ABSTRACT
On 8 October 1895 Korea lost one of its most powerful female rulers. Empress Myeongseong (1851–95) – or Queen Min, as she was known to western readers at the time – was assassinated by Japanese agents in the cruellest of ways:
The palace gates were open as usual and there were only a few soldiers guarding them, because such an attack was totally unexpected. The guards were killed, and, as planned, the attackers dashed into the queen’s chamber. The Japanese attackers caught the queen before she could even realize what was happening. They stabbed her numerous times, and when she was dead, they dragged her body out to the courtyard, sprayed kerosene over it and set it afire. 1
