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| 1868 |
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| An expedition was led by the German Ernst Oppert to rifle the royal tombs (supposedly full of gold). The landing force reached the tombs but was unable to open them, and under attack by Korean forces, was compelled to withdraw. | 1 |
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| 1871, May 16 |
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After the United States vessel, General Sherman, had sailed up the Taedong River toward P'y ngyang and was attacked and destroyed by local Koreans, killing all 24 crewmen on board in 1866, a U.S. naval force, under Capt. Robert Shufeldt (1822–95), and the minister to Beijing, Frederic Ferdinand Low, tried to open Korea by force, as Commodore Matthew Perry (1794–1858) had done in Japan (1854) (See 1854, Feb. 13). Marines landed at the mouth of the Han River, but hostilities ensued, and the project had to be abandoned. This subsequently became known as the “American Disturbance of 1871.” | 2 |
| The Taewn'gun held to a strict antiforeign posture in diplomacy, in spite of both China's and Japan's having been opened by force in the preceding three decades. | 3 |
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| 1873 |
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| The Taewn'gun was forced to give up his authority, his fierce seclusionary policy having been deemed a failure. | 4 |
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| 1876, Feb. 26 |
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| Following a deliberately provocative act (the Uny incident, 1875) in which Japanese vessels had sailed into Korean waters and were fired upon, Japanese ships under the command of Kuroda Kiyotaka (1840–1900) moved rapidly to land at Kanghwa Island. He compelled the court to enter into treaty negotiations. The result was Korea's first modern treaty, the Treaty of Kanghwa, and the opening of Korea. It recognized Korean “independence,” implying separation from the Chinese sphere, though there was no protest voiced by Beijing. Pusan and two other ports were to open to Japanese trade over the following 20 months. Typical of unequal treaties, Japan also acquired extraterritoriality. Japanese-Korean negotiations in the Korean capital led to the opening of a Japanese legation there (1880). From 1879, China's Li Hongzhang (1823–1901) became involved in advising the Korean reformers on self-strengthening measures. | 5 |
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| 1876 |
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| King Kojong sent a high-level official to Japan to observe and report on the impact of the Meiji reform programs on Japanese society. In 1881, several groups of students and observers went to study in Japan. | 6 |
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| 1880, May 22 |
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| The Korean-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce, negotiated by Li Hongzhang and Shufeldt, was concluded. This followed a Korean decision to open relations with the U.S. in Oct. 1880 (in response to U.S. pressures to do so) and the creation of a Korean foreign office in the following year. There was no mention of Korean “independence,” but the United States secured extraterritoriality and permission to trade. Similar treaties were concluded with Great Britain (Nov. 26, 1883), Germany (1883), Russia (July 7, 1884), Italy (1884), France (1886), and Austria-Hungary (1889). | 7 |
| Meanwhile, those opposed to Kojong and his associates' openings to the outside world and to the king's reform policies generally grew stronger. They began to see the Taewn'gun as their only hope, and he was prepared by 1881 to use them to stage a comeback. | 8 |
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| July 23 |
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| An attack by this group of Koreans on the Japanese legation in Seoul led to intervention by the Chinese. The following day they found and murdered the head of the Tribute Bureau, Min Kym-ho, whose elder brother was the adopted brother of Queen Min (1851–95). On Aug. 26, the Taewn'gun was abducted by the Chinese to Tianjin, and the regent was returned to power; there soon developed between him and Queen Min a struggle for control of the government. According to the resultant Treaty of Chemulp'o, the Japanese were compensated and given the right to keep a legation guard. Yuan Shikai (1859–1916) was appointed Chinese resident at Seoul and during the ensuing decade devoted himself to strengthening Chinese influence and lessening Japan's. | 9 |
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