Now in Shanghai Yul-chun approached the second terrorist group, the Yi Nul Tan, or Society of Brave Justice. He was with them but not of them — not yet. He could not as yet commit himself wholly to death and destruction as the only weapons of revolution and especially when among these singlehearted young men he found division. For in this winter of the Christian year 1924, the Society of Brave Justice was split into three parts, Nationalist, Anarchist and Communist. He watched this division with growing cynicism, and the more because the most violent of the terrorists were also the most corrupt as men. They wore western dress, they oiled their hair, they made a cult of their appearance, and since most of them were tall and handsome young men, women sought them, and among these the most passionate were women of mixed Russian-Korean ancestry, the daughters of exiled patriots in Siberia.
One night in early spring Yul-chun walked in the park in the French section of Shanghai where the exiles lived, and he saw how these members of the Society of Brave Justice made rendezvous there with the women, how boldly they exchanged the acts of physical love, how wild these exchanges were and how promiscuous and how quickly forgotten. The fires in his own flesh were strong enough to be stirred and he could understand how young and desperate men, daily face to face with death, were compelled to find relief in brief and violent passion. But this was not his way. His eyes were on the goal of independence for his people and a wise and sensible plan for life. It was time for him to be on his way again, therefore, and he left Shanghai before the spring grew warm, and went south again.
… He arrived back in the city of Canton in the autumn of the year, at the time of the rice harvest. The fields were gay with cheerful harvesters, the crops were good and food would be plenty for the winter. Again he doubted that these Chinese people could be stirred to rebellion unless there was a war from outside, which was to say unless Japanese military men again dreamed their dreams of empire. Then he reminded himself that he was here for a greater cause than this. He was here to find those who could help him make Korea free.
… “You have come at last. And alone?”
This was Kim’s greeting and question. When Yul-chun had given up the magazine at Hanya’s insistence, after he had been ill with a heavy cough, Kim had left Peking in some disgust because, he said, Hanya had spoiled Yul-chun for a revolutionist. With several others he had come to Canton, they had rented two rooms in a house which was in a narrow crooked street where workers in ivory lived and plied their crafts. Tusks of ivory came whole from the jungles of Burma and Malaya and were sold to the craftsmen, who cut them and carved the pieces into ivory gods and goddesses and figures of men and women, into boxes and jewelry and every sort of object for use and beauty. Among these many families the exiles came and went unnoticed, all wearing Chinese dress.
“Alone,” Yul-chun replied.
He threw down his knapsack and shook off his worn sandals. The soles were in shreds and he had a stone bruise under his left instep. He sat down, nursing his foot in his hand, while Kim stood looking at him.
“Did she leave you or did you leave her?”
“She left me,” Yul-chun said shortly. “And I did not go after her,” he added.
“You look hungry,” Kim said next.
“I am not hungry,” Yul-chun replied in the same short voice. “I have been well fed all the way, especially in Shanghai.”
“Then you have another hunger,” Kim said, laughing. “Easily satisfied, comrade! Though how you could leave Shanghai with that sort of hunger — but we have many comrades here, too.”
“Who could believe you were ever a monk!”
Yul-chun nursed his painful foot as he spoke, and looked about the bare room. “Can you put a few boards on two benches for another bed?”
“I have been expecting you,” Kim said. “I have kept space for you here. No woman could satisfy you forever. I knew that I had only to wait.”
“How many Koreans are in Canton?” Yul-chun asked.
“Only about sixty,” Kim replied, “and they belong to the Yi Nul Tan.”
“Again! I have only just left them in Shanghai.”
“Russian advisers here are teaching them new methods, and it may be we shall need them in our own country when the time comes.”
“I have no confidence now in terrorists,” Yul-chun retorted. “They enjoy their work too much — and they leave fury behind them.”
“We can use them,” Kim said. He was dragging his bed to one side of the room and arranging a place for the other bed.
“Have you joined the Communists?” Yul-chun asked.
“Yes! If I am a revolutionist, let me be complete! And you?”
“No. I must be convinced that it is the best means for getting independence.”
“You cannot know until you become Communist yourself. Faith first, and then conviction.”
“That is the difference between us. You must have a faith. Not I! I have no faith in anything or anyone. And I am convinced that the Japanese will never be content with our small mountainous country. What they have been saying ever since the time of Hideyoshi is still true. For them Korea is only a stepping-stone to Asia. And now that I have seen China with my own eyes, the richness of its soil, their great cities, the skills of its people, I am convinced that whoever holds China holds Asia — and perhaps some day the world.”
He spoke with eloquent energy, and Kim listened, enchanted. “You should talk instead of write!”
But Yul-chun was not finished and did not hear. He went on, his eyes blazing his thoughts. “Who can prevent this island dream? Who but us, an independent Korea, blocking the aggression? Who else sees the danger? China is no more than a watchdog, what has she done to prevent Japan? What has any other power done?”
“You should be a terrorist, my friend,” Kim said. “You would make a good one.”
And he rose and went to the open door and stood looking out into the growing darkness.
Behind him Yul-chun sat in silence. Then, overcome with exhaustion sudden and profound, he threw himself on the bed.
… “The real war,” Yul-chun complained to Kim, “is the war we wage among ourselves.”
For Yul-chun, after only a few months, discovered that the Korean revolutionaries continued here the feuds they had brought with them from their own country. Those who believed in terror were against those who believed in nonviolence. Those who came from the north were against those who came from the south. Some were Communist and believed that only a total change in ideology could save their people; some were against Communism, saying that an ideology was only an obstacle when independence was the goal. Those who had come from Manchuria separated themselves from those who came from Korea and both were against those who came from Siberia. Beyond such internal division among his compatriots, Yul-chun discovered the enmities between the sects and clans and the Chinese groups, especially the single-minded Chinese Communists who, under their Russian advisers, felt that they should control all, and were cruel to those who did not follow them.
“We destroy ourselves,” he continued despondently.
They worked all day at their chosen tasks, Yul-chun again at writing and printing, but at night he and Kim and many others gathered in a large old teashop which they had rented for their meetings. The numbers of exiles grew daily until now hundreds had come to join the Chinese revolutionaries. In a few months there were eight hundred Koreans alone, some four hundred from the Army of Independence in Manchuria, a hundred and more from Siberia, and the rest from Korea. They were all young, under forty years of age, and some as young as fourteen and fifteen. Among them a lad name Yak-san attached himself to Yul-chun, and the two became friends. This boy had put aside the name his family had given him and had chosen the name of a famous terrorist, Kim Yak-san, who had once tried to kill a Japanese Governor-General in Seoul, by the name of Saito. According to legend, the terrorist had borrowed the garments and the mailbag of a follower who earned his living as a postman. In the bag he hid seven bombs and on a day when he heard the Governor-General was to meet in his office with other high Japanese officials, he went there and threw the seven bombs into the room. The officials had already left, but the bombs destroyed much of the building and other Japanese were killed. Meanwhile the terrorist disguised himself again, this time as a fisherman, while the police looked for him in every part of the country. After a few days he escaped to Antung and from there he went to Manchuria.