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Also recorded in the history of Japanese invasion of Korea is the murder of Empress Myongsong, also known as the Ulmi incident.

The Japanese militarists went to extremes in their moves to colonize Korea by force of arms in the late 19th century.

At that time, they harboured the wild ambition to seize before others Korea, an arena of competition for colonies among the Western powers. But they failed to realize it, as they were not strong enough to fight head-on with the powers. Moreover, Empress Myongsong of the Korean feudal government was following a pro-Russian policy with the intention of containing Japan with the help of Tsarist Russia since the Japanese were so ambitious to dominate Korea.

Worrying that its scheme for the invasion of Korea might be foiled due to the growing influence of Russia, Japan plotted to eliminate Empress Myongsong who had been the actual power holder of the feudal Joson dynasty.

As they schemed to kill the empress, the crafty Japanese militarists tried to fake an internal coup of the Korean feudal government in order to prevent protest from home and abroad and shift the blame for the crime.

On October 8 1895, the murderers including Japanese troops, policemen and civilian ruffians rushed to the Royal Palace. They met with the resistance of the Korean royal guard. In the gunfight they shot the regiment commander of the guard to death and encircled the residence of the Korean emperor. They tried to intimidate him into handing over the empress and detained him before breaking into her bedchamber hall. Although they had already got familiar with her appearance by means of her portrait, they found it difficult to spot her in the complete mess of numerous court ladies running pell-mell while screaming. So they indiscriminately stabbed them to death, believing that the empress might be among the ladies.

The palace turned into a slaughterhouse and sea of blood in a flash.

After identifying the empress bleeding and still breathing among the fallen ladies, they rolled her in a quilt, put it on a pile of firewood which had already been got ready in the nearby pine forest and burned her to death. And they threw the pieces of bones that remained unburned in a pond to remove the traces of their crime.

This is the truth and details of the incident that startled the world.

The then diplomatic minister of Russia said in a report sent to the foreign minister of the country that “I cannot but point out that the current incident is a criminal case unprecedented in the world history. In peacetime, foreigners, with the help of their army and under the patronage and guidance of their legation, thronged into the royal palace of other country to kill and burn the empress and committed all manner of despicable murder and violence, but they deny what they did before the world. Such shameless act will be unprecedented anywhere else.”

After going so far as to murder the empress of Korea in a cruel manner in order to realize their aggressive goal, the Japanese militarists became more undisguised in pursuing the colonial enslavement policy toward the country and finally occupied it militarily.

The past hideous bloody crime of Japan is unprecedented in history and statute of limitations never applies to it.