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안중근의사기념관

Thoughts, spirits and traces

Three Sorts of Love: Heaven, the Nation,
and the People

Ahn Jung-geun dedicated his life to the anti-Japanese movement 
as an educator, a patriotic enlightenment activist, a paragon of 
national spirits, a religious thinker who propagated Catholicism, 
and a leader of the righteous army who fought against the Japanese 
police and army. But, most of all, he made an indelible accomplishment 
in the modern and contemporary history of Korea by assassinating and 
punishing Hirobumi Ito, the monstrous aggressor of Korea, in Harbin.
Ahn Jung-geun could carry out his practical and decisive assassination plan based on his unique idea of “On Peace in the East” and the Three Sorts of Love: love of 
heaven, love of the nation, and love of the people. The idea of the “Three Sorts of Love” is a composite thought incorporating Confucianism, enlightenment thoughts, 
and Christianity.
Ahn Jung-geun could cultivate his love of the nation and the people and devote himself to the nationalist and anti-Japanese independence movement, which was 
possible because he was fully determined to sacrifice his life as a worthless bit of straw to the cause of national independence and had challenged fate in life-or-death 
situations many times. Ahn had lots of experiences like the following:
On one day in his childhood Ahn went out with his village school friends to enjoy watching spring flowers. When Ahn he was about to pick up a 
flower in the mountain, he missed his footing off a precipitous cliff and fell down the precipice. Ahn, however, had a narrow escape from death 
by grabbing hold of a branch.
Ahn Jung-geun went into the mountain to hunt roe deer and checked his magazine rifle with six chambers as it did not fire. When he found that 
the bullet was stuck inside the muzzle, Ahn picked it with an iron skewer when he heard gunfire. The skewer penetrated his right hand before it 
flew into the sky. Ahn was so shocked and from that time on, he would sweat hard even when he was dreaming. 
When Ahn Jung-geun worked at a lottery company as section chief, he saw a throng of crowds – swarming into him throwing clubs and stones – 
who were angry at seeing the breakdown of a lottery machine. Ahn could escape the life-threatening scene thanks to the help of a righteous 
man named Heo Bong.
Ahn Jung-geun barely managed to stay alive with the aid of eating herb-roots and tree-barks for 20 days when his righteous army was 
defeated by Japanese soldiers and had to return to Primorsky Krai.
In 1908 when he was engaged in enlightenment movement in Primorsky Krai, Ahn Jung-geun encountered a group of six to seven gangs named 
Iljinhoe and was beaten by them in a secluded mountain valley but finally escaped the scene. 
After going through a crisis of life and death, Ahn Jung-geun developed a sound sense of a youth both physically and mentally. His love of heaven, the nation, and the 
people that he had developed boiled down to the idea of the peace of East Asia and, to put it more concretely, his idea of “On Peace in East Asia.”