The Imo Mutiny from pay crisis to coup

A drought and state bankruptcy left regular Korean troops unpaid while a small Japanese-trained force received better treatment and recent military investment. The state had discharged about a thousand older or disabled soldiers while favoring roughly one hundred men in the new unit, making reform look like abandonment rather than renewal. When the government finally issued food, an official's steward sold the good rice and substituted rotten millet mixed with sand and bran. Arresting ringleaders and threatening execution converted the pay grievance into attacks on an armory, a prison, officials, and the Japanese legation. The Daewongun then abruptly reclaimed power, revealing how an administrative crisis could become an organized political coup.