Corea: The Hermit Nation

In Short

William Elliot Griffis provides a comprehensive historical and cultural survey of Korea, tracing its trajectory from an isolated peninsula—the "Hermit Nation"—to its eventual annexation by Japan in 1910. The narrative details Korea's early tribal origins, the rise and fall of its medieval dynasties, and its complex tributary relationships with China and Japan. It examines the internal structure of Korean society, covering its feudal hierarchy, religious traditions, legal systems, and daily life, before recounting the turbulent modern era. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Western naval intrusions, Catholic persecutions, foreign diplomatic pressures, and regional conflicts—such as the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars—shattered the kingdom's centuries-long seclusion. Griffis analyzes the political decay, internal factionalism, and external geopolitical forces that ultimately dissolved Korean sovereignty, placing the nation's transformation within the broader context of East Asian international relations.

The Story

The narrative begins in deep antiquity with the early inhabitants of the peninsula and northern regions, such as the Fuyu people, who established walled settlements, practiced agriculture, and developed early legal codes. Over centuries, rival kingdoms emerged, fought for dominance, and interacted with neighboring cultures. During the Tang dynasty, Chinese armies conducted major invasions into the peninsula, engaging in vast military campaigns that subjugated local forces, captured fortified cities, and integrated the region into a broader Sinicized sphere of influence. Through these early centuries, Korea served as a crucial cultural conduit, transmitting Mahayana Buddhism, administrative models, architectural techniques, and literary traditions westward from China into Japan, where Korean immigrants and scholars left an enduring mark on early Japanese civilization.

A pivotal turning point occurred with the founding of the Ni dynasty in the late fourteenth century. The capital was established at Han Yang (Seoul), encircled by stone walls, and the peninsula was organized into eight administrative provinces. The new rulers disestablished Buddhism, replacing it with a rigorous, state-sponsored Confucianism that shaped politics, social norms, and legal codes for centuries. This era of domestic consolidation was brutally disrupted in 1592 by the Japanese invasion under the Taikō, Hidéyoshi. Japanese commanders disembarked at Fusan, quickly capturing strategic strongholds and reaching the capital within weeks. The invasion devastated the peninsula through years of attrition, guerilla warfare, and massive pitched battles involving Ming Chinese auxiliary forces, leaving the country economically shattered.

Decades later, in the seventeenth century, the Manchu invasions forced Korea to submit to another foreign master, establishing a tributary relationship that required regular offerings and formal investiture from Peking. During this period of strict isolation, accidental contacts with the West occurred, such as the shipwreck of the Dutch vessel Sparrowhawk, whose crew spent years in captivity before escaping to Japan. Korea closed its borders tightly against foreign encroachment, earning its reputation as a closed land.

By the nineteenth century, this enforcement of seclusion met severe internal and external strain. The rapid spread of Roman Catholicism led to intense state-provoked persecutions, resulting in the execution of native converts and French missionaries. These martyrdoms triggered foreign naval interventions, including a French expeditionary force that stormed coastal fortifications along Kang-wa Island. American naval forces under Rear-Admiral Rodgers likewise engaged Korean defenses in 1871 following diplomatic miscommunications.

Simultaneously, a modernizing Japan applied diplomatic and military pressure, securing the Treaty of 1876, which forced open the port of Fusan to international commerce. The arrival of foreign trade, Western diplomacy, and modern technology ignited deep political divisions within the Korean court. Reform-minded leaders sought to modernize the nation's infrastructure, military, and education, instituting measures like telegraph lines, model farms, and postal systems. However, conservative factions, allied with Chinese imperial representatives like Yuan Shi-kai, resisted these changes, fueling popular unrest, anti-foreign riots, and court intrigue centered around the royal family and the Regent.

The regional power struggle culminated in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 and the Russo-Japanese War a decade later. Japanese military victories on land and sea—including the capture of Port Arthur, the Battle of Mukden, and the destruction of the Russian fleet at the Battle of the Sea of Japan—firmly established Japanese dominance over the region. Japan assumed control over the peninsula's administration, constructing a trunk railway line and suppressing widespread native insurgencies and guerilla resistance through military force and imperial rescripts. The historical arc concludes in 1910 with the formal extinction of Korean sovereignty, as the peninsula was annexed into the Japanese Empire as the province of Chō-sen.

How It Unfolds

Ancient foundations and tribal laws Early accounts detail the customs, agricultural practices, and legal systems of northern groups like the Fuyu, who lived in palisaded towns and practiced ancestral sky worship.

Chinese imperial subjugation The Tang emperor leads military expeditions across the Yalu River, routing large Koraian armies in pitched battles and incorporating the northern peninsula into the imperial tributary system.

Cultural transmission to Japan Korean scholars, monks, and artisans migrate to the Japanese archipelago, introducing Buddhist art, architectural methods, and administrative models to the Mikado's court.

Establishment of the Ni dynasty Ni Taijo moves the national capital to Seoul, constructs extensive masonry walls, divides the nation into eight administrative circuits, and elevates Confucianism over disestablished Buddhism.

The Japanese invasion of 1592 Forces commanded by Konishi land at Fusan, rapidly sweep north to seize the capital, and engage in years of destructive warfare against Corean guerillas and allied Ming Chinese armies.

Manchu incursions and submission Manchu divisions cross the frozen Yalu River, devastate the countryside, invest Seoul, and force the Corean king into a formal master-subject relationship under the new dynasty.

Western shipwrecks and captivity The crew of the Dutch ship Sparrowhawk is cast ashore, spending over a decade in enforced residence before supercargo Hendrik Hamel escapes to detail the isolated realm to European readers.

Persecution of foreign faith The royal court outlaws Catholicism, launching widespread police searches across the eight provinces that culminate in the torture and execution of foreign bishops and native converts.

Western naval bombardments French and American fleets launch punitive expeditions against coastal forts near Kang-wa Island, encountering fierce resistance, straw-dummy decoys, and classical ideological manifestos from native generals.

Forced opening of Fusan Japan negotiates the landmark Treaty of 1876, opening the port of Fusan to foreign trade, establishing commercial banks, and introducing modern currency and consular oversight.

Factional clashes over modernization Reformers introduce electric lights, Western weaponry, and public works, while conservative court factions, backed by Chinese envoys, resist social and political changes.

Regional wars and annexation Japanese victories over China and Russia lead to the total military occupation of the peninsula, the suppression of native insurgent bands, and the official annexation of Korea in 1910.

The People

• Ni Taijo: The founder of the long-lasting Ni dynasty who relocates the national capital to Seoul, erects its defensive stone walls, reorganizes the kingdom into eight administrative provinces, and replaces state Buddhism with strict Confucian ethics.
• Sien-jo: The fifteenth monarch of the Ni house, described as a weak and self-indulgent ruler whose total lack of military preparation leaves the kingdom defenseless during the sudden Japanese invasion of 1592.
• Konishi: A primary Japanese general during the sixteenth-century invasion who lands eight hundred ships at Fusan, captures key castles, marches up the Nak-tong valley, and negotiates peace terms with Chinese and Korean envoys.
• Hendrik Hamel: The Dutch supercargo of the wrecked vessel Sparrowhawk, who spends fourteen years detained in the country before escaping to Nagasaki and publishing the first detailed European account of Korean geography and customs.
• Bishop Imbert: A French Catholic missionary who enters the kingdom secretly to minister to thousands of native converts, eventually surrendering to royal authorities to stem public bloodshed before being tortured and executed near the riverbank.
• Rear-Admiral Rodgers: The American naval commander who leads a steam squadron into Korean waters in 1871 to support diplomatic negotiations, ultimately engaging coastal fortresses after his ships are fired upon.
• Count Inouye: A Japanese statesman who collaborates with the Korean Reform Committee to separate the royal court's finances from state governance, establish modern legal courts, and reorganize civil administration before internal intrigue disrupts his efforts.
• Yuan Shi-kai: The Chinese imperial resident commissioner stationed at Seoul, who actively supports the conservative court faction, encourages anti-reform policies, and maintains Chinese influence over the Korean government until the Sino-Japanese War.

In Its Own Voice

"The European name Corea is derived from the Japanese term Korai (Chinese Kaoli), the name of another state in the peninsula, rival to Shinra."

This passage explains the linguistic evolution and Western cartographic adoption of the country's common international name.

"Buddhism, which had penetrated into every part of the country, and had become, in a measure, at least, the religion of the state, was now set aside and disestablished."

This sentence marks the sweeping religious and institutional shift enforced by the early rulers of the Ni dynasty in the fifteenth century.

"The sovereign’s person is hedged round with a divinity that has an antipathy to iron. This metal must never touch his august body, and rather than have an abscess lanced, the king Cheng-jong, in 1800, died from the effects of the disease."

This observation illustrates the extreme, inviolable court traditions surrounding the monarchy and the sacred taboos governing the king's physical presence.

"Corea is more of a sealed book than Japan was before Commodore Perry’s visit."

Writing to the United States Secretary of State in 1871, Minister Low highlights the intense, long-standing isolation that made diplomatic entry into the peninsula extraordinarily difficult.

What It's Really About

The central theme of the work is the inevitable confrontation between deep-seated historical isolation and the expanding, modernizing forces of global geopolitics. It examines how a nation's prolonged, deliberate seclusion—maintained through rigid Confucian social structures, court conservatism, and anti-foreign legal mandates—creates severe vulnerabilities when confronted by industrial and military powers.

The text addresses the systemic failure of an autocratic governance system that fails to cultivate a dynamic middle class or adapt its military and economic institutions to changing international realities. Power remains concentrated among privileged yangban nobles, leaving the agricultural majority burdened by heavy exactions while court intrigue constantly destabilizes the state.

Furthermore, the work explores the geopolitical reality of the Korean peninsula as a contested strategic buffer zone between larger neighboring empires. Throughout its history, whether facing Tang dynasty armies, Japanese warlords, Manchu invaders, or twentieth-century imperial forces, Korea's geographic position made it a frequent battleground for external ambitions. The narrative highlights how internal factionalism and an inability to institute thorough domestic reforms left the nation unable to preserve its independence, ultimately resulting in its absorption by a neighboring power.

Why Read It Today

This volume offers a remarkably detailed window into the historic transition of East Asia at the turn of the twentieth century. Readers interested in international relations, military history, and Asian studies will appreciate its comprehensive coverage of Korean history, spanning ancient tribal societies, medieval dynastic shifts, and the high-stakes diplomacy of the modern imperial era.

The prose is precise, scholarly, and straightforward, relying on historical records, diplomatic correspondence, and firsthand observations rather than dramatic flourish. It provides exceptionally vivid descriptions of social customs, legal systems, folk beliefs, and daily rural life, alongside detailed accounts of major military engagements and foreign naval expeditions.

However, modern readers should navigate the text with an awareness of its period perspective. Writing from a late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century standpoint, the author frequently reflects Western and Japanese perspectives on modernization, progress, and colonial administration. The commentary on nineteenth-century religious persecutions and early twentieth-century Japanese rule contains contemporary political biases and period assumptions regarding civilization and governance. Despite these historical limitations, the book stands as a significant, highly detailed historical document that illuminates how external imperial forces and internal vulnerabilities combined to reshape the political landscape of East Asia.