one Chinese character) he accused Nam I of designs on the throne. Nam was imprisoned and died under torture. Yu Cha-gwang was widely known as a man of small mind but we can readily see how intense and widespread was suspicion in a society capable of dispatching a man of unquestioned reputation. It was not Yu Chaigwang that killed Nam I but the feelings of uncertainty, apprehension, jealousy and suspicion that prevailed in those days. There must have been animosity between those literati out of government and those in positions of power; that crippling -atmosphere had much to do with the violent end of Nam I. The literati on the outside, for their part, suspected that government officials held them in utter contempt.

Although Yu Cha-gwang does not seem to have had an organized following, one may speculate that under Yejong the situation was ripe for fighting to break out along partisan lines. Again, I repeat that it was not something that sprang up during Yejong's years but dates back to the time of Sejo characterized by murderous intent and intrigue.

Our pursuit of the taproot of partisan feuding, indeed, must go back to the Three Kingdoms period. Origins of the feud have often been sought in Confucianism, which takes form and conforming to form seriously. That Confucianism is fraught with such pitfalls goes a long way toward accounting for the history of factionalism in Sung China. Confucian doctrine indeed served to intensify partisan quarrels, yet one cannot rightly attribute all basic causes to it. Individuals and classes too had a part up to a point, but how can individuals or classes sustain such lasting influence on national history for centuries? No, none of these applies.

Until we realize that responsibility rests squarely with the whole nation there can be no satisfactory cure for it. We lost our selves as a nation. In Korean history thousands of evils and abuses stem from this loss of self and there has been no serious attempt to recover the self that was lost. Loss of self means loss of ideals and freedom. Without national ideals there is no way to rally the nation to a cause because it is not force or law but ideals that bring a nation together. Unity of purpose of itself yields national unity. Lack of freedom leads to formation of factions. As factional squabbles are a matter of jockeying for small power, partisans are - bound to be servile before the powerful. From this we can see that factionalism arises from servility. A nation on the decline is open to internal conflict. Nevertheless/ no country can be restored until it rises to an ideal above and beyond all small differences and petty hatred. And this takes deter- that will not be thwarted short of death.

Starting from the fall of Kogury6, Korea has come to this point where its once generous heart has turned to unforgiving hardness. What was once dean and pure is now filthy and murky. A nation that was once good-natured is now starved for love. Readiness to help and fair play are now replaced by suspicion and jealousy. What will God propose to do with this nation, cowardly and shifty, effete and underhanded?

When we ponder what the Creator will do for Korea, we should place ourselves in the position of a loving parent who intends to rear his child in the best possible way. Suppose we have a "prodigal son" Instead of turning him out, we decide to straighten him out. How would we go about reforming the intractable child? Two answers are possible. Reasoning with him is one. Giving him a jolt to reawaken his conscience is the other. For Korea the time for reasoning was over, and God chose the second way, for only at the height of affliction can one come to his senses. Hence the Hideyoshi invasions of 1592 and 1597 and the Manchu invasion of 1627. Little did Koreans know at the time what these invasions meant.

At the time that the factional conflict was about to get worse and the mental disorder of the nation was entering a chronic stage, Yi I pursued his endeavor with clear vision to ward off the disaster he saw coming. Fighting flared up, however, which divided the whole court right down the middle-into eastern and western factions-with the literati taking sides. The only one concerned about the good of the country, Yi I spoke up, in service and out of it, and laid himself open to misunderstanding and censure. He managed to bring the warring parties under control and brought some peace and harmony to court until he completed his brief life of forty-nine years.

Much has been said about his personality. Some disputed his loyalty and impartiality, some argued that he leaned toward the western faction. Undeniably, however, history shows him to have been a clear-eyed, upright person. Of all the stories told about him, one stands out, revealing his character. in the earlier years of King Seonjo. Yi I, while heading the national academy, indicated his desire to resign when he discovered the king had fallen short of his expectations. When his resignation was finally accepted, someone tried to prevail upon him to reconsider: "You are leaving as you have wished and it must give you pleasure. But if everyone in the government leaves who will take care of the country?" Yi I answered with a smile: "If everyone from the three ministers down to the lower ranks wishes to leave, the fortune of the country will certainly improve." In this anecdote you will sense something of a prophet in him.

It was a time that called for a prophet who would denounce iniquities now and warn of dire disaster ahead. But he was not only a prophet; he was a man of Confucian virtue. He was not the one to tell of God's wrath and righteousness. He was one steeped in Confucian ideals upholding Confucian principles. "When in office one will make the world better together with the populace; when out of office, he will go about improving himself." Yi I sought reconciliation, not national repentance.

This is best demonstrated by his theory of "both are right and both are wrong." On the wrongs, he observed that the two factions were fighting over something that had no bearing on affairs of state and that brought nothing but unrest to the court, so both parties were wrong. But inasmuch as both parties were literati, they would both be right if only they made peace. By way of illustration he cited the case of Po I (Chinese: Paegi) and Shu ClYi (Sukche), two brothers who were at odds with King Wu (Mu-wang), as both contending parties being right. As for the case o both parties being wrong, he pointed out that in the absense of a single justifiable cause of war among belligerent states during the warring period of ancient China, none of the belligerents was in the right. His argument is, one may say, apt enough and his reasoning plausible. But that is not a prophet's manner of talking for the simple reason that it offers no cure.

Instead, he should have, despite the prospect of aggravating the situation for a time, judged right from wrong for all to see. He should have gone after what was wrong in the spirit rather than describing individual acts as being right or wrong. Not reconciliation but repentance.

Reconciliation among men does not endure, for a true reconciliation cannot be achieved until all wrongs are corrected in relations between God and each party. That is repentance, and only through repentance can one be born again. What Yi I tried was somehow to bring contending factions together without challenging the wrongs done. And sure enough, results were contrary to what was intended. As expected, both factions complained that Yi's position was equivocal. Some went so far as to call him a small man out to mislead. Yi could not have been a small man. But in puttering over affairs, trying to patch them over and pretending there was peace where there was none, he deserved harsh criticism. He sought the cause for factionalism in the superficial and the immediate, so the futility of his work soon became plain.

While we do not dispute his integrity, his reaction to the proposal of Chun-gyeong remains a puzzle. Perhaps this position of his stemmed his earlier reasoning. Yi Chun-gyeong left some parting advice for the king when he was about to die. It lists four items: urging the to apply himself to learning; preserving the royal dignity in full; discriminating gentlemen (cheun-tzu) from inferior men (hsiao-jen) when filling government posts; and eliminating factionalism. When the ministers we e shown the document, controversy arose over item four. That alone was evidence enough that there was no cohesion or harmony, at court, and the deceased minister was right in his observation. One is thus obliged to interpret the four-point admonition as based on his honest solicitude about the future of the country.

Contrary to the general expectation, Yi I rejected the advice in a memorial to the throne. What is even more astonishing is his description of the late minister: "He is hiding his head but not his body, and he talks deliberately to mislead and bewilder." He also said, "In times of old a man told the truth when he was about to die. Now a man tells a lie when he is about to die." This was totally unexpected. Did Yi I in fact fail to foresee an impending flareup? Yi Chun-gyeong's death preceded it by only three years. It was impossible for him not to have foreseen it. Did he really believe that Yi Chun-gyeong was an evil man? Did he have some particular reason to say what he said while knowing that Yi Chun-gyeong was not evil?

If indeed Yi I did not expect the outbreak of factional strife, he was not perceptive at all, but that is inconceivable considering his personality and judgment. To have thought that Yi Chun-gyeong, was evil means that Yi I lacked judgment, which he did not. There is no reason to suppose that Yi I failed to judge Yi Chun-gyeong correctly or that Yi I was blind to what was coming. We must then conclude that Yi I was deliberate in his condemnation of Yi Chun-gyeong In that case, one may imagine two possibilities. One is that it was calumny arising out of partisanship. The other is that it was an attempt to forestall a flareup by minimizing feelings of factionalism. Yi I could not have been partisan, as can be seen from the fact that he hoped that all court ministers would retire. That leaves the second possibility. What if that indeed was the case?

If Yi I rejected Yi Chun-gyeong's warning in order to hold off the pro disaster how should we take Yi I's view? Many literati hold this position of Yi I's as grounds for high esteem. They admire the act which they believe was calculated to defend the status of the literati and come to some amicable compromise, an act of sagacious benevolence. Is that true? As an ideal for Confucian gentlemen dedicated to amicable settlement, his act may have been sagacious. Was that the way to truth, however?

Not at all. First, trying to patch up peace where there is no peace involves falsehood for each of the contending parties, even if some peace is achieved for a time. So it is not truth. Second, his attempt at minimizing the seriousness of the situation was doubtless from his sincere concern about the country, yet it is falsehood after all. In fact Yi I himself did not underestimate the situation, as his scathing condemnation of Yi Chun- warning seems to indicate. Yet he told the king that the controversy between the eastern and western factions was not at all serious, and many observers tended to blow it up out of proportion partly because these people were superficial and given to lightheadedness. He hoped to bring the situation under control by presenting it as a minor affair, but did his sagacious strategy work? No. One would suppose that major surgery should have been performed at the time of Yi Chun-gyeong's warning.

Third, solution by compromise is wrong. It may have been feasible if the controversy was indeed a matter of bad feeling between the ministers. If that was how he viewed the controversy he was superficial. If, on the other hand, his action was based on a full realization of the cause of controversy, he was equivocating, as his contemporaries charged. It was a serious malady which no such palliative could cure, and such tinkering would only lead, if anything, to a worsening of the sickness toward its chronic stage. So God did not permit it.

Watching Yi I taking great pains to reconcile the feuding partisans, one is moved to tears: "Ah, that was a man. " The sight of his struggling, even citing what a dead man had to say, brings to mind a mother trying to humor her two quarreling sons: "You two are getting along really fine " That was not what God wished, however. He was too well aware of the perverted nature of Koreans to use such self-deceptive methods. Yi I did say to the king that factionalism was a minor affair but was magnified by "lightheadedness." Herein is the crux of the matter. To call it lightheaded- was far from complete but he was right as far as he traced the cause all the way to the national temperament. Yes, there is the cause. Feuding arises from personal animosity but the underlying cause goes beyond the personal right back to the national character.

Yi I's failure to perceive clearly, although vaguely aware, comes from the dimness of his view. Where he should have taken a religious-historical viewpoint, he saw it as conflict of personal feelings. The leaders of the squabbling factions were about to make peace on the basis of a reconciliation worked out through his mediation, when suddenly he was ordered to leave, and the reconciliation fell through. Yi I was only forty-nine then and much was expected of him, but then this towering figure in whom was reposed the trust of a whole nation was whisked from the stage of history. Amazing was the hand of Providence.

At the news of his death King Seonjo. is said to have broken down and cried loudly. The officials and citizens, academicians and villagers, who attended his funeral extended the procession for miles. The sound of the wailings of mourning attendants is said to have carried far afield. It was for his virtue. But far more than that, the sons and daughters of Seoul had weep for what history had in store for them. The man who tried to sew 'up his dream canopy of peace and harmony was now gone, and all they saw was smoke from a seething cauldron rising from both the south and the north threatening to envelop them all. Rejecting all palliative human measures, the mighty hand of God was at work again to perform real surgery on the nation. God's education of us through history is stern and hard to bear after all.

Back to Queen of Suffering Table of Contents On to Chapter VII. Disaster Upon Disaster

Chapter IV The North: Prize and Peril

Chapter IV The North: Prize and Peril

Chapter IV
THE NORTH: PRIZE AND PERIL

The history of the Three Kingdoms period is certainly one of failure. The cause of unification was shattered, hopes of cultural advances were dashed, what had to grow and mature was aborted. Failure in training to be a nation led to the path of pain, but this nation was not meant to plod, in silent despair, the path of ruin. If duty is enjoined by heaven, it does not stand to reason that an order was given but the opportunity for its execution was denied. History which poses a problem must offer opportunities to answer it.

The Koreans of the Three Kingdoms period had tried but failed to reach a summit. The road for the next five centuries of the succeeding Koryeo period was downhill. If the people of Koryeo had realized the meaning of history and advanced steadily toward an ideal which inspired them, they might have brought the aborted history of the Three Kingdoms back to life, much as the morning sun suffuses the tombstones of the fallen heroes in full glory. There have been several such opportunities. If Koryeo had seized any one of them the course of Korean history would have been quite different.

Opportunities for a leap forward came but each time Koryeo was cowed. Koryeo was afflicted with the same malaise that crippled the Three Kingdoms period: losing sight of self, not trying to recover self. The literati, who made Koryeo what it was, were not as they were in earlier times. The spirit was flagging and petty conformity to rigid rules was what now exercised their minds. Neither Confucianism nor Buddhism worked, simply because the Confucian with knotted hairdo took the place of the Buddhist monk with his head shaved. In the meantime, the soul of Korea, abandoned in some remote corner, kept wailing alone. The country was sold, the parents, even one's self-all for the privilege of playing servant to the Middle Kingdom of China. Koryeo was not learning to be Confucianist but to be a slave of China.

Once you lose your own self, even the wisdom of the sages is to no avail, for it turns into empty words. With empty words you cannot build a nation anywhere. The failure was not of Koryeo alone. The basic root of our history of suffering lies in the failure to probe deeply for selfhood, individual or national.The era of Koryeo may be divided into three periods, each with its high point and low point. In the last days of Silla, political corruption reached its limits, popular sentiments went lax, and society was coming apart. It was a time, in oriental tradition, for a hero to emerge; there were stirrings in the popular mind and hopes rising for a new order. A few would-be heroes appeared and civil strife ensued. It was a repetition of the picture of the Three Kingdoms. Centuries had gone by since the three countries had supposedly come together as one, but real unity had yet to be achieved.

By now the scope of economic development had reached a stage which called for one Korea. It was a critical period in oriental history. In Manchuria, the Parhae period was on the way out, and in China proper, it was a troubled time known as the period of the Five Dynasties. Storm clouds were gathering over eastern Asia, and a chance came for Korea to settle her politics at home, and beyond her borders. The time was ripe for Korea to awake to its historic mission, to strike out in a daring new move. A tide of reawakening began welling up in Korean hearts. Calls for marching north were being heard again, and Kungye was in the midst of those who listened.

An illegitimate royal scion, Kungye grew up in adversity. He wandered from place to place, from one monastery to another. When he saw what was looming ahead, he quit the monastery. In time he became overly arrogant and uncontrollably fierce until he ended in failure. But he is too often dismissed with harsh strictures out of proportion to his faults. It must be said in fairness that he meant well, that he deserved sympathy. Although it was for lack of popular support that he bungled the job, he bore the historical burden of sin, nevertheless. The sin of Silla's decadence created a wave of protest against palace life, and his fierceness was a spray from this rolling wave. The merit we should look for in him, therefore, is not in his being a king but in that the national elan, which he forcefully embodied, soared high. Kungye chose for his country the name of Later Koguryoee to vindicate the fallen Koguryoe, while condemning Silla as the "doomed capital." It was all intended, no doubt, to whip up the patriotism of the descendants of Koguryoe. But that is not the whole story. In his plans for government reorganization he rejected all Silla institutions smacking of China in favor of older traditional institutions. In his choice of capital he contemplated Pyongyang. In his vision of the future he set up a facility for instruction of foreign languages. All this points to the fact that Manchuria, the old site of Koguryoe, was strongly in his mind. As the name adopted for his new country shows, his intention was to revive the spirit of Koguryoe. He was doomed by the judgment of a fate of his own making, a hero aborted.

Wang Kon inherited the aspirations of Kungye. Rising from military ranks, Wang Kon demonstrated talent and character that made him worthy of ascending a throne. He started as lieutenant to Kungye, and when he realized that Kungye had gone too far in his willful, intolerant ways, he saved himself by adroitness and earned popular support by his generous and accommodating attitude.

Wang Kon was not the man to think his work was done when he came to the throne of Korea. His vision reached north beyond the peninsula, once he had finished the work of containing a southern state, Chin Hwon, and taming Silla. Although he made Songdo (now Kaesong), his capital, he also established Pyongyang as a capital for the future. He kept the city wall in repair, set up schools, and returned there annually for a personal inspection. This, needless to say, was in anticipation of his northward push later.

He saw to it that people drifting in from the former country of Parhae across the Yalu were looked, after. When an emissary offering amity and trade arrived from the Khitan regime with gifts of camels, he sent the envoy into exile, while starving the camels to death by keeping them tethered under a bridge. Thus he showed his determination to his people to prepare them.

Commenting on Wang Kon's actions, certain so-called official historians in the later Yi period claimed that all he did was to antagonize Khitan and that Khitan's defeat of Parhae had nothing to do with Korea and so there was no need to avenge Parhae. These Yi officials say that Wang Kon was wrong simply because they were afraid that their own king might embrace the idea of keeping in step with popular sentiment and might think of reaching over into Manchuria. Such a move, they feared, would strain relations with China and place their own posts in peril. In order to perpetuate their posts they tried to nip any such thought that might be budding in the king's mind. Some may think that the people forget themselves; the fact is that they have never forgotten themselves nor will they ever. What happens is that privileged classes deceive the people and sell them to the oppressor and enjoy high office. In every age and among any people it is the privileged classes that sell out. One cannot gain power without selling out. The people are without power for they do not sell themselves.

Wang Kon's grand design was reflected in his policies. To do away with the habits of borrowing from China which had become pronounced from the middle of the Silla period onward, he sought to restore traditional Korean institutions. Item 4 of his Precepts reads: "From antiquity, ways of Tang (China) received great admiration in our Land of the East, and Chinese institutions have been copied in all matters of civic art, rites and music. But tempers differ in different lands. There is no reason, then, that one and the same way should prevail in two different lands! Again: "Since Khitan is a land of barbarians with different customs and language, none of their customs or institutions should ever be imitated! Again invoking the spirit of Korea in firm rejection of the cult of China, he unswervingly committed himself to the policy to go north. Going beyond his merely passive policy, he positively endeavored to invigorate the Korean spirit: control of Buddhism and institution of a Korean religious rite, p'algwanhoe.

Yi Korea historians were critical of the founder Wang Kon for tilting too far toward Buddhism. This was nothing but their way of discouraging their own king from embracing Buddhism so as to secure their own position as Confucianists. Even if these Yi officials had been honest in their criticism of Wang Kon, and not acting from any ulterior motives, their position would still have been inexcusable as recorders of history. If they really believed in what they said, they were very superficial in their views.

Wang Kon erected new temples and repaired existing ones. Item 1 of his Precepts says that the founding of Koryo was possible under the Buddha's tutelage; references to Buddhism recur in subsequent items. A closer investigation will show, however, that his position was one of restricting, not promoting, Buddhism. He banned further construction of temples. We have no reason to suppose that he was unaware of the overabundance of temples in Silla, which led to waste, tax evasion and downright exploitation and eventually to a ruined economy. So Wang Kon must have adopted a policy of checking Buddhism. Yet he claimed that he was favoring the promotion of Buddhism, and with good reason.

Choe Ung, a Confucian counselor, submitted a proposal for rejecting Buddhism. Wang Kon counseled caution on the grounds that drastic banning would bring about reactions from the people of Silla who were deeply steeped in Buddhism. But that was not all. Choe Ung's anti-Buddhist policy suggested the existence of a rivalry between Confucians and Buddhists. Wang Kon's intention was to curb the rise of the Confucian group in the name of keeping public sentiment calm and content.

As to the p'algwanhoe itself, the record is not clear except that the rite was performed, at the request of officials, in the first year of Wang Kon's reign, following the example of Silla, when it was held in the month of the winter solstice. The Precepts merely state that p'algwanhoe was for the purpose of worshipping "the spirit of heaven, the five mountain peaks, other noted hills and streams, and the god of rain and waters." Interpretations vary among historians; some guess that it was a Buddhist ceremony, while others believe it to be a Korean ritual preceding the arrival of Buddhism. From the deities to which the ceremony was addressed one may rightfully infer that p'algwanhoe had its origins in a cult of heaven going back to antiquity. The fact that it was practiced in the Silla court would lead one to surmise that something from Buddhism may have been incorporated; it may have been a compromise struck between the traditional cult and Buddhist rituals. Even today one finds in a Buddhist temple shrines dedicated to mountain spirits and other folk deities entirely unrelated to Buddhism. P'algwanhoe may perhaps have been something of this kind, a festivity held in the court from olden times, and, as it continued beyond the introduction of Buddhism, it may have adopted some Buddhist rituals, just as Christmas today incorporates folk customs.

In reinstituting the p'algwanhoe Wang Kon was circumspect far-seeing. Nothing definite is to be found about traditional thought or original cults native to Korea if you go by the histories penned by Confucian scholars, whose views were stultified by addiction to Chinese philosophy. There is circumstantial evidence enough from which the following may be deduced.

Although Buddhism as a state religion lost much of its life-enhancing efficacy in the closing years of Silla, its influence, ingrained if enfeebled, still endured. With the Tang culture of China gaining ever firmer g there emerged a class of Confucians to challenge the forces of Buddhism. As readiness for the revolution was gathering, interest was reawaken in traditional thought and institutions. This was in reaction to the heavy borrowings from foreign thought. In this new mood, those favoring reform and renovation, who were unhappy with the established order, naturally looked toward the revival of old Korean cults. In his Precepts enunciating the philosophy of the new state and providing guidelines, an aspiring as Wang Kon wrote: act with reverence. To probe his inner thoughts, you may gather that he proposed to bring stability to society by using Buddhism which was close to the people's heart, strengthen government organization by invoking the teachings of Confucianism which predominated as educational philosophy, and revitalize traditional sentiment in preparation for a heightened national spirit in a renewed dedication to his grand design on Manchuria. In this light, the founding of Koryo assumes special meaning in Korean history. For this reason, the task given to Koryo was of utmost importance. But again, the founder's policies somehow failed. Wang Kon nurtured what his predecessor Kungye had helped to sprout, but not to the point of bringing fruit.

The tide of history was ebbing out. By the reign of King Kwangjong the Confucians had gained ascendancy. The king was so enamored of Chinese institutions that be brought the scholar Shuang Chi all the way from China, and on his recommendation, introduced the civil service examination system. He went so far as to evict his retainers to provide room for naturalized Chinese. The adoption of the government recruiting system was significant, for it helped advance the position of the Confucian school. The next king, Seongjong, approving the idea of a principal minister, officially came out against Buddhism, in a move which gave a total victory to the Confucian literati. Confucianism was elevated to the status of state religion. Following practices in China, an ancestral temple and a shrine of the gods of land and grain were erected. A portrait of Confucius was imported, and a royal academy was opened for instruction in Confucianism. In bureaucracy, education and religion, a sustained effort got under way to become Chinese on the outside as well as on the inside. Reorientation toward China went apace, and subservience to China was set as a matter of policy. Maintenance of the status quo, above all else, was not the moving spirit, the status quo being the perpetuation of the status of the ruling classes: getting the full measure of power and perquisites indefinitely, leaving the populace to shift for themselves.

At this time, when the national spirit was at an ebb, and the ruling classes were drunk with a false sense of security, a blow was dealt right between the eyes. The Khitan invaded. It was they who had arisen from Manchuria about the time of KoryUs founding and succeeded in overthrowing Parhae, successor to Koguryoe. The founder of Koguryoe had spurned offers of friendship from the Khitan, condemning the country as the enemy of Parhae, as he nurtured his dreams of a northern expedition. If the successive kings of Koguryoe had launched a northward expedition in accordance with the founder's wishes, the Khitan would not have grown so strong. Preoccupied with the notion of playing the role of a land of Confucian gentlemen, Koguryoe pursued the easy line of preserving the status quo, rejecting all adventures. This was precisely the kind of opportunity the Khitan hoped for; they lost no time strengthening their position until they were firmly entrenched in the north. During the reign of King Seongjong, the ceremony of p'algwanhoe was abolished and the sword was beaten into a plow, all in the name of ushering in an "era of peace and tranquility under the sage-king Ironically, it was at this time that the Khitan increased raids into Koguryoe, building up every year until the time of King Hyeongjong when they attacked in force. Koguryoe, influenced by would-be Confucianists, panicked. Singlehanded and with nothing but eloquent tongue and indomitable courage, a Koguryoe official, Seo Heui, made bold to enter into the enemy's field headquarters; he managed to conclude an armistice and so saved the prestige of his country for a time.

It was a miserable expedient. There were other brave souls, who kept on battling, with only a handful of soldiers, against great odds until all their arrows were exhausted and they themselves fell. The founder's ambition had vanished in thin air.

The Khitan invasion was an alarm to rouse the people of Koguryoe. Losing all sense of self and wallowing in a false sense of safety and deceptive peace, they let a heaven-sent opportunity slip by, choosing the easy way of laziness and inaction. The alarm seemed to ask: How much longer can you continue in loyalty to China and go on living a life of ease? The Khitan now withdrew from the scene as if they had completed their role, and history began to prepare for a new period. Did Koguryoe people heed the warning? In the following decades peace prevailed; Koguryoe was able to heal her wounds and achieve some cultural advance and prosperity. This period saw so notable a Buddhist monk as Taegak-kuksa, and a Confucian scholar of virtue and erudition, Ch'oe Ch'ung, who achieved renown as a "Confucius of the East."

History now was at a high point again. It was an order to right what had gone wrong. While Koguryoe was gaining in strength, preparations were under way in Manchuria for a new period. The Khitan dynasty, past its heyday, was on the decline and with this, there were stirrings anew in Manchuria, awaiting a new master. It was a time for statesmen to bring out a map and hang it on the wall, for heroes to hear their swords rattle in their scabbards in the night. The Han Chinese, subdued by the Khitan, were lying low in the safety of the southern bank of the Yangtze. Two heroes were to appear on the stage of Manchuria with the promise of a lively drama to unfold - Koryo and Juchen. In prevailing conditions, Juchen appeared to be no match for Koguryoe. A branch of the Mo-ho tribes, Juchen submitted first to Koguryoe, then to Parhae, and then came under Khitan rule after Parhae was overthrown.

With Khitan now weakening, the Juchen regrouped themselves in the eastern part of Manchuria and came occasionally to violate the north-eastern frontier of Koguryoe. They were behind in culture and had held Koryoe in esteem as a "parental country" because the ancestors of their chieftain were Korean. It was plain to see that Koguryoe was by far the superior. The people of Koguryoe must have heard the call of history if they had ears to hear, Manchuria was where Koguryoe cavalrymen had earlier galloped their horses as they strove to realize unification, until they were laid low on the battlefield. Manchuria was calling again, as it did a century before, and sure enough, the soul of Korea responded.

Voices were raised in the time of King Sukchong calling for a northern expedition to put an end, once and for all, to the frequent raids of the Juchen tribes on the northeast. The king ordered General Yuri Kwan to repel the Juchen, but the attempts failed. The king thereupon offered prayers to the "gods that they may grant success to renewed efforts to stamp out the brigands" and contemplated a plan to raise an army with sustained food supplies, only to die the following year with his dream unfulfilled. His successor, Yejong, followed through with a force of one hundred and seventy thousand men under command of General Yun Kwan. The expedition, on which the destiny of the nation was staked, was crowned initially with illustrious success. General Yun advanced as far north as present-day Chientao (Kando), set up nine fortresses in Hamgy6ng province; sixty thousand households migrated from the south. It seemed as if history was pointing again to the north where a greater Korea loomed. That was not to be.

The court was filled with corrupt Confucian literati who were wracked by jealousy over enterprising minds, like General Yun Kwan, determined on a northern course. They argued for staying south of the Yalu, clinging to what they had at all cost and invoking the need for deference to China. Word arrived that the Juchen had again raided the northeastern frontier; they had little choice but to move south if only to survive. A Juchen emissary arrived to implore the return of the nine fortresses, with the pledge of tribute, and swearing that they would not even throw a piece of tile across the border. At this time General Yun Kwan was still away in the frontier camp. When the king sought counsel, the whole court of Confucians was of the opinion that surrendering the fortresses would be the proper thing to do. The courtiers went even further and vigorously pushed for the general's ouster. They claimed that the general had launched a campaign which was in no way justifiable. An embarrassed Yejong, whose design it was to attack the Juchen in the first place, tried to vindicate Yun Kwan's as well as his own position. He attempted to reason with his ministers, but they remained adamant. After the king retired to his private quarters, these courtiers followed, sat outside the door and pleaded with the king until sunset. Then they went on strike, absenting themselves from the court for days. One wonders how these fellows, so fearful and weak-kneed in the cause of a northern expedition, suddenly proved so daring and persistent in calling for the ouster of a worthy servant of the state. General Yun Kwan was recalled. He was not even allowed to report to the king in person, who was forced to relieve him of his duties and hand over the fortresses of the Juchen. So the moves for advancing northward were effectively dropped.

How would King Yejong have felt surrounded as he was with rotten elements, who temporized with the status quo? What would have stopped Koguryoe and what risks would have been involved if it had pressed ahead with the original plan for the north, and whom would it have antagonized? One of the royal decrees stated: "Civil and military arts should be pursued evenhandedly. It is noted that in the face of frequent invasions from across the border, commanders and ministers counseling the throne are alike engaged full-time in making armor and training soldiers. But would be ill-advised to devote himself exclusively to military affairs." Evidently this decree was forged by the Confucian ministers in order to discourage the ascendancy of the military officers.

A sense of crisis was in the air but it was played down by the Confucians in power. Soon thereafter, an official letter arrived from the Chin court (the Juchen named their country Chin and their ruler emperor): "The emperor of the great Chin-Juchen, as elder brother, sends a letter to his younger brother, king of Koguryoe. From times of our ancestors our country has been pushed off into a remote corner where we had to uphold Khitan as a greater country, and has deemed Koguryoe as our parental country, treating it with deference and reverence. Khitan wantonly trampled over our land, made our people their slaves, and repeatedly attacked us in unprovoked war. We were obliged to resist and with the help of heaven we overthrew them. The king of Koguryoe is hereby advised to enter into friendly relations so that we two countries will be brothers from generation to generation. Together with this letter, we send you a fine steed."

So ended the dream. Had Koguryoe had the resoluteness to push north, to scatter the roaming Juchen before they had the chance to realize unification, and to snuff out the Khitan who were on their last legs, possession of Manchuria and even Mongolia would have posed no serious difficulty. A similar letter could have been addressed to China. Amid vacillation and inaction, the dreams vaporized. The people of Koguryoe could not help being amazed as well as aggrieved at the sight of the Juchen rising to full height, realizing for themselves the dreams of Koryoe.

King Yejong spent his remaining days writing verse and reading books of the Chinese canon. Presumably he had no other way to beguile his empty feelings after he was disabused of his dreams. After his death, King Injong came to the throne at the tender age of fifteen. History's tide was receding. Just as Korean history reached a high tide earlier at the time of the Three Kingdoms, so the history of Koguryoe had been on the rise until the reign of Injong and then began heading down. Yet the situation was too provocative for Koguryoe to go down meekly to ruin, without uttering a sound.

A great drama of the age was being played out and the people of Koguryoe must have felt as if the world was leaving them behind. Were there no talents? Did their courage fail them altogether? Were the literi without a modicum of soul? Jealous of their power and privilege, they may well have been so, realist though they were, and yet how can they have been so spineless and so blind? There were a few who dared to take a last plunge across the dark chasm that threatened to engulf one and all; such was the Myoch'eong rebellion in the thirteenth year of Injong's reign.

The failure of the northern expedition, while highly welcome in the sight of the sinophile literati with conservative leanings, was a rankling wound for nationalists with a more enterprising outlook. It was only yesterday that the Juchen wanderers came foraying across the border. Today their leader pretended to be emperor. The very thought was revolting. Not just that the Juchen were beneath contempt, but that Koguryoe was just as capable of what these Juchen had done. Taking advantage of the young king, the Koguryoe officials kept the people quiet, hands tied, to use them and have them do their bidding, when the neighing of the northern horses bore down on them on north winds. There were a few persons who thought that affairs of state could no longer be safely left in the hands Of the literati who only knew how to presume upon their dignity. They proposed that the king of Koguryoe also declare himself emperor and the use of the name of the Chinese reign he discontinued. More important, they came out with a demand for resumption of the northern expedition. Popular response was immediate and keen; feelings ran high. It was evident that the people were quiet but not at all happy with the way things. The court Confucians naturally objected. In their judgment, what the Chin-Juchen were up to were so many barbarian follies; pretension to being emperor was an act of insolence, well deserving heavenly retribution, when the Son of Heaven of the Central Kingdom alone had the right to that title; the ruler of an outlying country like Koguryoe would not dare entertain such a presumption. These soldiers would never know any better, the literati complained. The two opposing schools soon came to a showdown. This development had been long in surfacing, and was not something that broke out suddenly under King Injong.

While the conservatives wanted to defend what they had and be content to stay within the peninsula, the dissidents argued for marching into Manchuria. The conservatives' argument was that as long as the Son of Heaven was created by heavenly mandate, serving him with deference was the proper thing to do, while the dissidents' contention was that, as descendants of the legendary Tan'gun, Koreans had a life of their own to live and that Manchuria was the land of their ancestors, after all. If the conservatives paraded the way of Confucius and Mencius⁹, the assidents matched them by invoking heaven and the traditional gods of the hills and streams. As a matter of fact, the Confucians found it satisfactory that they were well-off, well-educated and well-placed in the seat of power, whereas the nationalists felt a need for change, as they were left without power under pressures from Confucianism and Buddhism and as the were despised for being common and illiterate.

If the Confucians counted on the power of China, the nationalists trusted popular support. This rivalry, which had been hidden from view, was now brought out into the open. What precipitated it was a controversy over the moving of the capital to Pyongyang. In support of the move was the belief that Pyongyang was a highly auspicious site and establishing the capital there would entail thirty-six countries coming with tribute to the Koguryoe court, or, in modern parlance, Koryoe would gain so many new colonies. This theory harks back to the latter period of Silla; it was the dregs, as it were, of superstitions common during the period; it was an utter absurdity. Yet in historic perspective, there were conditions in society that gave rise to such superstition. Given the kind of science and religion known then, this belief was in the guise of the yin-yang theory of China.

What should be noted is that the popular mood was fully behind this belief. Dissatisfaction with corruption in the Silla government, a yearning for an ancestral home, a grievance over the withering away of national fortunes, vague hopes for a better future-all these and more came together to form the superstition. People's minds were in ferment. Rumors floated around like foam that rises from the fermenting brew-bubbles now appeared, now burst. What counts here is what is underneath the bubbling surface; popular sentiments are aroused, which may be carried to the point of revolution. Revolutionary it was indeed that Silla was overthrown and Koguryoe stood, but only to a point. It was not revolutionary enough to satisfy popular hearts.

One can imagine the scene. When a few villagers get together by the roadside or in a tavern, they talk in whispers: "D'you hear they're going to move the capital to Pyongyang?'' or "Say, there's going to be a war" or "Why, the spirits wouldn't just sit by" or "I don't know for sure but I hear a great man has been training to be an immortal" or "A dragon-steed turned up" or "A strange sound was heard coming from the tomb of the great king Tongmyeong" or "Our country is in for a really big thing. "

The advocates of northern expedition tried to turn these stirrings among the people to account. With the Buddhist priest Myoch'oeng leading, this group rallied the people by making use of the predictions going back to the time of Silla, and urged on the king the virtue of reestablishing Pyongyang as the capital-all in order to campaign for a northward push. King Injong was quite sympathetic to the cause and went as far as to build a palace near Pyongyang. But the whole endeavor met with stiff resistance from the Confucian ministers, who felt that not only their positions but even their lives were threatened. Led by Kim Pu-sik, author of the Samguk sagi, they fought desperately to block the moving of the capital. The Myoch'oeng group in turn persisted in prevailing upon the king to move to Pyongyang. Excessive resort to trickery, particularly of a superstitious nature, drew criticism from the Confucians, so that the king himself was hesitant.

At this time word came to the capital that Myoch'oeng had staged a rebellion. A new country under his leadership was proclaimed with the name of Taewi, which covered for a time nine provinces, including Hwanghae-do and P'yoengan-do. This attempt was ended when it was overthrown under the command of Kim Pu-sik. Choeng Chi-sang, Paek Su-han and other leaders were speedily executed in the capital upon receipt of the news of rebellion.

The Myochoeng rebellion was, according to historian Sin Ch'ae-ho, an event of foremost importance during the first ten centuries of history. Be that as it may, it was an event out of the ordinary. It is a perceptive observation to regard it as a confrontation between Confucians and Buddhists, between scholars of China-oriented outlook and Korean traditionalists. It is equally true to ascribe Kim Pu-sik's victory to the ascendancy of conservative thought favoring regimentation. Myoch'oeng's rebellion, be it noted , was too late, twenty years after the defeat of the Liao dynasty in China by Chin-Juchen. So even if the followers of Myoch'oeng had had their way and had shifted the capital to Pyongyang, it is highly doubtful that they could have carried through the cherished plan of invading Manchuria.

One could expect, nevertheless, that the Koreans would have saved themselves intellectual servitude or, at least, have had some relief from it, if Myoch'oeng had carried the day. Tradition has it that Kim Pu-sik, a stylist of undisputed reputation, was surprised one day by a verse written by Choeng Chi-sang and that Kim asked Choeng for the verse but was refused, and Kim held it against Choeng until he had him executed. There is no way to verify the story, nor can we learn what Cheong Chi-sang or Myoch'oeng had in mind. History has puzzles which remain puzzles forever. What we do know from the story, however, is what was the public judgment, and who the public thought was on its side. It is not at all clear whether Myoch'oeng acted from motives of seeking the good of the country and the people or was driven by personal ambitions. All we can do is to draw the historical significance of the event in its broader perspective.

From what we have seen, it is little wonder that history takes a turn for the worse at the landmark of Injong's reign. Living ideals make an individual or national life shine. So it was when the ideal of national growth yet lived in the hearts of the Koguryoe people. King Hyoenjong welcomed the triumphal return of General Kang Kam-ch'an with his verse:

In this year the barbarians warred
Advancing as far as the Han.
But for the valorous plan of General Kang
We might all have to wear foreign garb.

This, of course, refers to the invasion of Khitan and to the general's successful campaign which contained the advance. A grateful king went out to the field to meet him, decorated his hair with golden flowers, and personally poured wine into the general's cup. Such was the heightened ideal that stirred the entire nation as one spirit, and before it the Khitan were forced to retreat.

But what happens when a national ideal is lost? Ch'oe Ch'ung taught Confucian doctrine and it has been said: "The height of instruction in the teaching began with Ch'oe Ch'ung, and from that time on there appeared a brilliant succession of scholars who put affairs in proper order so that the Chinese themselves referred to ours as a country functioning according to the classics. None of this achievement could have been possible had it not been for him." But the fact is that Confucianism was a bramble that choked off the growth of the country.

What followed the loss of ideals was civil war that lasted off and on for the next century, a period that came in the wake of the ill-starred attempts at a northward push and the compromise of national interests at the hands of the Confucian courtiers. The Yi Cha-gyoem rebellion came in the fourteenth year of Injong's reign, the Myoch`oeng rebellion thirteen years thereafter, followed thirty-four years later by another revolt staged by Choeng Chung-bu, a military commander, to name a few. Yi Cha-gyoem protested against the corrupt ways at the court, which was modeled on the Chinese institution; Choeng Chung-bu came out against the policy of favoring the civil over military officialdom, another imitation of China. In former times, when the archer Chumong became King Tongmyoeng of Koguryoe, when Uelchi Mundoek and Kae So-mun administered the country, no such philosophy prevailed. It is since Korea began learning Chinese lore and customs and adopting the policy of "civil rule" that the habit of despising military officers took hold. Koguryoe, whose duty it was to rally the national destiny, had every reason to foster fortitude and unbending spirit, but chose an insubstantial formalism which pretended to apply the rule of the sages. An effete ineptness was all it earned.

The reigning king Uijong loved merry-making, preferred luxurious -living, and delighted in poetry. True, the superb ceramic art of Koguryoe celadon¹⁰ was perfected thanks to him, but the populace languished. People make such a great deal out of Koguryoe celadon that even a cracked dish or a misshapen jar fetches an enormous price, in the name of love of art. But how many can appreciate the true nature of Koguryoe ceramic art? Do you know what its lines and colors represent? The lines mean undernourished stomachs, souls in agony; its colors, the sad twilight of the declining fortune of a nation, the bluish tint history's shimmering horizon. Know this, before you call it the pride of Korean culture.

King Ueigong had a new house built for his pleasure. When he found a scenic spot, he would lead his civil ministers there, hold a drinking bout, punctuated with verse-making, and hardly notice the day far spent. While the party was in progress the military retinue had to look after the horses and wait around with empty stomachs. The upshot of it was the revolt of Choeng Chung-bu. The king's favorites were beheaded in front of the king, and those hiding nearby were not spared, even down to the lowliest clerk "so long as he wears the civilian headgear." The civilian wing of the court was deposed and even the king himself was sent away in exile where he died soon after.

There followed a series of military coups until Ch'oe Ch`ung-hoen seized power, which his descendants held for three more generations. Government was thrown into a state of disorganization; official positions were bought and sold, people's properties were seized at pleasure; ethical standards and all semblance of order collapsed. Former civil officials now had to beg for food at the doorways of the Ch'oe clan; the government operated out of the parlors of the Ch'oe households. If the civil official behaves like a viper, the military officer is wild and fierce like a beast. That is how it turns out once the guiding spirit is gone.

A gale raged from the Gobi Desert. Koguryoe was too busy with civil war within her own borders to heed the warnings of the age. But Koguryoe could no longer ignore the alarm when the victorious Mongol army mounted an attack in force. The Mongol invaders proved far more brutal and ruthless than the Khitan. One description will suffice. "Once Mongol soldiers passed through no more was the sound of a dog or a rooster to be heard' During the invasion in the forty-first year of Kojong alone, three hundred and six thousand were taken captive and carried away. Those encamped in the capital city, according to legend, made a meal of women's carved out breasts. As the writer of history dries his tears, he holds his pen, but this is a history he has to write.

No one can say that this trial imposed on Koguryoe was by accident. Be it remembered of provincial commander Kim Kyoeng-son that with only twelve men he resisted a swarm of enemy soldiers; until he managed to repulse the enemy, he refused to slacken the beating of his war drum even after an arrow lodged in his arm. In another battle he never flinched even as his soldiers behind him were felled by bullets. There was another hero, Pak Soe, who was defending a fortress in the mountain. The enemy dug an underground passage and he burned them by pouring in molten iron; when the enemy set a fire moving toward the fortress, he put it out; when the enemy opened up with artillery he matched it with his own. The enemy general was amazed: "In all the battles I have been in I have yet to see a man refuse to surrender against such fierce attacks and against such odds." Pak Soe turned a deaf ear to the urgings of an emissary from king who, he explained, had already made the decision to surrender. The emissary was so upset that he was about to commit suicide. Only then did Pak Soe obey the court order; he retired to the country.

There were a few like these two warriors but those in the government were cowardly and shiftless in everything they did. The capital had retreated to the safety of the island of Kanghwa leaving the populace to fend for itself. While there the court spent its time mostly holding parties every day, and there was civil disturbance into the bargain. The Mongols, not satisfied with military occupation alone, began to meddle in internal affairs. They went beyond inflicting physical pain by applying mental pressure. Each Koguryoe king was made to take a Mongol princess as awife and the crown prince was held in Mongolia as a hostage. Every decision at court was taken on the pleasure of the resident Mongol princess. All Koguryoe officials adopted the Mongol style in hair and dress. Many preferred to stay in Mongolia, without giving any thought to regaining of independence.

As I think it over, I lose all interest in the thirteen-tiered stone pagoda in Seoul or in admiring the printing blocks of the Tripitaka which are stored in the temple of Haein-sa. The stone pagoda was erected after the loss of independence. As for the printing blocks, they were made by royal order during the king's stay on Kanghwa Island to invoke the Buddha's intercession to save the country. At this writing, you will find in the Hain-sa the entire set of some eighty thousand blocks of meticulously inscribed characters without a single error, a work that took sixteen years to complete. While the court was given over to its daily party-giving and merry-making, safe from a suffering populace, orders went out requiring commoners to produce wood and money for the printing block project. Does it not vividly tell the story of government by rhetoric, of a lifeless faith? But then as I recall the fact that the pagoda and the blocks have survived these past seven centuries, I begin to wonder if they are not the crystallization of the strength of broad-based toils and sorrows of the populace, if the delicate workmanship may not reflect the spiritual force of the multitudes to which they were dedicated. May not even the solid square blocks, I wonder, embody the everlasting life of a nation? If that is the case, let the pagoda and the printing blocks stay for all time. As the deep ravine existed that sheltered the blocks from war and destruction through the ages, so there must be some spiritual haven that keeps religion for the nation. Just as the pagoda withstood the weather so long, so there must be divinity that will keep this history going.

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Back to Queen of Suffering Table of Contents     On to Chapter V. The Broken Axle of History