Assassination of Empress Myeongseong (1895): Korea's Queen Min

The assassination of Empress Myeongseong, better known in the West as Queen Min, took place in the early hours of 8 October 1895, when Japanese agents and soldiers broke into Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul and killed Korea’s queen. Known in Korea as the Eulmi Incident, the murder was an attempt to stop Korea from turning to Russia, and it became one of the most bitterly remembered episodes on the road to Japanese rule.

Background: a kingdom between empires

Queen Min was born in 1851 into the Yeoheung Min clan and married the young King Gojong in 1866. Gojong’s father, the regent Heungseon Daewongun, had chosen her partly because her family seemed politically weak. Instead she became one of the most capable figures at court, and for nearly three decades she and the Daewongun were bitter rivals.

Korea, ruled by the Joseon dynasty, was being pulled into the struggles of larger powers. Japan forced the kingdom to open its ports in the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876, while Qing China tried to keep Korea as a tributary state. The queen’s faction generally relied on Chinese support. During the soldiers’ mutiny of 1882 (the Imo Incident) she had to flee the palace in disguise, and in 1884 a pro-Japanese coup attempt, the Gapsin Coup, was crushed by Chinese troops.

The balance shifted with the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Japan’s victory ended Chinese influence, and Japanese advisers pushed the Gabo Reforms, a sweeping programme that modernised government but also tightened Japan’s grip. Then, in April 1895, Russia, France and Germany forced Japan to give up the Liaodong Peninsula in the so-called Triple Intervention. The lesson was not lost in Seoul. The queen and her allies began to court Russia, through the Russian minister Karl Waeber, as a counterweight to Japan.

The plot

In September 1895 Japan replaced its minister in Seoul, Inoue Kaoru, with Miura Goro, a retired army general with little diplomatic experience. Within weeks Miura and members of the Japanese legation were planning to remove the queen. The plan used Japanese legation guards and police, a band of Japanese civilian adventurers known as soshi, and the Hullyeondae, a Korean training regiment drilled by Japanese officers that the court was about to disband.

The conspirators also brought in the Daewongun, the queen’s old rival, so that the coup could be presented as a Korean palace quarrel. He was escorted to the palace on the night of the attack.

What happened on 8 October 1895

Before dawn on 8 October the attackers entered Gyeongbokgung, overcame the palace guard and made for the Geoncheonggung, a residence at the rear of the palace grounds where the king and queen lived. Hong Gye-hun, commander of the palace guard, was killed, as was the Minister of the Royal Household, Yi Gyeong-jik.

The attackers searched the queen’s quarters, the Gonnyeonghap, and killed her along with several court ladies. Her body was carried out and burned in a nearby grove, and the remains were later buried. Gojong and the crown prince were not killed but were roughly treated.

The killing had foreign witnesses. The American general William McEntyre Dye, who advised the palace guard, and the Russian architect Afanasy Seredin-Sabatin were inside the grounds. Their accounts, sent to their legations, made it impossible for Japan to present the event as a purely Korean affair.

Key people

• Queen Min (Empress Myeongseong, 1851–1895): queen consort of Gojong and the dominant political figure at court for much of his reign.
• Gojong (1852–1919): king of Joseon from 1864 and later first emperor of the Korean Empire.
• Heungseon Daewongun (1820–1898): Gojong’s father and former regent, used by the plotters as a figurehead.
• Miura Goro (1847–1926): Japanese minister in Seoul, widely regarded by historians as the organiser of the plot.
• Woo Beom-seon: Korean commander of a Hullyeondae battalion that took part; he later fled to Japan.

Consequences

The murder caused an international scandal. Under pressure, Japan recalled Miura and some fifty other suspects and put them on trial at Hiroshima. In January 1896 the court released them for insufficient evidence, while a military court acquitted the army officers involved. Several Koreans accused of taking part were executed in Seoul.

At first the new pro-Japanese cabinet even issued a decree demoting the dead queen to commoner status, a move that provoked outrage and was soon reversed. In December 1895 the government ordered men to cut off their traditional topknots. This decree, together with the queen’s murder, sparked the first “righteous army” (uibyeong) uprisings against the cabinet and Japanese influence.

On 11 February 1896 Gojong escaped from the palace with the crown prince and took refuge in the Russian legation, where he lived for about a year. The pro-Japanese cabinet fell, and Russia’s influence in Korea briefly overtook Japan’s. In October 1897 Gojong proclaimed the Korean Empire and gave his late wife the title Empress Myeongseong. Her state funeral was held in November 1897.

In Seoul, Japan sent the diplomat Komura Jutaro to investigate, and he soon replaced Miura as minister. Tokyo’s leaders wanted to limit the damage to Japan’s reputation with the Western powers, which had just forced it to give up gains in China. The episode left Japan’s position in Korea weaker than at any time since the war.

Legacy

Russia’s position in Korea and Manchuria would later be one of the causes of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. After that war Japan made Korea a protectorate and in 1910 formally annexed it, as described in Japanese Annexation of Korea. For many Koreans the murder of the queen became a symbol of the violence of that process.

Her reputation has changed over time. Earlier accounts, including some Korean ones, portrayed her as a schemer who filled offices with her relatives. Since the 1990s, novels, a popular stage musical and television dramas have recast her as a patriotic queen who defended Korean independence. Historians generally see a shrewd politician who protected both her clan and the dynasty in an impossible position. The Geoncheonggung, demolished during the colonial period, was rebuilt in 2007.

The empress was first buried at Hongneung, east of Seoul’s old city walls. After Gojong’s death in 1919 her remains were moved to Hongyureung in Namyangju, where she lies beside him. Her birthplace in Yeoju is preserved as a memorial site.

Myths and facts

• Myth: there is a known photograph of Queen Min. No image of her has been authenticated. Pictures often reproduced under her name are disputed.
• Myth: the killing was simply a Korean palace feud. The plotters tried to present it that way, but the evidence of foreign witnesses and later Japanese investigations points to planning by the Japanese legation.
• Fact: the exact identity of the man who killed her remains uncertain; accounts written by participants and witnesses disagree.

Timeline

• 1866: Min, aged 14, marries King Gojong.
• 1882, July: Imo Incident; the queen flees the palace in disguise.
• 1895, 17 April: Treaty of Shimonoseki ends the First Sino-Japanese War.
• 1895, 23 April: Triple Intervention forces Japan to give up the Liaodong Peninsula.
• 1895, 1 September: Miura Goro arrives in Seoul as Japanese minister.
• 1895, 8 October: The queen is killed at Gyeongbokgung Palace.
• 1896, January: Hiroshima court releases the accused Japanese.
• 1896, 11 February: Gojong flees to the Russian legation.
• 1897, October: The Korean Empire is proclaimed; the queen becomes Empress Myeongseong.
• 1897, November: State funeral of Empress Myeongseong.

Why it matters

The assassination of Empress Myeongseong showed how far foreign powers were willing to go to control Korea. It weakened Japan in the short term, pushed Korea toward Russia, and helped set the stage for the rivalry that ended with Korea’s annexation in 1910.