Korea — challenges to the monarchy and opening up (History (2028+) HL)

By the mid-1800s, Korea's Joseon dynasty had ruled for over 450 years. On paper, the king held total power. In practice, the throne had become dangerously weak.

The problem was Sedo politics — a system where powerful in-law clans ran the government instead of the king himself. Whichever clan married a daughter to the young king controlled the court.

Cause and consequence: why this is the root of everything: Sedo politics is the root cause behind almost everything else in this micro. A hollowed-out monarchy could not stop corruption or protect ordinary people, and it could not respond effectively to foreign pressure. That weakness created the conditions for both popular unrest (Donghak) and a forceful reforming reaction (the Daewongun).

It was into this atmosphere of official corruption and rural desperation that a new religious and social movement was born.

The roots of the Donghak movement

In 1860, a scholar named Choe Je-u founded Donghak ('Eastern Learning'). He blended Confucian, Buddhist, Daoist and shamanist ideas into something new.

Donghak was partly a reaction against Seohak ('Western Learning'), the Catholic Christianity spreading in Korea at the time. But it was just as much a reaction against Korea's own corrupt elite.

The radical idea at Donghak's core: Donghak taught 'Innaecheon' — the idea that every person carries heaven within them, so all people are equal before heaven. In a strictly ranked Confucian society divided into yangban nobles, commoners and outcasts, this was an explosive message. It gave ordinary peasants a reason to believe their suffering under Sedo politics was not the natural order of things.

The state saw Donghak as dangerous heterodoxy. Choe Je-u was arrested and executed in 1864, but the movement did not die — it spread quietly among peasants and would explode into open rebellion thirty years later (a story picked up in a later micro on regional rivalries).

In 1863, a 11-year-old boy, Gojong, became king. Real power passed to his father, Yi Ha-eung, known by his title the Daewongun ('Prince of the Great Court'), who ruled as regent from 1863 to 1873.

The Daewongun saw exactly what had weakened the throne, and he attacked it head-on.

Reform had a real cost: The palace rebuild was funded by forced donations and labour drafts on ordinary people, plus a debased currency that fuelled inflation. A project meant to strengthen the monarchy's image also created fresh resentment — a reminder that even popular-sounding reforms can generate new grievances.

Alongside these domestic reforms, the Daewongun pursued a hard line on foreign contact.

By 1873, an adult Gojong and his wife's family pushed the Daewongun out of power. His isolationist wall would not survive much longer either — the pressure that finally broke it came not from the West, but from Korea's neighbour, Japan.

A debate worth having: was isolation wise?: One argument: the Daewongun's isolation bought Korea time to strengthen central authority before facing the outside world, and Korea's forced 'openings' by Japan (1876) and the West show the danger he was guarding against was real. The counter-argument: by refusing all contact and useful technology while Japan was rapidly modernising after 1868, the Daewongun left Korea militarily and diplomatically unprepared for the very confrontation isolation could not indefinitely postpone. A strong essay can argue either side — but must explain WHY, not just assert it.

Japan had been forced open by American gunboats in 1853–54. Within twenty years, Japan used the very same tactic on Korea.

In 1875, a Japanese warship, the Unyo, deliberately provoked Korean coastal defences near Ganghwa Island. Korea fired on it, giving Japan the pretext it wanted.

The Treaty of Ganghwa, 1876: Japan sent warships and forced Korea to sign the Treaty of Ganghwa. It opened three ports (Busan, Wonsan, Incheon) to Japanese trade, granted Japanese citizens extraterritoriality, and gave Korea no tariff control over Japanese goods. It also declared Korea an 'independent state' — sounding generous, but really aimed at cutting the ties of Chinese suzerainty that Qing China had long claimed over Korea.

This was an unequal treaty, strikingly similar to the ones Western powers had imposed on China and Japan. Korea's long-guarded isolation was over.

With the Daewongun sidelined, power now sat with King Gojong and, increasingly, his wife's family.

Court factions and Queen Min

Queen Min (later known as Empress Myeongseong) and her Yeoheung Min clan filled the vacuum left by the Daewongun — in some ways repeating the very in-law dominance he had tried to destroy.

The Min faction favoured cautious, gradual reform while keeping close ties with Qing China (a policy sometimes called 'Sadae', or 'serving the great'). This put them at odds with a younger, more radical group who wanted to copy Japan's rapid modernisation instead.

Tension didn't disappear — it multiplied: Korea's court now had at least three competing forces pulling in different directions: the exiled but still ambitious Daewongun, the cautious pro-Qing Min faction in power, and a small but determined pro-Japanese reform faction. In 1882, angry soldiers unpaid and sidelined by Min-favoured modern troops staged the Imo Mutiny and briefly restored the Daewongun — until Qing China sent troops, crushed the mutiny, and took the Daewongun to China as a prisoner, reinstalling the Min faction. Qing influence over Korea was now stronger than ever.

This growing Qing dominance is exactly what the radical reformers wanted to break.

In December 1884, this group struck.

The Gapsin Coup, 1884: During a banquet celebrating a new post office, the Enlightenment Party reformers assassinated several pro-Qing officials and seized King Gojong. They proclaimed a 14-point reform programme — abolishing class privileges, reforming taxation, and cutting Korea's tribute ties to Qing China. It lasted barely three days. Qing troops garrisoned in Seoul stepped in, crushed the coup, and restored the Min-aligned government. Kim Ok-gyun fled to Japan; other reformers were killed or executed.

The coup's failure mattered far beyond those three days.

Whichever side of that argument you find more convincing, the result is not in dispute: Qing China's grip on Korea tightened for the next decade, Korea–Japan relations grew more poisoned, and the question of who would ultimately control Korea — China, Japan, or Korea itself — was left dangerously unresolved.