Philosophy2nd lunar month, 1881(Lunar)

Yeongnam Memorial of Ten Thousand

As A Strategy for Korea circulated, more than ten thousand Yeongnam Confucian scholars led by Yi Man-son petitioned against the reforms and relations with America.

It belongs to the 1880s stage of the Wijeong cheoksa ("defend orthodoxy, reject heterodoxy") movement, which had opposed trade with the West in the 1860s (Yi Hang-ro, Gi Jeong-jin) and the opening to Japan in the 1870s (Choe Ik-hyeon, who argued that Japan and the West were one).

The government issued a royal edict condemning heterodoxy to placate the scholars while punishing the leaders; Hong Jae-hak, who submitted a harsher memorial, was executed. The movement later fed into the righteous armies of 1895.

The map in 1881

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States and rulers at the time
Joseon — Gojong

People

  • Yi Man-son1811 – 1891

    leader · Gyeongsang Confucian scholar who headed the 1881 Yeongnam Memorial of Ten Thousand against A Strategy for Korea

  • Huang Zunxian1848 – 1905

    related figure · Counsellor at the Qing legation in Tokyo who wrote A Strategy for Korea and gave it to Kim Hong-jip

  • Gojong1852 – 1919

    monarch · Twenty-sixth king of Joseon and first emperor of the Korean Empire

Before and after