Three centuries after its invasion of Korea a resurgent Japanese empire used blackmail and gunboat diplomacy to subdue its neighbour
Japan and Korea went to war several times over the centuries, but it was during a single period where the former emerged triumphant. Its origin was the ebb of the Joseon dynasty in the 1860s. At that point the longstanding patron-client relationship with the Qing dynasty ruling China was on shaky ground; a civil war had wrecked the empire and its economy was ailing after decades of unfair trade with European powers.
Skirmishes with the Americans and Russians, both of whom were eager to ‘open up’ Korea for their merchandise and technology, did the Joseon court no favours. By 1876 the youthful King Gojong made the sensible decision to accommodate the Japanese with the Ganghwa Treaty, which allowed investments from Tokyo. At the time it was explicitly forbidden to station any Japanese forces inside Korea. Still, Tokyo was patient and its upheavals in the 1870s as the Meiji-era kick-started industrialisation and political reform meant there was a brief respite for Korea.
Barely 20 years later the Empire of Japan locked horns with the Qing dynasty in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-95). Both countries, having maintained tenuous peace for centuries, were adamant in their belief they could rise as Asian powers equal to the West. But Japan had done a splendid job in building its army and navy. Historical knowledge and strategic calculation demanded the Korean peninsula be seized as the fastest way to reach China’s vulnerable northern provinces. This justified the army’s landing on the peninsula’s western coast to reach the capital Hanyang (modern-day Seoul) and then dash to the Yalu River. It was 302 years since the last samurai had set foot in Korea and now a modern Japanese invasion force returned.
In an awful repeat of past mistakes King Gojong and his court were caught unprepared by the Japanese, whose goal was the same as during the 16th century – reaching Manchuria to defeat China. Neither could thousands of Qing soldiers stationed in Korea repulse the onslaught. It was the same with the Qing’s decrepit half-modernised navy and its useless cannon made in Chinese forges. The Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895 was a humiliation for China and gave Japan partial control of the Yellow Sea – later undone by Russian threats – and paved the way for an unopposed campaign to annex Formosa (modern-day Taiwan). New arrangements were made with King Gojong’
