Jeongmi Righteous Armies
Against Gojong’s forced abdication and the army’s disbandment, righteous armies joined by former soldiers rose across the country; the struggle became a war, and the Thirteen-Province Army attempted to march on Seoul.
Frederick Arthur McKenzie · Public domain · Source
The former soldiers brought organization and weapons, and scholars, peasants, hunters and soldiers fought side by side. The armies ranged as far as Jiandao and the Russian Maritime Province, and commoner leaders such as Hong Beom-do and Sin Dol-seok won fame.
The Thirteen-Province Righteous Army formed at Yangju in December 1907 and tried to take Seoul the next year, without success. From September 1909 Japan spent two months in a brutal "great southern punitive campaign" against the armies of Honam. Survivors moved to Manchuria and the Russian Far East and became the independence armies.