Count Inouye ranks with Prince Ito as the two best Japanese administrators
sent to Korea. He was followed, in September, 1895, by Viscount General
Miura, an old soldier, a Buddhist of the Zen school and an extreme ascetic.

The Queen continued to exercise her remarkable influence over the King, who
took her advice in everything. She was the real ruler of the country. What
if her family was, for a time, in disgrace? She quietly worked and brought
them back in office again. Time after time she checked both the Japanese
Minister and the Regent.

The Japanese Secretary of Legation, Fukashi Sugimura, had long since lost
patience with the Queen and urged on Miura that the best thing was to get
rid of her. Why should one woman be allowed to stand between them and their
purpose? Every day she was interfering more and more in the affairs of
state. She was proposing to disband a force of troops that had been
created, the Kunrentai, and placed under Japanese officers. It was reported
that she was contemplating a scheme for usurping all political power by
degrading some and killing other Cabinet Ministers favourable to Japan.
Miura agreed. She was ungrateful. Disorder and confusion would be
introduced into the new Japanese organization for governing the country.
She must be stopped.

While Miura was thinking in this fashion the Regent came to see him. He
proposed to break into the palace, seize the King and assume real power. As
a result of their conversation, a conference was held between the Japanese
Minister and his two leading officials, Sugimura and Okamoto. "The decision
arrived at on that occasion," states the report of the Japanese Court of
Preliminary Enquiries, "was that assistance should be rendered to the Tai
Won Kun's (Regent's) entry into the palace by making use of the Kunrentai,
who, being hated by the Court, felt themselves in danger, and of the young