사람人物

Choi Ik-hyun in exile on Tsushima Island (Photo: Encyclopedia of Korean Culture)

There are grand conspiracies and petty conspiracies in the world, and the majority of humanity, regardless of their political system, lives a life as part of one of them, forming conspiracy theories. The world of conspiracy is so deep and dense that it is a swamp of humanity that cannot be fathomed and talked about from the public's perspective. The public, supporting the conspiracies that are intricately intertwined vertically and horizontally, has become a slave to information and consumption without realizing that their mental integrity as human beings is threatened by both small and large conspiracies. Unfortunately, we cannot escape this Möbius strip-like irony, so survival is becoming increasingly tiring.

If I were asked to redefine conspiracy theory, it would be the work of those who led the destruction of the architecture and records of the Old World in the past, leading the deception of the public. This work, which has spanned hundreds of years, has been transformed into a stopgap for reality, dividing the public who have been used for it, and now it is a reality that it is felt that conspiracy theories cannot be made mainstream.

Centuries of Western colonialism were reborn as huge capital in modern society after World War II and still dominate the world economy. The political method of shouting democracy to modern humanity, which has become a slave to meager capital, still deceives the public through the illusion that it is advanced, and the role of further solidifying the world of conspiracy for global capitalists is exactly that of an NPC in a game. The public hardly even feels the need to realize their ego in reality as their propaganda unit. Occasionally, there are those who have primitive doubts about the structural contradictions of this world, but they cannot reveal the whole story with their individual information power. This is because the attributes of individuals and NPCs are in the same context.

Myeonam Choi Ik-hyeon is a figure who symbolizes the last intellectual of Joseon, who confronted the West, which was trying to break the orthodoxy of the old era, and the Japanese Empire, which moved as the West's dog, with his whole body and spirit. As a descendant of Choi Chi-won, he is a descendant of a truly distinguished family whose lineage has continued for a thousand years. Even in this vulgar world that has transcended the distinction between upper and lower classes and the boundaries between men and women, he is not someone we can easily make a subject of controversy. We ourselves do not realize how great and solemn the narrative of a thousand years maintaining a single family line is in human history. We should think about why we have lost our own memory and history. Can we say that Choi Chi-won and Choi Ik-hyeon maintained racial and biological identity for a thousand years? We know nothing. Choi Ik-hyeon and Choi Chi-won have never been seen or have information about them, but the shamelessness of using materials published during the Japanese colonial period as scholarship has made Choi Chi-won's imprisonment in Tsushima Island an element of conspiracy theories.

Choi Ik-hyun was born with the academic aptitude of Joseon geniuses who were said to be outstanding, but because the times were bad and the world was already in turmoil, he was only remembered as a leader of the righteous army. I wonder who would benefit from the introduction of historical figures, which is mostly a keyword memorization method. This kind of formality only hinders sincere reflection on the past, and like movies that have glorified dictatorships, sycophantic culture can never resonate with quick-witted Koreans. For a nation whose past has been obliterated, milestones in life that attempt to piece together the essence and phenomena have long disappeared. As a result of this being acquired after birth, we have become a variant that no longer suits a long history and does not try to face history, so there is no way that someone like Choi Ik-hyun can move people's hearts.

Choi Ik-hyeon's eldest son, Yeong-jo, collected his father's poems and prose and published the Myeonamjip as the 1908 (Musinbon) edition, one year after his death. In 1929, with the permission of the Governor-General of Korea, Jo Woo-sik and Park Jae-sik republished the Myeonamjip in 1931 (Sinmiban) as 48 volumes and 24 books. What could be the reason for publishing it twice in such a short period? Although I couldn't compare the differences between the Musinbon and Sinmiban editions, what is particularly noteworthy in the content is the petition. The petition contains a lot of content denouncing and criticizing the political situation at the end of the Korean Empire, the position representing Wijeong Cheoksa (卫正斥邪, Defend Orthodoxy and Reject Heterodoxy), and the atrocities of Japanese imperialism. At first glance, the condemnation of Japanese atrocities seems to guarantee the objectivity of historical materials, but the process of moving from Wijeong Cheoksa to persecution and Western disturbances and then suddenly becoming a Japanese colony is a description in which the factual relationship is not clear. There is suspicion that the politics of disguising Western Catholicism as Japanese invasion is not properly explained.

It is also strange that the printing industry became stronger between the Eulsa Treaty and the Gyeongseong Annexation. In war, the munitions industry would be an immediate task, but why did book publication become important? The Joseon History Compilation Committee officially recorded that it searched all over the country for books, even in rural mountainous areas, from the 1920s, but a certain strategic book publication era already existed systematically before that time, and all records were left. History has become something that cannot be understood unless the instinct of returning home against the strong currents, like the return of salmon, works for Koreans.

In 1865, a Russian fleet appeared in Wonsan Port and demanded trade. Nam Jong-sam (南鍾三, 1817-1866), a Catholic and Seungjeongwon Seungji, suggested a 'Franco-British alliance' to prevent Russia's southward advance. This meant that Joseon, France, and Joseon and England would form an alliance, not an alliance between England and France. In response, those who opposed the Western Religion (西敎 or 西學, i.e. Christianity) were outraged and martyred Nam Jong-sam and nine French priests. When Daewongun's policy of trying to stop Russia's southward advance by borrowing the power of France failed, he conversely suppressed Western learning and massacred about 8,000 officials and believers. This incident, known as the Byeongin Persecution (丙寅迫害), was used as an excuse for French Admiral Roze, who was anchored in Tianjin (天津), to lead a fleet and invade Ganghwa Island, which is called the Byeonginyangyo (丙寅洋擾).

French fleet in Ganghwa, Choseon

I'm not sure if readers would believe it if I said the above picture is somewhere in Ganghwa Island. The cessation of the expansion of consciousness regarding space and time is thanks to colonial historiography, but it is necessary to infer from the picture when and where the era of Nam Jong-sam, who tried to simultaneously promote the Franco-Korean alliance and the Anglo-Korean alliance, took place as a historical event. Since commercial photography was actively taken around the world in the 1840s, the pen drawings of Joseon in this period can only be seen as having been drawn after seeing photographs. Through the 19th century, from which direction of the territory did the invasion of Western religions, centered on France, coil and grow? The negative impact on the human brain of a historical perception with a lack of reality that does not allow imagination about doubts in every scene of history is unimaginable. Isn't it obvious that you cannot encounter history unless the paralyzed sense of space and the misunderstanding of the attributes of place are cured?

During the Byeongin Persecution, Ridel (Félix-Clair Ridel, 1830-1884), who luckily escaped, was a French priest who entered Joseon through illegal entry. He reported to Admiral Roze of the Navy in Tianjin, causing French warships to land on Ganghwa Island, search the historical archives, and loot books, while holding Gojong accountable for the murder of the priests. The Joseon Dynasty succeeded in repelling Roze's fleet by mobilizing 500 iron cannons. However, the narrative tone that portrays the young Gojong as a symbol of incompetence and corruption, and the regime as a fight between the tyrannical king's father, Daewongun, and his daughter-in-law's family, is absurd and does not fit the global historical flow. The narrative that the whole world, including England, France, Germany, the United States, and Japan, invaded under the pretext of trade pressure with weapons and crosses, and that they fended off the attacks while fighting among themselves, but eventually fell into Japanese colonial rule as internal divisions and Japan's modernization began, was it really just a brawl over this small Korean peninsula? The historical narrative tone of the past, which omitted the essence of Western and Christian civilization's invasion of the East and judged that it would not be a problem in the future, does not fit the development of modern geopolitical history, but it will become even more incompatible in the future. A nation or country is an abstract group of people gathering and dispersing, but human nature is embedded in its attributes, and its essential characteristics do not change overnight. Even if a hundred years of modern invasion operations have taken place, the proportion of Koreans' genes that have been altered, with thousands of years of history, is still insignificant.

The following year, 1867, this time the armed American merchant ship SS General Sherman invaded the Daedong River and demanded trade, which was also sunk by the bombardment of the Pyongyang army. Here, US Navy Admiral Rodgers landed on Ganghwa Island to protest to Gojong, but this was also repelled (1971, Sinmiyangyo). Is it reasonable to argue that an American merchant ship would go all the way to the West Sea from the Korean Peninsula, go up the Pyongyang River, and enter the inland? It's time to stop memorizing and start thinking. Why was Ganghwa Island the neighborhood drum? It is necessary to consider the depth and draft to see which country's ships can fight a war on Ganghwa Island today.

Heungseon Daewongun, who avoided the two Western Invasions in the years of Byeongin and Sinmi, engraved a monument with the inscription, 'The Western barbarians have invaded, and to advocate for peace is to be a traitor. This is a warning to future generations.' This is Daewongun's Cheokhwabi (斥和碑), a vocabulary word to memorize in textbooks. The story is that these Cheokhwabi were erected in various parts of the country, and the policy of national isolation was strongly advocated, leading to a temporary lull in Western invasion. In other words, the existence of Cheokhwabi and its inclusion in historical accounts is evidence that the Korean Peninsula stood up against Western invasion. This is how historical narratives and historical artifacts are created.

This Shinmiyangyo is called the United States expedition to Korea in English, or simply the Korean Expedition, and in particular, the United States also calls it the Korean Campaign 1871, the United States-Korea War of 1871. If the United States were to embark on an expedition to the Korean Peninsula in modern warfare, would it have to take the risk of going up the Daedong River? I look forward to a harmonious knowledge of geopolitics and fingerprint geography.

Lastly, there is Ernst Oppert, a German merchant, between the French and U.S. expeditions. He attempted to rob the tomb of Namyeon-gun, the father of Heungseon Daewongun, located in Deoksan, Chungcheong Province, but failed (Ernst Oppert tomb robbery incident). Originally, Namyeon-gun's tomb was prepared in Majeon, Gyeonggi Province, but it was moved several times. Daewongun had a nightmare and moved it to Gayasan in Yesan-gun, Chungcheongnam-do, but Gayasa was also destroyed, so it was moved again. It's still not satisfactory. The area of ​​the palaces in Seoul is roughly over 360,000 pyeong, and even if you only consider the area of ​​the royal tombs, it is over hundreds of thousands of pyeong per tomb. Due to the characteristics of Koreans who still have reverence for their ancestors, using burial sites on other people's land or robbing other people's tombs is a heinous act that rarely occurs. It is necessary to think about what it means that a German merchant robbed Namyeon-gun's tomb.

I haven't even explained Yangyo's quantum yet. The era when the sea stimulated human desire and the history of the past hundreds of years that devastated the entire Earth have not yet surfaced.