Korea's Fight for Freedom Part 9

"It is necessary for us to show these men something of the strong hand of j.a.pan," one of the leading j.a.panese in Seoul, a close a.s.sociate of the Prince Ito, told me shortly before I left that city. "The people of the eastern mountain districts have seen few or no j.a.panese soldiers, and they have no idea of our strength. We must convince them how strong we are."

As I stood on a mountain-pa.s.s, looking down on the valley leading to Ichon, I recalled these words of my friend. The "strong hand of j.a.pan" was certainly being shown here. I beheld in front of me village after village reduced to ashes.

I rode down to the nearest heap of ruins. The place had been quite a large village, with probably seventy or eighty houses. Destruction, thorough and complete, had fallen upon it. Not a single house was left, and not a single wall of a house. Every pot with the winter stores was broken. The very earthen fireplaces were wrecked.

The villagers had come back to the ruins again, and were already rebuilding. They had put up temporary refuges of straw. The young men were out on the hills cutting wood, and every one else was toiling at house-making. The crops were ready to harvest, but there was no time to gather them in. First of all, make a shelter.

During the next few days sights like these were to be too common to arouse much emotion. But for the moment I looked around on these people, ruined and homeless, with quick pity. The old men, venerable and dignified, as Korean old men mostly are, the young wives, many with babes at their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the st.u.r.dy men, had composed, if I could judge by what I saw, an exceptionally clean and peaceful community.

There was no house in which I could rest, so I sat down under a tree, and while Min-gun was cooking my dinner the village elders came around with their story. One thing especially struck me. Usually the Korean woman was shy, retiring, and afraid to open her mouth in the presence of a stranger.

Here the women spoke up as freely as the men. The great calamity had broken down the barriers of their silence.

"We are glad," they said, "that a European man has come to see what has befallen us. We hope you will tell your people, so that all men may know.

"There had been some fighting on the hills beyond our village," and they pointed to the hills a mile or two further on. "The Eui-pyung" (the volunteers) "had been there, and had torn up some telegraph poles. The Eui-pyung came down from the eastern hills. They were not our men, and had nothing to do with us. The j.a.panese soldiers came, and there was a fight, and the Eui-pyung fell back.

"Then the j.a.panese soldiers marched out to our village, and to seven other villages. Look around and you can see the ruins of all. They spoke many harsh words to us. 'The Eui-pyung broke down the telegraph poles and you did not stop them,' they said. 'Therefore you are all the same as Eui-pyung. Why have you eyes if you do not watch, why have you strength if you do not prevent the Eui-pyung from doing-mischief? The Eui-pyung came to your houses and you fed them. They have gone, but we will punish you.'

"And they went from house to house, taking what they wanted and setting all alight. One old man--he had lived in his house since he was a babe suckled by his mother--saw a soldier lighting up his house. He fell on his knees and caught the foot of the soldier. 'Excuse me, excuse me,' he said, with many tears. 'Please do not burn my house. Leave it for me that I may die there. I am an old man, and near my end.'

"The soldier tried to shake him off, but the old man prayed the more.

'Excuse me, excuse me,' he moaned. Then the soldier lifted his gun and shot the old man, and we buried him.

"One who was near to her hour of child-birth was lying in a house. Alas for her! One of our young men was working in the field cutting gra.s.s. He was working and had not noticed the soldiers come. He lifted his knife, sharpening it in the sun. 'There is a Eui-pyung,' he said, and he fired and killed him. One man, seeing the fire, noticed that all his family records were burning. He rushed in to try and pull them out, but as he rushed a soldier fired, and he fell."

A man, whose appearance proclaimed him to be of a higher cla.s.s than most of the villagers, then spoke in bitter tones. "We are rebuilding our houses,"

he said, "but of what use is it for us to do so? I was a man of family. My fathers and fathers' fathers had their record. Our family papers are destroyed. Henceforth we are a people without a name, disgraced and outcast."

I found, when I went further into the country, that this view was fairly common. The Koreans regard their family existence with peculiar veneration.

The family record means everything to them. When it is destroyed, the family is wiped out It no longer exists, even though there are many members of it still living. As the province of Chung-Chong-Do prides itself on the large number of its substantial families, there could be no more effective way of striking at them than this.

I rode out of the village heavy-hearted. What struck me most about this form of punishment, however, was not the suffering of the villagers so much as the futility of the proceedings, from the j.a.panese point of view. In place of pacifying a people, they were turning hundreds of quiet families into rebels. During the next few days I was to see at least one town and many scores of villages treated as this one. To what end? The villagers were certainly not the people fighting the j.a.panese. All they wanted to do was to look quietly after their own affairs. j.a.pan professed a desire to conciliate Korea and to win the affection and support of her people. In one province at least the policy of house-burning had reduced a prosperous community to ruin, increased the rebel forces, and sown a crop of bitter hatred which it would take generations to root out.

We rode on through village after village and hamlet after hamlet burned to the ground. The very att.i.tude of the people told me that the hand of j.a.pan had struck hard there. We would come upon a boy carrying a load of wood. He would run quickly to the side of the road when he saw us, expecting he knew not what. We pa.s.sed a village with a few houses left. The women flew to shelter as I drew near. Some of the stories that I heard later helped me to understand why they should run. Of course they took me for a j.a.panese.

All along the route I heard tales of the j.a.panese plundering, where they had not destroyed. At places the village elders would bring me an old man badly beaten by a j.a.panese soldier because he resisted being robbed. Then came darker stories. In Seoul I had laughed at them. Now, face to face with the victims, I could laugh no more.

That afternoon we rode into Ichon itself. This is quite a large town. I found it practically deserted. Most of the people had fled to the hills, to escape from the j.a.panese. I slept that night in a schoolhouse, now deserted and unused. There were the cartoons and animal pictures and pious mottoes around, but the children were far away. I pa.s.sed through the market-place, usually a very busy spot. There was no sign of life there.

I turned to some of the Koreans.

"Where are your women? Where are your children?" I demanded. They pointed to the high and barren hills looming against the distant heavens.

"They are up there," they said. "Better for them to lie on the barren hillsides than to be outraged here."

IX

WITH THE REBELS

Day after day we travelled through a succession of burned-out villages, deserted towns, and forsaken country. The fields were covered with a rich and abundant harvest, ready to be gathered, and impossible for the invaders to destroy. But most of the farmers were hiding on the mountainsides, fearing to come down. The few courageous men who had ventured to come back were busy erecting temporary shelters for themselves before the winter cold came on, and had to let the harvest wait. Great flocks of birds hung over the crops, feasting undisturbed.

Up to Chong-ju nearly one-half of the villages on the direct line of route had been destroyed by the j.a.panese. At Chong-ju I struck directly across the mountains to Chee-chong, a day's journey. Four-fifths of the villages and hamlets on the main road between these two places were burned to the ground.

The few people who had returned to the ruins always disclaimed any connection with the "Righteous Army." They had taken no part in the fighting, they said. The volunteers had come down from the hills and had attacked the j.a.panese; the j.a.panese had then retaliated by punis.h.i.+ng the local residents. The fact that the villagers had no arms, and were peaceably working at home-building, seemed at the time to show the truth of their words. Afterwards when I came up with the Korean fighters I found these statements confirmed. The rebels were mostly townsmen from Seoul, and not villagers from that district.

Between 10,000 and 20,000 people had been driven to the hills in this small district alone, either by the destruction of their homes or because of fear excited by the acts of the soldiers.

Soon after leaving Ichon I came on a village where the Red Cross was flying over one of the houses. The place was a native Anglican church. I was later on to see the Red Cross over many houses, for the people had the idea that by thus appealing to the Christians' G.o.d they made a claim on the pity and charity of the Christian nations.

In the evening, after I had settled down in the yard of the native inn, the elders of the Church came to see me, two quiet-spoken, grave, middle-aged men. They were somewhat downcast, and said that their village had suffered considerably, the parties of soldiers pa.s.sing through having taken what they wanted and being guilty of some outrages. A gardener's wife had been violated by a j.a.panese soldier, another soldier standing guard over the house with rifle and fixed bayonet. A boy, attracted by the woman's screams, ran and fetched the husband. He came up, knife in hand. "But what could he do?" the elders asked. "There was the soldier, with rifle and bayonet, before the door."

Later on I was to hear other stories, very similar to this. These tales were confirmed on the spot, so far as confirmation was possible. In my judgment such outrages were not numerous, and were limited to exceptional parties of troops. But they produced an effect altogether disproportionate to their numbers. The Korean has high ideals about the sanct.i.ty of his women, and the fear caused by a comparatively few offences was largely responsible for the flight of mult.i.tudes to the hills.

In the burning of villages, a certain number of Korean women and children were undoubtedly killed. The j.a.panese troops seem in many cases to have rushed a village and to have indulged in miscellaneous wild shooting, on the chance of there being rebels around, before firing the houses. In one hamlet, where I found two houses still standing, the folk told me that these had been left because the j.a.panese shot the daughter of the owner of one of them, a girl of ten. "When they shot her," the villagers said, "we approached the soldiers, and said, 'Please excuse us, but since you have killed the daughter of this man you should not burn his house.' And the soldiers listened to us."

In towns like Chong-ju and Won-ju practically all the women and children and better-cla.s.s families had disappeared. The shops were shut and barricaded by their owners before leaving, but many of them had been forced open and looted. The destruction in other towns paled to nothing, however, before the havoc wrought in Chee-chong. Here was a town completely destroyed.

Chee-chong was, up to the late summer of 1907, an important rural centre, containing between 2,000 and 3,000 inhabitants, and beautifully situated in a sheltered plain, surrounded by high mountains. It was a favourite resort of high officials, a Korean Bath or Cheltenham. Many of the houses were large, and some had tiled roofs--a sure evidence of wealth.

When the "Righteous Army" began operations, one portion of it occupied the hills beyond Chee-chong. The j.a.panese sent a small body of troops into the town. These were attacked one night on three sides, several were killed, and the others were compelled to retire. The j.a.panese despatched reinforcements, and after some fighting regained lost ground. They then determined to make Chee-chong an example to the countryside. The entire town was put to the torch. The soldiers carefully tended the flames, piling up everything for destruction. Nothing was left, save one image of Buddha and the magistrate's yamen. When the Koreans fled, five men, one woman, and a child, all wounded, were left behind. These disappeared in the flames.

It was a hot early autumn when I reached Chee-chong. The brilliant suns.h.i.+ne revealed a j.a.panese flag waving-over a hillock commanding the town, and glistened against the bayonet of a j.a.panese sentry. I dismounted and walked down the streets and over the heaps of ashes. Never have I witnessed such complete destruction. Where a month before there had been a busy and prosperous community, there was now nothing but lines of little heaps of black and gray dust and cinders. Not a whole wall, not a beam, and not an unbroken jar remained. Here and there a man might be seen poking among the ashes, seeking for aught of value. The search was vain. Chee-chong had been wiped off the map. "Where are your people?" I asked the few searchers.

"They are lying on the hillsides," came the reply.

Up to this time I had not met a single rebel soldier, and very few j.a.panese. My chief meeting with the j.a.panese occurred the previous day at Chong-ju. As I approached that town, I noticed that its ancient walls were broken down. The stone arches of the city gates were left, but the gates themselves and most of the walls had gone. A j.a.panese sentry and a gendarme stood at the gateway, and cross-examined me as I entered. A small body of j.a.panese troops were stationed here, and operations in the country around were apparently directed from this centre.

I at once called upon the j.a.panese Colonel in charge. His room, a great apartment in the local governor's yamen, showed on all sides evidences of the thoroughness with which the j.a.panese were conducting this campaign.

Large maps, with red marks, revealed strategic positions now occupied. A little printed pamphlet, with maps, evidently for the use of officers, lay on the table.

The Colonel received me politely, but expressed his regrets that I had come. The men he was fighting were mere robbers, he said, and there was nothing for me to see. He gave me various warnings about dangers ahead.

Then he very kindly explained that the j.a.panese plan was to hem in the volunteers, two sections of troops operating from either side and making a circle around the seat of trouble. These would unite and gradually drive the Koreans towards a centre.

The maps which the Colonel showed me settled my movements. A glance at them made clear that the j.a.panese had not yet occupied the line of country between Chee-chong and Won-ju. Here, then, was the place where I must go if I would meet the Korean bands. So it was towards Won-ju that I turned our horses' heads on the following day, after gazing on the ruins of Chee-chong.

It soon became evident that I was very near to the Korean forces. At one place, not far from Chee-chong, a party of them had arrived two days before I pa.s.sed, and had demanded arms. A little further on Koreans and j.a.panese had narrowly escaped meeting in the village street, not many hours before I stopped there. As I approached one hamlet, the inhabitants fled into the high corn, and on my arrival not a soul was to be found. They mistook me for a j.a.panese out on a shooting and burning expedition.

It now became more difficult to obtain carriers. Our ponies were showing signs of fatigue, for we were using them very hard over the mountainous country. It was impossible to hire fresh animals, as the j.a.panese had commandeered all. Up to Won-ju I had to pay double the usual rate for my carriers. From Won-ju onwards carriers absolutely refused to go further, whatever the pay.

"On the road beyond here many bad men are to be found," they told me at Won-ju. "These bad men shoot every one who pa.s.ses. We will not go to be shot." My own boys were showing some uneasiness. Fortunately, I had in my personal servant Min-gun, and in the leader of the pack-pony two of the staunchest Koreans I have ever known.

The country beyond Won-ju was splendidly suited for an ambuscade, such as the people there promised me. The road was rocky and broken, and largely lay through a narrow, winding valley, with overhanging cliffs. Now we would come on a splendid gorge, evidently of volcanic origin; now we would pause to chip a bit of gold-bearing quartz from the rocks, for-this is a famous gold centre of Korea. An army might have been hidden securely around.

Twilight was just gathering as we stopped at a small village where we intended remaining for the night The people were sullen and unfriendly, a striking contrast to what I had found elsewhere. In other parts they all came and welcomed me, sometimes refusing to take payment for the accommodation they supplied. "We are glad that a white man has come," But in this village the men gruffly informed me that there was not a sc.r.a.p of horse food or of rice to be had. They advised us to go on to another place, fifteen li ahead.

We started out. When we had ridden a little way from the village I chanced to glance back at some trees skirting a corn-field. A man, half-hidden by a bush, was fumbling with something in his hands, something which he held down as I turned. I took it to be the handle of a small reaping-knife, but it was growing too dark to see clearly. A minute later, however, there came a smart "ping" past my ear, followed by the thud of a bullet striking metal.