Kim Gu


Kim Gu, also known by his pen name Baekbeom, was a Korean statesman politician. He was the sixth, ninth and later the last President of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, a leader of the Korean independence movement against the Japanese Empire, and a reunification activist after 1945. He was assassinated by Korean lieutenant Ahn Doo-hee in 1949.

Biography

Early life

Kim was born on August 29, 1876, in Teot-gol, Baek-un-bang, Haeju, South Hwanghae Province, Korea, the only son of the farmers Kim Soon-young and Kwak Nack-won. His name at birth was Kim Changahm. When he was nine years old, he started to study Chinese classic texts such as Zizhi Tongjian, and Great Learning at local seodangs.
Kim was a descendant of Kim Suk-seung, his 31G-grandfather, the founder of the Andong Kim clan who are famous for being descendants of King Kyung Soon. Kim's 21G-grandfather Kim Sa-hyeong was one of the meritorious retainer at the founding of the Joseon dynasty. His 11G-grandfather Kim Dae-chung escaped to Hanyang to Haeju and later concealed his identity. Kim Ja-jeom was his 11G-Great grandfather, and Kim Dae-chung's third cousin.

Leader of Donghak movement

At the age of 16, Kim applied for the Gwageo of Joseon but failed. After that, he joined the Donghak Movement, a rebellion against government and foreign oppressions in 1893 and changed his name to Kim Changsoo. As the organization grew rapidly, he was appointed the district leader of Palbong at the age of 17 and a Donghak army regiment. Under the instruction of Donghak leader Choi Si-hyung, Kim's troops stormed the Haeju fort in Hwanghae-do, but the army was eventually defeated by governmental forces. After that, he was defeated by his companion, Lee Dong-yeop in the turf war of Donghak's organization. Thereafter, the Royal Army's General An Tae-hun, gave Kim's Donghak rebels a safe pass, but other government troops ignored An's safe pass and attacked them. At 20, with I-eon Kim whom he had met around Yalu River, Kim attacked the Royal Army unit holding the Gang-gye fort, supported by the Qing dynasty's army. However, the attack failed and he went into hiding.

Assassination of Josuke Tsuchida

In February 1896, Kim stayed at an inn in Chihapo, Hwanghae Province while traveling to southern regions. There he found a Japanese man named Tsuchida Josuke, who was a trader from Tsushima, Nagasaki, Japan, and killed him believing that he was a Japanese army lieutenant involved in the assassination of the queen.
In his autobiography, 'Baekbeom Ilji', Kim describes his motivation at the time as follows:
The following morning, Kim attacked Tsuchida, and killed him. The "Report from acting administrator Hagihara Moriichi of Incheon Consulate on the current situation of Incheon" describes Tsuchida as a "commoner from Nagasaki Prefecture" and an "employee of a Nagasaki trader on a business trip".
However, Kim argued in his autobiography that Tsuchida was concealing a sword and had identification papers that showed him to be a Japanese army lieutenant.

Jailbreak, and educational activities

Kim was tortured and sentenced to death. According to 'Baekbeom Ilji', however, many Korean people were sympathetic and admired him for his patriotism and bravery, as shown by the facts that his execution was suspended by order of Emperor Gwangmu, that Korean judicial officials behaved politely to him despite Japanese pressure to execute him promptly, and that influential Koreans at the time made efforts to rescue him by repeated petitions to Korean Justice Department Officials and by collecting money for his ransom before his scheduled execution date.
In prison, Kim had a chance to read newly published textbooks about Western culture and science such as Taeseo Shinsa and Saegye Jiji. He was deeply impressed by the strengths of the new Western science and recognized the importance of education for the Korean people. He started to teach about 100 illiterate fellow prisoners. The Korean newspaper :ko:황성신문|Hwhangsung Shinbo reported at the time that by his teaching of prisoners Kim Chang Soo changed the Incheon Prison into a school.
In 1898 he broke out of prison and escaped into Magoksa, a Buddhist temple in Gongju, Chungcheong province, and entered the Buddhist priesthood. A year later Kim left the priesthood and returned to Hwanghae, where he devoted himself to the enlightenment and education of the Korean people, founding Jangyeon School and the Yangsan School in 1907, becoming the principal of the Yangsan School. In 1904, he married Choi Jun-rye from Sinchon, Hwanghae Province.

Joins Korean Independence Movement

In 1905, the Eulsa Treaty was made between Japan and Korea, making Korea a protectorate of Japan. Kim participated in a mass protest against the treaty in Seoul and presented a memorial to Emperor Gwangmu urging him to withdraw from the treaty. In 1908, Kim joined New People's Association, a national-level underground organization established by Ahn Changho for nonviolent Korean independence movement.
In 1910, the Japanese colonial government arrested An Myung-geun for plotting to assassinate Governor-General Terauchi Masatake. Kim, who was a close friend of An, was suspected of being an accomplice and arrested as well. Like other jailed suspects, Kim was severely tortured, but no evidence linking him to the assassination attempt was found and he was released from prison after 3 years.
This term of imprisonment left Kim with damage to cartilage and his left ear disfigured for life, due to beating by Japanese in the prison, in addition to his calves that were already permanently scarred in his earlier imprisonment torture for the killing of Tsuchida. At the time, Han Pil-ho, a member of Sinminhoe, was killed, Shin Suk-choong killed himself, and An tried to commit suicide during the severe interrogation but failed. Kim also tried to kill himself with a self-inflicted injury in his head, but failed.
In prison, Kim changed his name from "Kim Changsoo" to "Kim Koo" and adopted the pen name of "Baekbeom". Kim stated in his biography that the change of his name symbolized breaking free from Japanese nationality records and that he chose the pen name Baekbeom, which means "ordinary person", hoping every ordinary Korean person would fight for the independence of Korea.

Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea

Kim exiled himself to Shanghai, China in 1919 after a nationwide non-violent resistance movement, known as the March 1st Movement, which was violently suppressed by the Japanese imperialist government. In Shanghai, Kim joined the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, which vowed to liberate Korea from Japanese occupation.
After serving as the Police Minister, Kim became the president of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in 1927. He was re-elected to the office many times by the Provisional Assembly.
In 1931 he organized a nationalist group, the Korean Patriotic Corps. One of the members, Yun Bong-gil, ambushed and assassinated the Japanese military leadership in Shanghai on April 29, 1932. The commander of the Japanese Army and Navy died instantly. Another member, Lee Bong-chang, tried to assassinate the Japanese emperor Hirohito in Tokyo on January 8 of the same year but failed.
After escaping to Chongqing where Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Government was established, Kim established the Korean Liberation Army, commanded by General Ji Cheong-cheon. When the Pacific War broke out on December 8, 1941, Kim Koo declared war on Japan and Germany and committed the Korean Liberation Army to the Allied side; the Korean Liberation Army took part in warfare in China and Southeast Asia. Kim arranged for the Korean Liberation Army to advance to Korea in 1945 but, days before the departure of the leading unit, the war ended.

After Korean Liberation

Kim returned to Korea upon the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945. He was known as "the Assassin" and reportedly travelled with an entourage of gunmen and concubines.
In December 27 1945, the heads of state of the USA, the UK, the USSR, and China agreed to a trusteeship for newly liberated Korea. Kim was opposed trusteeship. The 1947 creation of The Joint Soviet-American Commission was also opposed by Kim.
As the division of the newly independent country under the trusteeship became obvious, he led a team of former independence activists to Pyongyang to hold unification talks with Kim Il-sung, who later became the president of North Korea. Talks deteriorated rapidly after he voiced his hostility toward the growing communist presence in North Korea.
In 1948, the inaugural National Assembly of South Korea nominated Kim as a candidate for the office of the first president of the Republic. In the election by the National Assembly, Kim was defeated by Rhee Syngman, the first president of the provisional government, who had been impeached in 1925 by a vote of 180-16. He lost the election for the vice presidency to Lee Si-yeong by a vote of 133-59. Kim did not know about his nomination until after the election. He did not approve the nomination, considering it a ploy to discredit him. Kim would never have participated in the election as he fiercely opposed the establishment of separate governments in North and South Korea.

Death and legacy

On June 26, 1949, Kim was assassinated by Lieutenant Ahn Doo-hee. Ahn burst in and shot him four times while he was at home, reading poetry. Ahn stated that he killed Kim because he saw him as an agent of the Soviet Union. On April 13, 1992, a confession by Ahn was published by Korean newspaper Dongah Ilbo. In the confession, Ahn claimed that the assassination had been ordered by Kim Chang-ryong, who served as the head of national security under the Rhee administration. Ahn was murdered by Park Gi-sheo, a follower of Kim's, in 1996. According to Bruce Cumings in his 1981 books, another possible motive for the assassination was Kim's alleged connection to the assassination of Song Jin-woo, a leader of the Korean Democratic Party who had chosen to work closely with the American military government. In 2001, declassified documents revealed that Ahn had been working for the U.S. Counter-Intelligence Corps, leading to suggestions of US involvement in the assassination. However, some have questioned the evidence for these accusations.
Kim was posthumously awarded the Republic of Korea Medal of Order of Merit for National Foundation, the most prestigious civil decoration in the Republic of Korea, as well as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's National Reunification Prize. His autobiography, Baekbeomilji is an important source for study of history of Korean independence movement and has been designated as cultural treasure No. 1245 by the Korean government. A steady seller in Korea, the autobiography was first published in 1947 and republished in more than 10 versions in Korea and abroad.
Kim has been constantly regarded as one of the greatest figures in Korean history. For example, he was voted in a 2004 online poll as the greatest leader after the restoration of Korean independence and in 2005 as the most revered figure by Korean National Assemblymen. In 2007 national surveys, Kim received the most vote as the Korean historic figure whose portrait should be featured in new Korean banknotes to be issued in 2009. On November 5, 2007, the Bank of Korea, the national central bank of the Republic of Korea, announced the new 100,000 Korean won bill would feature Kim's portrait. However, the issuing of the new bill was delayed indefinitely as of 2009 for an unknown reason.

Family

Kim's second son, Kim Shin, was a founding member of Republic of Korea Air Force, the Chief of Korean Air Force, member of the National Assembly, and the Minister of Transportation, and later the Director of Kim Koo Museum and Library.
Kim Koo's grandson, Kim Yang, was appointed as the Korean Consulate General in Shanghai, China in 2005 and as the Minister of Patriots and Veteran Affairs of Korea in 2008.
In 2010, Kim Koo's great-grandson, Kim Yong-man was appointed second lieutenant of Korean Air Force, and in 2011, Kim's great-grandson on her daughter's side, Kim Dong-man was also appointed second lieutenant of Korean Air Force.

"My desire"

At the end of his autobiography Baekbeomilji, Kim expressed his desire with which he carried all his lifetime:

Writings