天佑侠と「朝鮮問題」 : 「朝鮮浪人」の東学農民戦争への対応と関連して

抄録

In 1894, there was a large uprising by an army of peasants called "Donghak" in Chonra province, Korea, and both Japan and China, who were struggling for power over Korea, dispatched troops. Upon the introduction of foreign troops, the peasant army felt that national independence was at stake and compromised with the (Korean) government authorities and dispersed voluntarily. Around this time, there was a group of Japanese Ronin (浪人) in Korea, who were carrying out a variety of political activities using the "Ozaki Law Office" in Pusan as their base. They acted upon the belief that the prime solution for the "Korea problem" was that the pro-China and anti-Japanese Min regime in Korea be overthrown and Korea be brought under Japanese control. They took the peasant uprising for an anti-government struggle and sought to gain the cooperation of the Donghak army in order to overthrow the Min regime. In 1894, fourteen Ronin organized a group called "Tenyukyo", and armed with dynamite, they went to join the Donghak army in Chonra province. They met with Chon Bong Jun (全〓準), the leader of the uprising, and tried to pursuade Chon to rise again, but they were not successful. On the failure of this attempt, they then took part in the assassination of Queen Min of Korea in 1895 and in the events leading to the annexation of Korea later on. The members of the Tenyukyo group were young intellectuals born in the Meiji era, largely from Samurai family background. They were ambitious young men from a feudal class that lost power due to Meiji political reforms. They sought to pursue their political ambitions by participating in the settlement of the "Korean problem". These young men had high respect for Japanese civilization as it developed following the Meiji Restoration. They regarded it as a perfect fusion of the civilizations of the East and the West. They were also convinced that the strength of Japan's military power was inferior to no Western nation. Against the Western, especially the British and Russian, advances into Asia, they proclaimed the doctrine of the Asian League that the yellow people of the three Asian countries -Japan, China and Korea -should unite against the West under the leadership of Japan. Further more, with respect to Korea, they proposed "the Federation of Japan and Korea" based on the notion of the "community of common fate" and the "Dobun-DosoRon" (同文同祖論) that identifies the Koreans with the Japanese in culture and race. It is the thesis of this paper that the ideology of Tenyukyo was not only the proto-type of "Greater-Asia-ism", but also that the group's attitude toward Korea was permeated with the ideology of aggression.