From: seo@capone.ccsm.uiuc.edu (Jong-Wook Seo)
Subject: Korea (The lost history of the land of morning calm.)
Organization: Microelectronics Lab - Univ. of Illinios
Distribution: soc.culture.korean
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 00:19:15 GMT


Four hundreds and five hundreds years ago this year, the eyes of human 
history witnessed the rise of great aggression against our land and the 
land at the other side of the world, respectively.
Unified Japan invaded Korea, and a seed of the great tragedy arrived at 
the wrong side of the 'China' from Europe.

The seven-year-long meaningless war devastated Korean peninsula and pushed 
the peaceful order of the Pacific Asia to the end.

China 'wasted' national resources so much that the social security system 
of her was disrupted.
China could not take care of her people when a famine struck the northern 
China.
This frequently happened natural hardship became a national disaster.
Chinese central government started losing much of the control over many 
regions.
China also lost the control over the garrisons in southern Manchuria and 
also lost the political initiative in foreign policy against northern 
nomads.
Northern nomadic tribes took advantage of these situations to motivate 
their southwardbound expansion.

In Korea, the reduction of arable land made the basic social structures to 
start working inefficiently.
The tax system, which was the very base of our society, began to leave 
from the normal way of operation.
Our society lost much of the basic economic foundations, especially the 
agricultural production.
The central government lost much credit and authority from the people.
Even worse, our country after losing its resources and morality was no 
match to the incoming Manchurian invaders.
Our people, peace loving proud peasants, surrendered for the first time 
ever to the foreign invaders.
We still remember the day of "Sam-Jun-Do".
Our country could not recover from the nightmare until another military 
Japan came again.

So many questions are left to be answered by the human intelligence of 
today, maybe all the time forever.
Some of them should be answered by us.
Some of them by the other.

The first question is why Korea was so defenceless in land against the 
Japanese invaders.
In order to answer to this and others, we have to remind us of the nature 
of our society and the time we lived.
Our society, as I mentioned last time, was a typical agricultural one.
Whole national economy and the social structure were based on it.
The main ideology of the society was the appreciation of the value of the 
agricultural production and the people working in that area.

What about the time we lived before the Japanese invasion ?
It was one of the most peaceful time in Pacific Asia probably throughout 
the whole history except in Japan.
In China, they had been enjoying very stable and flourishing time 
nationwide.
Mongol and Manchurian tribes were also enjoying a stable and reasonably 
friendly relations with each other.
In Korea, the people enjoyed a very stable flourishing time, too.
This is obvious if we look at the patterns of internal and foreign 
policies.
The idea of the approach and the achievements of social development also 
clearly tell us this.

Korean people had suffered a terrible bug by the Japanese pirates.
A century before the Japanese invasion, Korea campaigned to "Dae-Ma-Do" 
island, one of the strongholds of Japanese pirates.
After getting a promise from them not to harass the southern coastal area 
in Korea, we retreated immediately.
Because, like any other agricultural countries, we didn't have much 
interest in territorial stuff.
But, the piracy never ended and they asked us to allow them to trade at 
Korean ports.
So, some of the ports (actually, three) were opened for them.

After political unification of Japan, however, Korea started worrying 
about the possible massive invasion from Japan due to the nature of the 
unified Japan.
Japan also openly asked Korea to open its way to China for invasion.
(I don't think they expected any positive response from Korea.)
Then, Korea was in dilemma.
Because the reenforcement of the military power may cause any trouble with 
China, the super power which nervously managed military enforcement of 
neighboring countries (like the USA now, maybe) after experiencing the 
Mongol occupancy.
China didn't want any military tension in their country, either.

It was also a very hard decision for a stable agricultural society to 
recruit many people for military enforcement at a peace time.
Actually, a proposal to recruit hundred thousands of men was rejected by 
the court.
Instead, the reenforcement of the navy was decided as the best possible 
compromise.
The Korean government commissioned Admiral "Lee Soon-Shin" to enforce his 
fleet and to train military personnel.
Korean navy had almost finished its preparation including a building of 
newly developed battle ships and an improvement of armament when Japan 
really invaded.
The Japanese patented surprise attack started the seven-year-long bloody 
war.

Now, we are facing the legacy which the Japanese imperial history left.
They claimed that the military reenforcement proposal was rejected by the 
nature of the fractional Korean politics.
I hope I can have a time to talk about this damn fractionalism sometime 
later.
But, even if that stupid story is right, the whole story is really 
ridiculous.
Throughout the world and throughout the history, the incoming threat from 
the foreign enemy is the best chance to take the political power in 
central government for a political party.
Even if any political group lost their chance to do it before the real 
struggle, it is really the best chance 'given by the heaven' during or 
after the war.
The political group which suggested the military enforcement can blame the 
opposition group which rejected it using that matter.
It never happened before and after the war in Korea, the country which has 
been claimed to be the very 'fractional' country by the Japanese.
This tells us that the decision was made under fundamental consensus.
We have many written records showing the hot discussions before the 
decision.
How can possibly a peace time military defence plan be decided unanimously 
in a civilized country ?

Another point is that the politics in Korea had never been 
non-agricultural economy based one.
So, the threat from the outside is the threat to all of the politicians.
This had been proved throughout the Korean history.
They were not that stupid to reject the project to defence their common 
economical interests.
Therefore, there was no reason to oppose the military enforcement solely 
because of their political concern.

Somebody claimed that the idea of reenforcement of Korean navy was solely 
the idea of Admiral Lee.
Surely, he showed a great insight and ingenuity.
He is one of the greatest military leaders in the world.
We have great respect to the mission he accomplished so wonderfully, and 
to the human character he showed to his people and his country.
However, the military forces of Korea had been under strict control of 
central government.
In that situation, if he personally decided to enforce his fleet, it was a 
revel.
Even if he tried it somehow, where did he get the resources for that.
I don't think he was that rich.
Actually, the prime minister "Yoo Sung-Ryong", who was in charge of the 
whole war time  management, supported him.
(Even our military regime purposely focused only on the heroic stories of 
Admiral Lee.)

They also made a funny story about the spy reports.
They said that two spies returned from Japan made two totally different 
reports.
One saying that Japan seems to invade Korea soon, and the other saying the 
opposite.
They said that the fractional Korean government accepted only the later.
(Some of the stupid collaborators in the military regimes used this story 
to make the people silent.)
Can anybody suppose that the government, which sent two spies because they 
worried about the possibility of the invasion, possibly accept the only 
one side's opinion ?
Nonsense !

Actually, the intelligence from Japan showing the possibility of invasion 
was given to China by Korean government.
It wasn't just a phone call.
We didn't have any telephone system at that time yet.
Can anybody suppose that the Korean government let the Chinese know about 
the intelligence which we considered to be totally bull shit ?
Another nonsense !

Some others claimed that the Korean government feared the Chinese 
complaint against the military enforcement too much.
Maybe, right.
However, is it smart to stand against China at that time facing a much 
clear threat from the other side ?
Completely nonsense !
We were not that stupid !

Some people may be curious about whether Korea was enjoying a really nice 
time before the war.
We have many evidences for that.
First of all, we have many materials written at the time around the war 
showing the lives of our people. 
It's not fun to tell about that now, though.
Just before the Japanese invasion, the Korean government commissioned a 
group of people to study the medical science and to reorganize the 
materials written at the earlier ages.
The project also included the studies on the epidemic disease, even.
The king, "Sun-Jo", asked the scientists to make the medical books easier 
to read, and to publish them in much easier Korean letters also.
If it was a hard time to live, how can a king support a great medical 
project for 'people' ?
The project had to wait long time more to be finished by the few 
scientists who survived the war.
We still have one of the greatest publishes on medical science in Asia 
accomplished by the life long work of our people led by a really 
respectable man, "Hir Joon".

Another thing is more interesting, maybe.
During the war, Korean people in land and the Korean navy in the sea had a 
common mission to defence the southwestern farm field.
Even after the devastation of almost all arable land, this saved 
southwestern farming field fed up all the Korean and Chinese military 
personnel and the people in it.
This clearly testifies that the productivity of the Korean agriculture was 
in a high level of standard.

Now, we have approached the truth of the war Japan brought against a 
peaceful country.
The war caused not by any political struggles between two countries.
The war caused not by any collisions in economical interests between both 
sides.
The war which destroyed too much in Korea and in Pacific Asia.
It was the war brought against a peaceful country by the war machine, 
Japan.
It was the war between the people who loved to cultivate their land and 
the people who loved to kill human beings.
It was the war between the human character which appreciate the hard 
working to produce cheerful life and the human madness to destroy the 
human nature and the human achievement.

We fought against enemy who destroyed everything all over the country.
Our never-defeated Korean navy under the leadership of Admiral Lee won 
glorious victories against the invaders.
Our people led by "Kim Shee-Min" in land won heroic victory at "Jin-Joo" 
against the brutal warmanias and successfully defended the southwestern 
farming field.
The decisive victory won by the people led by general "Kwon Yool" at 
"Hang-Joo" brought Seoul back to its people.
Countless civilian people from all around the country joined the guerilla 
war against the Japanese.

The war ended after the total devastation of our country for seven years.
The history asked why ?
The answer came with a stream of time after three centuries.
Military Japan came into our land again in this century.
They killed thousands of defenceless civilian peaceful demonstrators who 
were asking for the independence of the country which our people have 
lived in over thousands of years.
They set fire a church full of people locked outside.
They destroyed the lives of our innocent women and even killed many of 
them.
We don't even know how many.
We clearly remember the word, "Jung-Shin-Dae".
The 'great' emperor's army killed hundreds thousands of civilian people in 
Nanjing, China.
They denied.
A story was once written by the people who denied it and was named 'the 
Korean history'.

Furthermore, another funny story was made by the Japanese.
Korea has suffered a lot of foreign invasion because of the very 
geographic nature of her, the peninsula.
They made fun of us by making this nonsense.
The main threat and harassment against our people have come from the 
south, the islands Japan.
The story is the same as saying that 'Hallow, my neighbor. I'm sorry you 
have been suffering such a hard time because you are my neighbor.'.
They don't even say sorry, though.
The Japanese called their aggression against the peaceful countries 'The 
Grand East Asian Cooperation'.
Unfortunately, I don't remember any real cooperation Japan showed us.

Some others even claim that Asian as well as some other members in the 
community of human civilization have suffered such a hard time, or even 
extermination because they were not familiar with outside civilizations.
This is the world's 'funniest home comedy'.
Our human history has never witnessed such a brutal destruction of human 
nature and human civilization as those done by the so called 'highly 
civilized countries' in the last few centuries.
One of the greatest civilization built by the people in America was once 
told to be built by the UFO people.
They totally ignored the people who showed a really great human triumph 
against the threat from the nature.
They insulted the people who built one of the greatest human civilizations 
in the world and the people who are still living there.
They named the totally destroyed world 'the New World'.

After suffering a terrible time brought by the madness, we lost so many 
things.
We have lost much of our confidence in human nature.
We have lost much of our love to the beauty of the harmony.
We have lost much of the appreciation to the cultures developed by the 
peace loving human beings.
Nevertheless, we have learned what we have to do to save our peace and our 
people.
We have witnessed the clearly existing differences in the ideology and the 
structure of the society and the politics in our neighbor.

However, we have to recover our great tradition, the civilian domination 
of the politics.
It has been kept up over thousands of years with only three exceptions.
One thousand three hundred years ago in Kogooryeo at the time of the war 
against incoming Chinese Tang dynasty.
Seven hundreds years ago in Koryeo at the time of the war against the 
Mongol 
empire.
And in our generation at the time of the war between our great belief in 
the 
power of human intelligence and the legacy of the age of the imperialism, 
the militarism.
After long time of struggle, we are about to look at the returning of the 
new era.

We have to revive the spirit of our ancestors who loved to sing and dance.
After long trail of tears, we are now reconstructing our society to give 
our children the joy of life.
We have to get our pride toward our culture based on the great idea, the 
harmony, back.
We shouldn't stop our task to solve the paradox of our centuries.
We shouldn't be cynical to the seriousness of the people who are trying to 
save the integrity of the human nature.
And, we have to have a dream.


Thanks again very much for your patience.

Jong-Wook Seo



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