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Emperor Kojong died suddenly in January 1919. Immediately, rumors circulated widely that he had been poisoned by the Japanese, and wall posters to that effect appeared throughout Seoul. The people who gathered to mourn Kojong's death engaged in peaceful demonstrations, which served as the impetus of the March First Movement in Korea. The Japanese authorities never investigated the cause of Kojong's sudden death, which has remained a mystery to this date. There is strong evidence that he was poisoned. Moreover, Princess Masako, a daughter-in-law of Kojong, testifies in her autobiography that Japanese government officials gave a secret instruction to poison him. Consistent with her testimony, there is an allegation in Kuratomi Yuzaburo's diary that Terauchi Masatake and Hasegawa Yoshimichi may have been behind the crime. Our review of the evidence strongly supports the allegation that the highest Japanese officials were behind the poisoning of Emperor Kojong.
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Introduction
Emperor Kojong died suddenly and unexpectedly in the early morning- between five and seven o'clock-of January 21, 1919, at his residence at Toksu Palace.1 At the age of sixty-seven, he had enjoyed relatively good health. According to the Veritable Records (Sillok), which usually kept good records of Korean rulers' physical condition, Kojong complained only of minor arthritis in April 1918 and of a minor discomfort in August of the same year.2 The retired Korean emperor had shown no sign of any serious illness before he passed away. His sudden death immediately triggered rumors that he had been poisoned by the Japanese, and wall posters to that effect circulated throughout the city of Seoul. The national funeral for the deceased emperor was scheduled to take place on March 3, 1919. Indignant and grief-stricken at the story that their former emperor had been murdered by the Japanese, people began to congregate in Seoul to mourn his death. It was this multitude who started the peaceful, nonviolent demonstrations in the streets of Seoul that touched off the March First Movement.
Incredibly, in spite of the widely circulated rumor that Emperor Kojong was poisoned by the Japanese, no serious report or investigation of the circumstances surrounding his death has ever been made, either in Korea or in Japan.3 Nor was there ever an autopsy of...