Hong
Jong-u
The first Korean
to visit France, the translator of the first Korean
tales to be published in the West, as well as the
assassin of the reformer Kim Ok-gyun, yet relatively
little reliable information about Hong Jong-u is
available in English. The main source of information
about him is a Korean volume 그래서 나
는김옥균을 쏘았다 (So I
shot Kim Ok-gyun) by 조
재곤(Jo Jae-gon) and published by 푸른역사 (Pureun yeoksa) in 2005. The page
numbers in the following text refer to this volume.
There is a
summary of the main contents (in Korean) in
Yonhap News .
Basic
Biography
Hong Jong-u (洪
鍾宇)
was born on the 17th day of the 11th lunar
month, 1850 [page 31], probably in Ansan, Gyeonggi
province. He was the only son of Hong Jae-won (洪
在源,
1827-1898), of whom virtually nothing is known. His
mother was a member of the Gyeongju Kim clan [page
63]. Hong Jong-u's Ja was
SeongSuk (聲肅), his Ho was Ujeong (羽亭), his clan was the Namyang (南
陽)
Hong clan, he was the 32nd generation (세 손) of the
military branch (남양군파). The Namyang Hong clan formed part of
the Noron (老論) Old Faction and some members held
significant posts throughout the later Joseon period,
but Hong Jong-u was descended from Hong Gye-deok (洪啓德), the third son of Hong U-sung (洪 禹崇), early in the
18th century, and none of his ancestors
during those 5 generations held any official position.
For many years, until 1894, Hong Jae-won lived in
Gogeum-do in South Jeolla, where he is said to have
known great poverty. He died in the 6th
month of 1898 and received posthumous honors as 가선대부 의정부참찬 (official at
the State Council), as part of the reward for his
son's patriotic act in killing Kim Ok-gyun.
Hong's
mother died in the 3rd lunar month of 1886.
By this time he was married to a woman from the Jeonju
Yi clan born in 1855. According to Régamey, they had
one daughter. It was probably only after his return in
1893 that Hong discovered that his wife had died in
the 11th month of 1892 (or May 1893,
according to his note to Régamey from Kobe). At
some later date he married a daughter of Park Haeng-ha
who was much younger than himself, born in 1876. They
had two sons and a daughter. The elder son, Hong
Sun-bok, was born in 1897 and the second, Hong
Sun-jin, in 1903. The daughters later married, their
husbands’ names being Kim Kyu-seok and Park Gwang-rim,
and the name of Hong Sun-jin is found once among the
members of a church in Wando island in 1926. Beyond
that nothing is known of the family’s further history.
[page 253] In the autumn of 1899, Hong arranged for
the reburial of his mother, father and first wife
together in graves located in what is now Yeoksam-dong
in Gangnam.
The
death of Hong Jong-u is recorded in the family
register (족
보
jokbo) as the 2nd day of the first lunar
month 1913. There are differing, unreliable reports of
his final years, and nothing certain is known of where
he died; Mokpo and Incheon are both mentioned. Several
reports claim that he died of starvation.
Early life
For much of his childhood, his family seems to have
lived in the island of Gogeum-do in South Jeolla,
where they barely survived, reduced to total poverty.
Yet he must have received some kind of education. In
the Preface to the Guide, Henri
Chevalier recalls that Hong told him that “in his
youth he had studied divination a lot, and that had
earned him a severe reprimand from his father, and the
burning of all his suspect books.”
Equally
significant is Régamey's summary of Hong's basic
political positions: (1) Korea should be completely
independent of China, Japan and Russia; (2) the
barriers that isolate Korea from the outside world
should be done away with. On this second point,
Regamey adds that Hong had been a friend of the first
Minister Plenipotentiary sent by Joseon to Washington,
Park Jeong-yang. He mentions that Park was recalled at
the demand of China for failing to respect the Chinese
wish that he should be subject to strict Chinese
control, since this was a time when China was
asserting its right to treat Korea as a vassal state.
Hong seems also to have expressed bitter resentment at
the British support for the Chinese position in not
allowing Jo Sin-hui (조신희), the
ambassador the Korean king had sent to Europe, to
leave Hong Kong "for 2 years" (1887 - 1890).
Hong
seems to have decided to visit France in hope of
receiving the same inspiration for democratic reform
that Meiji Japan had received. In order to earn the
fare, he went to Japan in 1888, after obtaining a
Korean passport dated 1887 authorizing his visit to
France (quoted by Régamey). He worked in Osaka as a
typesetter for the Asahi Newspaper
and raised funds by giving lectures etc. [page 64] He
studied French and Japanese and read much about the
outside world while he saved the money he earned.
Régamey reports that Hong received a letter of
introduction to Georges Clemenceau from the Japanese
politician Itagaki Taisuke.
In France
Leaving Japan for France, a 40-day journey, he arrived
in Marseille and headed for Paris. Régamey
says he arrived there on December 24, 1890. Luckily,
he had been given a letter of introduction addressed
to Fr. Gustave Mutel, a priest of the Paris Foreign
Missions, who had spent 5 years in Korea 1880-5, then
returned to France to be in charge of the seminary.
However, after the death of Bishop Blanc in Korea,
Mutel had been appointed Vicar Apostolic of Korea in
August 1890 and he left Marseille for Korea on
December 14, 1890, just as Hong was arriving. When
Hong knocked on the door of the MEP in the rue du Bac,
speaking no French, they first called the priests who
knew Chinese, to no avail. Luckily, Fr. Pierre-Xavier
Mugabure, who had lived in Japan since 1875 (and was
later to be archbishop of Tokyo), was there and they
could talk in Japanese. A Catholic family was
contacted and Hong was given an attic room in their
house in the rue de Turenne to stay in (for a while,
at least).
Félix
Régamey was inspector of drawing in the schools of
Paris at that time but, more important, he had
accompanied Émile Guimet on a
journey round the world in 1876-1877, where he was
particularly struck by Japan, and he published a
number of books inspired by it during the rest of his
life. It is an interesting fact that he was involved
in the Paris Commune of 1870 and as a result had to go
into exile in London for a time. In 1872, he provided
financial help for Rimbaud et Verlaine when they in
turn arrived in London, and made drawings of them at
that troubled time in their relationship. Félix
Régamey says he first met Hong Jong-u only a few days
after his arrival. He says Hong could speak no French,
and when a Japanese interpreter was brought in, Hong
very soon showed signs of strong Korean pride and
anti-Japanese feeling. The impression of caged fury
displayed then impressed Régamey, reminding him of a
captured tiger he had seen in Malaysia. Hong claimed
that he had come to learn French law and French
customs, but he also told Régamey that his ambition
was to become leader of a group of young people like
himself, currently residing in Russia and the US, who
wished to lead Korea in the same direction as Japan’s
Meiji reforms, an independent, modernizing
transformation. He was, it seems, especially
interested in the French political situation. Régamey
at once invited him into his home and says that they
lived under the same roof “for months.” Later he seems
to have lived in 'hotels' in rue Serpente (near the
Sorbonne) and quai des Grands Augustins.
Throughout his
time in France, Hong always wore Korean dress. Régamey
(and others) tried to find some benefactors for him,
but it is clear that few were forthcoming. There was a
fruitless visit to the aged Ernest Renan. Perhaps more
significant was the meeting with François George
Cogordan, who had been France’s Minister
Plenipotentiary in Beijing and had come to Seoul to
sign the treaty with Korea only a couple of months
after signing the Treaty of Tianjin with China. Deeply
moved to see someone he had seen in Korea, Hong threw
himself on his knees to kiss his hands, which might
have surprised him. However, the official French
attitude toward Korea at this time was oddly
indifferent; after the signing of the 1886 treaty, it
was not until 1888 that Victor Collin de Plancy was
sent to be the first French consul in Korea. Cogordan
refused ever to meet Hong again, which must surely
have humiliated him.
In
that same year, 1888, the amateur ethnographer Charles
Varat arrived in Korea, intending to undertake a study
of the country and collect many artifacts from it.
That was also the year in which Émile Guimet opened
the Musée Guimet in Paris. Many of the objects
collected by Varat came into the museum. It was only
natural, then, that Hong Jong-u should be asked to
help catalogue the Korean items in the new museum,
thanks to the help of Régamey, as a way of earning his
keep. At the same time, he somehow managed to learn
enough French to prepare translations of three Korean
texts.
The
first of these, Printemps parfumé (Perfumed
springtime, a translation of the name of Chunhyang,
the main character) was published in the the “Petite
Collection Guillaume” in 1892, and has the name J.-H.
Rosny as the sole author, although the name of Hong is
mentioned in a footnote to the Preface. J.-H. Rosny
was the pseudonym of the brothers Joseph Henri Honoré
Boex (1856–1940) and Séraphin Justin François Boex
(1859–1948), both born in Brussels. It seems that Printemps Parfumé
was in fact the work of Séraphin since La Convention
littéraire de 1935 (designed to distinguish
between the share of each in the jointly published
works) attributes it to J.-H. Rosny Jeune. The Preface
claims that the text is essentially the translation of
a Hangeul version of the Chun-Hyang story. Such a text
seems to have been available in the Musée Guimet,
included among the items sent back from Korea by
Charles Varat and Victor Collin de Plancy. The names
of the lovers are given here as I-Toreng and
Tchoun-Hyang; they meet in the city named Nam-Hyong,
in Couang-hoa-lou, which is explained as being “a
great house built on a bridge,” rather than “a
pavillion beside a bridge.” The French version does
not indicate that Chun-hyang’s mother is a “gisaeng”
but simply says that she is a commoner. One major
difference with the traditional tale is that, once
I-Toreng glimpses Tchoun-Hyang on her swing, in order
to be able to meet and talk with her he dresses as a
beautiful girl. He also pays an old woman to bring
them together. I-Toreng then says “she” would marry
Tchoun-Hyang if she were a man. Tchoun-Hyang indicates
similar feelings. I-Toreng makes her sign a paper to
that effect, then reveals that he is in fact a man.
They become lovers at once. The rest of the story
follows the familiar tale and the later part includes
social satire on the way the mandarins exploit the
common folk.
In
1895, after Hong’s return East, Le Bois Sec
Refleuri was published in the Bibliothèque de
vulgarisation, a division of the Annales du Musée
Guimet. This time, Hong’s name stands alone as
the author / translator. He must have prepared the
book for publication before leaving with some care,
since it includes an exchange of dedicatory messages
with Hyacinthe
Loyson, who mentions visits by Hong to his
family home in Neuilly. “Father Hyacinthe Loyson”
(originally Charles Loyson) was a particularly
celebrated figure in religious circles and one can
only wonder how Hong came to develop such a deep
friendship with him. The dedicatory messages have
little or nothing to do with the contents of the book,
being on both sides concerned with mutual respect and
questions of faith. Loyson had been a Catholic priest,
a Carmelite, and fron 1865 preached the lenten
Conférences at Notre Dame de Paris for several years.
His modern ideas led to his expulsion from the
Catholic Church in 1869. Some years later he married
an American widow and they finally settled in Neuilly.
He gave frequent lectures and was associated with
various “Old Catholic” groups but was essentially an
independent, spiritual man with a radically open mind.
The
truly interesting aspect of Hong’s dedication is the
concern he shows to formulate precisely his religious
ideas, in a way that clearly reflects his
conversations with Loyson. He mentions how deeply
struck he was on reading Loyson’s book (Mon testament :
Par Hyacinthe Loyson Père Hyacinthe. Ma
protestation. Mon mariage. Devant la mort) which
was only published in 1893 (an
English edition appeared in 1895).
Hong stresses in a rather un-Confucian way his
conviction that there is a God: “I believe that a
single God has given us life. He is not a strange
being dwelling far, very far away in the depths of
ethereal space in a fantastic palace built beyond the
stars. He is the Soul of our souls, the Life of our
lives, our true Father, He in whom and by whom we all
are. We are all brothers, for we are all issued from
him; but how much more do we feel united as brothers
since we both believe in him, even though our faith is
expressed in different ways.” His letter ends with the
indication that he is about to leave France and return
home; the last lines are a beautiful indication of his
deep affection for Loyson: “When you see passing in
the sky white clouds coming from the East, think of
the faithful friend who is thinking of you, far away
on a distant shore, and who is talking about you to
all the clouds and all the birds heading West-wards,
in the hope that some of them, docile to his voice,
may come and revive in you heart the memory of his
friendship.”
Unlike Printemps
parfumé, Le Bois Sec Refleuri can hardly be
considered as a “translation” in
the normal sense. It has no obvious direct Korean
original. Already at the
time, the scholarly British diplomat Aston noted in
a review (T’oung
Pao 1895 Vol 6 p 526-7), “we seem
to breathe an atmosphère far removed from Corea.”
The complex narrative
structure of Le
Bois Sec Refleuri is unlike
any known Korean original and although it owes some
features to the Sim Cheong
tale, that is integrated into a complex set of
skillfully interwoven stories
that are unlike anything found in Korea. The volume
containing Le
Bois Sec Refleuri also contains a
summary of Korean history which is far from accurate
and in which Aston already
detected a strong Japanese influence. It might seem
better to attribute the contents
of the volume (published by the Musée Guimet) to a
combination of the Boex
brothers and Henri Chevallier, and to consider the
brothers the main authors of
the tale. In one article, “Rosny” evokes Hong in his
hotel room telling them
Korean stories. The whole volume might then have
been attributed to Hong in
order to justify publication by the Museum, or to
avoid further association of
the name Rosny with a notorious “political
assassin.”
Summarized as
briefly as it can be in all its complexity, it tells
the story of two friends,
high aristocratic ministers, who are sent into
separate exiles with their wives
by the machinations of the wicked and ambitious
prime-minister Ja-Jyo-Mi. The
wife of one of them, Sùn-Hyen, gives birth to a
daughter named Tcheng-Y, then
dies. Sùn-Hyen weeps so much he becomes blind. The
years pass quickly and the
story follows that of the familiar Sim Cheong tale,
with the father rescued
from drowning by a “hermit” and told that in return
for 300 sacks of rice
prayers will be said, his sight will be restored,
and he will become
prime-minister. Tcheng-Y duly sells herself to a
group of merchants going to
China by sea, who want to offer a sacrifice for a
safe journey, and sets off
with them after arranging for her father to be cared
for.
The other exile,
San-Houni, is murdered by a wicked boatman,
Sù-Roung, who has designs on his
wife, Tjeng-Si. She escapes and along the way gives
birth to a son. She tatooes
the name San-Syeng on the baby’s arm then abandons
him by the roadside, taking
refuge in a nunnery. Sù-Roung finds the baby without
knowing whose child it is,
adopts it and brings it up well. Again many years
pass, the son learns that he
is a foundling and leaves home. Arriving in the city
of Tjen-Jou he meets a
beautiful girl whose father has died and they become
lovers; warned by her dead
father in a dream that her mother intends to kill
her lover, she sends San-Syeng
off on her father’s horse with his sword. He gives
her the ring left with him
when he was abandoned.
The king dies,
his heir is still a child. The wicked Ja-Jyo-Mi
sends him to the island of Tchyo-To
in solitary exile. San-Syeng hears of his plight,
then in a dream sees a man
named San-Houni, who refuses to tell him who he is,
but urges him to help the
boy-king. He arrives close to Tchyo-To but it is
well guarded. We now return to
Tcheng-Y, who jumps into the sea but does not sink
down to the Dragon King.
Instead she lands on the back of a giant turtle that
carries her to a cave
beneath an island. She climbs up to the surface and
finds herself in a
beautiful garden; here she meets the exiled
boy-king, Ki-si,
and they fall in love. Fearing that he will be
killed, they set fire to the
house and flee down the cave to the sea but there is
no boat in sight. San-Houni
again appears to San-Syeng in a dream and tells him
to take a boat to the
island quickly. There he rescues Ki-si and his wife.
The population rebels
against Ja-Jyo-Mi, Ki-si is hailed as the new king,
the prime-minister is
arrested, and the new king sends San-Syeng as a
secret inspector to check the
quality of the local governors.
We return to San-Syeng’s
lover-wife, Tjyang-So-Tyjei, whose mother has died
and who has lost everything
in a rebellion. She arrives near the nunnery and is
discovered by Tjyeng-Si,
San-Syeng’s mother, who recognizes the ring. They
identify themselves and set
out in quest of San-Syeng. Reaching Saug-Tjyou,
Tjyang-So-Tyjei refuses the
advances of the inn-keeper’s son, is framed by him,
is arrested, and finds
herself in the situation of Chun-Hyang, when the
magistrate gives her the
choice between marrying him and death. Meanwhile
San-Syeng has found Tjyang-So-Tyjei’s
house empty, in ruins. San-Houni appears in a dream,
reveals his identity as
San-Syeng’s father and tells him what is happening
to Tjyang-So-Tyjei. San-Syeng
arranges to be put in the same prison, his horse is
recognized by Tjyang-So-Tyjei,
all are reunited, the role of San-Syeng as secret
inspector is revealed, the
magistrate is punished, Sù-Roung is also arrested.
When Tcheng-Y,
now queen, hears all this she recalls her blind
father, a feast is held for the
nation’s blind men. Sùn-Hyen finally arrives, very
dirty, but when a palace
lady criticizes him he makes a very eloquent, wise
and poetic reply which is
reported to the queen. They meet, his eyes open, he
meets San-Syeng and learns
that he is the son of his old friend San-Houni.
Sùn-Hyen is made prime-minister.
Finally, the king wishes to wage war on the Tjin-Han
who defeated his father
once, and there is still the question of the
punishment for Ja-Jo-Mi and
Sù-Roung. Sùn-Hyen asks the king to hold a great
banquet for the whole
population, saying that they should support whatever
is decided, war or peace,
punishment or forgiveness. He makes a speech in
favor of peace and
reconciliation, all agree. Finally he vanishes,
perhaps taken up to heaven on a
cloud.
The
third work translated by Hong was very different, an
astrological treatise of divination, Guide pour rendre
propice l'étoile qui garde chaque homme et pour
connaitre les destinées de l'année, only
published in 1897, again in the Annales of the
Musée Guimet, with the name of Henri Chevallier
added to that of Hong as author / translator. In a
preliminary article about this book, published in Volume
VI (1895) of T’oung
pao Henri Chevalier explains that the book
had been brought back from Korea by Charles Varat and
Hong had begun to translate it at the request of
Guimet. His departure interrupted the project and
Chevalier had taken it over. Chevalier was originally
an engineer who worked for some time in Japan, who
later developed an interest in oriental languages.
Hong
must have moved out of Régamey’s house at some point,
since Régamey says they only met again shortly before
Hong’s departure, when he needed money for the journey
home. His description of Hong’s extreme reserve when
they parted suggests that he was deeply hurt that Hong
expressed no gratitude for all his help and
friendship.
As
we read Régamey’s
description of Hong in Korean robes being driven
away, smoking a cigarette and not even looking back to
wave goodbye, having spent 2 years cataloguing Korean
artifacts, and translating Korean texts, it becomes
clear that he had made no attempt to learn about
French law or politics. Instead, during those years,
Hong had focused on aspects of his own culture, and
may well have become more strongly aware of the
imperialism of France and the other western countries,
realizing that Korea would not be able to rely on
outside help from any quarter. Where Kim Ok-gyun
looked to Japan as a model for Korea’s future,
accepted Japanese financial help, had taken a Japanese
name and seemed unwilling to recognize the threat
Japan’s colonizing intentions posed to Korean
independence, Hong had moved in the opposite
direction.
Three shots in Shanghai
Hong Jong-u left Paris on July 23, 1893, headed for
Marseille. There he boarded the steamship Melbourne
and returned to Japan. [page 95] Régamey ends his
article with the note he received from Hong after his
return, written in awkward French, in which he reports
having been sick for some time after his journey and
adds the news that letters from his father and friends
had informed him that his “poor wife” had died “in
May” (by implication 1893). In December 1893, Hong
received a visit from Yi Il-jik, who in April 1892 had
been charged by the Min faction in Seoul to kill the
refugees from the 1884 Gapsin Coup: Kim Ok-gyun, Park
Yeong-hyo, Jeong Nan-kyu, Yi Gyu-wan, Yu Hyeok-ro etc.
Yi told Hong that it was the wish of the king himself.
Hong agreed enthusiastically, it seems. His first task
would be to become acquainted with the Gapsin
refugees. It was agreed that Hong’s task would be to
encourage Kim Ok-kyun to travel to China, and kill him
there since he was well-protected in Japan.
Hong was quite easily able to meet the refugees
and join their gatherings on the basis of his family
clan identity. He is said to have gained Kim’s trust
especially by preparing delicious food in the French
style for him and his Japanese friends in Tokyo. At
the time, Kim Ok-gyun had been living In Japan for
nearly ten years and was not sure that the Japanese
would go on protecting him indefinitely; at the same
time, he seems to have abandoned his strongly negative
attitude to China and begun to formulate a vision in
which Korea, China and Japan would best ensure their
separate independent status by combining to resist
attempts by the western powers to dominate them.
Meanwhile the Japanese were already preparing to wage
war with China and take a more complete control of
Korea; it began to seem to them that the death of Kim
in China at Korean hands might serve a useful purpose.
This would explain why Japan did nothing to warn or
protect Kim after receiving a report written by Nakaga Kotaro (中川 恒太郎) its consul in Hong Kong on
January 1, 1894, describing words spoken that day by
Min Yeong-ik, the Korean Queen’s nephew, to a group of
his supporters there, advocating the assassination of
Kim Ok-gyun etc. and even telling them that in Osaka
Yi Se-jik [sic] with a Korean recently returned from
Europe, named Hong Jong-u, were actively engaged in a
plan to that effect. [page 106].
Indeed,
the Japanese government had always been less than
enthusiastic about the presence in Japan of the Gapsin
leaders and it is not always realized that Kim Ok-gyun
was humiliated by being forced to spend some 3 of the
9 years he spent in Japan detained in the Bonin
Islands and Hokkaido, far from Tokyo. Moreover, he was
reduced to political silence, his days were spent
eating, drinking and playing Baduk with a few friends.
He quickly understood that Korea could expect nothing
good from Japan and in mid-1886 had already written to
the Korean King warning him against the ambitions of
Japan and China. But for the Korean government he was
a traitor, nothing more. Finally, Kim seems to have
decided to explore the possibility of a visit to
China; he had been living with the Japanese name Iwata
Shusaku (岩田 周作) but now
changed that to Iwata Miwa (岩田 三和). The use of
the character for “3” symbolized his new vision of a
reconciliation between the three nations of the
region. Kim decided to travel to China to meet the
great Chinese politician Li
Hongzhang. He had been close to Li’s
adopted son (his nephew) Li Jingfang (李經方) while he was Chinese Minister in Japan
1890-1892 and there might have been some preparatory
correspondance between them.
Many
of Kim’s associates urged him not to go, some did not
trust Hong although Kim Ok-kyun seems to have rejected
their warnings. So he and Hong traveled together with
Kim’s servant and a translator from the Chinese
legation. They reached Shanghai on March 27, 1894, and
lodged in separate rooms of the Towa yoko 東
和洋行Japanese-run ryokan in Shanghai. The
following day, Hong went out to change money, then
returned while Kim was resting in his room during
the afternoon and shot him three times with a
revolver. Kim died almost instantly. That was just
after 4 pm. Hong then fled and was arrested the
following afternoon. He changed into Korean robes
before killing Kim.
Questioned
by the police, he said he had killed Kim, first,
because he and the other Gapsin conspirators had
caused the deaths of many innocent people; second,
that he was obeying a royal command. The third reason
was that Kim was a threat to the peace of the region,
as well as a traitor. Li
Hongzhang decreed that Kim had been a
Joseon traitor and Hong a Joseon official, so both
should be sent back to Joseon at once. Newspaper
reports about this are quoted at the end of the
article by Félix Régamey, who finds himself at a
loss to understand what Hong had done. On
April 12 Hong and the corpse arrived at Incheon, where
they transferred to a boat for Seoul. During the
journey, Hong had written on a banner the characters 大逆不道玉均 (Traitor Ok-gyun). The body of Kim was
left at Yanghwajin, down-river from Mapo at what is
now Hapcheong, where it was beheaded, the hands and
feet removed, and the trunk mutilated. The parts were
sent around the country for display. There is a photo
of the head with Hong’s banner. Other measures were
taken to punish surviving and dead participants in the
1884 coup, while the families of those officials
killed by the conspirators celebrated. In Japan, the
press launched a campaign acclaiming Kim as a hero and
denouncing Hong as a monster.
The short article signed J.-H. Rosny from
Le Carillon du Boulevard Brune, 1st year,
number 11, May 1894 indicates how perturbed Hong's
French friends were on hearing what he had done (original
French text with English translation). There is
no sign that the Japanese romance mentioned in this
article was ever published. Trying to understand
Hong's deed, Rosny speculates: “Arrested after the
murder by the European Police of Shanghai, Hong
Tjyong-Ou called for Chinese justice, claiming to have
killed Kim-ok-kium on the express orders of the King
of Korea. Kim, he added, is a traitor. The excuse
would be of little value to us if Hong Tjyong-Ou was
merely obeying his king; he had no personal reasons to
believe in the perfidy of Kim-ok-Kium. We remember
that Hong Tjyong-Ou spoke frequently to us of the
violence of Kim-ok-Kium and the following words of Kim
to Hong when they parted: Hong - said Kim, - if you
ever change opinion, I will kill you! However,
Hong Tjyong-Ou in contact with European civilization
had changed his opinion. He placed no hope in
violence, he did not accept Japanese armed
intervention. On his return to Japan, did he try to
convert Kim? Did Kim make threats? Did he denounce
Hong to the terrible vindictiveness of the Japanese?
Did he he perform acts or speak words, which indicated
high treason? Was Hong Tjyong-Ou forced to pretend in
order to save his life? Did he repay Kim perfidy for
perfidy?” Some time later, in
another essay, Rosny offered a more nuanced and
more detailed portrait of Hong and his inner world:
"Et tout d'abord le Coréen lui-même, dans une attitude
hautaine et sage et une figure de conviction, fumant
sa cigarette, la peau luisante à gros grains, les
paupières grasses, les yeux bruns semblables à ceux de
nos yeux bruns qui sont plus spécialement des yeux
d'intimité et d'intelligence, des yeux qui ne tirent
point une beauté du dehors, qui n'éclatent pas ainsi
que des bijoux clairs ou de noires étincelles, mais
qui ont, dans l'iris, une lumière soumise depuis des
siècles à des lois sociales, à une discipline de mots
et de pensées. Cela ne va point sans un peu de
férocité, si raisonnable soit-elle, et, à l'occasion,
le morigénateur consciencieux, le moraliste à la
Confucius saura accomplir le meurtre avec une
résolution digne de Patrocle ou d'Ulysse. Oui, une âme
d'enfant guidée par des conseils de vieillard, telle
est l'âme du Coréen, telle est peut-être l'âme de tous
les Jaunes. Ils ont encore la violence des temps
héroïques côte à côte avec le joug des préceptes et
des sentences."
After Shanghai
There is no way of knowing the precise reasons behind
Hong’s attack on Kim Ok-gyun. Was he sincerely devoted
to the King and convinced that Kim deserved to die, or
was he driven by opportunism? In particular, the
indications by Rosny that Hong was well acquainted
with Kim Ok-kyun before he arrived in France, that he
often spoke of him and that he had been one of his
close collaborators at the time of the Gapsin coup,
are aspects that are not even mentioned by the Korean
study of his life. Certainly, Hong had come back from
France empty-handed, and had no prospects of work in
Korea. This was the ideal opportunity to establish
himself. Whatever his intention, once back in Korea,
Hong was soon the toast of the town. He was reportedly
hailed by Gojeong himself, who came running out of his
rooms in his stockinged feet on hearing he had arrived
in the palace. Hong at once became a government
official by special royal decree. However, in the
months that followed, everything went wrong. The
Sino-Japanese War ran from 1 August 1894 until 17
April 1895. During that time, pro-Japanese forces took
power in the government and Hong seems to have taken
refuge in China. After the murder of the queen by the
Japanese in October, 1895, power returned to the
conservative side and Hong must have returned from
abroad. From February 11, 1896, until February 20,
1897 the King was living in the Russian Legation and
in the late summer of 1896 Hong seems to have helped
mastermind the arrest of the pro-Japanese officials
who had lost power a few months earlier. They were
released in the autumn and became involved in the
foundation of the Independence Club. Meanwhile, Hong
had gained considerable influence with the King and
advocated strongly the imperial model of power
centered in the King which inspired the creation of
the Korean Empire. Late in 1896, Hong was appointed
head of the foreign affairs section of the palace
administration. Early in 1897, when the Japanese
Minister came for an audience, Hong was seated
directly beside the King. In the following time, he
played a major administrative role in setting up the
structures of the Korean Empire and was responsible
for composing the new law code.
The list of his promotions and career changes from 1898 until 1902 shows how powerful Hong became in the early years of the Korean Empire. At the time when the Korean Empire was etablished in August 1897, Hong was acting as a member of the State Secretariat (비서원승), but by 1898 he was also Secretary General of the State Council (의정부 총무국장), Director of Regions, State Council (의정부 지방국장), General Director of the Department of Farming and Sericulture (농상공부 광산국장), member of the Jungchuwon Advisory Council (중추원 의관), then in 1899 he served as Secretary General of the State Council (의정부 총무국장), Judge of the Pyeongni-won Supreme Court (평 리원 판사), in 1900 Head of the Sariguk division in the Justice Department (법부 사리국장), Chief Justice of the Pyeongni-won Supreme Court (평리원 재판장), in 1901 Member of the Council of Rituals (봉상사 부제조), member of the Jungchuwon Advisory Council (중추원 의관), in 1902 he was Palace Administrator (태 의원 소경) and so held controlling positions in the departments of diplomacy, justice, administration, administration of legislation, industry. Hong, together with two other men of humble origin, Gil Yeong-su and Yi Gi-dong, known as the “Hong Gil-dong trio” enjoyed unrestricted access (별입시) to the Emperor and exercised immense influence.
One
reason for Hong’s final downfall is easily summarized.
He was completely unable to understand or sympathize
with the growing demands of the international business
community and opposed many financial and
administrative measures which others judged essential.
One
episode from this period is of special interest. In
1899, Hong Jong-u was presiding judge of the high
court known as the Pyeongniwon. This was the time of
the conservative crackdown on the members of the
Independence Club at the end of 1898 and among those
on trial was a young student, Yi Seung-man, better
known in later times as Syngman Rhee. As the head of
the Hwangguk
Hyophoe (Imperial Club), he and Rhee were
diametrically opposed. At that time, Rhee might easily
have been sentenced to death, yet Rhee later wrote how
amazed he was to find Hong determined to save his
life; instead he was sentenced to 100 blows on the
buttocks and life imprisonment. He also wrote that
Hong gave orders to be gentle when the beating was
performed, so that after the 100 blows his skin was
not even broken.
There
was, however, no resisting the slow increase of
Japanese control and the rise of officials prepared to
work with Japan. The result was his appointment in
January 1903 as 牧使 (moksa,
magistrate) of Jeju Island. Dealing with the
aftermath of the violent disturbances of 1901,
focused on issues of taxation and involving the
Catholic community with its French priests, might
have been one reason for his appointment, but he
seems to have understood that it was a kind of
exile, the beginning of the end. There are
indications that he demanded bribes and made no
attempt to help the population in times of poor
harvest; he was probably mainly intent on securing
funds for a bleak future. In the spring of 1905 he
resigned from the position and went to live in
Muan-gun near Mokpo. He was still residing there
early in 1909, and after that there are no reliable
records of his final years. According to his clan
register, he died on the second day of the first
month of 1913, but there is no record of where.
Rumors say that he starved to death