Master Yuan, start!

That night, unless they were die-hard supporters of the yangban aristocracy, everyone else, whether neutral or opposed, fell into the burning flames of sin.

Chapter 74 Theoretical Basis of the Korean-China Theory

The next day, the situation became increasingly chaotic, with looting occurring not only in Seoul but also in towns and cities around Gyeonggi Province.

As the armed forces of peasants and yangban nobles poured into Seoul, conflicts between the two groups began to arise.

The leading nobles of the Yangban class never thought that it would be so easy to capture Seoul. The troops left by Yuan Xiangcheng had no intention of defending it at all. They gave up Seoul before they even met, so they had no plan for the peasants entering the city.

This led to the situation where the self-cultivating farmers and tenant farmers, after entering the city with their hoes in hand, discovered that the facts were completely different from what the landlords had told them.

"What? Lord Yuan wants to distribute land to the people?"

"Master Wu cheated us?"

Most of the farmers who knew the truth were terrified. Only then did they realize how terrible it was to capture Wangjing.

So they clamored to return home, but the two-class nobles who had already entered the city would not let them do as they wished. They went to Gyeongbokgung Palace to find the king and ordered that after driving Yuan Shikai out, they would give these people land and let them stay.

Some tenant farmers were tempted and agreed to stay, but more wanted to return to their hometown to hide from the limelight for a few days.

It was impossible for the Joseon peasants and the yangban aristocrats to unite, but the yangbans fabricated a lie to make them cooperate.

Now that Seoul has fallen and the lie has been exposed, the yangban still wants to tie the Korean peasants to their rebellious chariot, which naturally leads to large-scale conflicts.

Some Korean farmers who were unwilling to stay were beaten to death in the streets. Some of the remaining people ran out of the city, while others were accepted by the civilian faction in the city and fought with the Yangban faction.

The contradiction between the Korean landlords and the Korean peasants, which had been suppressed for hundreds of years, finally turned into a bloody battle under the names of the yangban conservatives and the civilian open-minded faction.

The power of blood is terrible, but the blood of one person is not enough to repay the debt.

The first nobleman was killed, and so were the second and the third. The Yangban had their hands stained with the blood of Korean peasants, and at that moment in Seoul, countless Korean civilians' hoes were soaked in the blood of the Yangban nobles.

Even if some clear-headed nobles wanted to call for a ceasefire between the two sides, it would be of no avail. Instead, they were immediately labeled as rebels.

The yangban nobles, who were in a rage, believed that this man was pro-commoner and should not be kept alive; the Korean peasants and civilian coalition forces, who had suffered heavy casualties, believed that this man belonged to the yangban class, and that trying to persuade them to make peace at this moment was undoubtedly a dagger hidden in their smile, and that if they laid down their weapons, they would be punished later.

The thousands of Japanese vanguard troops who had already entered the city did not care about the struggle inside the Korean city. Their goal was clear: to take the Korean king away.

But when they arrived at Gyeongbokgung Palace unimpeded, they found fires everywhere in the palace, eunuchs and palace maids running around, and no sign of princes or nobles.

When they rushed into the bedroom in anger, they only found Queen Min in dishevel, but King Lee Hee was nowhere to be seen.

Team leaders Min Young-ik, Zhao Junwen, Wu Shenghao and others were suddenly shocked. Without Li Xi, how could they command North Korea?

Ignoring the blazing flames of Gyeongbokgung Palace behind him, Min Young-ik stood in front of the square where Kim Seung-wang was shot and killed that day, and asked in a trembling voice, "Aunt, where is the king? Did the king die in this fire..."

After breaking into Seoul and encountering no obstacles along the way, Min Young-ik knew that something was wrong.

At this moment, he deeply regretted getting involved in this mess. It would have been much better for him to just smuggle and resell goods honestly, but he had to interfere in the struggle within the Qing Dynasty and its top leaders.

At the same time, he also stared fiercely at his aunt Queen Min who told him the inside information of the Korean high-level officials. If Queen Min had not told him these things, he would not have had the evil idea of ​​wanting to control the situation in Korea, and he would not have started a rebellion when Yuan Shikai returned to China.

But it's too late to say anything now. No one expected that a fire would break out in Gyeongbokgung Palace and the king would disappear.

Queen Min was also a little confused and didn't know what had happened. First, a fire broke out in Gyeongbokgung Palace, and then her nephew brought a group of yangban and a group of people who were obviously not Korean soldiers to rescue her from the fire.

Although Queen Min looked panicked at first, she still analyzed the situation. It was obvious that the Yangban class could no longer sit still and rebelled!

But she didn't know where King Li Xi had gone. Li Xi hadn't slept with her for a long time.

In a hurry, the group could only frantically carry out disaster relief work while the fire was still out, and at the same time, they caught the palace maids and asked around about Li Xi's whereabouts.

It was not until the third day that the Yangban nobles took control of the situation in Seoul and barely maintained a fragile balance.

The yangban sent people to guard the city gates, while the common people gathered on a high ground in the west city and defended the temple.

Only then did the Yangban faction and Queen Min realize that Lee Hee had been taken out of the city by the Right Army of Gapsin that night and headed towards Incheon.

Until this news came, the Yangban faction was in despair, hanging their heads, not knowing what to do. Some even suggested taking the Japanese vanguard to attack Incheon.

Wu Shenghao's hoarse voice rang out: "The only plan now is to take advantage of the fact that Yuan Xiangcheng's army has not yet returned and lead the troops to seize the king. Otherwise, something unexpected will happen if we delay!"

Zhao Junwen was also worried about the chaos in the city over the past few days. He said with some concern, "In just a few days, dozens of nobles and officials have been slaughtered. These lawless bastards will not be let off easily."

But no matter what they say, the current situation is that there is no other way except to forcibly seize the people. This time, they only took advantage of the absence of Yuan Xiangcheng's army to gain this advantage. If they climb Yuan Xiangcheng and return to the court, do they still have a chance of winning?

After people calm down, they tend to weigh the pros and cons. At Min Young-ik's suggestion, Queen Min suggested sending her to the Incheon barracks to negotiate and discuss with the king how to quell the rebellion as soon as possible before Yuan Shikai returned to the country, so as not to give Yuan Shikai an excuse to cause trouble.

But this was a new dispute within the Yangban faction, and not everyone was willing to negotiate peace. Everyone was risking their lives to rush into Seoul.

Now that so many people have been killed, if you say we go to negotiate, will the civilians let these yangban people go?

Even if the negotiations are reached and the civilian faction does not take action against the two-class yangban under the order of King Li Xi, can Yuan Xiangcheng swallow this?

Once you embark on this path of rebellion, there is no turning back.

After some debate, some of the Yangban who had originally thought that negotiation was a good approach also didn't know what to do.

Min Yongyi saw that the two groups were arguing with each other with unwavering expressions. Since things were impossible to do now, the right thing to do was to decisively give up the original goal and minimize the losses.

How could he not think of the issue of reckoning that others mentioned, but at this time, saving his own life was the most important thing. It would rather die than let a friend die. Selling out others is much better than being beheaded himself.

Seeing that the debate was not over, he said loudly to the crowd, "Don't worry, everyone. Joseon was founded by the Yangban after all. The king will not abandon the Yangban and choose the common people.

What's more, our visit to Beijing this time did not cause any harm to the officials of the two classes. Even if someone unfortunately died, they died from stray bullets and rioters.

After Min Yongyi uttered such despicable words that distorted right and wrong, the two factions were silent.

Normally, these yangbans all boasted of being descendants of noble families and celebrities, and they had to maintain some dignity. No one expected that Min Yongyi could say such words without batting an eyelid, and they could only admire him in their hearts.

So after some discussion, everyone decided to put the blame on the dozen or so dead yangban, claiming that it was this group of people who instigated the civilians to go to Beijing to riot, and that they were the ones who initiated the journey to Beijing to quell the rebellion.

After making the decision, the yangban took action. Some of them followed Queen Min out of the city to Incheon, while others led the Japanese vanguard to wipe out the civilians in the city and leave no evidence.

At this time, the Yangban faction had not yet realized that after discovering that King Yi Xi was taken away by Yuan Xiangcheng's remaining troops, the Pungyang Zhao family and the Gyeongju Lu family had disappeared and quietly rushed to Busan.

...

When Queen Min arrived at the Incheon military camp, she was dumbfounded, and everyone behind her was also dumbfounded. They never imagined that Yuan Xiangcheng was in Incheon, standing behind Li Xi.

Queen Min was speechless upon seeing this, and could only bite the bullet and propose a negotiation to Lee Hee: "Your Majesty, this rebellion was caused by some of the Yangban who instigated the people to attack the capital and massacre the Yangban.

I beg the King and Lord Yuan to severely punish the rebels, and at the same time, to punish the Yangban who participated in the rebellion, strip them of their honors and titles, abolish their fiefs, and distribute them among the people of Korea..."

Queen Min turned the tables and, seeing that Yuan Shikai had returned to Korea, knew that the situation was hopeless. She simply took the opportunity to propose abolishing the fiefdoms of the rebellious yangban nobles and distributing them among the Korean people. This not only extricated herself from the rebellion, but also showed goodwill to Yuan Shikai.

However, what Yuan Shikai wanted was far more than just the land of a few nobles. What he wanted was to distribute all the land of Korea to him, and to directly distribute it equally in one step.

Yuan in the original time and space in 1887 dared to try to depose the King of Korea with only a few thousand people under his command. Now he is far more powerful than Yuan in the original time and space, and he wants more.

Only by distributing land to every Korean citizen will the Korean people follow him, and only then can he bring these 8 million Korean people under his command.

Otherwise, there would always be a group of nobles between the Korean people and Yuan Shikai, and when Yuan Shikai grew stronger in the future, he might very likely destroy the foundation of Korea to the Korean revolutionaries.

Although Koreans have had close contacts with the Central Plains dynasties since ancient times, the common people have always been separated from mainland China by a language barrier.

If Yuan Shikai vigorously promoted industrialization in Korea, leading to its rapid development, and the developed yangban aristocracy then raised their arms and called for "Korean independence", he would have no place to cry.

Only by not provoking resistance from the North Korean people can we transform North Korea into China and permanently incorporate it into the Chinese territory.

What is public opinion? In Joseon at that time, the opinions of scholars were public opinion, while the common people only cared about the annual tax revenue from the land harvest.

To do this, the first thing to do is to clean up the two classes of powerful nobles in Korea. These people control a large amount of land in Korea. Yuan Shikai has to discuss with them any construction he wants to do in Korea. The so-called strong dragon cannot defeat the local snake is nothing more than this.

But even if they were temporarily intimidated by Yuan Xiangcheng's military power, they would not be on the same side with Yuan Xiangcheng for the rest of their lives.

Only by cultivating his own power and replacing the two-class nobles, the Korean scholars that Yuan Shikai could bring in to accompany him would at least be from a powerful faction, and more of them would be Korean scholars who admired Chinese civilization.

Moreover, Yuan Shikai also subtly instilled the theory of Chinese culture into Korea in the literacy textbooks. At this time, Korea was far more inclined towards the king than the southwestern and northwestern frontiers.

Zuo Zongtang was able to establish a province in Xinjiang with tens of thousands of Chu troops, and Yuan Shikai was able to abolish the feudal system and establish a province in Korea with 2 new Jiashen troops.

If the original Korean faction still had some concerns about Yuan Shikai's strength, then after hearing that Yuan Shikai had defeated the French army in the capital, they no longer doubted the combat effectiveness of Yuan's army.

In addition, Yuan Shikai has spared no effort to promote Chinese studies and Westernization in Korea over the past six months, which has been seen by the scholars in Seoul. Yuan Shikai has already used this to win over a large number of knowledgeable people who want Korea to be prosperous and strong.

And what is the best way for North Korea to become rich and strong? Isn't it to make big things happen?

Over the past six months, Yuan Shikai has been working at full capacity, using later propaganda methods to intensively spread the history he wants the Korean people to know.

They kept sending people to edit vernacular and drama scripts, and had them give lectures in restaurants, brothels, docks, etc., learning the agenda-setting tactics of later Europeans and Americans. They promoted whatever they wanted the Koreans to know, and constantly reinforced this point in newspapers, miscellaneous songs, and dramas.

He spared no effort in promoting the "Jizi Joseon Theory" in newspapers in Seoul, claiming that Korea was no different from the Central Plains and was one of the feudal states as early as the Zhou Dynasty, constantly strengthening the concept that Korea originally belonged to China.

It can be said that after more than half a year of information bombardment, not only ordinary scholars, but even the laborers carrying bags at the Incheon dock knew that Koreans came from China and that his ancestors were also from the Central Plains.

They firmly believed that they were speaking only Korean dialect, not the Korean language, and that as long as they learned Mandarin, they would be able to communicate seamlessly with people from the Central Plains.

A lie repeated 1000 times becomes the truth, not to mention that some of Yuan Xiangcheng's arguments are based on historical facts.

The mainstream argument in later generations of Korea is the "Dangun Korea Theory", which means that Koreans were a tiger and a bear on Mount Taebaek in Korea in 5000 BC. They met a fairy and were transformed into humans. The child they gave birth to, "Dangun", was the founding ancestor of Korea.

"Dangun's Joseon Theory" comes from the book "Samguk Yusa" written by the monk Iryeon in the late Southern Song Dynasty, which tells the story of Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla. Among scholars, it is more regarded as a mythological story rather than a theory of the origin of Korea.

The "Dangun Joseon Theory" had no market at all in Korea at that time. It was completely regarded by scholars as a "monster novel", the same as the Chinese view of Journey to the West and Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio.

That is, the story is really interesting, but you have to make me believe that Emperor Taizong of Tang really became sworn brothers with a monk, and that his brother also took a monkey and a pig to the West to obtain Buddhist scriptures.

"Brother, am I so mentally ill in your eyes? Why are you humiliating me like this for no reason?"

In contrast, the "Jizi Joseon Theory" was still known to scholars in Korea at that time, because Jizi, Bigan and Weizi were known as the "Three Sages" during the reign of King Zhou of Shang.

Being able to be listed among the three ancient sages of the Shang Dynasty during the Three Dynasties period was an opportunity to flatter themselves. The Koreans, who claimed to be a small China, would naturally not let it go. Therefore, the Jizi Joseon Theory was recognized in the official Confucian doctrines of Korea throughout the ages.

What Yuan Xiangcheng did was to constantly reinforce this theory among scholars, and the Korean people other than scholars should also know this theory.

Jizi Joseon Wei Dynasty Joseon Han Four Counties Goguryeo Goguryeo, Baekje, Silla Tang Andong Protectorate, Silla Later Goguryeo, Later Baekje, Silla Goryeo Joseon.

This is the Korean history in the minds of Korean scholars. Although there were separations and unions with the Central Plains court, they generally recognized the Central Plains, and after being exposed to Confucian culture, they did not reject becoming a member of Chinese civilization.

The popularity of the "Dangun Korea Theory" can be traced back to the original time and space when the Japanese annexed Korea and forced Japanese-language education in Korea, which caused a backlash. That was in 1908, nearly 20 years later.

In the original time and space, it was because of the oppression of the Japanese that the intellectuals on the Korean Peninsula constantly aroused the will to resist and constantly pursued the independence of Korea, which eventually made the "Dangun Korea Theory" popular after World War II.

After the establishment of their respective states, the North and the South, in order to maintain their independence, also abandoned the "Jizi Joseon Theory" that had been passed down since ancient times.

It can be said that North Korea at this time was far from facing the same crisis as in the original time and space, and its resistance to China was far less than its resistance to Japan. Therefore, the ordinary Korean scholars and people who had experienced cognitive brainwashing for more than half a year were now extremely convinced that they belonged to China.

Not to mention that many well-known surnames on the Korean Peninsula are of Chinese descent, with their ancestral records indicating they were from somewhere in China. For example, the "Ming" surname is a descendant of Ming Yuzhen, who was exiled by Zhu Yuanzhang in the early Ming Dynasty, and the "Kong" surname is a descendant of Yanshenggong, who fled to Korea in the late Song and Ming dynasties...

At this time, Yuan Shikai had the right time, place and people, and it was imperative to turn Korea into China.

But in addition to the moral justification, if he wants the North Korean people to support him, he must also provide tangible benefits.

The first to bear the brunt of the attack were the stubborn yangban who tried to prevent him from winning over the North Korean people and resist him.

Yuan Shikai naturally would not let the Yangban nobles go easily. Not only would he confiscate the property of the rebellious Yangban and punish them, but he would also gradually reduce the land of the Yangban who did not participate in the rebellion and distribute it to the Korean people in the future.