Kim Kyung-cheon, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetKim Kyung-cheon
Korean independence activist
Date of Birth: 05-Jun-1888
Date of Death: 02-Jan-1942
Profession: military personnel
Zodiac Sign: Gemini 
About Kim Kyung-cheon
- Kim Kyung-chon (Korean: ???; Hanja: ???; June 5, 1888 – January 2, 1942) was a Korean independence activist and military leader.
- Several sources believe North Korean leader Kim Il-sung stole his identity after his death.
- In 1888, he was born in a rich, Yangban-traditioned family in South Hamgyong Province, Pukchong County, as the fifth son of his father Kim Ding-Hyung.
- His original name was Kim Ung-chon (Korean: ???, Chinese: ???).
- In 1909 he married You Jong.
- He later entered the Imperial Japanese Army Academy and graduated in 1911, attaing the rank of cavalry lieutenant in the Imperial Japanese Army.
- In June 1919 he fled to Manchuria along with Chi Chong-chon to join the Korean independence movement, working as a trainer but after only six months he communicated with some Korean activists and moved to Vladivostok to fight under Kim Kyu, who was renowned for victory over a Japanese battalion.
- His main operation after arriving in Vladivostok was fighting off Japanese-supported Chinese militias.
- In this period he chose Kim Kyung-cheon as a pseudonym.
- During the Russian Civil War, his troops managed to impress Red Army commanders with good discipline.
- In January 1923 he attended the conference of Korean Provisional Government in Shanghai and decided to create a communist Korean regime which would be based in the Soviet Union.
- However, the Comintern denied the "republic's" legitimacy as an independent entity, leading Ji to leave the Soviet Union while Kim remained.
- During the Great Purge, Kim was arrested for protesting against Joseph Stalin's Korean Dislocation policy and eventually died in a Soviet prison.
- He and Ji Cheong-cheon and Shin Dong-cheon were called "3 cheons of South Manchuria" (????).
- He was also referred to as ????? (?? ???) (literally meaning Heaven-supporting General Kim) by Koreans in Manchuria. Lee Myung-young published a book The Legend of Kim Il-sung in 1974 in which she asserted that the original General Kim Il-sung was an Imperial Japanese Army Academy graduate.
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