Korean Empire Totally Explained

Everything about The Korean Empire totally explained

The Korean Empire was a former small empire of Korea that lasted from the Gwangmu Restoration of 1897 until Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910. The new title was specifically assigned to the state ruled by the Joseon Dynasty over for the past 500 years. The declaration of empire indicated the restoration of complete Korean sovereignty from its tributary relationship with Qing Dynasty China and continued major modernization reforms.
In 1897, King Gojong returned to Gyeongungung Palace from his refuge at the Russian consulate and proclaimed the new entity. It oversaw the partially successful modernization of the military, economy, real property laws, education system, and various industries.

Background

In 1894, the Empire of Japan emerged victorious in the First Sino-Japanese War against the Qing Dynasty of China, bringing it to the forefront of international politics in the Far East, which quickly pitted it against the expanding Russian Empire that, along with Japan, was competing for influence in the region. The Sino-Japanese War also marked the rapid decline of any power the Joseon Dynasty of Korea had managed to hold against foreign interference, as the battles of the conflict itself had been fought on Korean soil and the surrounding seas. With its newfound preeminence over waning China, Japan had Japanese delegates negotiate the Treaty of Shimonoseki with the Qing emissaries, through which Japan wrested control over the Liaodong Peninsula from China (a move designed to prevent the southern expansion of Japan new rival in Russia), and, more importantly to Korea, scrapped the centuries-old tributary relationship between Joseon and the Qing Dynasty. However, Russia realized this agreement as an act against its interests in northeastern China and eventually brought France and Germany to its side in saying that the Liaodong Peninsula should be repatriated to China.
At the time, Japan had no power to resist such foreign pressure, especially by nations that it considered far more advanced and which it sought to emulate, and as such relinquished its claim to the Liaodong Peninsula. With the success of the three-country intervention, Russia emerged as another major power in East Asia, replacing the Qing Dynasty as the country that the many government officials in the Joseon court advocated close ties with to prevent more Japanese meddling in Korean politics. Queen Min (the later Empress Myeongseong), the consort of King Gojong, also realized this change and recognized it by formally establishing closer diplomatic relations with Russia to counter Japan.
Queen Min began to emerge as a key figure in higher-level Korean resistance to Japanese influence. Japan, seeing its designs endangered by the queen, quickly replaced its ambassador to Korea, Inoue Kaoru, with Miura Goro, a diplomat with a background in the Japanese military. It is widely believed that he orchestrated the assassination of Queen Min on October 8, 1895 at her residence at Gyeongbok Palace, nearby the Geoncheong Palace, the official sleeping quarters of the king within Gyeongbok Palace.

Proclamation of Empire

With the death of his wife, the distraught King Gojong and his new wife, Lady Om, and the Crown Prince (Sunjong) fled to Russia in 1896. During the time from Queen Min's death to the king's return from Russian protection, Korea underwent another major upheaval both at home and abroad. By 1894, new laws passed by pro-Japanese progressives in the royal cabinet forced through long-desired reforms aimed at revamping Korea's antiquated society. These laws were called the Kabo Reforms (Gabo Reforms) refering to the year of 1984 in which the reforms began. Although the lines were in-line with Korea's self strengthening movement history in retrospect agrees that the main purpose of the Kabo Reforms was for the Japanese, and esspecially Minister Inoue Kaoru, to seek more and more control of Korean society.
   Their policies resulted in the official discarding of the lunar calendar in favor of the modern Gregorian solar calendar, the cutting of traditional male Korean hair buns, the official designation of era names independent of the Chinese tradition, and the creation of a postal service. In 1896, with the sudden absence of Gojong, Russia quickly took the opportunity to actively interfere in domestic Korean politics, leading to the contraction of the pro-Japanese faction's influence. These years also marked the beginning of the economic exploitation of Korean natural resources by mining and timber corporations from Russia, the United States, and Japan.
   Meanwhile, the new reforms aimed at modernizing Korean society soon attracted controversy within Korea. Anti-Japanese sentiment, which had already become entrenched in the minds of commoners and aristocrats alike during the 16th century Japanese invasion of Korea, became pervasive in the royal court and upper echelons of society following the Gangwha Treaty of 1876 and soon extended explosively to most Koreans following perceived Japanese meddling in court politics and the assassination of Empress Myeongseong. However, the new and modern reforms pushed forward by the pro-Japanese progressives, the most controversial of which was the mandatory cutting of male hair buns (it was a tradition in Korea and formerly Japan to not cut one's hair for life, mostly out of respect for Confucian ideals), ignited further resentment and discontent. This led to the uprising of the Eulmi temporary armies aimed at avenging the assassination of Empress Myeongseong.
   In 1896, Seo Jae-pil, a naturalized citizen of the United States and the man behind the Tongnip Sinmun (독립 신문), or the Independent Newspaper, formed the so-called Independence Club (독립 협회) in cooperation with progressives who desired autonomy from Japan. The Independence Association, once limited as an organized movement that was led by and included only government officials, soon expanded to include civilians from all classes. The Independence Association stressed the need for a reform-oriented government policy that would eventually lead to full independence. The association also regularly held conferences to strengthen national morale and collected money to continue the issuance of regular editions of the Independent Newspaper, and, more significantly, demolish the Yeongeunmun that had received Chinese envoys from the west of the Yellow Sea to construct the Dongnimmun, or Independence Gate, at that very site.
   In 1897, King Gojong, yielding to rising pressure from both overseas and the demands of the Independence Association-led public opinion, returned to Gyeongungung (modern-day Deoksugung). There, he proclaimed the founding of the Empire of Korea, officially redesignated the national title as such, and declared the new era name Gwangmu (Hangul: 광무, Hanja: 光武) (meaning shinning warrior), effectively severing Korea's historic ties to the Qing Chinese tradition which Korea had adhered to since the fall of the Ming Dynasty, and turning King Gojong into the Gwangmu Emperor, the first imperial head of state and hereditary sovereign of the Empire of Korea. This marked the complete end of the old world order and traditional Chinese tributary system in the Far East, where the status of empire meant independence from Qing dynasty China as with all of its predecessors, and also, at least nominally, implemented the "full and complete" independence of Korea as recognized in 1895.
   The name, meaning "Great Han Empire," was chosen to indicate the revival of the Samhan confederacies of the Proto-Three Kingdoms of Korea, in the tradition of naming new states after historic states (Gubon Sincham, 舊本新參, 구본신참)

Subsequent developments

In 1904, Japan and Korea signed the first agreement between Japan and Korea on August 22nd known as the Treaty of Protection. The Taft-Katsura Agreement (also known as the Taft-Katsura Memorandum) was issued on July 17th 1905 and wasn't a secret pact or agreement between the US and Japan. The Japanese Prime Minister Katsura Taro used the opportunity of Secretary of War William Howard Taft's stopover in Tokyo to extract a statement from Taft of the Roosevelt Administration's feeling toward the Korea question. Taft expressed in the Memorandum how a suzerain relationship with Japan guiding Korea would "contribute to permanent peace in the Far East".
   In September of 1905 Russia and Japan signed the Treaty of Portsmouth ending the Russo-Japanese War and firmly establishing Japan's consolidation of influence on Korea. Secret diplomatic contacts were sent by the Gwangmu Emperor in the fall of 1905 to outside of Korea because presenting Korea's desperate case to preserve their sovereignty through normal diplomatic channels was no longer an option due to the constant surveillance by the Japanese. An emissary Dr. Phillip Jaisohn (Seo Jae-pil), ex- US envoy to Korea Horace Newton Allen, and an American educator who taught in the Imperial schools Dr. Homer Hulbert departed from Korea for America to present Korea's case to the State Department and President Theodore Roosevelt. Unfortunately, the State Department was warned previous of Dr. Hulbert's mission arrival and thus the mission's goal of seeking support from Washington against Japan's bullying into a damaging protectorate treaty was stonewalled from the start. On November 17 1905 the Eulsa Treaty (known also as "1905 Agreement", "The Five Article Treaty" or "The Second Japanese-Korean Agreement") was signed in Korea even before Dr. Hubert's mission entered Washington. Reportedly, the Korean Foreign Minister's seal was snatched and pressed on the document which had been prepared by the Japanese. One week after the forced "treaty" the State Department withdrew its US legation from Korea even before Korea notified the US of their new "protectorate" status.
   The empire began with the law and perception of the international system at the time stacked against the slowly modernizing country. In the end, a weak and unmodernized military, the lack of a clear concept of sovereignty, and remaining legacy of Korea's suzerain relationship with China held Korea back from fending off foreign encroachment. Eventually the Gwangmu Emperor was forced to abdicate in 1907 in favor of his son, King Sunjong, who became the Yunghui Emperor (the second and last emperor of the Empire of Korea), due his attempt to send delegates to the Hague Peace Conference (Hague Convention of 1907) in violation of the arbitrarily implemented Eulsa Treaty. The delegation at The Hague was led by Yi Sang-seol and his deputy Yi Jun presented a diplomatic attempt to reclaim the Empire's sovereignty. Although Korea pleaded its case to the powerful members of colonial elite nations at The Hague, the view of protectorate status of Japan over Korea seemed natural and beneficial at the height of colonialism in the first decade of the twentieth century.
   On August 22, 1910, the Empire of Korea was annexed by Japan with the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty, beginning a 35-year period of Japanese rule.
   Prior to the Korean Empire, several dynastic rulers of Goguryeo, Silla, Baekje, Balhae and Goryeo claimed the right to imperial status and used imperial titles at one time or another.

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