Murder on the Yalu River

A sketch of Chinese soldiers robbing Koreans along the Yalu River in the mid-1890s Robert Neff Collection

By Robert Neff

In the late 19th century, the region around the Yalu River was the Wild West of the Korean Peninsula. At night, it was not uncommon for tigers to prey upon the unwary traveler or snatch farm animals and children from isolated villages. Its great natural resources, especially timber and gold, attracted a danger even greater than tigers ― it attracted men willing to murder in order to fill their own pockets.

Chinese smugglers and pirates occasionally occupied the small islands near the mouth of the river ― engaging in their illegal activities until chased away by the Chinese navy. In the past, a great swath of land on the north bank of the river, nearly 100 kilometers wide and 500 kilometers long, was a no man's land ― a great wall of stakes defined the boundary of this unpopulated and uncultivated zone. However, in 1875, the Chinese government claimed the region to the banks of the Yalu.

Koreans caught on the Chinese side of the river were to be summarily executed while Chinese caught on the Korean side were to be apprehended by the Korean authorities who would then hand them over to their Chinese counterparts for execution.

In 1883, a group of Korean woodcutters frequently crossed the river and poached Chinese timber. One day, a Chinese constable gave chase and followed the poachers back across the river and confronted them. This brave (or audacious ― depending on your view) act cost him his life.

For the next four years the constable's family ― through the Chinese authorities ― sought justice. They urged the Korean authorities to have the poachers who murdered him arrested and punished but their pleas fell upon deaf ears ― at least in the Korean courts. Fate, however, seems to have been paying attention.

Logging operations on the Yalu River circa 1910-1920s Robert Neff Collection

In 1887, a group of Chinese woodcutters crossed the river and poached timber from Korean territory. According to the Peking Gazette, the Chinese woodcutters were enjoying fairly good business, unmolested by the local Korean population. However, this all came to an end when a Korean magistrate learned of the poaching and, accompanied by a group of soldiers and lower officials, confronted the Chinese woodcutters.

The confrontation resulted in violence and the Chinese overpowered the Koreans, tied them up and carried them back across the river ― into Chinese territory. The guard station was closed so the Korean captives were taken to a nearby house where they would be held until the matter could be settled by a Chinese magistrate. Unfortunately for the Koreans, the house was the residence of the Chinese constable who had been killed four years earlier.

The dead constable's son "refused to release them until his father's murderers were given up, and to quicken their efforts he promised to kill every one of them, from chief magistrate to common soldier, unless his demands were complied with."

The captured Korean magistrate sent urgent messages to his subordinates on the other side of the river and, on the following day, two Korean men were sent over ― one man confessed his guilt. The constable's son summarily executed the self-confessed murderer with an axe-blow to the head.

True to his word, the constable's son then released his captives and was subsequently arrested by a Chinese magistrate. The Chinese magistrate invited his corresponding Korean peer to participate in the trial "but the latter begged to be excused, on the ground of other judicial engagements."

The trial dragged on for nearly three years ― the delay attributed to the death (and/or lack of witnesses). The constable's son was found guilty of murdering his father's murderer and was sentenced to death. However, he received an "amnesty" for agreeing to pay about $50 towards the dead Korean's funeral expenses.

As for the "valiant woodcutters" who carried the captured Korean magistrate and his soldiers into Chinese territory, they all escaped punishment and (at least for a short time) "prudently removed themselves from the banks of the Yalu."

This was not the only revenge murder to occur along the river.

An 1889 map of the northern part of the Korean Peninsula Robert Neff Collection

In 1892, Yi Gyeong-suk brutally murdered a woman in Yengheung (a town in between Wonsan and Hamhung in North Korea). We don't know why he murdered her but we do know he fled the town shortly afterwards. The woman's only son returned home and, after burying his mother, swore revenge.

For years the son searched for his mother's killer, "traveling on foot in every province in the kingdom," until finally, in June 1897, he found him in Uiju (spelled Whiju on the map) near the Yalu River. Apparently he found him in an inn and challenged the man to a duel along the bank of the river. According to The Independent (a newspaper published in Seoul), Yi "fell dead before the sword of the man whose mother he murdered."

The son then returned to Yengheung and surrendered himself to the local magistrate ― "asking punishment for the crime of taking the law into his own hands."

The magistrate submitted his report to the law department and was subsequently ordered to "apply sixty light blows for the offense, after which to release the son in consideration of the filial duty which he so perseveringly performed."

My appreciation to Diane Nars for her invaluable assistance.

Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books, including Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.