In 1895, a Japanese diplomat’ letter stating that the Joseon empress had been murdered was found.

Korea (Joseon) was a colony of Japan from August 1910 to August 1945.

During this period, Japan committed numerous evil deeds to eradicate Korea's roots and make it a permanent Japanese colony. One of those evil deeds is the Eulmi Incident (乙未事變).

The Eulmi Incident was an incident in which, on October 8, 1895, under the leadership of the Japanese army officer Goro Miura at the time, soldiers, diplomats, and civilians raided Gyeongbokgung Palace, where the empress was living, and killed Empress Myeongseong.

Many Koreans are outraged that a country's empress was murdered by her diplomat using a gangster.

However, according to the Japanese Asahi Newspaper on November 16, eight letters presumed to have been sent to a friend by Kumaichi Horiguchi, who was an assistant consulate in Korea at the time of the Eulmi Incident, were found.

This letter was sent a total of eight times from November 17, 1894 to October 17, 1895, after the Eulmi Incident.

Of all eight letters, the letter dated October 9, 1895, the day after Empress Myeongseong's assassination, described in detail his actions at the scene of the incident.

“The entry was my mission. I managed to cross the wall and reach the building inside the palace, where we killed her queen.” He also wrote about his impressions, saying, “I was very surprised that it was simpler than I thought.”

Akira Nakatsuka, an emeritus professor at Nara Women's University, who is well versed in Japanese modern history, said, "It is very meaningful that the primary data written by the parties was discovered 120 years after the incident and what Japan did on the Korean Peninsula."

The letter was found in an antique market by an American-Japanese living in Nagoya, Japan, and was read by Zainichi historian Kim Mun-sa, who wrote the book “The Murder of the Joseon Queen and the Japanese.”

Kim said, “When I saw the details (content) of the case and the description of the family, there was no doubt that it was the truth of the person.

The Japanese who took part in the murder of the empress at the time were brought to trial, but were not punished for reasons such as insufficient evidence.

75 years have passed, but Koreans still do not forget what Japan did in Korea.

Every time they hear news like this, Koreans feel their blood rushing upside down.

Reporter Song Haseong