Eulmi Incident (Assassination of Empress Myeongseong)
On 8 October 1895 Japanese agents and soldiers sent by Minister Miura Gorō broke into Geoncheonggung in Gyeongbokgung and assassinated Empress Myeongseong.
Maurice Courant · Public domain · Source
With Japan weakened by the Triple Intervention, Gojong and Queen Myeongseong sought Russian help to check it, and pro-Russian and pro-American figures entered the cabinet. The Japanese minister Miura Gorō then plotted the queen’s murder.
Before dawn on the 20th day of the 8th month, Japanese soldiers and ronin, using part of the Korean Training Unit as cover, entered Gyeongbokgung, killed the queen at Gonnyeonghap in Geoncheonggung and burned her body. The American William Dye and the Russian Afanasy Seredin-Sabatin witnessed it and it became known abroad, but Miura and others were released by a Japanese court for lack of evidence.
Japan reinstalled a pro-Japanese cabinet under Kim Hong-jip, which forced through the Eulmi Reform, including the topknot ban. Outrage at the murder and the ban sparked the Eulmi righteous armies, and Gojong, fearing for his safety, fled to the Russian legation the next year.
