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Drop section at all major retailers. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Erin Menkey. Listener discretion advised On a normal day, the grounds of the Korean Royal palace would be quiet. At 5am servants would be just rising to begin their day. Birds would be chirping, leaves rustling in the wind. But at 5am on October 8, 1895, Queen Min, nowhere near her usual wake up time, was awoken by one of her ladies in waiting. She was told the Vice Minister of Agriculture had an urgent message for her. The Queen hurriedly rose and got dressed. A bit frustrated but also a bit nervous, Queen Min stepped outside her quarters to see the minister. It seems that the Japanese are attempting another coup, he whispered. They're here, trying to enter the palace grounds. Quidman had been through this before. Just a year earlier, the Japanese had unsuccessfully tried to lead a coup against her. But something about this morning felt different. Before she could express her fear, her minister looked her in the eye and stated, no harm will come to you. There is no need to hide or even flee. You will be safe. The Queen took a moment to process and reflect. She bowed to her minister and retreated back into her quarters. She had survived attempts to oust her before, and she would do it again. All she had to do was wait for this all to pass. Even so, probably rightly, her nerves wouldn't allow her to fall back asleep. So Queen Min sat amongst her ladies in waiting and attempted to quiet her mind. Across the palace grounds, Japanese Sochi were scaling the palace walls with foldable ladders. Once over the walls, they thrust open the palace gates and ushered their comrades inside. No one was there to keep them from rushing in. All of the palace guards normally stationed at the gates had been relieved of their duties earlier by allies on the inside. So the mob, made up of Japanese expats, Japanese army officials, Korean civilians, Japanese Trained Korean soldiers and consular policemen streamed through the gates and surged into the palace grounds, not even trying to hide their presence any longer. They whooped and hollered as they dispersed and began their hunt for Queen Min. There was no stopping this mob. Not only had almost every remaining royal guard abandoned his post, but the men who stormed the castle and were too bloodthirsty and crazed to be contained. One major obstacle, however, stood in their way. None of the would be assassins knew what the Queen looked like. Very few people had directly interacted with her, and almost all who had done so had done so through a screen which prevented them from laying eyes on her. Rumor was that she had a bald spot above her temple, but that was about all the information about her appearance that the interlopers had to go on. This major unknown element, however, hadn't deterred the men. In fact, they had made a game out of their murderous hunt, and each man was competing for the honor of finding and killing Queen Min. The mob headed for the inner quarters of the palace and targeted any woman whom they came across. According to eyewitness reports from foreign envoys staying in the palace, the Japanese men burst into each and every room. They beat women, dragged them by their hair, and threw them off of verandas, all while demanding to know where the Queen was. They even came upon two different women that they thought were queen men. Each woman was stabbed to death. As the screams and jeers got closer and closer, Queen Min's fear skyrocketed. But so too did her survival instincts. Put me in your robes quickly, she ordered. Her ladies rushed to take off the Queen's garments and dress her in a clean set of their clothing. Now all 25 women in the room were dressed exactly alike. She ordered the women to hide wherever they could, and she tried to cover herself in a pile of bedding in a corner. Queen Min could hear the minister of the royal household shouting at the men outside her door, trying to prevent them from entering. She heard the sound of metal slicing through flesh, and his shouts turned to screams and then gradually to groans. She steeled herself and took a deep breath as the screen door slammed open. Queen Min focused on keeping still despite the chaos around her as the intruders trashed the room, brutalizing her ladies. Suddenly, the bedding which covered her was ripped off. Queen Min turned her head to make eye contact with the young Japanese man now standing above her. Her. Her eyes burned with fear and determination. She refused to cower or beg. Unfortunately, her composure betrayed her regal stature and gave her identity away. I found her was the last full sentence Queen Min ever heard. I'm Dana Schwartz and this is Noble Blood. According to the 60 year cyclical calendar traditionally used in Korea, 1895 was the year Yulmi. If you're from Korea, one particularly event probably comes to mind when you hear that word, the Yulmi Incident. This is, in my opinion, a rather undescriptive name for a really brutal event. So I hope this episode's introduction enticed you more than that very simple name might. The Yulmi Incident, as it's known, was the assassination of the Korean Queen Min as part of an attempted coup by her father in law and by Japanese envoys to the Korean kingdom in 1895. Before we finish the tragic story we started, let me set the scene. Korea in the late 1800s faced an entirely different reality than they had been facing earlier in the century. Korea, also known then as Choson, had been officially ruled by China for centuries. But the various Chinese dynasties had left Korea pretty much alone, allowing the King of Joseon to rule an absolute monarchy and run the country on a day to day level pretty autonomously. And besides the country's relationship with China, Korea was entirely insular. That all changed in 1876 when Japan forced Korea to open itself up to the rest of the world. All of a sudden, Korea was inundated with emissaries from China, Japan, Russia and the United States, all looking to bring the Korean peninsula under their influence. This massive change in international policy had occurred under King Gojong. King Gojong was not a particularly strong ruler. Although technically an absolute monarch, he was easily persuaded by whoever last whispered in his ear. Perhaps this is because of his early experiences on the throne. He had risen to power in 1863 at the age of only 12, and so his father, known as the Daewangan, stepped up as regent, a role that he stayed in past Gojong's coming of age. As such, Gojong became accustomed early on to being the supreme leader, and only in name. And so he deferred to those who supposedly knew better. Because of Gojong's personality. Korea of the late 1800s was full of factions, all vying to control the king and control access to him. These factions only multiplied when the country was forcibly opened and international powers joined the domestic powers in jockeying for favor. But by far the most powerful party, the one most successful at getting the King's ear, was the party of Queen Min. Queen Min had been selected to marry king Gojong in 1866 when she was only 16 years old, and he was only 15. The Daewangan had signed off on the arrangement because he believed that Queen Min would be a dutiful wife and more importantly, that she wouldn't pose a threat to his power as regent. How wrong he was. Queen Min didn't adhere to the role traditionally played by the wife of the king. Not only did she shirk the social responsibilities typically held by queens, instead investing time in her education, she also slowly extricated herself from the traditionally secluded Queen's apartments and crept down to the political scene. By 1873, when King Gojong was 22 and well past the age to rule independently, his father still acted as regent, which was posing a problem for Queen Min. If she hoped to gain real political influence, she needed to rid the palace of her father in law who didn't like her and her untraditional behavior. Queen Min secretly started organizing a powerful political faction to oust the Daewangan as regent and in 1873 successfully forced her father in law into retirement. He already didn't like Queen Min for her radical ways, but that coup solidified his hatred of her. With her plans to oust the Daewangunt successful, Queen Min moved into the power vacuum left behind and became the de facto regent of Korea alongside her husband, the king, who was essentially a figurehead. With Queen Min in the highest position of power in the country, her clan, the Min clan, became the dominant political faction. Queen Min was clearly a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately for her, it was her power and the threat her power posed to both Japan's influence on Korea and to one man's masculinity that would eventually lead to her death. That one man was Miura Goro. Miura first arrived in Korea in 1895 as Japan's new envoy to the country. He was appointed to the position during a period of great turmoil. 1894 and 1895 had seen two attempted coups against King Gojong and Queen Min, both of which had involved the King's father and Japanese and pro Japanese actors. Japanese politicians back in Japan blamed those two unsuccessful coups on their then envoy who had tried to work diplomatically with the Queen. So the Japanese government hoped to try a different approach, and they sent over Mura Goro as their new envoy. Miura was incredibly unqualified for the job. He had little diplomatic experience, no knowledge of broader world politics, and a penchant for being loyal to, as historian Danny Orbach put it, heaven and the emperor, but not the government. Miura's background was as a commander in the Japanese army, and he was known for his crude and direct style, not typically personality traits one would imagine to be helpful in a diplomat. Regardless of his lack of qualifications, Murat was in a tough time spot as the new Japanese envoy. Queen Min, and therefore King Gojong, had started leaning away from Japanese influence towards an alliance with Russia in 1895. His job was to fix that. One of Miura's first meetings in Korea was his introductory interview with King Gojong. At that meeting, Miura noticed that Queen Min was directed the king almost as if she were a disembodied, omniscient force. She advised him in real time from a room behind the King's throne where she could remain out of sight and unapproachable. Muira walked away from the meeting feeling that the Queen looked down on him. In his mind, she viewed him as a dumb soldier whose weakness could be taken advantage of in order to dismantle the Hyundai, the pro Japanese regiment of the Korean army. The Hyundai was one of the biggest bases of support for the Japanese on the Korean peninsula, and so if Queen Min disbanded that regiment, there would be little stopping her from bringing Russian forces in and pushing Japan out entirely. Given the situation, Mura had a couple of options. He could employ a woman to interface with Queen Min directly, since the Queen followed the Korean tradition of remaining secluded from men. Or Myura could have turned to his envoy predecessor for advice and guidance, because despite the fact that he was a man, he had been able to meet with Queen Min face to face. But Muira wouldn't allow himself to stoop to either of those paths. He wouldn't employ a woman, and he wouldn't ask for advice. He felt clueless and helpless, but he was too haughty to accept help. And so he chose a different option where instead of fixing his problem, he would just remove it. In his own memoir, Mura confessed that he decided, quote, in the space of three puffs on a cigarette, that he would assassinate the Queen. Even though Murugura wouldn't accept help to negotiate with Queen Min, he knew he needed help assassinating her. He turned to someone he knew would be more than up to the task. Adachi. Kenzo Adachi was a Japanese reporter in Seoul who ran a newspaper which was essentially a propaganda paper run by Sochi, or Japanese expats who advocated for hawkish Japanese foreign policy achieved through violence. They held some pretty misogynistic beliefs, and so they were quite antagonistic towards Queen Min. Some of their reporters, including Adachi, described her as wickedness. At the King's side and that bewitching beauty who cunningly, ubiquitously and treacherously manipulated virtuous men for over a generation and the root of all evil in Korea. Within Sochi circles, men were openly calling on their comrades to kill the queen. So Miura wasted no time in turning to that paper and their owner Adachi for help. On September 19, 1895, Muira met with Adachi and asked if he knew of any young men up for a fox hunt. Adachi later admitted that his heart leapt with joy when Muira asked him this question. He knew that there was no actual fox hunt, but that Muira was actually talking about killing Queen Min. The writers at his paper frequently utilized a common metaphor of foxes as evil and as cunning women. While discussing Queen Min, so Adachi heard Miura's dog whistle loud and clear. Adachi was thrilled to finally have a powerful partner, giving him and his staff the go ahead to act on their hateful desires. Under order to maintain the utmost secrecy, Adachi set out recruiting members of his newspaper staff for the mission. The Sochi at the newspaper all enthusiastically volunteered. They couldn't wait to undertake this exciting, manly adventure. Miura, looking for additional support, also recruited the Hoionde, the pro Japanese army regiment that he feared Queen Min would disband. They would be additional muscle for the operation. Now he had a critical mass to execute his mission and the the queen. But Miura couldn't dispose of Queen Min without someone to replace her as de facto ruler of Korea. Quite reluctantly, Miura and his advisors turned to the Daewongan King, Gojong's father and former regent. Like I mentioned briefly just a year prior, before Mura was the envoy, the Japanese had already tried to work with the Daewon Gun to overthrow Queen Min, but the plot had failed. The Daewangan had gone behind the Japanese backs and collaborated with the Chinese. So the Japanese were understandably, incredibly hesitant to work with him. But the Daewongan was now in dire financial straits, and so Miura believed that he could more easily be manipulated and pressured into doing what he was told. Ultimately, though, the truth is Miura had no better option. It took some time to iron out the details, but finally, on October 3, 1895, the Daewangan and the Japanese came to an agreement. With that the plan was set. Now they just needed to wait for the perfect moment to strike. Unfortunately for Miura and his alliance, the necessary time to act was came before the perfect moment. And it came quite fast. On October 7th, less than a week after the alliance had finalized arrangements with Queen Min's father in law. Miura received reports that Queen Min was about to disband the Houyunde ally with Russia and order the assassination of multiple pro Japanese politicians. Mura needed to act fast before his base of support was swept out from beneath him. And so he decided that the very next morning they would kill the queen. As I described in this episode's introduction, on the morning of October 8th, a mob descended on the Royal palace in search of Queen Min. The mob was made up of Hoiundai Sochi staff members from the newspaper, Japanese soldiers, Korean policemen and other soldiers in plain clothes, and some random Korean civilians. With help from palace insiders, the mob breached the inner rooms of the Royal palace, where they found the Queen amongst her ladies in waiting. I won't go into too much detail, but once the mob found Queen Min, they assassinated her very brutally. To say that they engaged in overkill would be an understatement. Suffice it to say, all that remained of her after the coup was a singed fingerbone. Historian Danny Orbach posits that the mob so brutally murdered Queen Min for a couple of reasons, including their misogynistic attitudes towards the Queen and the competitive nature of the search for her. Regardless of the reasons, they were so complete in their decimation of her that until her remains were recovered in a forest much later, it was sometimes thought that she had just disappeared. Importantly, there was no clear evidence as to who the exact person was who had killed Queen Min. And so to this day, it's still unknown which member of the mob murdered the monarch. Waiting for the Queen's assassination to take place, the Daewongun arrived at the royal palace at 6am ready to swoop in to claim power back from the woman who had taken it years ago. Miura later described the Daewongan as beaming with delight as he entered through the palace gates. He was pleased with himself to have toppled the woman who had pushed him out previously. Never mind that he was now a pawn of the Japanese, the Daewangan was ready to resume power. With the assassination executed, Mura and the Daewangan met with the Daewangan's son, King Gojong, who was shell shocked and upset. The Daewungan presented the King with a variety of documents to sign, including a proclamation denouncing Queen Min and relegating her to the rank of commoner. In a rare moment of courage, Gojong refused to sign anything and told his father, you can cut my fingers off, but I will not sign your proclamation. The Daewongun went ahead and published the edicts without his son's official seal, but that was enough to indicate to the general public that there was some sort of foul play going on. Everyone denounced the edict as fraudulent, and the Daewangan had to retract it. He attempted again to undercut Queen Min's public image. A couple of days later, King Gojong was being kept confined to the royal palace, despite the horrific murder that had taken place there just days earlier. Perhaps the king could stomach this because he didn't yet know that his wife was dead. He actually believed at this point that she had escaped the mob, as she had during multiple previous other attempted coups. And like I previously mentioned, there was no trace of her remaining. So, capitalizing on his son's ignorance and seclusion, the Daewangan issued another edict under his son's name stating that the king was divorcing Queen Min for desertion and that he would remarry. When King Gojong heard of this, he was infuriated. He turned around and issued his own edict, in which he raised the queen's status to bin the title for the first rank of women of the Internal Court. It took some time for everyone to accept what they soon all knew. Queen Min had been murdered. A month and a half after the royal palace had been been stormed, King Gojong's cabinet finally made an official announcement that Queen Min was dead, but that the events of October 8th would be investigated. Even though it took over a month for this investigation to be announced, the public knew from day one who really was the power behind the murder. From the moment news of the coup and Queen Minh's assassination became public, it was clear to everyone that the Japanese were involved. Even as the coup was happening, witnesses could see the men dressed in Japanese clothing and wielding Japanese swords tearing through the palace. When reporters for the English language newspaper arrived at the royal palace, they found that the main gates were being guarded by Japanese soldiers. Miura's personal involvement wasn't too difficult to deduce either. Korean royal emissaries reported that after having been dispatched to alert Miura to the coup, they arrived at his offices to find him and the emissary's secretary dressed and waiting by the door with their sedan chairs ready to carry them to the palace. They clearly knew what had happened and were just waiting to be summoned. Once officials started investigating, there was ample evidence that pointed to Miura's role in leading the conspiracy. But that didn't stop Miura from attempting to hide his complicity, he tried telling other foreign emissaries that some Koreans must have dressed up in Japanese clothing to frame the Japanese. Miura also tried to peddle this lie to his own superiors in the Japanese government and even pretended that Queen Min might still be alive when he already knew knew she had been killed. You might be wondering how much the Japanese government back in mainland Japan knew about the assassination scheme beforehand. Historians widely believe that Tokyo had no idea of Miura's plan before it happened, and their actions after the fact definitely do indicate that. There's pretty ample evidence that Miura spent much of his days after October 8th working to convince his superiors, like the acting Foreign Secretary, that he had no idea of the plot and was working to investigate it. But like a guilty child who thinks they're smarter than their parents, Miura just couldn't help himself and kept dropping hints that pointed to the truth. Inadvertently or not, he eventually admitted to the Foreign Minister that Japanese actors might have been involved and that he did believe something had needed to be done about the Queen. Anyways. When Miura's complicity became clear to government officials, Tokyo summoned Miura and his co conspirators back to Japan, expecting a hero's welcome upon their return, the foreign envoys were instead met at the docks in Hiroshima and arrested. Miura and his co conspirators had been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The subsequent trial riveted the Japanese public, as multiple Sochi who had participated in the coup admitted under oath to participating in the killing that day. And historians admit that the trial was shockingly honest and forthright with the evidence regarding the conspiracy up until the day of the assassination. However, the court ended up acquitting all of the defendants of charges. The judge in his ruling, stated that while everyone charged had clearly been involved in a conspiracy to kill Queen Min, there is no sufficient evidence to prove that any of the accused actually committed the crime originally mediated by them. In other words, because no one could prove that who had killed Queen Min, they all got off. No one knows exactly why the court made such a ruling. The case had been surprisingly transparent regarding the complicity and responsibility of men like Muira, and yet they were still acquitted. Perhaps the government stepped in, but perhaps the judge in this case made the ruling entirely of his own accord. There's no evidence pointing towards government interference, but that's not to say it didn't happen. A lack of evidence isn't proof that nothing happened. You might also be wondering why Korea didn't try the various co conspirators. Because of a clause about extraterritoriality in a treaty that Korea and Japan had signed in 1818 76, Korea was powerless to try Japanese nationals for their crimes. In the end, Japan had wrapped up the matter. By January 20, 1896, less than four months after Queen Min's assassination. King Gojong's process of mourning and commemorating his wife, on the other hand, took him over two years. Perhaps because it took him almost two years and support from from the Russian delegation to wrest back control of his throne from his father. But once he was secure back in power in 1897, King Gojong wasted no time honoring his late wife. He first issued her a new posthumous name, Myeongsong. When Gojong proclaimed himself as Emperor a few months later, he also changed Myeongseong's title from Queen to Empress. Her final and current posthumous title is Myeongseong the Great. Empress Gojong also planned an extravagant funeral procession for his late wife. The procession through Seoul featured 5,000 soldiers, 650 policemen, 4,000 lanterns, hundreds of scrolls honoring her, and giant wood wooden horses intended for her use in the afterlife. She was laid to rest in the Joseon Royal Tomb complex, where Emperor Gojong would later be buried alongside her. Empress Myeongseong could not have known it, but she would be the last Queen of Korea. And even though she was technically the second to last Empress of Korea, she is commonly known today as the Last Emperor Empress. Her reign and assassination have been dramatized as a television series, a movie, and the first Korean musical to grace a Broadway stage. Despite enduring a brutal death, Empress Myeongseong continues to have an impact on Korea and lives on in the Korean consciousness over a century after her passing. That's the story of Queen Min and her assassination, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear how recently discovered documents shed light on the details of what happened. October 8, 1895. Temperatures have started rising, and I feel.