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saw no need for this new invention. It was branded ‘women’s writing’ and only came into its own with the beginning of modernity late in the 19th century.
    The greatest crisis during the Joseon era was the Japanese invasion that began in 1592. That year was known in Korea as Imjin year and therefore the entire invasion is often known as the Imjin Wars. The invasion was launched by Toyotomi Hideyoshi with the aim of crossing Korea, marching into China and conquering it. He had wrongly assumed that the Koreans would offer no resistance. When Korea asserted its loyalty to China, and thwarted the Japanese plan, the Japanese armies turned against Korea and systematically set about burning it. Almost every significant building in Korea was destroyed in the years that followed. China belatedly sent forces to support Korea and finally, with the death of Hideyoshi in 1598, the Japanese withdrew.
    In the following century, the Manchus established the Qing dynasty in China in 1644. Joseon felt a strong loyalty to Ming China on account of the help they had provided against the Japanese. Therefore they opposed the Manchu and this led to two Manchu invasions of Joseon, in 1627 and again in 1637, ending in humiliatingdefeat for the Koreans. Late Joseon was marked by intense rivalry between different court factions, which led at times to violent purges and multiple exiles. The Joseon era was marked by a fierce resistance to all contact with the rest of the world, beyond strictly controlled relations with China and Japan.
Early Modern Korea
    Modern history in the Far East began on 3 January 1868, when the new Emperor of Japan made a formal declaration of the restoration of his power. This was the beginning of the Meiji Reforms, by which Japan emerged from isolation and became part of the modern world. Japan soon awakened to the possibility that it, too, might establish an empire and a first step would be to gain control of Korea. The Ganghwa Treaty between Japan and Joseon was signed on 26 February 1876. The United States and the other major western powers were not far behind.
    Japan had already determined to take control of the Korean peninsula, stationing armed forces and police there, and in 1896 a group of Japanese thugs murdered the Korean Queen, Queen Min, for opposing the Japanese plans. In the decade that followed, Japan ruthlessly robbed Korea of its independence and forced Gojong, the king of Joseon, off the throne when he tried to resist. In 1910 Joseon was formally annexed by Japan. For the following decades Chosen was the name of a colonised Japanese province, where all education and administration used uniquely the Japanese language and where Korean culture was treated with disdain. Thousands of Koreans, reduced to penury, either fled to Manchuria or went to seek work in Japan.
    On 1 March 1919, exasperated by years of intense Japanese repression, the Korean population staged street demonstrations demanding independence, the March 1 Independence Movement. After this, a Provisional Government in Exile was established in Shanghai and later groups of militant independence fighters would fight guerrilla campaigns against the Japanese in Manchuria and Siberia.
    Then came the Pacific War, which ended on 15 August 1945, with the surrender of Japan. One condition of the act of surrender was that Japan would withdraw from all occupied territories, including Korea, so this date is known in Korea as ‘Liberation’. Afew weeks before this, at a meeting of the allied leaders in Cairo, the United States had proposed and the Soviet Union agreed that after the defeat of Japan, Korea would be occupied by the US and the USSR, each taking responsibility for half the peninsula, defined by the 38th parallel running just north of Seoul.
    The Americans brought with them a Korean exile who had long lived in the US, Yi Seung-man, known in the West as Dr Syngman Rhee. Meanwhile, many Koreans across southern Korea believed that they had now gained