Donkey lovers who like to travel all over the country should have seen some buildings in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Changsha, Guangzhou, Chongqing and other places, and the words "Former Site of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea" are written on the door. This is quite new, because things like "country within a country" should not happen.
However, the four words "provisional government" cannot be ignored. What is a "Provisional Government"? To put it mildly, it is "government-in-exile.". That is to say, these so-called "old sites" in the above places are the former sites of the provisional government set up by the Korean government-in-exile in China at that time.
So where did this history come from? This brings us to the humiliating era of a hundred years ago. Let's first review the historical Sino-Korean relations, the more fluctuating is in the Ming Dynasty era, when the Ming Government was as strong as it was, but it has always been coveted by the island people. In history, Japan, wolf ambition, arrogance, restlessness in the island, has always been eyeing the Central Plains, once more than once wanted to enter China through aggression, become a landlocked country, and enjoy the rich and vast land of Greater China.
Therefore, during the Toyotomi Hideyoshi period, 200,000 Japanese troops once wanted to use Korea as a springboard to leap straight into China and point the sword at the Central Plains. The Joseon Dynasty was weak and powerless to stop it, and immediately asked the imperial court of the suzerainty of the Ming Dynasty for help. The Ming Dynasty sent 70,000 troops to aid the DPRK, and under the arduous battle of the Sino-Korean Combined Army, the 200,000 Japanese troops led by the Ukita Hideya were beaten back to the Japanese mainland, and they did not dare to advance inland from then on.
Hundreds of years later, the Meiji Restoration brought Japan among the great powers and began its aggression against China. This time, after the industrial revolution, Japan became incomparably stronger and successfully took Korea, and the Japanese army standing on the Korean springboard also took this opportunity to jump straight into China, advance into the Central Plains, and start a crazy invasion of China, while the Qing government at this time was already backward to the point of being unable to resist.
Due to the inability of the Qing government to resist the Japanese offensive in Korea, some righteous people in South Korea had to go into exile in Shanghai, the former suzerainty, and established a government-in-exile. It was in this humiliating situation that the Provisional Government deposed the monarchy and completed the election of the president, prime minister, ministers, and officials at all levels, forming the prototype of South Korea. This was also the first time that South Korea had freed itself from the feudal monarchy, or in China.
The South Korean government has continuously held independence protest movements in China, gathered former North Korean exiles, and obtained all kinds of help from people of insight from all walks of life in China. However, in the following decades, China's domestic political situation was constantly changing, and the domestic situation was turbulent, and the Korean Provisional Government had to move again and again, successively moving to Shanghai, Hangzhou, Jiaxing, Changsha, Guangzhou, Chongqing and other places. It was not until 1945 that Japan surrendered, World War II was declared over, and the South Korean government moved back to South Korea, officially establishing today's South Korea.
After the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and South Korea, successive presidents of South Korea will visit Shanghai, and pilgrimage to this former site of the provisional government that once established South Korea.