뉴스레터

Kang Wi (姜瑋, 1820-1884), a.k.a.
Kowhandang (古歡堂), a great poet and
pioneering reformist in 19th-century Korea

Kang Wi (姜瑋, 1820-1884), also known as Kowhandang (古歡堂), is a great poet who was a major contributor to forming the idea of reform in 19th-century Korea. This idea of reform was about a bourgeois revolution that if Korea adopted the advanced Western institutions and culture through opening, it could get out the internal and external troubles the Korean society was facing in the mid-19th century. Kang Wi was a living witness of the idea of reform in the making because he moved toward the idea of reform based on the pragmatic philosophy he had learned from scholar Kim Jung-hee (金正喜), also known as Chusa (秋史), and he was also directly involved in important historical events, such as the 1862 Peasant Rebellion, the 1866 French Invasion of Korea, the 1876 Korea-Japan Treaty, and the second dispatch of an envoy to Japan.

Giving up on His Dream of a Career in the Civil Service and Studying under Scholar Kim Jung-hee

Kang Wi was born in 1820 in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, as the second son in a poor military noble family, whose progenitor was from Jinyang (晋陽) in southern Korea. He went by various names, including Chugeum (秋琴), Jagi (慈屺), Cheogchugak (聽秋閣), and, of course, Kowhandang. He was ill as a child, which delayed the start of his studies until he was eleven. At fourteen, Kang Wi moved in with Jung Geon-jo (鄭健朝) to study for the civil service exam together. But he gave up when he turned twenty-two, and studied Chinese classics instead under Min No-haeng (閔魯行), a scholar of ancient documents. When his master passed away four years later, he sought a new master, Kim Jung-hee, who was on exile in Jejudo. Kang Wi spent seven years studying under Chusa until 1852, following him back to Seoul and then on another exile all the way north to Bukcheong until. Then Kang Wi set out on an aimless journey, travelling all around the country twice by 1853.

Writing A Plan to Fix Corruption in the Three Tax Systems

Once he was done with moving around, Kang Wi settled down in Muju, North Jeolla Province, with his family, and led an ordinary life travelling between southwestern and southeastern parts of the country using Mt. Deokyu as his base camp. By the 1860s, when he was into his 40s, he began to face up to the reality and actively deal with it. In March 1862, while staying in Muju, Kang Wi found himself in the maelstrom of the 1862 Peasant Rebellion. When he refused the rebels' request to write a manifesto for them, they set first to his house. He barely escaped to Seoul. As the rebellion spread, the court established the Office for the Reform of the Three Tax Systems and King Cheoljong issued an order to seek solutions in an effort to bring the rebellion under control. Jung Geon-jo insisted over and over again that Kang Wi should come up with a solution to the crisis. Kang Wi refused at first, but eventually committed his thoughts to paper when his old friend locked him up and coerced him into doing so. And what he wrote during the one month of confinement was A Plan to Fix Corruption in the Three Tax Systems, up to 30,000 characters long.

This Plan reflects the insight of Kang Wi, who was knowledgeable about the reformism advocated by pragmatic philosophers (e.g. Yoo Hyung-won (柳馨遠), Yi Ik (李瀷), and Jung Yak-yong (丁若鏞)) and his deep understanding of the reality faced by peasants based on his years of experience in rural life. The gist of the reformism was that the rebellion had been caused by the increasing and unequally charged taxes that had taken tolls on peasants, and to ensure equal taxation, it was necessary to carry out reforms that would fix corruption in the existing three major taxation systems. However, this idea of reform did not exactly appeal to the court that was trying to solve the problem of corruption in the three taxation systems by improving the operations of those systems.

Becoming an Advocate of Opening After the French Invasion and His Visits as Envoy to Beijing

The 1866 French Invasion of Korea was the event that turned Kang Wi's attention to international affairs. In 1886, the General Sherman Incident occurred in Pyeongyang in late July, and two French ships sailed along the Han River all the way up to Yangwhajin in mid August. King Gojong demanded plans that would prevent the "Western barbarians (洋夷)" from invading Korea again. On behalf of Shin Heon (申櫶), Director of the General Defense Unit, Kang Wi explored possible routes of invasion from Gangwhado to Yangwhajin before writing a detailed report of defenses (entitled Cheonggwonseolminbojeungsugangbangso (請勸設民堡增修江防疏)). In this report, he presented a new tactic to defeat the West as a new enemy that combined defenses from various sources (e.g. Minbowhi (民堡議) by Jung Yak-yong and Haegukdoji (海國圖志) by the Chinese Wei Yuan (魏源)). However, as it had proved during the Invasion, the Western military power was hard to overcome by simple tactical changes alone without fundamental changes like modernizing armament. Already aware and alert to the Western military power, and quite concerned that the Korean society still didn't think much of the West and the court's military defenses were nothing but half measures, Kang Wi struggled to understand who the Western powers really were and what they were capable of. When he accompanied the envoy to Beijing in 1873 and 1874, he was exposed to a lot of information which helped him gain a new perspective on international affairs and form the idea of opening the country. His two trips to Beijing convinced him that the hope for Korea's survival lay in seeking diplomatic resolution through opening rather than in fighting hopeless wars. Upon his return to Korea, he became outspoken in advocating opening at his own risk.

Asserting the Necessity for Korea to Establish Diplomatic Ties with Japan and with the U.S.

In 1876, Kang Wi accompanied High Official Shin Heon to Gangwhado and assisted him in the negotiations for establishing diplomatic ties between Korea and Japan.

For the successful conclusion of the Korea-Japan Treaty, the High Official and his company had to tackle two challenges. One was to deal with the conservatives whose argument against the foreign power was more popular and convince them that it was necessary to conclude the Treaty. And the other was to conclude the Treaty while avoiding Japan's unreasonable requests and preventing Korea-Japan relations from collapsing. On the occasion of the conclusion of the Treaty, he wrote Daesangwhanbaksanggonggyususeo (代上.齋朴相公珪壽書), Simhaengjabgi (沁行雜記), and Uiso (擬疏) among others, the contents of which show that while in Gangwhado, he judged the situation and reported it to Park Gyu-su in the central government, and tried to resolve internal and external challenges by discussing them in close communication with him. When Kim Hong-jib (金弘集) was sent as the second envoy to Japan in May 1880, it was also Kang Wi who accompanied him as his secretary. "Korean Strategy (朝鮮策略)," which the envoy and his company received from the Chinese Legation in Japan and brought back to Korea, set the Korean government to begin full-scale work toward establishing diplomatic ties with the U.S. and promoting the reformist policy. But the introduction of "Korean Strategy" met with strong protests from Confucian scholars. As their protests intensified and went so far as to deny even the diplomatic ties established between Korea and Japan and the reformist policy for the sake of denial, Kang Wi wrote Bagagrabulgaseonyeonui (駁鄂羅不可先聯議) and Euigo (擬誥) to refute the Confucian scholars' argument and assert the necessity of promoting the reformist policy. In these writings, he asserted that the U.S. was the first of Western powers with which Korea needed to establish diplomatic ties, and presented the details of the self-strengthening policy that needed to be promoted. His argument for alliance with the U.S. and self-strengthening also contributed greatly to the Korea-U.S. Treaty that would be concluded on April 6, 1882 in Jemulpo. By playing certain roles in Korea's establishment of diplomatic ties with the U.S. as well as with Japan as the first step toward opening, Kang Wi laid a foundation for the birth of the idea of reform. Later, in 1882, he accompanied Kim Ok-gyun to Japan. but when the 1882 Mutiny broke out, he alone went to Shanghai to discuss the matter with Eo Yun-jung (魚允中). Despite his old age past sixty, he remained active, traveling to Japan and China. He passed away at the age of 65, on March 10, 1884, eight months before the 1884 Coup.

The Purpose of the Way (道) is to Defend the Country and Provide Welfare for the People

While promoting opening and the reformist policy, Kang Wi, representing the reformists, had heated ideological debate with the conservatives against the foreign power. He criticized the conservatives mainly for their misunderstanding of the Way (道); they were seeing the Way as an end, not a means of 'defending the country and providing welfare for the people (保國安民).' He worried that this reversed understanding of the Way would 'bring about crisis to the country and kill the people (危國殺民)' instead of defending the country and providing welfare for the people. It is not surprising that the reformists who regarded the advances of the West into the East (西勢東漸) as inevitable and unstoppable waves were quite different in their action from the conservatives who saw them as passing phenomena.

Kang Wi was a man of passion who rose above his limitation as a son in a poor military family. In the foreword to a collection of Kang Wi's works, Kim Hong-jib wrote mournfully, "How can we possibly fathom the mind of the man who tried to save his country when he had seen the changing world but his country refused to make changes? He was denied an opportunity to pursue his goals all his life, but this is his destiny. Those those who attempt to understand him later through his poetry cannot possibly expect to understand who he truly was." I wonder if Kang Wi was really denied an opportunity to pursue his goals all his life as Kim Hong-jib said.