Bae Jeong-ja (Hanja: 裵貞子; Japanese name: Tayama Sadako (田山貞子); 23 February 1870 – 27 February 1952) was a Joseon-era Buddhist nun who became an intelligence agent, diplomat and collaborator for the Empire of Japan. After her biological father was executed by the Min clan faction and her mother was m
Born~Died Feb 23, 1870 ~ Feb 27, 1952Last edited Oct 15, 2026, 2:51 PM
Bae Jeong-ja (Korean Hanja: 裵貞子; Japanese name: Tayama Sadako (田山貞子), 23 February 187012 – 27 February 1952) was a Buddhist nun of Joseon and an intelligence agent, diplomat and collaborator for the Empire of Japan in Joseon. After her biological father was executed by the Min clan faction, her mother was made a government slave under the law of guilt by association, and Bae wandered from place to place with her mother before being sold as a gisaeng in Miryang. She escaped and in 1882 (the 19th year of King Gojong's reign) became a nun.
It is said that in 1885 she fled to Japan and in 1887 became the adopted daughter of Itō Hirobumi. She then received training as a spy from the Japanese government and returned to Korea in 1894, where she worked as a Japanese spy during the Korean Empire and the Japanese colonial period, although no historical records prove this. During the Japanese military's Siberian Intervention in 1920, she worked as a military spy, traveling between Manchuria and Siberia. She later operated secretly in Gando, Shanghai and other places to arrest independence activists, and retired in 1927. In 1949 she was arrested by the Special Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborators as a pro-Japanese traitor.
She was born in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, and her birth name was Bae Bun-nam (裵粉男).23 She was born in 1870 in Gimhae County as the daughter of Bae Ji-hong (裵祉洪), who worked as a clerk in the county office.2 Her father, Bae Ji-hong, served as a tax official but opposed the Min regime, and after Heungseon Daewongun fell from power in 1873 he was labeled a follower of the fallen faction, imprisoned in the Daegu provincial office and executed.2 Her mother became blind from the shock and grew up in difficult circumstances.23 Afterwards, under the law of guilt by association, she was placed on the criminal register and became a commoner, and she wandered various places with her mother. She was later sold as a gisaeng in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, but fled and hid at Tongdosa Temple in Yangsan County.2 In 1882 she left home and became a nun. At the age of 12 she was active as a female monk under the monastic name Udam (耦潭) and spent three years in religious practice. Later, when her identity was exposed and she was wanted, she escaped at the age of 14 and was protected by Jeong Byeong-hwa (鄭秉和), magistrate of Dongnae and an acquaintance of her father.3 There is a theory to this effect, but no one named Jeong Byeong-hwa appears among the past magistrates of Dongnae. A similar figure, Jeong Byeong-ha (鄭秉夏), exists, but he never once served as magistrate of Dongnae, and his first local government post was as magistrate of Miryang in 1888.
While she was a government gisaeng, she met Jeon Jae-sik (田在植), the son of Jeon Do-hu (田道後), the Central Army commander of Daegu, and fell in love with him. They separated when he went to Japan, but reunited when Jeon Jae-sik went to study in Japan, and they married. She had a son, Jeon Yu-hwa (田有和), with Jeon Jae-sik. However, after Jeon Jae-sik, who was studying at Keio Gijuku (慶應義塾), died of illness, their relationship ended.2
Trip to Japan and meeting with Itō Hirobumi
Through the arrangements of Jeong Byeong-ha, who had been transferred to be magistrate of Miryang, she went to Japan in 1885 with a trading merchant named Matsuo (松尾).4 At this time, through her connections she met Ahn Gyeong-su. Ahn Gyeong-su, who had no direct connection to the Gapsin Coup, stayed as a household member in the guest quarters of Itō Hirobumi's house in Okayama Prefecture while studying spinning (weaving technology) at his own expense, and he helped Bae. Bae attended Sotsuna (尙綱) Girls' School.
Through Ahn Gyeong-su's arrangement she met Kim Ok-gyun and was also introduced to Itō Hirobumi. Afterwards, relying on Ahn Gyeong-su, Kim Ok-gyun and others, Bae, who is said to have been remarkably beautiful, caught the eye of Itō Hirobumi, and in 1887 she became his adopted daughter. There is a theory that from the age of 18 she received secret espionage training, including horse riding, swimming, shooting and disguise techniques, but no record about Bae exists in Japanese sources. The relationship between Itō Hirobumi and Bae, and the anecdotes about them, all come only from Korean sources.
Activities as a Japanese agent and official
Intelligence activities
After she changed her name to Sadako (貞子) and received thorough intelligence training, Bae returned to Korea in 1894 under the guise of a Japanese interpreter, concealed her identity, approached Gojong, and, enjoying Gojong's favor, worked as a senior spy by extracting political information and other intelligence.
Just before the Russo-Japanese War, pro-Russian factions drew up plans to move the capital to Pyongyang or to have Gojong relocate to Vladivostok for his personal safety, but Bae obtained the information in advance and passed it to the Japanese legation, which caused the plans to fail.2
In 1895 she remarried Hyeon Yeong-un (玄暎運),5 who was the Korean-language teacher at the Japanese Imperial Legation. At that time, Hyeon Yeong-un, who was then translator at the Foreign Office and a sixth-rank chief official, was promoted within ten years, with Bae's help, to Army Lieutenant General of senior second rank, and served as vice minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry.2 However, about a year later Bae divorced him, and she had a daughter, Hyeon Song-ja, with Hyeon Yeong-un. She then maintained a five-year marriage with Park Yeong-cheol (朴榮喆; graduate of the 15th class of the Japanese Army Academy, Governor of North Hamgyong Province, and member of the Chūsūin), a junior of Hyeon Yeong-un, before divorcing again.2
In 1905, she was exiled to Jeolyeongdo over the secret letter incident, in which she delivered a secret letter from Itō Hirobumi to Gojong.6 However, after the Eulsa Treaty was concluded, her elder brother Bae Guk-tae (裵國泰) was promoted to Mayor of Hanseong (present-day Seoul mayor), and her younger brother was promoted to Police Superintendent (present-day National Police Agency chief). When Itō became the first Resident-General of Korea, she was released and returned to work as a spy. She was favored to such an extent that rumors circulated that she was not Itō's adopted daughter but his favorite concubine, and during this period she acted as a powerful figure and was known by the nickname "Black Skirt."
Work in the Government-General of Korea
After Itō was shot dead by Ahn Jung-geun in 1909, she worked as a Korean contract employee of the Japanese military police stationed in Joseon and as an employee of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. From October 1918 to 29 October 1919 she worked as a staff member of the Japanese Consulate General in Harbin, Manchuria. In 1920 she joined and was active in the intelligence group Manchuria Minhoe, established in the Manchuria region by the Government-General of Korea. During the Japanese military's Siberian Intervention in 1920, she worked as a military spy traveling between Manchuria and Siberia while serving as a staff member of the Japanese Consulate General in Fengtian (Mukden). It is said that during this period she showed remarkable skill in recruiting members of bandit groups.
Afterwards, she operated secretly in Gando, Shanghai and other places to arrest independence activists, then returned to Korea and from 1922 worked as a contract employee of the Government-General's Police Affairs Bureau. Because of her great activity in Manchuria, independence fighters named her as a target for execution, and in 1922 she felt threatened and returned to Joseon.2 At the Government-General, the director of the Police Affairs Bureau, Maruyama Tsurukichi (丸山鶴吉), waited for her return and rehired her as a Police Affairs Bureau official.2
After that, she worked under the orders of Maruyama Tsurukichi, director of the Police Affairs Bureau of the Government-General, traveling between Manchuria, Gando, Shanghai and mainland China. She lived in fear after an assassination attempt by Park Hui-gwang (朴喜光, 15 February 1901 – 22 January 1970; a secret assassination squad member of the Korean Provisional Government's Daehan Tongui-bu), who was feared by contemporary pro-Japanese figures and Japanese alike, and she retired in 1927.
Later, in recognition of her services, the Government-General gave her land of more than 600 pyeong (about 2,000 square meters) as a gift, and even after retiring she continued to receive a salary from the Government-General.2
After the Pacific War
When the Pacific War broke out, at the request of a private contractor she became involved in the business of dispatching Japanese military "comfort women." Despite being in her seventies, she took more than 100 Korean women to the South Seas Islands under the name of "military comfort groups," forcing them to serve as comfort women for the Japanese military. During this process she also received money and goods from the contractor.2
After liberation
After liberation, she hid in the hills of Sŭngin-myŏn, Goyang County, Gyeonggi Province, and after the Republic of Korea government was established, the Anti-Pro-Japanese Collaborators Act came into force and the Special Committee (Banminteuk) was formed in 1949, she was arrested and detained by the committee in 1949. Only six women were detained under the Act, and Bae was the first of them to be detained. She was also the first person arrested under Article 1 of the Act, which punishes those who cooperated actively with Japan in the annexation of Korea by Japan. However, the Special Committee was dissolved for political reasons and she was released from prison. Afterwards she spent her remaining years in Sŭngin-myŏn, Goyang County, Gyeonggi Province (now Seongbuk-gu, Seoul), and she died in Seongbuk during the Korean War.
Posthumous
In 2002 she was included under the espionage category of the "List of 708 Pro-Japanese Collaborators" selected by the National Assembly members' association "Association for Establishing National Spirit," and she was also included in the "List of 195 Pro-Japanese Collaborators" published in 2007 by the Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborationist Activities. In 2008 the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities selected her in the police and overseas categories of its list of people to be included in the "Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators."
Because she worked as an unofficial spy behind the scenes rather than in a formal post, Bae has very few records in official history. However, she was famous for her splendid series of male relationships and lived a dramatic life, so she was often covered in the mass media, and was adapted into films such as The Enchantress Bae Jeong-ja (1966) and The Enchantress Bae Jeong-ja 2 (1973). In these two films, Kim Ji-mi and Yun Jung-hee starred respectively as Bae Jeong-ja.
Granddaughter through daughter: Ms. Lee, name unknown
Interpersonal relations
During her lifetime she served Itō Hirobumi (伊藤博文) as her teacher (師父) and lord (主君), and in the position of a senior female student (師姐) she took Park Jung-yang (朴重陽), a Korean-born man, as her junior disciple (師弟).
Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborationist Activities (December 2007). "〈배정자〉" (PDF). 《2007년도 조사보고서 II - 친일반민족행위결정이유서》. Seoul. pp. 1503–1523. Publication registration number 11-1560010-0000002-10.
Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities (1 March 1993). "〈배정자 : 정계의 요화로 불렸던 고급 밀정 (김무용)〉". 《친일파 99인 2》. Seoul: Dolbegae. ISBN 978-89-7199-012-4.
Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborationist Activities (December 2007). "〈배정자〉" (PDF). 《2007년도 조사보고서 II - 친일반민족행위결정이유서》. Seoul. pp. 1503–1523. Publication registration number 11-1560010-0000002-10. ↩
Im Jong-guk (1 February 1991). 《실록 친일파》. Edited by Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities. Seoul: Dolbegae. p. 95. ISBN 89-7199-036-8. ↩↩2↩3
Jeoyeongdo, present-day Yeongdo in Busan, was at that time a place with very active trade and traffic with Japanese merchants. Therefore, it does not make common sense to exile Bae, who had a pro-Japanese inclination, to such a place. There is no record anywhere that Bae was exiled. ↩
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Battles, meetings and other parts of this topic can get their own pages.
Bae Jeong-ja (Korean Hanja: 裵貞子; Japanese name: Tayama Sadako (田山貞子), 23 February 187012 – 27 February 1952) was a Buddhist nun of Joseon and an intelligence agent, diplomat and collaborator for the Empire of Japan in Joseon. After her biological father was executed by the Min clan faction, her mother was made a government slave under the law of guilt by association, and Bae wandered from place to place with her mother before being sold as a gisaeng in Miryang. She escaped and in 1882 (the 19th year of King Gojong's reign) became a nun.
It is said that in 1885 she fled to Japan and in 1887 became the adopted daughter of Itō Hirobumi. She then received training as a spy from the Japanese government and returned to Korea in 1894, where she worked as a Japanese spy during the Korean Empire and the Japanese colonial period, although no historical records prove this. During the Japanese military's Siberian Intervention in 1920, she worked as a military spy, traveling between Manchuria and Siberia. She later operated secretly in Gando, Shanghai and other places to arrest independence activists, and retired in 1927. In 1949 she was arrested by the Special Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborators as a pro-Japanese traitor.
She was born in Gimhae, South Gyeongsang Province, and her birth name was Bae Bun-nam (裵粉男).23 She was born in 1870 in Gimhae County as the daughter of Bae Ji-hong (裵祉洪), who worked as a clerk in the county office.2 Her father, Bae Ji-hong, served as a tax official but opposed the Min regime, and after Heungseon Daewongun fell from power in 1873 he was labeled a follower of the fallen faction, imprisoned in the Daegu provincial office and executed.2 Her mother became blind from the shock and grew up in difficult circumstances.23 Afterwards, under the law of guilt by association, she was placed on the criminal register and became a commoner, and she wandered various places with her mother. She was later sold as a gisaeng in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, but fled and hid at Tongdosa Temple in Yangsan County.2 In 1882 she left home and became a nun. At the age of 12 she was active as a female monk under the monastic name Udam (耦潭) and spent three years in religious practice. Later, when her identity was exposed and she was wanted, she escaped at the age of 14 and was protected by Jeong Byeong-hwa (鄭秉和), magistrate of Dongnae and an acquaintance of her father.3 There is a theory to this effect, but no one named Jeong Byeong-hwa appears among the past magistrates of Dongnae. A similar figure, Jeong Byeong-ha (鄭秉夏), exists, but he never once served as magistrate of Dongnae, and his first local government post was as magistrate of Miryang in 1888.
While she was a government gisaeng, she met Jeon Jae-sik (田在植), the son of Jeon Do-hu (田道後), the Central Army commander of Daegu, and fell in love with him. They separated when he went to Japan, but reunited when Jeon Jae-sik went to study in Japan, and they married. She had a son, Jeon Yu-hwa (田有和), with Jeon Jae-sik. However, after Jeon Jae-sik, who was studying at Keio Gijuku (慶應義塾), died of illness, their relationship ended.2
Trip to Japan and meeting with Itō Hirobumi
Through the arrangements of Jeong Byeong-ha, who had been transferred to be magistrate of Miryang, she went to Japan in 1885 with a trading merchant named Matsuo (松尾).4 At this time, through her connections she met Ahn Gyeong-su. Ahn Gyeong-su, who had no direct connection to the Gapsin Coup, stayed as a household member in the guest quarters of Itō Hirobumi's house in Okayama Prefecture while studying spinning (weaving technology) at his own expense, and he helped Bae. Bae attended Sotsuna (尙綱) Girls' School.
Through Ahn Gyeong-su's arrangement she met Kim Ok-gyun and was also introduced to Itō Hirobumi. Afterwards, relying on Ahn Gyeong-su, Kim Ok-gyun and others, Bae, who is said to have been remarkably beautiful, caught the eye of Itō Hirobumi, and in 1887 she became his adopted daughter. There is a theory that from the age of 18 she received secret espionage training, including horse riding, swimming, shooting and disguise techniques, but no record about Bae exists in Japanese sources. The relationship between Itō Hirobumi and Bae, and the anecdotes about them, all come only from Korean sources.
Activities as a Japanese agent and official
Intelligence activities
After she changed her name to Sadako (貞子) and received thorough intelligence training, Bae returned to Korea in 1894 under the guise of a Japanese interpreter, concealed her identity, approached Gojong, and, enjoying Gojong's favor, worked as a senior spy by extracting political information and other intelligence.
Just before the Russo-Japanese War, pro-Russian factions drew up plans to move the capital to Pyongyang or to have Gojong relocate to Vladivostok for his personal safety, but Bae obtained the information in advance and passed it to the Japanese legation, which caused the plans to fail.2
In 1895 she remarried Hyeon Yeong-un (玄暎運),5 who was the Korean-language teacher at the Japanese Imperial Legation. At that time, Hyeon Yeong-un, who was then translator at the Foreign Office and a sixth-rank chief official, was promoted within ten years, with Bae's help, to Army Lieutenant General of senior second rank, and served as vice minister of the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce and Industry.2 However, about a year later Bae divorced him, and she had a daughter, Hyeon Song-ja, with Hyeon Yeong-un. She then maintained a five-year marriage with Park Yeong-cheol (朴榮喆; graduate of the 15th class of the Japanese Army Academy, Governor of North Hamgyong Province, and member of the Chūsūin), a junior of Hyeon Yeong-un, before divorcing again.2
In 1905, she was exiled to Jeolyeongdo over the secret letter incident, in which she delivered a secret letter from Itō Hirobumi to Gojong.6 However, after the Eulsa Treaty was concluded, her elder brother Bae Guk-tae (裵國泰) was promoted to Mayor of Hanseong (present-day Seoul mayor), and her younger brother was promoted to Police Superintendent (present-day National Police Agency chief). When Itō became the first Resident-General of Korea, she was released and returned to work as a spy. She was favored to such an extent that rumors circulated that she was not Itō's adopted daughter but his favorite concubine, and during this period she acted as a powerful figure and was known by the nickname "Black Skirt."
Work in the Government-General of Korea
After Itō was shot dead by Ahn Jung-geun in 1909, she worked as a Korean contract employee of the Japanese military police stationed in Joseon and as an employee of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. From October 1918 to 29 October 1919 she worked as a staff member of the Japanese Consulate General in Harbin, Manchuria. In 1920 she joined and was active in the intelligence group Manchuria Minhoe, established in the Manchuria region by the Government-General of Korea. During the Japanese military's Siberian Intervention in 1920, she worked as a military spy traveling between Manchuria and Siberia while serving as a staff member of the Japanese Consulate General in Fengtian (Mukden). It is said that during this period she showed remarkable skill in recruiting members of bandit groups.
Afterwards, she operated secretly in Gando, Shanghai and other places to arrest independence activists, then returned to Korea and from 1922 worked as a contract employee of the Government-General's Police Affairs Bureau. Because of her great activity in Manchuria, independence fighters named her as a target for execution, and in 1922 she felt threatened and returned to Joseon.2 At the Government-General, the director of the Police Affairs Bureau, Maruyama Tsurukichi (丸山鶴吉), waited for her return and rehired her as a Police Affairs Bureau official.2
After that, she worked under the orders of Maruyama Tsurukichi, director of the Police Affairs Bureau of the Government-General, traveling between Manchuria, Gando, Shanghai and mainland China. She lived in fear after an assassination attempt by Park Hui-gwang (朴喜光, 15 February 1901 – 22 January 1970; a secret assassination squad member of the Korean Provisional Government's Daehan Tongui-bu), who was feared by contemporary pro-Japanese figures and Japanese alike, and she retired in 1927.
Later, in recognition of her services, the Government-General gave her land of more than 600 pyeong (about 2,000 square meters) as a gift, and even after retiring she continued to receive a salary from the Government-General.2
After the Pacific War
When the Pacific War broke out, at the request of a private contractor she became involved in the business of dispatching Japanese military "comfort women." Despite being in her seventies, she took more than 100 Korean women to the South Seas Islands under the name of "military comfort groups," forcing them to serve as comfort women for the Japanese military. During this process she also received money and goods from the contractor.2
After liberation
After liberation, she hid in the hills of Sŭngin-myŏn, Goyang County, Gyeonggi Province, and after the Republic of Korea government was established, the Anti-Pro-Japanese Collaborators Act came into force and the Special Committee (Banminteuk) was formed in 1949, she was arrested and detained by the committee in 1949. Only six women were detained under the Act, and Bae was the first of them to be detained. She was also the first person arrested under Article 1 of the Act, which punishes those who cooperated actively with Japan in the annexation of Korea by Japan. However, the Special Committee was dissolved for political reasons and she was released from prison. Afterwards she spent her remaining years in Sŭngin-myŏn, Goyang County, Gyeonggi Province (now Seongbuk-gu, Seoul), and she died in Seongbuk during the Korean War.
Posthumous
In 2002 she was included under the espionage category of the "List of 708 Pro-Japanese Collaborators" selected by the National Assembly members' association "Association for Establishing National Spirit," and she was also included in the "List of 195 Pro-Japanese Collaborators" published in 2007 by the Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborationist Activities. In 2008 the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities selected her in the police and overseas categories of its list of people to be included in the "Dictionary of Pro-Japanese Collaborators."
Because she worked as an unofficial spy behind the scenes rather than in a formal post, Bae has very few records in official history. However, she was famous for her splendid series of male relationships and lived a dramatic life, so she was often covered in the mass media, and was adapted into films such as The Enchantress Bae Jeong-ja (1966) and The Enchantress Bae Jeong-ja 2 (1973). In these two films, Kim Ji-mi and Yun Jung-hee starred respectively as Bae Jeong-ja.
Granddaughter through daughter: Ms. Lee, name unknown
Interpersonal relations
During her lifetime she served Itō Hirobumi (伊藤博文) as her teacher (師父) and lord (主君), and in the position of a senior female student (師姐) she took Park Jung-yang (朴重陽), a Korean-born man, as her junior disciple (師弟).
Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborationist Activities (December 2007). "〈배정자〉" (PDF). 《2007년도 조사보고서 II - 친일반민족행위결정이유서》. Seoul. pp. 1503–1523. Publication registration number 11-1560010-0000002-10.
Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities (1 March 1993). "〈배정자 : 정계의 요화로 불렸던 고급 밀정 (김무용)〉". 《친일파 99인 2》. Seoul: Dolbegae. ISBN 978-89-7199-012-4.
Committee for the Investigation of Pro-Japanese Collaborationist Activities (December 2007). "〈배정자〉" (PDF). 《2007년도 조사보고서 II - 친일반민족행위결정이유서》. Seoul. pp. 1503–1523. Publication registration number 11-1560010-0000002-10. ↩
Im Jong-guk (1 February 1991). 《실록 친일파》. Edited by Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities. Seoul: Dolbegae. p. 95. ISBN 89-7199-036-8. ↩↩2↩3
Jeoyeongdo, present-day Yeongdo in Busan, was at that time a place with very active trade and traffic with Japanese merchants. Therefore, it does not make common sense to exile Bae, who had a pro-Japanese inclination, to such a place. There is no record anywhere that Bae was exiled. ↩