The Imo Incident, also sometimes known as the Imo Mutiny, Soldier's riot or Jingo-gunran in Japanese, was a violent uprising and riot in Seoul beginning in 1882, by soldiers of the Joseon Army who were later joined by disaffected members of the wider Korean population. The revolt broke out in part due to King Gojong's support for reform and modernization, as well as the employment of Japanese military advisors. Some sources credit rumors as the spark which ignited violence, where many Korean soldiers were worried by the prospect of incorporating Japanese officers in a new army structure. The trigger for the riot is largely attributed to a reaction about unpaid soldiers' wages, who found sand and bad rice in soldiers' rations. At the time, soldiers could be paid in rice.
The rioters killed many government officials, destroyed homes of high government ministers and occupied the Changdeokgung. They also turned on the members of the Japanese legation in the city, who barely escaped aboard the British ship HMS Flying Fish. During the day of rioting, a number of Japanese were murdered, including military advisor Horimoto Reizo. The rioters also attacked the home of Min Gyeom-ho, who held joint appointments of Minister of Military Affairs and high-level official of the Agency to Bestow Blessings, lynched lord Heungin, Yi Choe-eung and attempted to murder Queen Min, even reaching the Royal Palace. The poverty-stricken people of Seoul from Wangsim-li and Itaewon joined in the riot and Queen Min escaped to the home of Min Eung-sik by disguising herself as a lady of the court.
Some explain the flare-up of violence by pointing to provocative policies and conduct by Japanese military advisors who had been training the new Special Skills Force since 1881.
Background
Before the 19th century, Korea pursued a strict policy of isolation. Except for official tributary missions to China and occasional diplomatic missions to Japan, which after the mid-18th century became fewer and confined to the island of Tsushima, Koreans were prohibited from leaving the country. All foreigners were barred entry into the country except for Chinese officials on diplomatic missions, and the Japanese who were only allowed to trade at waegwan enclaves in Busan. Foreign trade was mainly limited to China, conducted at designated locations along the Korean–Manchurian border and with Japan in Busan.
Korean politics
In January 1864, King Cheoljong died without a male heir and King Gojong ascended the throne at the age of 12. However, King Gojong was too young and the new king's father, Yi Ha-ŭng, became the Daewongun or Lord of the Great Court who ruled Korea in his son's name. Originally the term Daewongun referred to any person who was not actually the king but whose son took the throne. With his ascendancy to power the Daewongun initiated a set of reforms designed to strengthen the monarchy at the expense of the yangban class, he also pursued an isolationist policy and was determined to purge the kingdom of any foreign ideas that had infiltrated into the nation. In Korean history, the king's in-laws enjoyed great power and the Daewongun acknowledged that any future sons-in-law might threaten his authority. Therefore, he attempted to prevent any possible threat to his rule by selecting as a new queen for his son, an orphaned girl from among the Yŏhŭng Min clan, a clan which lacked powerful political connections.
With Queen Min as his daughter-in-law and the royal consort, the Daewongun felt secure in his power. However, after she had become queen, Min recruited all her relatives and had them appointed to influential positions in the name of the king. The Queen also allied herself with the Daewongun's political enemies, so that by late 1873 she had mobilized enough influence to oust the Daewongun from power. In October 1873, when the Confucian scholar Choe Ik-hyeon submitted a memorial to King Gojong urging him to rule in his own right, Queen Min seized the opportunity to force her father-in-law's retirement as regent. The departure of the Daewongun led to Korea's abandonment of its isolationist policy. Subsequently, the Treaty of Ganghwa in 1876 had led to the opening of Korea.
Implementation of the enlightenment policy
The Korean government immediately after the opening of the country to the outside world, pursued a policy of enlightenment aimed at achieving national prosperity and military strength through the doctrine of tongdo sŏgi, or Eastern ways and Western machines. To modernize their country, the Koreans tried selectively to accept and master Western technology while preserving their country's cultural values and heritage. After the Treaty of Ganghwa was signed, the court dispatched Kim Ki-su, a respected scholar and official to head a mission to Japan. Although Korean kings had sent emissaries to Japan in the past, this was the first such mission since 1810. Kim met a number of officials who showed him some of Japan's reforms and he reluctantly meet with the Japanese emperor. However, Kim left Japan without its modernization and reforms leaving much of an impression on him, and rather than using the trip as an opportunity to introduce Korea to the rapidly changing world as demonstrated by Japanese reform efforts, the mission was treated as one of the occasional missions sent to Japan in the interests of kyorin ('neighborly relations'). Kim Ki-su did present the King with the journal of his observations, titled Iltong kiyu (Record of a Journey to Japan).
It was another four years before the King sent another mission, in 1880. The mission was headed by Kim Hong-jip, who was a more enthusiastic observer of the reforms taking place in Japan. While in Japan, the Chinese diplomat Huang Zunxian presented him with a study called Chaoxian Celue (朝鲜策略; "A Strategy for Korea"). It warned of the threat to Korea posed by the Russians and recommended that Korea maintain friendly relations with Japan, which was at the time too economically weak to be an immediate threat, to work closely with China, and seek an alliance with the United States as a counterweight to Russia. After returning to Korea, Kim presented the document to King Gojong, who was so impressed with the document that he had copies made and distributed to his officials. Many conservatives were outraged by the proposal to seek alliance with Western barbarians or even to maintain friendly relations with Japan. Some even plotted a coup, the King responded by executing one prominent official and banishing others. The document became the basis of Korean foreign policy.
In January 1881, the government launched administrative reforms and established the T'ongni kimu amun ('Office for Extraordinary State Affairs') which was modeled on Chinese administrative structures. Under this overarching organization were 12 sa or agencies, dealing with relations with China (Sadae), diplomatic matters involving other foreign nations (Kyorin), military affairs (Kunmu), border administration (Pyŏnjŏng), foreign trade (T'ongsang), military ordnance (Kunmul), machinery production (Kigye), shipbuilding (Sŏnham), coastal surveillance (Kiyŏn), personnel recruitment (Chŏnsŏn), special procurement (Iyong), and foreign-language schooling (Ŏhak). In May 1881, until their return home in September of that year, a technical mission was sent to Japan to survey its modernized facilities. They traveled all over Japan inspecting administrative, military, educational, and industrial facilities. In October, another small group went to Tianjin to study modern weapons manufacturing, and Chinese technicians were invited to manufacture weapons in Seoul.
Japanese insecurities over Korea
During the 1880s, discussions about Japanese national security focused on the issue of Korean reform. The discourse over the two were interlinked, as the German military adviser Major Jacob Meckel stated, Korea was a "dagger pointed at the heart of Japan". What made Korea of strategic concern was not merely its proximity to Japan but its inability to defend itself against outsiders. If Korea were truly independent, it posed no strategic problem to Japan's national security but if the country remained backward and uncivilized it would remain weak and consequently would be inviting prey for foreign domination. The Korean Peninsula represented the most likely point on the Asian mainland from which an naval invasion of Japan could be launched, just as the Mongol Empire unsuccessfully invaded Japan in the 13th century after conquering Korea. The importance of Korea was reinforced by the Japanese experiences in the Imjin War in the late 16th century. As early as 1873, influential Japanese generals and statesmen such as Saigō Takamori had called for an invasion of Korea.
The political consensus in Japan was that Korean independence lay, as it had been for Meiji Japan, through the importation of "civilization" from the West. Korea required a program of self-strengthening like the post-Restoration reforms enacted in Japan. The Japanese interest in the reform of Korea was not purely altruistic. Not only would these reforms enable Korea to resist foreign intrusion, which was in Japan's direct interest, but in being a conduit of change, they would also have opportunity to play a larger role on the peninsula. To Meiji leaders, the issue was not whether Korea should be reformed but how reform might be accomplished. There was a choice of adopting a passive role requiring the cultivation of reformist elements within Korea and rendering them assistance whenever possible, or adopting a more aggressive policy, actively interfering in Korean politics to assure that reform took place. Many advocates of reform in Japan, swung between these two positions.
Japan in the early 1880s was weak, as a result of internal uprisings and samurai rebellions during the previous decade. The country was also struggling financially with inflation as a result of these internal factors. Subsequently, the Meiji government adopted a passive policy, encouraging the Korea court to follow the Japanese model but offering little concrete assistance except for the dispatch of the small military mission headed by Lieutenant Horimoto Reizo to train the Pyŏlgigun. What worried the Japanese was the activities of the Chinese, who appeared to be thwarting the fragile group of reformers in Korea. The Qing government had loosened its hold over Korea in 1876, when the Japanese succeeded in establishing a legal basis for Korean independence. However, Li Hongzhang and many other Chinese high officials were alarmed by the Japanese annexation of the Ryukyu kingdom, from their perspective what had happened to this former tributary state could happen to another as well.
Shufeldt treaty
After 1879, China's relations with Korea came under the authority of Li Hongzhang, who had emerged as one of the most influential figures in China after playing an important role during the Taiping Rebellion, and an advocate of the self-strengthening movement. In 1879, Li was appointed as governor-general of Zhili Province and the imperial commissioner for the northern ports. He was in charge of China's Korea policy and urged Korean officials to adopt China's own self-strengthening program to strengthen their country in response of foreign threats, to which King Gojong was receptive. The Chinese were wary of the Japanese intentions and sought to thwart Japanese influence on the peninsula after the conclusion of the Gangwha Treaty. The United States provided a possible solution: Li concluded that if he encouraged Korea to enter into treaty talks with the Americans, China could use the United States to offset Japan's growing influence. The Americans had shown an interest in entering into treaty negotiations with the Koreans and had dispatched Commodore Robert Shufeldt to East Asia waters. Shufeldt had first visited Japanese officials in 1880, to see if they would mediate between American officials and the Koreans, but the Japanese did not respond to his offer. In 1880, following Chinese advice, King Gojong decided to establish diplomatic ties with the United States, which was a break with tradition. Shufeldt then traveled to Tianjin, where he met with Li Hongzhang, who negotiated on behalf of the Koreans at the talks. After negotiations through Chinese mediation (1881–1882), the Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce, and Navigation was formally signed between the United States and Korea in Incheon on May 22, 1882.