Righteous army
In Korea, during the long period of Japanese invasion and occupation from 1890 to 1945, the disbanded imperial guard, and Confucian scholars, as well as farmers, formed over 60 successive armies to fight for Korean freedom on the Korean peninsula. These were called the Righteous armies, who were preceded by the Tonghak movement, and succeeded by various Korean independence movements in the 1920s and beyond which declared Korean independence from Japanese occupation and genocide.
This article identifies and compares the many righteous armies that existed, and attempts to sequence them in their order of appearance, and as well identify the major leaders, and national heroes who fought for national independence.
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Introduction
Korean nationalism outgrew the unplanned, spontaneous, and disorganized Tonghak movement, and became more violent as the Japanese occupation began a brutal regime throughout the Korean peninsula and pursued a genocidal scorched earth policy against the Korean people.
The Japanese occupiers fought with state of the art cannons, machine guns, repeaters, mounted cavalry reconaissance units in the mountains, and an entrenched class of informers and criminals developed over the previous decade before the battles began.
Koreans fought with antique muzzle-loaders, staves and iron bars, and their hands. There were rare instances of modern weapons, and few enemy weapons captured. Europe, particularly England and Germany, and the western allies were on the side of Japan, profiting from huge arms and naval sales, and did much to prevent Korean forces from being resupplied.
For at least 13 years after 1905, small irregular forces, often led by regular army commanders, fought skirmishes and battles throughout Korea against Japanese police, armies, and underworld mercenaries who functioned to support Japanese corporations looting Korea, and as well armed Japanese settlers who seized Korean farms and land. In one period, according to Japanese records in Boto Tobatsu-shi (Annals of the Subjugation of the Insurgent), between October 1907 and April 1908, over 1,908 attacks were made by the Korean people against the invaders.
While most attacks were done using available weapons, and bare hands, international arms dealers profited. Arms dealers and governments who supplied the Korean resistance included English arms dealers, Chinese arms dealers from across the Yalu and in coastal waters; German arms dealers provided Mausers, and a French cruiser in September of 1908, resupplied Korean Catholic armies in payment for gold at exhorbitant prices. Smugglers from Japan as well supplied Murada weapons, with links to anti-Meiji forces who hoped to see Ito and his clan toppled in the wake of a disasters in the Japanese economy.
After the Russian revolution, some weaponry was diverted from the White forces into what is now North Korea, and supporters built there, however this was sparse and while white Russian mercenaries fought against the Japanese, this was a minor element. And is in the article succeeding this.
Armies and where possible orders of battle
Of the sixty righteous armies, the list and descriptions below follow what is known of the names of the more well known armies and their sequential appearance in combat; individual generals and named figures are given larger biographies on separate articles which cite more historical background. From limits of space, there is an ancillary article entitled List of Righteous armies which also provides more information.
- General Yi Ch'ang Kun commanded 80 irregular soldiers of rifle armed hunters.
Major battle: November, 7, 1907 at Huch'i Pass, South Pangyong Province: Japanese army withdrew with 7 dead.
- Hong Pom To-Ch'a To Son army, commanded by General ? commanded 300 irregulars and rifle armed hunters.
Major battle: November 7, 1907 in South Pangyong mountain pass battle, engaged a Japanese (Miyabe) infantry company, and forced their retreat.
- Ch'a To Son righteous army, commanded by General ? or irregulars fought a small engagement.
Major battle: November 7, 1907.
- General Yi Ching Yong
- General Yon Ki U
- General Yong Paek of Chong'up in Cholla Province
- General Ki Sam Yong
- General Kim Kwan Su of Tokch'on in South Pyongyang
The post-1918 situation after battle reverses
New research on the Righteous armies
As both Confucianism and modernism have been given some distance by a century from their influence on Korean culture, there has been much interest on righteous armies as both continuing traditions and as well modernizing Korea on its own terms, thus lessening the traditional argument that Japan modernized Korea through invasion.
External links
- Professor Song Su-Pak has done a sociological analysis of the background for the Righteous army leaders, to be appended.
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before=Tonghak Peasant Revolution years1=1907–1918 | after=March first movement
Categories: Korean history | Military history