On October 26, 1909, Hirobumi Ito, who had served as prime minister four times after the Meiji Restoration and then president of the Privy Council of Japan, was assassinated in Harbin, China, at the age of 68.
The assassin was a Korean named 'Ahn Jung-geun' who was 31 years old at the time!
Why did Ahn Jung-geun assassinate Hirobumi Ito? What exactly is the hatred between them? It all started in 1875!
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan's ambitions for the expansion of foreign aggression swelled sharply, and the spearhead of aggression was first directed at Northeast China and the Korean Peninsula.
In 1875, the Japanese warship Yunyang sailed into the mouth of the Han River near Seoul and sent marines to land and attack.
Under the strong military pressure of the Japanese army, Korea was forced to sign the Treaty of Ganghwa, and Korea began to become a semi-colony of Japan.
After the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, Japan became a "protectorate" of Korea.
Later, in order to squeeze out the Tsarist Forces from Northeast China and Korea, Japan launched the famous "Russo-Japanese War" in modern history in 1904 after nearly 10 years of armament reorganization.
After the war began, the Russian army suffered repeated defeats due to supply difficulties and incompetence in command. After more than a year of fierce fighting, the Japanese army successively occupied Dalian, Lushun, Fengtian and other places in China.
In May 1905, the Japanese Navy defeated the Baltic Fleet, which Russia had sent for reinforcements, in the Strait of Tsushima.
Due to the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Tsushima and the outbreak of the domestic revolution, Russia already felt that there was no possibility of victory, so after the Mediation of the United States, Japan and Russia formally held peace talks and signed the Portsmouth Treaty.
After this war, Japan has entered the ranks of the world's great powers! Later, Japan set up the "Governor's Office" in Seoul, and the first governor was this 'Ito Hirobumi'.
And the so-called "unified supervisor" is actually the "Emperor Taishang" of North Korea!
| Former Prime Minister of Japan Hirobumi Ito
In order to consolidate Japan's position in Korea, Ito Hirobumi forced the Korean government to sign the Treaty of Otomi Protection.
According to this treaty, Korea would receive military "protection" from Japan in its name, and its foreign affairs would be fully controlled by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In this way, the king and cabinet of Korea became the puppets of Ito Hirobumi.
So, has Japan's act of aggression not been accused and resisted by the Korean people and the people of the world?
Of course! After Japan occupied Korea, many benevolent men and women in Korea organized themselves to resist Japanese aggression.
However, due to the lack of armament and rigorous organizational training, these rebellions did not achieve much success in the beginning.
In 1907, Emperor Gojong of Korea secretly sent emissaries to the Netherlands to attend the Second International Peace Conference. Since the Conference was held in The Hague, netherlands, it is also known as the "Hague Peace Conference".
At that meeting, the Korean envoys vigorously accused Japan of aggression against Korea and called on the European and American powers to intervene so that Korea could regain its sovereignty.
Unexpectedly, This act of Emperor Gaozong completely angered Itō Hirobumi, who used this as an excuse to force Emperor Gaozong to give way to the crown prince and depose the emperor.
Only a week later, Ito Hirobumi forcibly disbanded the army, leaving all control of Korea in the hands of the Japanese superintendent.
However, what is even more infuriating is that after the successful seizure of power, Ito Hirobumi also put on a kind and humble face all day long.
For example, before each speech, he did not forget to say to the Japanese and Korean officials present: "I now propose that you ask the princes to follow me and call 'Long live the Han Emperor'!" ”
On the surface, there is courtesy and modesty, but behind the scenes, it is the ambition of the wolf, this kind of person, it is indeed unpredictable!
In order to control Korea forever, Ito Hirobumi also specially invited the Japanese Crown Prince "Kahito", later the 'Taisho Emperor' to visit Korea.
Later, he announced to the outside world that he would become the teacher of the Crown Prince of Korea and was awarded the position of "Prince Taishi".
Later, Ito Hirobumi also specially accompanied the Korean crown prince to study in Japan and gave him careful guidance. But in fact, Ito Hirobumi only wanted to cultivate a "puppet emperor" who was subservient to Japan!
In view of the many "contributions" made by Ito Hirobumi to Japan, the Japanese Emperor also specially granted him the title of Duke.
At that time, Ito Hirobumi was well-known and powerful, and he had a decisive influence on the Japanese government.
However, for the Korean people at that time, the actions of the Japanese unification authorities in Korea made them feel disgusted and hated, and they must be expelled from their homeland and truly independent and autonomous. What country would the people of a country like to be invaded by other countries?
To this end, many benevolent men in North Korea have begun to revolt, including the protagonist of our article, Ahn Jung-geun.
Figure | Ahn Jung-geun Yoshishi
Ahn Jung-geun was born on September 3, 1879 in Haeju Province, Hwanghae-do, North Korea.
Here we will explain a little bit that North Korea at that time was not North Korea in today's sense, but the entire Korean Peninsula.
In 1392, after Lee Sung-gyu overthrew the Goryeo Dynasty, he established himself as king and created the "Joseon Dynasty".
In 1897, Gojong Lee Hee proclaimed himself empress dowager and changed the name of the country to "Korean Empire", which lasted until the signing of the Treaty of Annexation between Japan and Korea in 1910, when the "Joseon Dynasty" (also known as the "Korean Empire") was officially declared dead.
The current Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, was only formally established on September 9, 1948, after World War II.
Therefore, we are right to say that Ahn Jung-geun is also a North Korean, and it is also right to say that it is a South Korean! In this article we will call him 'Korean'.
Ahn Jung-geun was born from the famous Shunxing An clan, whose 26th ancestor was the late Goryeo Dynasty's Daru 'AnJu', his grandfather 'An In-shou' was the Governor of Jinhae County in the Joseon Dynasty, and his father 'An Tae-hoon' was a jinshi, a typical "two-shift" family.
Ahn Jung-geun is the eldest son in the family, in addition to having two younger brothers and a younger sister. The reason why Ahn Jung-geun pronounced "Ying Qi" is said to be because he has seven moles on his chest and abdomen.
Ahn Jung-geun entered a private school in Chinese at an early age, and at the age of 17, under the influence of his father, he became a Catholic with the name "Domo".
After the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, Japan resolutely launched the "Russo-Japanese War" in order to eliminate the imperial Russian forces in Korea.
At the time of the war, Ahn Jung-geun once indignantly sighed: "It is a battle, it is a matter of the survival of our country, and the victory of the Day will be the death of Japan, and the victory of Russia will be the same." ”
That is to say: the battle is a matter of life and death for our Korean Empire, japan will win in Japan, and russia will win in the same way.
Figure | Ahn Jung-geun's handwriting
After Japan's victory, the "TongjianFu" was established in Seoul, called Protection, which was actually an invasion.
Under the rule of the TongjianFu, the Japanese army wantonly burned and plundered the Korean Peninsula, doing all kinds of evil, and the three thousand miles of great rivers and mountains suddenly turned into a hell on earth under the destruction of the Japanese invaders.
After witnessing and experiencing all this with his own children, Ahn Jung-geun recognized Japan's aggressive ambitions, and after that, he began to look for a way to resist Japan and save the country.
However, his own strength alone is not enough, he must unite more forces.
At that time, there were many Koreans living in Places such as Shandong and Shanghai in China. In order to unite these compatriots, Ahn Jung-geun rushed all the way from Korea to Shandong, and then to Shanghai via Shandong, where he befriended benevolent and righteous people and planned great things together.
In this process, An Zhonggen clearly realized that developing education, unifying will, uniting the people, and accumulating strength are the best ways to save the country and the people.
To this end, in 1906, Ahn Jung-geun opened the "Sanxing School" and the "Dunyi School", and personally served as the principal of the two schools. At this time, Ahn Jung-geun was only 27 years old.
However, as the situation continued to change, by 1907, Korea had basically become a Japanese colony!
In such a critical situation, it is difficult to save the motherland by simply revitalizing education. At this time, Ahn Jung-geun deeply realized that only with the barrel of a gun can he come out of power.
Therefore, Ahn Jung-geun resolutely decided to join the army!
He came to Vladivostok in far East China, Russia, where more than 5,000 Koreans were found, where Ahn Jung-geun attended the YMCA and was elected as a temporary maintenance officer.
Here, An Chonggen befriended a large number of aspiring young people such as Lee Fan-yun, Kim Doo-sung, and Kim Ki-yong, and also became brothers with several of them to conspire for great things.
After that, Ahn Jung-geun and others began to give propaganda and speeches among the Koreans, which aroused the fighting spirit of the Chinese people to resist the invaders, and some of them donated weapons and funds, and some voluntarily signed up for the rebels.
Soon, Ahn Jung-geun and others formed a rebel army of more than 800 people, and elected Jin Douxing as the governor, Lee Fan-yun as a general, and Ahn Jung-geun as a lieutenant general's staff officer.
From then on, they began to lead their own teams, day and night, to fight the Japanese army.
Ahn's team won the first battle, capturing not only many weapons but also several prisoners.
At that time, Ahn Jung-geun asked these Japanese prisoners why they invaded Korea, and the Japanese prisoners replied with tears that they did not want to fight in the first place, and it was Ito Hirobumi who started this damn war.
After that, Ahn Jung-geun did not kill them, but returned the weapon to them, so that when they returned, they would take the opportunity to eliminate Ito Hirobumi, a war maniac.
Of course, Ahn knew it would be impossible to accomplish, but in a humanitarian spirit, he could only do so.
However, many people in the rebel army still disagreed with Ahn Jung-geun's approach. Ahn explains: "Today's international law is to imprison prisoners rather than kill... The enemy should be treated with benevolence. ”
As it turns out, Ahn Jung-geun was right! As sun tzu said in the Art of War: "To be good and to nurture him is to defeat the enemy and become stronger."
Figure | A clip from the Korean movie "Ahn Jung-geun"
A few days later, Ahn's team was raided by the Japanese. Due to the large number of Japanese troops, only Ahn Jung-geun and a few team members successfully broke through in the end, and the rest of the team members were all sacrificed.
In fact, in the battle, An Chonggen had already made up his mind to die, and wanted to fight the Japanese army to the death, but he was strongly dissuaded by several team members!
After the breakthrough, after a arduous trek, Ahn Jung-geun and his party finally succeeded in returning to Vladivostok, Russia. The local compatriots were ready to meet to welcome him, but they were rejected by Ahn Jung-geun on the grounds that "the general of the defeated army has no face to face".
This failure is nothing for An Chonggen, and after adjusting his mentality, he continued to go to the front line of the anti-Japanese resistance.
In January 1909, Ahn Jung-geun came to the Shimori region of Russia and gathered 11 comrades who had worked in the rebel ranks to form a "Broken Finger Alliance".
Breaking the finger has always been the fierce mingzhi method of Korean benevolent people. 12 South Korean patriots cut off the first knuckle of their left ring finger.
They gathered the blood in a bowl, and Ahn Jung-geun, dipped in blood, wrote in Chinese characters on a Taiji flag, "Great Korean Independence" four big characters.
After the ceremony, Ahn Jung-geun said to his comrades-in-arms, "Wait and see, in three years, I will definitely ask Ito Hirobumi, an old thief, to die under my gun." ”
One day in the early autumn of 1909, Ahn Jung-geun came to Vladivostok by boat. Here he heard very important news that Ito Hirobumi was coming to Harbin, China.
Has Ahn Jung-geun's chance come?
Figure | Four large characters written on the Taiji Banner with blood
In order to confirm the accuracy of this information, Ahn Junggen specially bought several newspapers, each of which had the headline on the front page: "Ito Hirobumi, the speaker of the Japanese Privy Council, will meet with Russian Finance Minister Gogovzov in Harbin in October." ”
After watching it, Ahn Jung-geun was very excited, because before that, he had discussed the assassination of Itō Hirobumi with the members of the Broken Finger Alliance many times, and even wanted to go to Tokyo, but due to the lack of funds and the low probability of success, these plans could only be shelved.
But now, Ito Hirobumi came to Harbin, this is undoubtedly a great opportunity for them to do it, they must firmly grasp it, once they lose their hand, it is likely to be abandoned.
However, No matter how much Ito Hirobumi said that he was also a military and political officer in Japan at that time, he must have been protected by the guards around him, so he must be fully prepared. At present, what An Chonggen needs most is personnel and funds.
At this time, Ahn Chung-geun thought of a man named "Li Xishan", who had once been a general of the Yellow Sea Dao Rebel Army.
This man was an opportunistic man who managed donations from the rebels during his tenure as a rebel general, but later, the whereabouts of these donations are unknown and are likely to have been taken by him.
An Chonggen came to Li Xishan's residence and borrowed 100 yuan from him as soon as he opened his mouth!
At first, Li Xishan did not want to borrow it, but when An Chonggen mentioned the "rebel donation", Li Xishan had to obediently take out the money.
Later, Ahn Jung-geun found his friend Yu Dechun and discussed with him about going to Harbin to assassinate Itō Hirobumi, and Yu Dechun agreed to go with him.
On October 21, 1909, Ahn Jung-geun and Yu Deok-soon boarded a train bound for Harbin.
Figure | Hirofumi Ito (stills)
At 21:00 the next night, An Chonggen and Yu Dechun arrived at Harbin Station smoothly, after which they came to stay at Jin Chengbai's house at No. 28 Lesyana Street in Butou District.
Kim Sung-bai is a construction contractor with Russian citizenship and the president of the "Korean National Association" in Harbin.
That night, Ahn Jung-geun and others saw such a message in the newspaper: "Itō Hirobumi will take a special train from the General Bureau of the Eastern Qing Railway and depart from Kuanchengzi Station to Harbin at 11:00 p.m. on the 25th..."
Based on this calculation, the whole journey will take about 10 hours and 40 minutes, and it should be around 9 a.m. on the 26th when Ito Hirobumi arrived in Harbin.
At about 7:00 a.m. on October 26, 1909, Ahn Chung-geun loaded seven bullets into his pistol and went all the way to the Harbin Railway Station!
Although the Harbin Railway Station was already heavily guarded at this time, An Chonggen successfully blended into the station.
At 9 o'clock, Ito Hirobumi's special train slowly entered, and the platform began to thunder with joy. At this time, Ahn Jung-geun was in the second row of the welcome line.
Figure | Scene of Yoshishi Ahn Jung-geun assassinating Hirobumi Ito (Pictured)
After the special train stopped, Ito Hirobumi stepped out of the carriage and waved to those who came to welcome him. When he reached Ahn Jung-geun, only four or five meters away from him, the soldiers in charge of the vigilance in the front row began to salute with their guns.
Just then, Ahn suddenly jumped out of the second row and fired three shots in a row from among the saluted soldiers, aiming at it at the key point of Ito Hirobumi. Ito was shot and fell to the ground.
However, Ahn Jung-geun could not be sure that it was Ito who had knocked him down, so he fired four shots at the "tall man walking in front of a group of Japanese", and three Japanese were shot and fell to the ground.
It turned out that the three who were hit behind Ahn Jung-geun were Toshihiko Kawakami, then Japanese Consul General in Harbin, Hirobumi Ito's entourage secretary, Mori Taijiro, and kiyoshi Tanaka, a director of the South Manchuria Railway.
Three of Ito's shots hit him in the left lung, left waist, and abdomen. After Ito was shot, the entourage immediately transferred him to the sleeping car for rescue, but due to excessive blood loss, the rescue was ineffective.
So, what happened to Ahn Jung-geun after he successfully shot Hirobumi Ito?
Figure | The scene of Ahn Jung-geun's killing of Ito Hirobumi
After completing the assassination mission, Ahn Jung-geun threw away his pistol and shouted "Goryeo Yaura" three times in Russian.
After that, Ahn Jung-geun was imprisoned at the Consulate General of Japan!
In the face of interrogation, Ahn Jung-geun listed 15 counts of Ito Hirobumi's crimes of "killing Empress Myeongseong of Joseon", "deposing the Korean Emperor", and "disbanding the Korean army".
On February 24, 1910, at the sixth public trial, Ahn Chung-geun was sentenced to death.
Although the Kanto Governor's District Court in Japan at the time gave him a five-day right to appeal, Ahn chung-geun only said the reasons for not accepting the death sentence and did not choose to appeal.
To this end, he once said: "I am a prisoner of war and should be dealt with in accordance with public international law ... I killed Itō Hirobumi for the sake of Toyo peace, and I am not afraid of death, so I do not appeal. If I am guilty, I am a good and weak Korean citizen! ”
Later, Ahn Jung-geun asked the court to postpone his sentence by one month so that he could write a treatise on oriental peace.
However, the Japanese reneged on their word!
At 10:00 a.m. on March 26, 1910, Ahn Jung-geun put on the Korean national costume made for him by his mother, walked on the gallows in a huff, and calmly became righteous, only 31 years old.
After Ahn Jung-geun's heroic righteousness, his two younger brothers demanded that the remains be extradited back to Korea, but the Japanese refused, and Ahn Jung-geun's two younger brothers were forcibly sent back to North Korea.
As for Ahn Jung-geun's body, it was secretly buried by the Japanese somewhere in Lushun, and its whereabouts are still unknown!
For the peaceful liberation of the country and the nation, Ahn Jung-geun is undoubtedly a true "patriotic martyr", and his heroic deeds have also influenced generations of people.
In fact, Ahn Jung-geun's heroic deeds had a great impact on China at that time, because at that time, Northeast China and the Korean Peninsula were suffering from the ravages of the Japanese invaders.
For this reason, Yuan Shikai once wrote an inscription for him: "The life of the camp is only finished now, and the dead map is not a husband." In the name of the three Koreas, there are thousands of years of life and death. ”
Dr. Sun Yat-sen also wrote an inscription for him: "Gong covers the three Koreans and the world, lives without a hundred years and dies for thousands of years, weak countries sinners and strong people, even if they change places, they are also tenghou." ”
In addition to Yuan Shikai and Sun Yat-sen, more than twenty celebrities such as Cai Yuanpei wrote inscriptions for him, and Zhang Taiyan called An Chonggen "Asia's first righteous hero".
Even Liang Qichao, who was exiled to Japan at that time, was also touched by his deeds, and immediately composed a "Autumn Wind Broken Vine Song" to commemorate him, which said: "The yellow sand swept the ground and the wind was angry, the snow outside the Heilongjiang River was like a knife, the blood was bleeding five steps, and the mountain and moon were high in laughter." ”
Today's North and South Korea refer to Ahn Jung-geun as a "patriotic martyr" and a "righteous soldier," respectively. At the beginning of 2014, Harbin also prepared the "Memorial Hall of Ahn Chung-geun Righteous Soldiers".
Of course, in China, there are many heroes like An Chonggen, such as Ji Hongchang, Zhao Yiman, Tong Linge, Yang Jingyu, Zhang Zizhong and so on.
Finally, let us pay the highest tribute to these national heroes!