Black Flower Read Free Page A

neighboring peoples were forced to take note of this new country, one born of a mighty military power forged in the north and the political order of Neo-Confucianism. Yet after two hundred years, Toyotomi Hideyoshi and his army crossed the ocean from Japan, and the kingdom reeled for six long years. The samurai were driven off, but not long after, the Jurchen army attacked, and the Joseon king beat his head on the ground, begging for mercy. The blood that flowed from his forehead stained the pavement stones around him.
    In the years to follow, members of the royal family continued to be born, grow up, and leave behind more royal descendants. Suppressed by the power of the Andong Kim clan and the Min clan, they could not hope to be restored to their former glory, but they were still the Jeonju Yi clan, the royal family. After Gojong was made emperor in 1897, they were elevated from royal family to imperial family, but some of them still went hungry. Their social status kept them from planting rice seedlings in the fields or entering the market as merchants. The emperor’s concubines were forced to mend their own clothes. Their bloodline gave them nothing, but demanded much—a curse rather than an honor. They were thorns in the side of Japan, which would soon swallow up the Korean Empire. The Japanese minister did not rest in his watch of the emperor’s close relatives, especially those who might accede to the throne. Russia and China had lost their influence and retreated; no one knew what Japan might do to those of noble blood. After all, the empress had been brutally stabbed by Japanese thugs not many years before.
    Yi Jongdo, cousin of Emperor Gojong, called his family together: “Japan’s victory is imminent. The emperor is unable to sleep.” As soon as the title of the august ruler passed Jongdo’s lips, the whole family bowed. “We are leaving.” He wept. His son and daughter, who were not yet married, kept their heads bowed. Only his wife, Lady Yun of the Papyeong Yun clan, approached him. She sat down close to him. “Where do you intend to go?” His wife and children could think of only a few places in the southwest. They would flee to the countryside when a political crisis neared, raise the younger generation, and bide their time, as the officials of Joseon had done for the previous five hundred years. And then, when the political climate in the capital changed, the former rebels would return as loyal vassals—was that not the history of politics in Joseon? Yet from the lips of Yi Jongdo came instead a three-syllable word they had never heard. “Mexico? Where is that?” In reply to his wife’s question, Yi Jongdo said that it was a far land, below America. He added in a grieved tone, “The empire will not last long. We cannot be dragged off to Japan to see our lives end there, can we? We must learn from the civilization of the West. We must build up our strength there. Before the break of day we will go to the royal ancestral shrines, bow to the deities of the nation, take the spirit tablets of our ancestors, and leave for Jemulpo. I pray you will accept your father’s decision.” Yi Jongdo shouted in a loud whisper: “Long live His Majesty the Emperor!” His family shouted in reply: “Long may he live, long may he live, long, long may he live!” But their shouts did not pass beyond the threshold. Yi Jongdo’s young son, Jinu, could not help but cry. This was a difficult situation for such a young member of the imperial family, only fourteen years old, who was reading introductory Chinese classics like
The Analects of Confucius
and
Lesser Learning.
His elder sister, Yi Yeonsu, who was of marriageable age, showed no emotion. She knew that the tide was already changing. Even girls were cutting their hair and studying the new learning. A time was coming when they would learn English and geography, mathematics and law, and stand shoulder to shoulder with men. Of course, this was not true of