Geoncheong-gung, King Gojong’s private residence in Gyeongbok Palace, must have an increased number of visitors these days as the recent spats with the Japanese over Dokdo and the sex slavery during World War II should have raised people’s historical consciousness. As the volumes of Japanese and Chinese travelers coming to the palace ― one of the main tourist attractions in Seoul ― are growing steadily, some tour guides bring their groups to the place located in the rear part of the palace compound. 

A few years ago, the Cultural Heritage Administration restored Geoncheong-gung, the scene of the most tragic event in Korea’s modern history. On the night of Oct. 8, 1895, a band of Japanese intruders assassinated Queen Myeongseong at the Gonnyeonghap hall of Geoncheong-gung and burned her body in a bush nearby, thus removing the main obstacle to Japan’s encroachment of Korean sovereignty. Japanese troops attacked Korean palace guards to help this outrage that I would compare to the Massacre of Nanjing in terms of barbarity.

It is no surprise that the Japanese colonialists demolished this house shortly before the formal annexation of Korea in 1910 as if to erase the trace of their crime. They built a museum on the grounds towards the end of the colonial rule. The extensive restoration of Gyeongbok Palace since the 1990s included the reconstruction of Geoncheong-gung as its final project, completing it in 2008.

Geoncheong-gung was built in the style of a commoner’s house as King Gojong and his queen wanted to enjoy coziness in their private quarters amidst the political complications of the era when all major powers were contending to secure more interests on the Korean Peninsula. They particularly sought to escape from the influence of Regent Daewongun, the king’s father, who was stubbornly against the modernization of the nation.

The king moved into the new residence sometime in the early 1880s and installed electric lighting in 1887 for the first time in the country with a generator provided by an American company. The royal couple walked over Chwihyang-gyo bridge to Hyangwon-jeong pavilion in the middle of a pond outside the house to spend some evening hours forgetting the many woes of the declining dynasty.

The soldiers’ revolt in 1882 (Imo Gunlan) set off competitive increases of military presence by Japan and Qing China in Korea while internal disputes raged between the reformists and conservatives. The abortive coup by a group of young reformists in 1884 precipitated a showdown between the Japanese and the Chinese, and the peasants’ uprising that started in the southwestern region in 1894 eventually caused a war between the two powers. The murder of the queen took place only several months after the Sino-Japanese War ended with Japan’s victory.

Gojong left Geoncheong-gung after the assassination of his wife and had a year-long stay in the Russian legation before moving again to Gyeongun-gung Palace. A fire at Gyeongun-gung forced him to take shelter at Jungmyeong-jeon house, originally a royal library, which later became the place where the 1905 treaty was signed to virtually end the independence of the Daehan Empire, renamed from Joseon Kingdom.

Japan, fresh from victory in its war with Russia, was then the only viable imperial power to lord over Korea. Gojong refused to put his signature on the five-article document, drafted by the Japanese foreign ministry to deprive Korea of all external authorities. With Japanese troops surrounding the compound and its vicinity, five out of the total eight ministers succumbed to Japanese threats and Foreign Minister Pak Je-sun finally pressed his seal on the paper on the early morning of Nov. 18, 1905.

Jungmyeong-jeon, a two-story brick building located in Jeong-dong next to the present U.S. ambassador’s residence, has recently been restored by the heritage administration as a small museum to show the posterity how the 500-year-old dynasty fell prey to the rise of imperialism in Asia a century ago. On display is the copy of the treaty which conspicuously lacks the king’s signature. Also shown are his letters in nine foreign languages addressed to the heads of as many foreign nations, denying the validity of the pact announced by the Japanese government.

A photocopy of the London Tribune’s Dec. 6, 1906, edition has a single-column article reporting the Korean king’s repudiation of the protectorate treaty with Japan, so much time after the incident. In his private letters to his three emissaries to the Second International Peace Conference in the Hague, the king exhorts them to expose Japan’s stealing of a nation to the assembly of 44 states, but they were barred from attending the meeting held from June to October 1907.

Moving about in the narrow halls of Jungmyeong-jeon, and walking in the yard of Geoncheong-gung, I felt rage burning deep inside my chest. One fire of wrath was directed to the imperialist leaders of Japan who wrongly chose to encroach upon peaceful neighbors as a means of national revival following the Meiji Restoration to cause so much tragedy to them. The second was toward the contemporary Japanese leadership who seem to have grown immune to the collective sense of guilt that had gripped the nation for decades after the defeat in the Pacific War.

The third indignation is on ourselves, also flashing toward the past and the present. The strife-torn ruling class engaged consumptively in impractical debates on Confucian doctrines and the bureaucracy geared to the exploitation of peasants and persecution of Catholic converts ruined the nation as they neglected the chances of self-awakening. Then how are we doing now?

The Republic of Korea happened to become one of the world’s major economic powers as its people, inured to hardships through the war, worked hard at home and abroad and invested everything in education to rise up the social ladder and command bigger personal wealth. They enjoy political freedom that warrants fair and unfair competition, and the nation today finds itself brewing the same pattern of factionalism and corruption as the 19th century Joseon society had struggled with.

If I am allowed to make a modest proposal in this crucial election year, I would suggest that all contenders from the conservative, liberal and radical circles, and even the extremist pro-North Korean group, hold a one-day truce and take a tour of Geoncheong-gung and Jungmyong-jeon to take a solemn look back on the history of how the state was destroyed. It will perhaps help them readjust their visions with a keener sense of mission for national survival and advancement.

By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer of The Korea Herald. He served as the director of the Korea Overseas Information Service during the 2000s. He can be reached at kmyongsik@hanmail.net. ― Ed.