"All great events and figures in world history can be said to have appeared twice. The first time it appeared as a tragedy, and the second time it appeared as a comedy. ”
This is a famous quote from Hegel, which Marx quoted as the beginning of his book The Eighteenth of Louis Bonaparte, as a metaphor for the absurdity of Napoleon III's coup d'état.
Similarly, this sentence also applies to the "Fifth Republic" created by Chun Doo-hwan.
Sure enough, there is nothing new under the sun, just as Napoleon III imitates his "uncle" Napoleon everywhere, but he doesn't learn like that everywhere, Chun Doo-hwan also seems to be learning the "sun" Pukaka in his heart everywhere, but it is only a clumsy imitation.
To understand this history, we have to start with the gunshot that shocked the world on October 26, 1979.
"Killing the Sun": An impulsive killing that affects the history of South Korea
During the banquet that day, Kim Jae-gyu suddenly pulled out a gun and shot Park Chung-hee and Cha Ji-cheol, and the six guards accompanying him were also eliminated.
At this time, in addition to Kim Jae-gyu, Kim Jae-gyu's henchmen and agents, and the two beauties invited by Park Chung-hee, there is also an important person, that is, the secretary who is sitting at the table and eating - Kim Gye-won.
Kim Gye-won has always had a good personal relationship with Kim Jae-gyu, and he also doesn't like the arrogant Cha Ji-cheol.
Kim Jae-gyu vaguely revealed his thoughts to Kim Kye-won before plotting the assassination, and Kim Kye-won did not object, but in fact acquiesced in Kim Jae-gyu's actions. But when Kim Jae-gyu really raised his gun to "kill insects and shoot the sun", Kim Gye-won was obviously frightened.
He looked at Kim Jae-gyu in horror, for fear that Kim Jae-gyu would kill him under impulse. However, Kim Jae-gyu did not intend to do so, but verbally asked Kim Gye-won to keep the secret. Of course, Kim Gye-won agreed, and Kim Jae-gyu immediately expressed his trust.
Just after this "gentleman's agreement", the two went their separate ways.
Kim Kye-won escorted the seriously injured Park Chung-hee to the Namsan Army Hospital for rescue, while Kim Jae-gyu drove to the army headquarters.
And from this moment on, Kim Jae-gyu's failure was doomed for two reasons:
First of all, Kim Kye-won, as the most important eyewitness to the assassination, Kim Jae-gyu easily trusted him and let him take Park Chung-hee to the hospital alone, instead of controlling him and keeping him under surveillance.
Secondly, Kim Jae-gyu, as the head of the Central Intelligence Department, did not immediately go back to his KCIA lair and convene people to discuss the next countermeasures, but hesitated to go to the army headquarters with the army chief of staff Jung Seung-ho, hoping to get military support.
Note that in this process, Jung Seung-wha may not know that Kim Jae-gyu killed Park Chung-hee, but when he saw Kim Jae-gyu with blood on his body, he must have guessed a rough idea, so he proposed that he should go to his army headquarters first and then make plans.
And Kim Jae-gyu, who was extremely nervous, really agreed.
You know, Kim Jae-gyu has no political roots in the army command, and he is unable to coerce Chung Seung-wha or convince the officers to declare martial law as he intended, characterizing the matter as a "military revolution" rather than a rebellion.
What was the military's first reaction? First, talk to the United States, the real master of South Korea, and listen to their opinions.
This made Kim Jae-gyu miss the opportunity to seize the initiative again.
What's worse is that Kim Kye-won on the other side is already ready to "backstab" Kim Jae-gyu.
It turned out that Kim Kye-won thought that Kim Jae-gyu was presiding over a political soup conference, but when he saw Kim Jae-gyu being led by the nose by the military, he decisively abandoned the previous "gentleman's agreement" and invited Prime Minister Choi Gyu-ha and Defense Minister Roh Jae-hyun over, and then revealed all the things about Kim Jae-gyu's killing of Park Chung-hee, and prepared to lead the disaster to Cha Ji-cheol, who had no proof of death.
However, the situation has completely exceeded his expectations, and he will finally be greeted by a trial with Kim Jae-gyu.
To this day, many people have mixed opinions about the "Kim Jae-gyu assassination of Park Chung-hee". Some people believe that Kim Jae-gyu is a democrat who usually respects people who sacrifice their lives for righteousness, hoping that one day he will also make a name for himself and go down in history.
He once told a government-appointed lawyer that he had a "stronger sense of justice than anyone else," and he always claimed that he was opposed to the reform system and Park Chung-hee's suppression of the workers' and students' movement.
On the other hand, Kim Jae-gyu's behavior seems to be an impulsive killing, and his various remarks are just to justify his own seizure of power. As a political elite, he did not think about the serious consequences of his rash actions.
It is precisely because Kim Jae-gyu recklessly fired the gun and the lack of rigorous planning for what to do after Park Chung-hee's death that ultimately led to South Korea not ushering in democracy, but in the face of a more tyrannical dictator - Chun Doo-hwan.
Why Chun Doo-hwan?
After determining that Kim Jae-gyu was the murderer of Park Chung-hee, Army Chief of Staff Chung Seung-hwa immediately ordered the arrest of Kim Jae-gyu and other people involved in the case, saying that he had drawn a line with him, and then appointed Security Commander Chun Doo-hwan as the head of the "assassination case of Commander Park Dae-hee".
This is definitely a personnel appointment that Zheng Shenghe regrets for the rest of his life, he never thought that Jeon Doo-hwan would take advantage of the opportunity to investigate the case and send him into the abyss. Because Chun Doo-hwan is Park Chung-hee's favorite minister, he is only loyal to Park Chung-hee.
At that time, although Chun Doo-hwan only had the rank of major general, the security headquarters under his jurisdiction was a tool for Park Chung-hee to carry out "emotional rule" during his lifetime, directly responsible to the president himself, and had the resources and ability to solve all kinds of thorny and offending troubles. At the same time, Chun Doo-hwan also has another identity - the leader of the "One Heart Society", which is the fundamental reason why he can really soar to the sky later.
In his youth, Chun Doo-hwan was a scumbag among scumbags.
In 1951, in the first batch of entrance examinations of South Korean military academies, Chun Doo-hwan entered the second-to-last place, and ranked 126th out of 156 when he graduated. But just like there will always be a group of juniors in the class, Chun Doo-hwan also has an outstanding ability - to engage in relationships.
With his outstanding personality and charisma, he became popular among his classmates, and gradually formed a huge network of contacts, and a secret organization was established, which was the predecessor of the "One Heart Society".
At the beginning, there were only 5 people in this small group, called the "Five Star Society", and the main members were: "Yongxing" Quan Doo-hwan, "Guanxing" Lu Taiyu, "Li Xing" Jin Fudong, "Comet" Cui Xingze, and "Xiongxing" Bai Yunze.
Later, it was renamed "Seven Star Society", and then the number of people increased, and finally developed into "Yixin Society", which means "one heart for the country, one heart for friends", with Chun Doo-hwan as the president.
Originally, it was just a sorority association, but as the organization grew, its ambitions also swelled for a time, and gradually became a collective of political careerists.
In 1973, Park Chung-hee received a report about Chun Doo-hwan's "one-hearted meeting", but Park Chung-hee did not plan to forcibly disband them after seeing it, but simply said: "Just let it go!"
Later, he even gave some rewards to the members of the "One Heart Society" to win them over for their own use.
Park Chung-hee's attitude made the "One Heart Society" grateful to Dade, and they willingly became Park Chung-hee's pawns, and after that, the "One Heart Society" began to expand its members aggressively and gradually infiltrated all corners of the military.
In March 1979, Chun Doo-hwan was appointed commander of security and became Park Chung-hee's right-hand man, and the members of the "One Heart Society" were able to "attain the Tao alone, and the chicken dog ascended to heaven" and grew into a force to be reckoned with.
When Park Chung-hee was there, the members of the "One Heart Society" regarded Park Chung-hee as the supreme sun, and after Park Chung-hee was assassinated, it was equivalent to the sun setting, and there was only Chun Doo-hwan in their eyes.
At this time, the "Puma Turmoil" was still continuing, and the South Korean people were calling for the new constitution to be buried along with Park Chung-hee himself.
Acting as president is Prime Minister Choi Gyu-ha, a former career diplomat with weak political roots in South Korea that struggle to balance factional tensions and a lack of desire to stay in power for long.
And Park Chung-hee's death left a huge power vacuum, and someone needs to clean up the mess, which makes Chun Doo-hwan smell the breath of the throne of power.
During this period, Chun Doo-hwan made two exquisite moves:
The first is to take advantage of the investigation of the case and ask the Central Intelligence Department to assist in the investigation, so as to concentrate all the information in his own hands.
In this way, the "troika" of Park Chung-hee's intelligence agency is all under Chun Doo-hwan, which is why Chun Doo-hwan's later coup actions are always one step ahead of others.
Another step is to fully excavate Kim Jae-gyu's confession and find out the parts of it that satisfy his political needs, such as the black material of corruption and bribery by major high-ranking officials.
Through Kim Jae-gyu's confession, Chun Doo-hwan found out that his boss Jung Seung-ho was at the scene of the crime on the night of Park Kaka's assassination, and he went to the army headquarters with Kim Jae-gyu in a car afterwards.
If you can hold on to Zheng Shenghe on this matter, you may be able to bite Zheng Shenghe's political life. But now Chun Doo-hwan does not have the ability and necessity to break the net with Zheng Shenghe Yu, so he signed the closing report.
During the investigation period, Quan Doo-hwan can be described as proud, he went in and out of major government departments at will, took advantage of his position to arrest whoever he wanted, beat whoever he wanted, and even appeared on TV and accepted interviews with major media, just like a rising star in the political arena.
This made Zheng Shenghe and other "moderate" groups who hoped to end the "reform system" and end the interference of military personnel in politics extremely unhappy, and they repeatedly criticized Chun Doo-hwan's brutal behavior in politics, but Chun Doo-hwan still did not know how to restrain himself and became increasingly arrogant.
On November 1, 1979, the Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun published news that Chun Doo-hwan gradually grasped the real power in South Korea. This report added fuel to the fire, accelerating the contradiction between the "moderate" and Chun Doo-hwan.
Chung Seung-hwa consulted with Acting President Choi Gyu-ha to appoint Chun Doo-hwan as the commander of East Coast Security after the investigation was completed, keeping him away from the political center. From a later point of view, this action accelerated Chun Doo-hwan's determination to carry out a coup d'état, which was somewhat alarming, but no one expected Chun Doo-hwan to make a big move on it.
Seeing this situation, Chun Doo-hwan chose to plan and agreed. In fact, the plank road was darkened, and a telegram called Lu Taiyu, the commander of the first division of the front, from the front line to the security headquarters, and the two agreed to start an incident together on December 12.
Chun Doo-hwan's coup plan is roughly divided into three parts.
Part 1: At 6 p.m. on December 12, Colonel Woo Kyung-yoon and Colonel Heo Sam-shou, Chun Doo-hwan's henchmen, went to Zheng Seung-ho's house in Hannan Mansion Village to arrest Jeong Seung-ho, and escorted him over anyway, regardless of whether he used literature or force.
At the same time, in the second part, Chun Doo-hwan met with Acting President Choi Gyu-ha, bitterly explained the pros and cons, and asked for a secret order to arrest Jung Seung-ho, and if it didn't work, he would lead the generals to force the palace.
The third part is to win over Jang Tae-play, Kim Jin-gi and other generals, and invite them to drink and have fun on the night of the 12th, in order to achieve the purpose of diverting the tiger from the mountain, Chun Doo-hwan even directly gave Jang Tae-wan 1 million cash, trying to corrupt this difficult bone.
Everything is ready, only the east wind is owed.
But in the early morning of December 12, Zheng Shenghe suddenly called and asked for an interview with Chun Doo-hwan.
Frightened, Chun Doo-hwan broke out in a cold sweat, thinking that his coup plan had been exposed, and if he went, he would be sent to death. Those who achieve great things must have excellent psychological quality, and Quan Doo-hwan did not act rashly, but knocked on the door of Zheng Shenghe's office with a flat face.
As a result, Chung Seung-ho only confessed to paying attention to the North Korean offensive and the like, apparently ignorant of his coup.
And this small misunderstanding, which almost caused a catastrophe, made Chun Doo-hwan even more determined that the evening of December 12 was an excellent time.
The most classic coup d'état in South Korean history
On the evening of December 12, one of the most exciting seizures of power in South Korean history began.
At 6 o'clock, Chun Doo-hwan's henchmen Woo Kyung-yoon and Colonel Heo Sam-shou rang the doorbell of Jung Seung-hwa's house on time, and when Jung Seung-ho learned that he was going to take him away, he immediately realized that something was wrong and asked the adjutant to call Choi Gyu-ha Mansion.
Yu Qingyun and Xu Sanshou realized that their deeds were exposed, and immediately picked up Zheng Shenghe and ran out.
The situation suddenly got out of control, the army brought by Xu Sanshou exchanged fire with Zheng Shenghe and the escort team, and the sailors who rushed to hear the news also rushed over, and after a fierce gun battle, Xu Sanshou forcibly kidnapped Zheng Shenghe and fled from Hannan Mansion Village.
And the most "humorous" part of the whole coup appeared: Defense Minister Roh Jae-hyun also lived in Hannam-dong Mansion Village, very close to Chung Seung-ho's house, and as soon as he heard the "crackling" gunfire of Jeong Seung-ho's house, he thought that the North Korean side had sent a commando team to carry out the "decapitation operation", and immediately took the whole family to the US military base in South Korea to seek refuge.
Roh Jae-hyun's escape had extremely serious consequences, not only plunging the government forces into chaos without a leader, but also causing a lot of trouble for Chun Doo-hwan at the Prime Minister's Mansion, where Acting President Choi Gyu-ha is located.
On the other hand, Acting President Choi Gyu-ha was a little overwhelmed when he saw Chun Doo-hwan's aggressive request for the arrest of Jung Seung-hwa, so he asked Defense Minister Roh Jae-hyun to come forward to make a decision, but at this time Roh Jae-hyun disappeared. If Roh Jae-hyun does not come forward to endorse him, his actions will lack legitimacy and the coup will not be supported, so the government army and the rebels are in a hurry like ants in a hot pot.
Let's talk about the third road, Jang Tae-wan, Kim Jin-gi and others came to the club called Yeonhee-dong arranged by Chun Doo-hwan to celebrate his promotion to the commander of the Capital Garrison Command.
But Chun Doo-hwan, who arranged the banquet, was delayed in showing up on the grounds that he was reporting important matters to the president. It wasn't until Kim Jinji's subordinates suddenly came to report that there was a shootout at Zheng Shenghe's mansion, that the two realized that something was wrong, and hurriedly left the banquet and returned to the army headquarters.
At 8:08 p.m., the Army Headquarters issued a warning order called "Zhendao Dog No. 1", declaring martial law throughout the city.
When Zhang Tai played the deployment of troops to resist the rebels, he found that he was the commander of the capital garrison who had only been in office for 24 days, and there was no one available at all, and more than 400 of the 450 generals and colonels had run away.
He wanted to call and scold his defected subordinate Zhang Shidong, but he unexpectedly found that the old-timers such as Huang Yongshi and Yu Xuesheng had also run to Quan Doohuan, and for a while he couldn't tell who was the rebel and who was the government army.
Seeing that the matter had been revealed, Chun Doo-hwan proposed that the commanders of the 3rd and 5th Air Transport Brigades immediately return to the army for mobilization, and that the 1st Air Brigade immediately set off to "suppress" the Ministry of Defense and the Army Headquarters.
Zhang Taiwan's Capital Garrison Command also reacted quickly, so he ordered Major General Park Hee-mo of the 30th Division to immediately block the Xingzhou Bridge. Park Ximo agreed, but as soon as he hung up the phone, he immediately received a call from the security headquarters.
The other party said: The phone calls of the two of you, we have just listened to them clearly, and now you have to think about who to go with.
Park Hee-mo realized that the entire capital's communication channels were already under the surveillance of Chun Doo-hwan, and it was useless to resist on his own, so he simply sat back and let the 1-air transport cross the Hangju Bridge.
Chun Doo-hwan's "hardcore partner" Lu Tae-woo also dispatched the last card in his hand at this time, the 9th Division stationed at the border, and ordered it to leave the "38th parallel" and go to the capital.
As the saying goes, "raise troops for a thousand days and use them for a while," Chun Doo-hwan also used all the contacts he had accumulated over the past ten years at one time, and he asked the staff officers to do everything possible to persuade the members of the "Yixinhui" in various units to join in the activities of stopping the government army in the capital, so that Chun Doo-hwan could achieve the result of "surrendering the army without a fight."
Just when the government army was about to collapse, the army deputy chief of staff finally mobilized the 9th air force, and this air force was the last hole card that the government army could show, and all the hopes of the government army were pinned on this unit.
The dispatch of 9 empty losses did make Chun Doo-hwan sweat in fright, but then his brows relaxed again, and he knew that the government army did not dare to take responsibility for the destruction of the capital, and a countermeasure emerged.
Soon, one of the most famous "telecom frauds" in South Korean history occurred.
In this way, with just one phone call, Chun Doo-hwan drank back the last resistance of the last capital army.
It is said that Quan Doo-hwan loves "Romance of the Three Kingdoms", perhaps at this moment he imitates Sima Yi who refers to Luoshui as an oath, after seeing the withdrawal of the 9-air army, Quan Doo-hwan immediately returned, successfully passed the Xingzhou Bridge, and captured the Ministry of Defense.
At this time, Defense Minister Roh Jae-hyun once again showed his "humorous" characteristics.
Originally, after Roh Jae-hyun learned from the U.S. military that all this was a conspiracy of Chun Doo-hwan, not a surprise attack by North Korea, he wanted to rush back to the Ministry of Defense to turn the tide, but before his ass was hot, Chun Doo-hwan's army had already rushed in, and Roh Jae-hyun fled in a panic again.
At this point, the "December 12" coup d'état was basically over.
Although General Jang Tae-wan still wanted to take the last more than 100 people to make the last resistance and be the "last man" of the Fourth Republic, under the bitter pleading of his subordinates, he had to give up and became a prisoner of Chun Doo-hwan.
At five o'clock in the morning on December 13, Chun Doo-hwan went to the residence of Acting President Choi Gyu-ha for the third time and asked for an arrest warrant.
This time the general trend has gone, and it doesn't help whether to sign or not, but Choi Gyu-ha kept an eye on it and deliberately wrote the time of signing next to the arrest warrant: "5:10AM", and this small time mark also laid the groundwork for the fall of Chun Doo-hwan later.
Chun Doo-hwan's "12.12" coup d'état, whether it is the scale of the coup, the design of the link, and the ability to respond, can be said to be a strengthened version of Park Chung-hee's "5.16" coup d'état.
But the coup is results-oriented, and no matter how perfect a coup d'état is, it cannot change the fundamental nature of the coup: a meeting of a group of careerists to divide the spoils.
In contrast, we can see that Park Chung-hee received flowers and applause for a long time after the coup d'état, and the regime was relatively stable after coming to power, and it was not until the later stages of his administration that he was increasingly questioned.
To this day, the South Korean people believe that Park Chung-hee has more merit than demerit, and Chun Doo-hwan is generally considered to be over 10 merit.
On December 12, 2019, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Chun Doo-hwan's successful coup, some people moved the kneeling statue of Chun Doo-hwan to Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, which immediately attracted countless spectators to punch and kick the statue.
This kind of treatment is comparable to Qin Hui kneeling in front of Yuewang Temple in Hangzhou, which shows the deep hatred of the Korean people.
As for why Chun Doo-hwan suffered such unpopularity, it is necessary to understand the history of the famous Fifth Republic.