The political disorder at the end of Joseon Period caused not only local government officials’corruptions, relentless exploitation from peasants, but also reckless interventions from foreign powers, which lead to collapses of agricultural economy in...
The political disorder at the end of Joseon Period caused not only local government officials’corruptions, relentless exploitation from peasants, but also reckless interventions from foreign powers, which lead to collapses of agricultural economy in rural regions. As the overflowing discontent of pea sant communities caused by those economic collapses was amalgamated with the Ideology of Donghak, the revolution broke out. The uprising started in 1984 widely in southern areas : Jeolla, Chungche ong, kyongsang, Gangwon. While Joseon government forces and Japanese forces severely oppressed the revolts, the Revolution failed fundamentally because of the lack of the maturity in the movement’s leadership and in the just cause. In other words, Donghak Ideology and the Korean nationali sm that motivated the Donghak Peasant Army were not well-developed at that time, and they were not able to gain external and internal supports s uch as manpower, food, weapons, ammunitions, and daily commodities. Add itionally, they did not have secure sanctuaries where in times of trouble they might escape from oppressions and restore their combat powers. The revolution eventually ended in failure. Those causes of the failure in Donghak Peasant Revolution offer us great lessons how we prevent insurgencies by remnant of North Korean rulers when we liberate North Korea, and how we effectively suppress the rebell ion if insurgencies break out.