The two Marines were honored with a gun salute into the sunny autumn sky as families wailed and grim-faced officials saluted the funeral cortege, days after North Korea rained shells on a tiny island in the heaviest attack on South Korea since the 1950-53 civil war.

“All Marines, including Marines on service and reserve Marines, will avenge the two at any cost, keeping today’s anger and hostility in mind,” Lt. Gen. Yoo Nak Joon, commander of the South Korean Marine Corps, said, speaking in front of a hearse lightly dusted by snow.

“We will put our feelings of rage and animosity in our bones and take our revenge on North Korea.”

The funeral was followed by three separate anti-North Korea protests in the capital as a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier headed for joint manoeuvres with South Korea on Sunday, infuriating North Korea and prompting a warning from its only major ally, China.

“It’s time for action. Time for retaliation. Let’s hit the presidential palace in Pyongyang,” shouted close to 1,000 Marine veterans in downtown Seoul.

President Lee Myung-bak was holding a meeting of security officials, Yonhap news agency said. South Korea’s new defense minister called for tougher action against North Korea, local media reported. A Seoul newspaper also reported the government plans to sharply increase defense spending next year.

“We need to deal with North Korea’s provocations strongly,” Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin was quoted as telling presidential aides by the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. “We need to hit back multiple times as hard.”

The Korea Economic Daily said the government had proposed a 5.8 percent increase in the 2011 defense budget to about $27 billion to buy more self-propelled artillery and fighter-bombers, far more than the 3.6 percent rise this year.

It said parliament could approve an even higher amount, given this week’s shelling by North Korean forces of Yeonpyeong island near the disputed maritime boundary.

NOT STRONG ENOUGH

Lawmakers have blasted President Lee Myung-bak’s government for not responding strongly enough. The defense minister resigned, taking responsibility, and Kim, a career soldier, was appointed in his place.

Regional giant China has said it is determined to prevent an escalation of the violence but warned against military acts near its coast as US and South Korean forces prepare for exercises in the Yellow Sea.

A North Korean website (http://www.uriminzokkiri) operated by the government propaganda agency said the war drills were “another unforgivable military provocation.”

“(The North) will make the stronghold of the enemy a sheet of flames if they violate its territory even by 0.01 mm.”

The US military said the exercises, planned long before Tuesday’s attack, were designed to deter North Korea and were not aimed at China.

The United States is sending an aircraft carrier group led by the nuclear-powered USS George Washington for the manoeuvres with South Korea.

“We’ve routinely operated in waters off the Korean peninsula for years,” said Captain Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman. “These latest provocations have been by the North and they need to take ownership of those, not us.”

US Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and leader Kim Jong-il’s unpredictability increased the threat of regional instability.

“It’s hard to know why China doesn’t push harder,” Mullen told CNN television’s Fareed Zakaria GPS in comments due to air on Sunday. “My sense is they try to control this guy. And I’m not sure he is controllable.”

North Korea has entered an unpredictable period of leadership transition with the elevation of Kim Jong-il’s youngest son, Kim Jong-un, in September to the rank of general — in a clear sign he is the chosen successor.

Mullen has said he believes the artillery attack and the sinking in March of a South Korean warship, which the United States and South Korea blamed on the North, are likely linked to Kim Jong-il’s “posturing” to allow the eventual succession.

Calling for calm after the attack, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met North Korean ambassador Ji Jae Ryong in Beijing and talked by phone with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan.

“The top priority now is to keep the situation under control and to ensure such events do not happen again,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.