Source: Global Times
On 16 June, the Asahi Shimbun exposed the handwritten letter of 90,000 126 years ago from Japan's then diplomat in Korea, Horiguchi, further declassifying the course of the "Yiwei Incident" (also known as the "Min Concubine Murder Incident"). A number of South Korean media reprinted the report of Japan's "Asahi Shimbun" on the 17th, and the new clues involving the Japanese high-level involvement attracted the attention of South Korean experts and scholars, who said, "This is the most powerful evidence that can refute the Japanese." The words in the letter about "assassination is so simple" also shocked and indignant the South Korean people, some condemned the evil deeds of Japanese imperialism, and some people felt sad that the country was weak and bullied.
The "B Wei Incident" occurred on October 8, 1895 (August 20 of the lunar calendar), when the Japanese invaded Gyeongbokgung Palace and killed Consort Min, causing international shock and condemnation. The pro-Russian and anti-Japanese consort Min (wife of Gojong of Joseon and posthumously known as "Empress Myungseong") was the de facto ruler of Korea at the end of the 19th century, and after the Japanese Empire plotted to kill him, she continued to penetrate deep into the Korean Peninsula and occupied the Korean Peninsula in 1910.
Horiguchi 90,000 envelopes, including two envelopes for the October 9, 1895 letter (Credit: Asahi Shimbun)
According to the Asahi Shimbun, the new relevant historical materials of the "B Incident" were exposed after examination. The author of the letter, Horiguchi Kuyoichi (1865-1945), was working at the Japanese Consulate in Korea. According to the research of Japanese and Korean historians, he sent a total of 8 handwritten letters to his friend and scholar Takeshi Sadamatsu from November 17, 1894 to October 18, 1895. The letter dated October 9, 1895 details the course of Horiguchi's gang from climbing over the wall to invading the Korean royal palace.
Horiguchi wrote, "I was surprised to climb over the wall, manage to reach the bedchamber and assassinate the princess (designated as empress), which was easier than I thought."
The content of the handwritten letter differs markedly from what Horiguchi made in reviewing the events of the 1930s. According to the Asahi Shimbun, Horiguchi had described the incident from a third-party perspective that did not care about himself, but in the newly discovered letter, he bluntly stated that "we killed the princess." Horiguchi also stated that the mastermind of the assassination was the Korean royal "pro-Japanese faction" Heungson Daejong (the biological father of Gojong of Joseon), saying that Daewonjun sent him three "uprising poems" on the eve of the incident, and revealed his intention to launch a coup d'état. However, in the newly discovered epistles, Horiguchi's comment when referring to the poems given to him by Ōmon-kun is that "the poems are obscure and I don't know what he is talking about."
The letters were accidentally found by Tanigawa, a 77-year-old collector, from Nagoya's antiquities market, and later sent to the Korean historian Kim Bun-ko in Japan for examination and appraisal. "It is undoubtedly shocking that a serving diplomat was directly involved in the killing of the princess of the host country," said Kim Bun-ko, who wrote the book "The Japanese Who Killed the Princess of Korea," adding that although the details of the letters have yet to be further examined, they are indeed Horiguchi's handwriting and seals, and the credibility of the content is quite high. Kim Fumiko also said that Horiguchi's remarks more than 40 years after the incident were "completely different from those in the newly discovered letters", which are important evidence that his after-the-fact statements are false.
The "B-uninvolved Incident" is still a historical mystery, and there have long been huge differences between Japan and the Korean Peninsula in terms of the understanding and views of this event, especially the issue of the mastermind. After 1945, the japanese view that it was the mastermind of the "B-Wei Incident" was established in South Korea. A Korean middle school history textbook explained the incident this way: "Empress Myeongseong was considered to be a figure who hindered the Japanese invasion of Korea, so the Japanese minister mobilized the Japanese army and Japanese villains to invade the palace and committed a barbaric act of killing Empress Myeongseong. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea's views on the "B-unintended Incident" are basically the same as those of the Republic of Korea.
However, although many studies have pointed to the mastermind was the then Japanese minister to Korea, Miura Inro, there has been controversy in academic circles because there is almost no direct evidence of the Japanese government's involvement in the assassination – some believe that The Daimyo-kun bought the Japanese to launch a coup. Participants in the Japanese incident, such as Miura Wulou, insisted that The Great Courtyard Jun was the mastermind.
Japan's history education has long avoided the "B Wei Incident", focusing on the rise of the Great Japanese Empire in the Nisshin and Russo-Japanese Wars to become a world power, and almost without talking about how to get involved in the history of assassination within the Joseon Dynasty and then launched.
At that time, due to the unequal treaty between Korea and Japan, the Joseon Dynasty did not have the right to judge the Japanese gangs involved. The Japanese Government, under pressure from international public opinion, investigated the assassination case and conducted a formal trial of those involved. The final verdict was that the culprits were North Koreans. Miura Inoha was ruled "not guilty" by the Japanese Military Court, and the Hiroshima District Court of Japan did not prosecute 48 members of the Horiguchi 90,000 and other perpetrators on the grounds of "insufficient evidence" and released all of them.
South Korea's "Chosun Ilbo" reported on the 17th that Lee Tae-jin, a professor at Seoul National University who served as chairman of the Korean National History Compilation Committee, said that the Japanese government had always emphasized that the "B Wei Incident" was led by the Daewon Jun, and that japanese ronin and other non-governmental figures only played an "auxiliary role". However, the contents of the letters found this time show that the Japanese diplomat in North Korea at the time was at the scene of the crime and recorded the incident in detail, which is enough to prove that this is a crime committed by Japan at the national level.
The matter set off a heated discussion in South Korea, and South Korean netizens said one after another, "It is really infuriating to see this news, what kind of decay the country must become to make such a thing happen", "Although it has been rid of Japanese colonial rule for many years, South Korea's pro-Japanese forces have not been completely liquidated, and the pro-Japanese faction must not be allowed to become the president of South Korea again", "Japan must reflect and reflect again, Japanese diplomats actually killed the mother of other countries like thieves, and Japan must repeatedly apologize", "Whether in the past or now, Only when a country becomes rich and strong can it escape its humiliation, and this history must be taught to future generations."