Agwan Pacheon

개요

Agwan Pacheon (Royal Flight to the Russian Legation) was the event in which King Gojong, feeling threatened after the Eulmi Incident, secretly left Gyeongbok Palace on February 11, 1896 with the Crown Prince (later Sunjong) and moved to the Russian Legation ("Agwan") in Jeongdong, where they stayed for about a year. As a result, the pro-Japanese Kim Hong-jip cabinet collapsed, the Gabo Reform was halted, and Russian influence in Joseon grew greatly.

배경

After the Triple Intervention, the Joseon royal court leaned toward Russia, and Japan, in an effort to reverse this, carried out the Eulmi Incident. Afterward, the Kim Hong-jip cabinet, which again took on a pro-Japanese character, pushed through radical reforms such as the Hairstyle Edict. Confucian scholars, angered by the assassination of the queen and the Hairstyle Edict, raised the Eulmi Righteous Army across the country. When the government sent even the Capital Guard of Seoul to the provinces to suppress the righteous armies, a gap appeared in the defense of the capital.

Attempts to take the king out of the palace had already been made once, in the Chunsaengmun Incident of November 28, 1895 (October 12 of the lunar calendar), but it was discovered in advance and failed. Yi Beom-jin, who had been hiding at the Russian Legation after the Eulmi Incident, along with Yi Wan-yong, Yi Yun-yong, and others, again devised the plan for the flight. According to the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture, they conveyed a letter to Gojong through Eom Sanggung, whom the king favored, claiming that "the cabinet is plotting to depose the king together with Japan," and they prepared an escape method using a sedan chair, the mobilization of Russian guards, and the assembly of peddlers (bobusang) to be mobilized in case of failure. On January 9, 1896, Gojong secretly requested Russian support through Yi Beom-jin.

On the Russian side, the newly appointed minister Speyer made a decision on his own without receiving a definite answer from his home government. On February 10, under the pretext of protecting the legation, he summoned 135 Russian marines from Incheon to Seoul.

전개

In the early morning of February 11, Gojong and the Crown Prince hid in a sedan chair used by palace maids, left through the Yeongchumun Gate on the west side of Gyeongbok Palace, and entered the Russian Legation in Jeongdong. Gojong immediately branded the pro-Japanese cabinet members as traitors and ordered their arrest and execution.

• Prime Minister Kim Hong-jip and Minister of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry Chong Pyong-ha were killed by the crowd in the area around Gwanghwamun. Minister of Finance Eo Yun-jung was also murdered a few days later.
• Minister of Home Affairs Yu Kil-chun and more than ten others fled to a Japanese army barracks and then went into exile in Japan.