The conspirators had brought kerosene with them.  They threw a bedwrap around the Queen, probably not yet dead, and carried her to a grove of trees in the deer park not far away.  There they poured the oil over her, piled faggots of wood around, and set all on fire.  They fed the flames with more and more kerosene, until everything was consumed, save a few bones.  Almost before the body was alight the Regent was being borne in triumph to the palace under an escort of triumphant Japanese soldiers.  He at once assumed control of affairs.  The King was made a prisoner in his palace.  The Regent’s partizans were summoned to form a Cabinet, and orders were given that all officials known to be friendly to the Queen’s party should be arrested.

The Japanese were not content with this.  They did everything they could, the Regent aiding them, to blacken the memory of the murdered women.  A forged Royal Decree, supposed to have been issued by the King, was officially published, denouncing Queen Min, ranking her among the lowest prostitutes, and assuming that she was not dead, but had escaped, and would again come forward.  “We knew the extreme of her wickedness,” said the decree, “but We were helpless and full of fear of her party, and so could not dismiss and punish her.  We are convinced that she is not only unfitted and unworthy to be Queen, but also that her guilt is excessive and overflowing.  With her We could not succeed to the glory of the Royal ancestors, so We hereby depose her from the rank of Queen and reduce her to the level of the lowest class.”

The poor King, trembling, broken, fearful of being poisoned, remained closely confined in his palace.  The foreign community, Ministers and missionaries, did their best for him, conveying him food and visiting him.

If the Japanese thought that their crime could be hushed up they were much mistaken.  Some of the American missionaries’ wives were the Queen’s friends.  A famous American newspaper man, Colonel Cockerill, of the New York Herald, came to Seoul, and wrote with the utmost frankness about what he learned.  So much indignation was aroused that the Japanese Government promised to institute an enquiry and place the guilty on trial.  Ito was then Prime Minister and declared that every unworthy son of Japan connected with the crime would be placed on trial.  “Not to do so would be to condemn Japan in the eyes of all the world,” he declared.  “If she does not repudiate this usurpation on the part of the Tai Won Run, she must lose the respect of every civilized government on earth.”  Miura and his associates were, in due course, brought before a court of enquiry.  But the proceedings were a farce.  They were all released, Miura became a popular hero, and his friends and defenders tried openly to justify the murder.

Japan, following her usual plan of following periods of great harshness by spells of mildness, sent Count Inouye as Envoy Extraordinary, to smooth over matters.  He issued a decree restoring the late Queen to full rank.  She was given the posthumous title of “Guileless, revered” and a temple called “Virtuous accomplishment” was dedicated to her memory.  Twenty-two officials of high rank were commissioned to write her biography.  But the King was still kept a prisoner in the palace.