General Hong Beom Do Returns

written by 20420 Lee Seung Ho

 

The remains of Independence Army’s hero General Hong Beom Do returned to Korea on National Liberation Day. He commanded the Korean Independence Army at the Battle of Bongodong and Cheongsan-ri and won a big victory.

The remains of General Hong were recovered from the tomb of Kyzylorda in Kazakhstan. His remains were handed over to the South Korean military honor guard and moved onto the Air Force Special Transport plane on August 14^th, 2021. It has been 78 years since he died in Kazakhstan.

Hong Beom Do was born on October 12^th, 1868, in Pyongyang, Pyeongan-do. He worked as a hunter. Empress Myeongseong was killed by Japanese soldiers in 1895. Hong Beom Do became angry with Japan after learning about this and jumped into the so-called righteous army. He began to work in areas such as Gapsan and Musan in North Hamgyong Province. After the righteous army’s battle in Korea, he moved to Manchuria to train the Independence Army.

After the annexation of Korea and Japan in 1910, General Hong defected to Manchuria to foster Independence Forces. In 1919, he became the commander of the Independence Army for the Gando National Assembly and attacked the Japanese army. Later, he organized the Korean Independence Corps and became deputy a prime minister along with Kim Jwa Jin.

General Hong is called a hero. When the Japanese attacked Bongo-dong in 1920, he killed 120 people in a three-day battle in Bongo-dong, then defeated the Japanese army along with Kim Jwa Jin’s Northern Army and the West Army in Cheongsan-ri Battle.

But there is also a dark event.

After General Hong had a great victory in Gando, the Japanese planned to send a large army of regular troops directly to Manchuria to wipe out the Independence Forces at once. They also conspired to manipulate the case that would justify the Japanese military’s departure from Manchuria.

In 1920, the Japanese sent a large regular army to Gando, which included Japanese troops stationed in Joseon and the Gwandong army in Manchuria. They massacred innocent Koreans living in the region in the name of defeating Independent Forces.

When the Japanese were defeated by the Independence Forces in the Battle of Bongo-dong, they launched an operation to slaughter Koreans without discretion in retaliation. During the three-to-four-month period, numerous Korean villages were burned, property and food were looted, and the Koreans were slaughtered.

They did the same thing to Koreans living in Russia’s Primorsky Province.

After the Gando incident, several Independence Forces were stationed in the Russian city of Svovodni. Some Independent Forces, including Hong Beom Do, supported the Soviet Communist Party, but some did not. They fought each other for power, and more than half of the Independence Forces lost their lives at the time.

Hong Beom Do tried to achieve Korea’s independence. However, he did not see Korea’s independence and died in 1943 in Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan. The return of the remains of General Hong is meaningful in that it honors the hero’s achievements for Korea.