Korea (1840–1945)

A system in early-to-mid 19th century Korea where powerful in-law clans (families married into the royal family), especially the Andong Kim clan, controlled the government instead of the king.

Choe Je-u founded Donghak ('Eastern Learning') in 1860, blending Confucian, Buddhist, Daoist and shamanist ideas.

'Innaecheon' — the idea that all people carry heaven within them and are equal before heaven, a direct challenge to Korea's rigid class hierarchy.

He was arrested and executed by the state in 1864 for spreading what officials saw as dangerous heterodox teaching, but Donghak survived among peasants.

Yi Ha-eung, father of the boy-king Gojong; he ruled as regent from 1863 to 1873.

Broke the in-law clans' grip on government posts, reduced yangban tax exemptions, and closed about 600 of Korea's 700 seowon (private academies).

French forces in the Byeong-in yangyo (1866) and American forces in the Shinmiyangyo (1871), earning Korea the nickname 'Hermit Kingdom'.

In 1875 the Japanese warship Unyo deliberately provoked Korean coastal defences near Ganghwa Island; Korea's return fire gave Japan its pretext to force a treaty in 1876.

Korea opened three ports to Japanese trade, granted Japanese citizens extraterritoriality, had no tariff control over Japanese goods, and was declared 'independent' (undermining Qing suzerainty claims).

The Daewongun pursued strict isolation and rejected all foreign contact; Queen Min's faction, once in power, favoured cautious reform while maintaining close ties to Qing China ('Sadae').

Kim Ok-gyun led the pro-Japanese 'Enlightenment Party' reformers in December 1884; their 14-point programme demanded abolishing class privilege, tax reform, and cutting tribute ties to Qing China.

It lasted only three days before Qing troops garrisoned in Seoul crushed it; the result was tightened Qing control over Korea for the next decade and worsened Korea-Japan relations.

Corrupt local taxation in Gobu county, channelled through the Donghak religious-political movement, which rejected foreign influence and gave scattered peasant grievances a shared national cause.

Jeon Bong-jun, whose army captured the city of Jeonju in May 1894, forcing the Korean court to request Qing military help.

A Sino-Japanese agreement that either country could send troops to Korea if the other did — it let Japan legally send its own army once China sent troops to fight Donghak rebels.

Japanese troops seized the royal palace and installed a pro-Japanese cabinet, engineering political control before the First Sino-Japanese War officially began.

China recognised Korea's 'independence' (ending its tributary status), ceded Taiwan and the Liaodong Peninsula, paid a huge indemnity, and opened more treaty ports to Japan.

Russia, France and Germany forced Japan to return the Liaodong Peninsula to China straight after Shimonoseki — a humiliation that fuelled later Russo-Japanese rivalry.

Gabo: imposed by a Japanese-backed cabinet during occupation, abolished the yangban class system and modernised administration. Gwangmu: launched by Korea's own Korean Empire, built railways/military/schools under the slogan 'Korean tradition as base, Western technology as tool'.

Empress Myeongseong, who favoured Russia as a counterweight to Japan; she was assassinated by Japanese agents inside the royal palace in October 1895.

Proclaimed in October 1897 when King Gojong returned from Russian protection and took the title of Emperor, asserting Korea's equal status with China and Japan.

A Korean reform movement of officials and citizens that published Korea's first private newspaper and called for constitutional government and an end to foreign interference; banned by Gojong in 1898.

A treaty forced on Korea after Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War, making Korea a Japanese protectorate, stripping its control of foreign affairs, and installing Itō Hirobumi as Resident-General.

Donghak revolt → Qing and Japanese troops enter Korea → First Sino-Japanese War → Treaty of Shimonoseki ends Chinese influence → Gabo then Gwangmu reforms → Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) removes Russia as a rival → Eulsa Treaty makes Korea a Japanese protectorate.

1910 — the final step after Korea had already been a Japanese protectorate since the Eulsa Treaty of 1905.

A colonial land-registration programme; many Korean peasants could not prove ownership under its rules, so land passed to the state and Japanese settlers, creating mass tenant farming.

Wilson's idea of self-determination at the Paris Peace Conference, plus the funeral of former Emperor Gojong, gave nationalists an opportunity and hope of international support.

Violent suppression — thousands killed, tens of thousands arrested — but it also pushed Japan into a softer 'Cultural Policy' in the 1920s.

A temporary relaxation of colonial control (e.g. allowing some Korean-language newspapers) introduced after the Samil Movement, later reversed in the 1930s.

Naisen Ittai was the 1930s-40s doctrine that Japan and Korea were 'one body'; Sōshi-kaimei (1939-40) was the policy forcing Koreans to adopt Japanese names, part of forced assimilation.

It turned Korea into a total-war resource base: forced labour, military conscription (from 1944), requisitioned rice and metal, and the 'comfort women' system.

A Japanese military system that forced tens of thousands of Korean and other women and girls into sexual slavery for soldiers — one of the most painful, contested legacies of occupation.

Kim Il Sung: communist guerrilla commander against Japan in Manchuria, then based in the Soviet Union. Syngman Rhee: anti-communist, exiled mostly in the US lobbying for independence.

Their opposed ideologies and separate foreign backers (USSR vs US) meant Korea had no unified independence leadership ready in 1945 — a direct root of the peninsula's later division.

Through the atomic bombings and Soviet entry into the war against Japan — not through Korean resistance defeating Japan, leaving Korea liberated but unprepared and divided.

Whether infrastructure and administrative modernisation counted as real benefit, versus extraction that served Japan's interests while Korean ownership, profit, and control were lost.