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Following Japan's annexation of Korea in August 1910, anti-Japanese sentiment was widespread throughout the peninsula as well as in Korean communities around the world. Men, like 38-year-old Yi Chin-yong, armed themselves and attacked isolated Japanese police stations and facilities. For the most part, Westerners and their businesses were generally immune from these attacks but not on Oct. 6, 1916, in a desolate northern part of Korea.
At the top of a steep hill, Yi Chin-yong and eight of his followers, dressed "in foreign khaki clothes and armed with five rifles," waited in ambush for a party of men bound for the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company [OCMC] -- an American gold mining concession.
Every month, the OCMC would transport gold bullion to Mochuri (the nearest railroad station, 100 kilometers from the mine) and bring back the company's payroll -- about 75,000 yen. An eight-mule wagon carried the bullion and a buckboard was used to transport the security force consisting of several Westerners and a like number of Japanese policemen, armed with the best rifles and carrying enough ammunition "to wreck the forts of Verdon."
How Yi knew of the bullion party's schedule is unclear. Perhaps he or one of his men had worked in the mines or been tipped off. It may have been common knowledge: the OCMC had been using this system for over a decade and had experienced no troubles in the past except for bad roads and weather.
Regardless of how he knew, Yi had planned his operation well. Just as the bullion party was nearing the top of the hill, the ambushers rained fire upon the unprepared men. The Chinese driver of the bullion wagon was killed instantly, and everyone else, except one Japanese policeman, severely wounded. But the men fought back and the ambushers were only able to grab a few bags of miscellaneous items of little value before being driven off. The payroll had been saved but the cost had been extremely high.
Nishioka, the policeman, having "received bullets in his shoulders, arms, and ribs," died soon after the attack. Fin Welhaven (the Norwegian brother of the general manager) died the following morning. The company's accountant, A. A. Williams (an Englishman), was shot in both legs and eventually recovered. The bullion party's supervisor, Captain Ebenezer S. Barstow, "a strong and athletic" American who had once worked as a captain for a Japanese steamship company, suffered an embarrassing wound -- shot in the buttocks that, as one miner recalled, left him the butt of the mining camp's jokes.
After the brazen attack a group of 50 Japanese gendarmes and police tracked down and apprehended Yi and two of his party -- two brothers: Whang Pong-un (25) and Whang Pong-sin (19). Yi confessed and, according to the Seoul Press, "haughtily declared that he committed the crime in order to raise funds needed for war on Japan for the purposes of recovering the independence of Korea." Yi asked that mercy be shown upon the young brothers but none was granted.
On May 1, 1918, Yi and the Whangs were sentenced to death at Pyongyang prison. The execution was performed immediately and "all three kept up their defiant attitude" until the moment of their deaths.
Will history remember them as murderous bandits or heroic patriots?
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| Nishioka's funeral at OCMC Lower Family Collection provided to Robert Neff |
Robert Neff is a historian and columnist for The Korea Times. He can be reached at robertneff103@gmail.com.
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