Kim Ok-gyun’s status as seen by contemporary Japanese people

This study seeks to reexamine the reality of Joseon before and after the Gapsin Coup as shown in Nakarai Dosui's newspaper serial novel 『The Sand Wind Blowing in Joseon』 and the realization of Kim Ok-gyun's Three Harmony Doctrine through the main character of the work, although he is a faction. This can be said to be a reexamination of how Kim Ok-gyun's status and the international situation of the three countries, reproduced through contemporary newspaper media in the late 1880s, were biased and conveyed to the Japanese public. It consists of fiction that plays a leading role in. Unlike existing works based on Kim Ok-gyun, which use the so-called death of Kim Ok-gyun or the historical fact of the Gapsin Coup as their main creative motif, this is a humanities study that focuses on the social and political aspects of the late Joseon Dynasty and the three harmony doctrine and independence of Joseon that Kim Ok-gyun advocated. It can be said that it has a unique feature that sets it apart from other works in that it was reconstructed with scholarly imagination. Specifically, as Nakarai lived at the same time as enlightenment thinkers such as Kim Ok-gyun and Park Young-hyo, he not only criticized the failure of the Gapsin Coup more objectively and macroscopically, but also did not simply end it as a failure, but established the Triple Alliance between Joseon, Japan, and the Qing Dynasty through factions. In conclusion, it is differentiated from existing cultural contents featuring Kim Ok-gyun in that it realizes the three harmony doctrine that resists Western imperialism. In this way, Nakarai's 『The Sand Wind Blowing in Joseon』 checks and criticizes Japan's large imperialistic vested interests in the late 19th century, and as an alternative, builds a system of independence and peace for the three East Asian countries to jointly confront Western imperialist invasion. It must be said that it has counter-cultural characteristics. And Nakarai's view of Joseon is still valid even in the 21st century, as the Gapsin Coup that took place in 1884 was triggered by international relations with the Qing Dynasty and domestically by resistance to pre-modernity and the large mainstream forces of the Min clan., This is also the reason why Kim Ok-gyun's status should be recalled again in our history.