from the autobiography of Adachi Kenzō.
Taking up the post after Minister Ōtori's recall, Count Inoue crossed to Korea as Minister Plenipotentiary Extraordinary, throwing over even the Interior Minister's chair to do so. His policy toward Korea, in brief, was this: under the principle of making Korea a state under the rule of law like Japan proper, first to carry through one great reform, establishing a legally complete cabinet system, drawing a strict line between palace and government, and enacting a finished legal code by which Korean state affairs would be conducted. Accordingly he moved on the one hand to exclude the Taewŏn'gun's regency and on the other to check Queen Min's meddling; he submitted a twenty-article program of internal reform and sought the King's assent, invited a strong body of advisers from Japan, and, spurring each of them on, threw himself into the reform of institutions of every kind. In that advisory body were Okamoto Ryūnosuke as adviser to the Household and the Army, Ishizuka Eizō for the cabinet, Hoshi Tōru for justice, Nio Koreshige for finance, Saitō Shūichirō for home affairs, and Kusunose Yukihiko for the army; through their hands he hoped to set everything in order along legal lines and attain his aim of fundamental renewal. The world called this Minister Inoue's code strategy.
This code strategy, however, ended in the last event in failure. A little over a year into his tenure, when in June of Meiji 28 he returned for a time to Japan, the situation at the Korean court abruptly changed; not only did the code strategy stall at every turn, but the famous Pak Yŏnghyo affair broke out. The affair was this: Pak, with the Japanese influence of the day at his back, planned to make himself head of the cabinet; his scheme had long since come to the palace's knowledge, and at last, taking advantage of Minister Inoue's absence, they moved to arrest him. Pak barely escaped with his life and fled into exile in Japan.
That Minister Inoue hurried back in alarm to Keijō when the affair broke out I have already related. But the policy of the returned Minister made an about-face in the true Inoue manner and changed utterly: he abandoned the former code strategy and turned to a palace strategy. Not only did he let the palace gain a footing in the conduct of state affairs; everyone displeasing to Queen Min was removed, her trusted men were of course brought into the cabinet, and by a policy of extreme conciliation he sought harmony between palace and government, intending to stand above it all himself in a guiding position and thereby sway Korea. That he presented the Korean government with the great sum of three million yen in order to seal Queen Min and the whole palace into his own medicine chest makes this plain enough.
Thus for a month and a half a rough calm held; there were no great collisions between palace and cabinet, and while Count Inoue remained in his post things somehow passed without incident. But when in September the Count was relieved as Minister and Lieutenant-General (Reserve) Viscount Miura Gorō came out to the post in his place, all at once there was turmoil, and troubles of every kind began to arise.