Kim Gu, A Donghak Fighter
Kim Gu, one of the most prominent nationalist leaders, was a Donghak military leader. He was born in 1876, the year the Treaty of Ganghwa was signed. He studied the Chinese classics at a seodang (a traditional village primary school). At 17 he applied for the Korean government Imperial examination, but failed. When the Donghak Peasant Revolution broke out in 1894 he commanded a Donghak army regiment, but was eventually defeated and went into hiding.
In 1896 Kim Gu murdered, robbed and abandoned a Japanese merchant named Tsuchida, who he thought was connected to the murder of the last Queen of the Joseon Dynasty, Queen Min (this suspicion has not since been confirmed or discredited). Kim was arrested and sentenced to death by Korean court, but escaped and hid out as a Buddhist monk at Magoksa in Gongju near Pyeongyang.
Read more about this topic: Donghak Peasant Revolution
Famous quotes containing the word fighter:
“A pleasant smell of frying sausages
Attacks the sense, along with an old, mostly invisible
Photograph of what seems to be girls lounging around
An old fighter bomber, circa 1942 vintage.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)