The Last Korean Empress

     A while back I did blog on the last Korean Empress, Empress Myongsong (1851-1895), popularly known as "Queen Min."  At the time I mentioned the fact that she was a very progressive person and wanted to bring Korea into the modern world.  She was very strongly opposed to Japanese influence and preferred Westernization, in particular she was attracted to America and American system.  Her husband, King Kojong, was weak and not a capable ruler.  It was Queen Min that actually ruled the country and she was especially loved by the common people.  She did everything within her power to make life better for the common people.  She established new educational system, based on American education, welcomed American scholars and missionaries.  She dispatched a mission to America, headed by her nephew, to study and observe America's industrialization, education, medicine, just about everything. As a result, the first English language school was established with American teachers in 1883.  The first Women's College, Ewha University was established in 1886 and run by Mary Scranton, an American Protestant missionary.  Ewha, to this day, is considered the best women's college in Korea!  It is a very prestigious institution.  A Royal English school was established and run by another American, Homer Hulbert, and Chosun Christian College was established by an American missionary H. G. Underwood, who is revered in Korea.  Chosun Chrisian College later merged with another missionary school, Yonhei,  and became Yonsei University, the top university in Korea, the Harvard of Korea!  So the list goes on and on!
     Queen Min knew that education alone wasn't going to help modernize Korea.  She knew that Korea needed a modern military to defend itself, especially against Japan.  She invited a U.S. Army General, General William McEntyre Dye, who in 1888 established Korea's first Military Academy!  The U.S. Minister to Korea, Lucius Foote was also very knowledgeable about military affairs and gave advice to Queen Min on the subject.  But perhaps the most surprising and unusual thing that Queen Min did was to convince her husband King Kojong to hire an American to run Korea's Foreign Affairs!  So in 1886, Korea made an unprecedented move and hired an American, Judge Owen Denny, to be the Vice President of Home Ministry and Director of Foreign Affairs!
     Owen Nickerson Denny was a judge from Oregon.  He was originally from Ohio, but moved to Oregon as a child and grew up and educated in that state.  He became a judge and served in various capacities before he was appointed U.S. Consul to Tsientsin, China, where he served from 1877 to 1880.  In 1880 he was promoted to Consul General and transferred to Shanghai where he served until 1883, after which he retired and went back to Oregon.  Ironically, in America he is best known for the fact that he brought over Chinese ring-necked pheasants from Shanghai and transplanted them on his ranch in Oregon and thereby started the seed population of pheasants in America!  Prior to Denny, there were several attempts to introduce pheasants to America from Europe, but none of these earlier introductions worked.  Denny's transplantation of Chinese pheasants was a huge success.  Within a decade the pheasant population in Oregon exploded and began to spread.  Concurrently, Oregon pheasants were introduced in other states and the rest is history, the ring-necked pheasant is as much a part of America's landscape as the native mourning dove!
     But despite the fact that Denny is best known in America for his introduction of pheasants, his accomplishments in Korea far exceed any contribution to ornithology!  Denny, in essence, established the very first Korean Foreign Service, patterned after America's!  He had great opposition from conservative members of Korean government who were in opposition to Queen Min's modernization.  The fact that he was a foreigner, holding such a high post, did not help things!  Denny worked in Korea for a four year period, from 1886 to 1890, and managed to leave his mark, transforming the Korean Foreign Affairs office into a more modern operation than the medieval system that it used to operate under before his arrival.
     Queen Min was trying very hard to drag the "Hermit Kingdom" into the modern age.  She envisioned for Korea a constitutional monarchy like England.  However, the opposition from conservative members of the government was such that she could make little headway.  Her husband, the King was of no help.  He was weak and easily convinced by the opposition.  Queen Min wanted to have a constitution drafted and the government changed, that is probably why the conservative opposition resisted.  They held their high offices by birthright, they were all aristocrats, members of nobility. Queen Min's proposal would mean that high offices would be elected offices, and they feared that their lack of popularity with people would destroy any chance for them to retain their positions.  Still, by 1894 Korea managed to have a Premier.  The first Premier was elected in 1894 and served a two year term until 1896.  Queen Min had already selected a name for the new constitutional monarchy that she envisioned.  It would be called Tehan Jeguk (The Great Han Empire), but she never realized her dream.
     In 1895 a great catastrophe befell the fledging "new" Korea.  The Japanese Minister to Korea, Miura, with collaboration of his superiors in Tokyo, brought to Korea a group of assassins who stormed the palace with swords and brutally assassinated Queen Min and other members of the palace.  The King was not in the palace so he, along with the children, were spared.  There were 56 Japanese assassins who participated in this horrendous murder.  They, of course, had Korean collaborators, members of the palace guard who were pro Japanese.  Sadly and ironically, there was very little international protestation over this obvious, overt, assassination by the Japanese government.  The Japanese held a mock trial in Hiroshima, and all 56 assassins and Miura were quickly acquitted.  Japanese scholars and many Japanese are aware of this terrible tragedy.  Scores of books and articles have been written about this and even a movie and a popular TV series was made in Korea. But the Japanese government, to this day, refuses to acknowledge its guilt on the affair.  It is just like their reaction to the business of "comfort women."  Just recently the Japanese government officially acknowledged its guilt and use of "comfort women."  Hopefully it will acknowledge its guilt in the assassination of Queen Min, the Last Korean Empress, its already been more than a century!
     The Japanese assassinated Queen Min because they saw her as the only true obstacle to their plans of take over of Korea.  Two years after her death, Korea declared itself a constitutional monarchy and was renamed Tehan Jeguk.  However, it only lasted for a short period, until 1910 when Japan annexed Korea and declared it to be their colony.  But for a short period, Queen Min's dream was realized and Tehan Jeguk was ruled as a constitutional monarchy headed at first by her son Gwangjong and later by her grandson, Emperor Sunjong and his young wife as king and queen!
     In the Western world, Korea is simply known as Korea or South Korea.  Those crazies in the north are referred to as North Koreans.  But Koreans themselves, and the rest of Asia, refer to South Korea, the Republic of Korea (ROK), as Te-han Min Guk (The Great Han Republic) after the very last Korean government before Japan's take over in 1910.  When Korea gained its independence in 1945, it was unanimously decided to retain the name that it had before Japan had colonized it for 35 years.  North Korea, on the other hand, because it was a communist country, took on a completely different name but retained "Chosun" in its title, calling itself Chosun In Min Kong Wha Guk (People's Democratic Republic of Chosun).  Chosun was the name of the Yi or the last dynasty of Korea.  Prior to that it was Koryo dynasty, from which the Western world took the name of Korea!
     So now, if anyone wondered why Korea (South) shows such strong ties to America, aside from the fact that America saved the south from communist domination, it is because of its historical ties!  The South Korean army appears to be very much like the U.S. Army today, but the similarity is based not only because of the ties established during the Korean War, but because the modern Korean army was essentially founded by U.S. Army advisors going back to 1888!  Owen Denny established the first modern Korean Foreign Ministry, and the educational system, particularly the higher education, found its modern beginning with American systems established by Mary Scranton at Ewha University in 1886 and H.G. Underwood at Chosen Christian College before it merged with Yonhei college and became Yonsei University.  Yonsei and Ewha are the two best universities in Korea!  There is a new Chosen Christian College, but it has no ties to Underwood family.  America has had much bigger and lasting impact on Korea than most people realize.  It is also the reason why Korea has a high Christian population.