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of the ‘Kin’ and ‘Boku’ rebels, as the Japanese party was now called, from the first characters of the names of its leaders; and, according to the Corean law, all the innocent relatives of the accused were punished with death, including many women and children. The King himself issued the orders of persecution and punishment.
The news of the trouble reached Japan on the 13th of December, 1884, and the anger of the people, especially of the military class, was great. The opinion of the Cabinet Ministers was again divided between peace and war, and offers came from the French side to act in combination, if Japan were to declare war against China. Was it, however, with China or with Corea that we had to regulate the question? It was the King of Corea who had asked for protection, and it was the Chinese soldiers who had fired on the King and the Japanese soldiers protecting him; but the King afterwards went over to the Chinese side, and allowed the Japanese Legation to be burnt, and the Japanese subjects remaining in Corea to be massacred—against his will it may be, but surely in his name. Hence we had to square our accounts with both.
Our Government decided to send Count Inouye as Special Ambassador to Corea on the 22nd of December. The Chinese Minister in Tokyo notified our Foreign Office that his Government was sending Go-dai-cho as Commissioner to Corea; and Viscount Admiral Enomoto, our Minister to the Court of Peking, was instructed to ask the Tsung-li-Yamen to give full powers to the Commissioner, in order that, once arrived in Seoul, the latter might enter into negotiations with the Japanese Mission there, together with the Corean Government. The Peking Government, however, refused to consent, on the pretext that the Commissioner was being sent out merely for the purpose of ‘punishing the rebels.’
Count Inouye arrived in Seoul on the 3rd of January, 1885, accompanied by the Minister, Takezoyé, Lieutenant-General Takashima and Rear-Admiral Kabayama, with a certain number of land and sea forces. As the Chinese Commissioner had already arrived with his soldiers, the Japanese troops had to be posted outside the city in order to avoid collision. Go-dai-cho now caused placards to be put up in the principal places in Seoul to the effect that the criminal attempts of the rebellious subjects, Kin-giok-kin, Boku-ei-ko, and his party had incurred the just anger of the Chinese Emperor, who, ‘out of anxiety for his eastern vassal State, now sends his officer with the grand army for protecting the King,’ etc.
The audience took place as usual, and on the 8th Count Inouye opened negotiations with Kin-ko-shin, the Corean Plenipotentiary and Minister of Foreign Affairs, when a strange