Following this escapade the Prime Minister, Kim Hong Chip, a man widely respected and in no way connected with the murder of the Queen, and Chung Pyang Ha, equally innocent of the same crime, were deliberately thrust forth from the palace gates into the hands of the waiting mob, which, in true Korean fashion, tore them limb from limb. Another Minister was killed a few days later in the country. Thus ended Japan’s attempt to enter into friendly relations with Korea while the latter nation was in the anomalous condition of an independent dependency of China. Two valuable results, however, had been reached: Korea had been definitively and finally delivered from Chinese control and dominating influence; and her own inability to stand alone and to inaugurate the needed reforms had been, it would seem, quite sufficiently demonstrated. Japan, on the other hand, had not as yet shown her ability wisely to inaugurate and effectively to secure these reforms; and by the injudicious action of her representative in Korea she had thrown the temporary control of the Korean Court into the selfish and intriguing hands of other foreigners. The events of the next decade, therefore, led logically and irresistibly forward to a yet more desperate struggle, at a yet more frightful cost, to solve the Korean problem. CHAPTER X THE PROBLEM: HISTORICAL (_CONTINUED_) The conclusion of the centuries of intricate and unsatisfactory relations between these two countries was, to quote the words of another, that “Japan saw herself deposed from the position in Korea to which her victories entitled her, by a nation which appeared to be both an upstart and a usurper on the Sea of Japan.”[22] For three and a quarter centuries Russia had been advancing through Asia at the average rate of 20,000 square miles annually; and now, in the endeavor, in itself laudable, to secure an outlet on the Pacific for her Asiatic possessions, she began extending her customary policy over Manchuria and the Peninsula. It is doubtful whether the Korean King, when he took refuge in the Russian Legation at Seoul, was really alarmed for his personal safety; it is certain that he hated intensely the reform measures which had been forced upon him, and the men among his own subjects who were committed to those measures. His life was, however, never in any real danger at this period. His presence and his position at the Russian Legation, during his entire stay there, was lacking in all semblance of royal dignity. He was himself in the virtual custody of a foreign power. The different Cabinet Ministers had their places assigned in the dining-room of the Legation, behind screens;—“all except one lucky individual who secured quarters for his exclusive use in an abandoned out-house where wood and coal were usually stored.”