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Person1855 – 1884

Hong Yeong-sik

Radical reformer and head of the Post Office, at whose opening banquet the Gapsin Coup began; he was killed when the coup failed

As a commissioner on the 1881 inspection mission he studied the Japanese army, and in 1883 he went to the United States as deputy head of the Bobingsa mission. In 1884 he became head of the new Post Office, and at its opening banquet that year he launched the Gapsin Coup with Kim Ok-gyun, Park Yeong-hyo and others. When the coup collapsed after three days he stayed with Gojong to the end and was killed by Qing soldiers.

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3 related events

  1. 1
    1870 – 1879Rise of Enlightenment Thoughtparticipant

    Park Gyu-su, O Gyeong-seok, Yu Hong-gi and others, heirs of the Northern Learning school who absorbed knowledge of the West reaching Korea through Qing, argued for opening the country and making it rich and strong. Their students Kim Ok-gyun, Park Yeong-hyo, Yu Gil-jun and others became the Enlightenment Party.

  2. 2
    1881Inspection Mission to Japanparticipant

    Park Jeong-yang, Eo Yun-jung, Hong Yeong-sik and others travelled secretly to Japan to study its government and industry; Yu Gil-jun stayed on to study.

  3. 3
    1884Gapsin Coupleader

    Kim Ok-gyun and other radical reformers staged a coup at the banquet opening the new post office; Qing troops intervened and it collapsed in three days.

People who appear alongside

  • Kim Ok-gyun1851 – 1894

    Radical reformer who led the 1884 coup, fled to Japan and was assassinated in Shanghai

  • Park Yeong-hyo1861 – 1939

    Radical reformer and son-in-law of King Cheoljong who led the Gapsin Coup with Kim Ok-gyun and headed a coalition cabinet with Kim Hong-jip in the second Gabo Reform

  • Yu Gil-jun1856 – 1914

    Studied in Japan and the US after the 1881 inspection mission and the 1883 mission to America; wrote "Observations on a Journey to the West" and took part in the Gabo and Eulmi reforms

  • Park Gyu-su1807 – 1877

    Grandson of Park Ji-won; as governor of Pyeongan he burned the General Sherman, later urged opening to trade and taught the reformers

  • O Gyeong-seok1831 – 1879

    Interpreter who brought back from Qing books on Western affairs such as the Haiguo tuzhi and Yinghuan zhilüe, a pioneer of enlightenment thought

  • Yu Hong-gi1831

    Daechi. A chungin physician who studied enlightenment ideas with O Gyeong-seok and guided young reformers such as Kim Ok-gyun, earning the name "prime minister in plain clothes"

  • Park Jeong-yang1841 – 1905

    Member of the 1881 inspection mission to Japan and first minister to the US; attended the 1898 joint assembly as acting prime minister

  • Seo Jae-pil (Philip Jaisohn)1864 – 1951

    Joined the 1884 coup, lived in exile in the US, then returned to found The Independent

Themes this person appears in

  • The Opening of East Asia1839 – 1901

    From the Opium War to the Boxer Protocol — sixty years in which China, Japan and Korea, forced open by Western gunboats, each tried to reform and went separate ways

  • Seoul18 BC – 1988

    From Hanseong Baekje to the June Democratic Struggle — the Han River land every kingdom fought for, and Joseon’s capital for five centuries