1905 - June 2 - 皇城新聞 : Korean called "Liancourt Rocks(リアンコルド岩)" as "Angohu島", not "Dokdo", Seokdo nor Usando.

To follow are the first part of June 2 1905 article of "Hwangseong Shinmun"(皇城新聞) , which seems to be the translation of 30th May, 1905 Japanese official gazette (官報 号外) about The Battle of Tsushima (Strait), commonly known as the Japan Naval Battle(日本海海戦) in Japan. This is the important historical primary resource which shows how Korean in 1905, the year Japan incorporated Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks into Shimane, actually called the island. All the documentations which shows how they called the island we found so far was Japanese resources, so it is the first time we confirmed Korean documents/evidence. And, it was Angohu島(island)=Liancourt Rocks which was same with Japanese, not Dokdo, Seokdo, Usando nor any other names Korean claim to be the old names for Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks afterall.

雑報 (Miscellaneous) （皇城新聞）

日艦隊의 公報 日本聯合艦隊司令官의 公報를 槪據한 則 聯合艦隊의大部隊가二十八日後에는 안고후島 附近에셔敗殘한俄國艦隊의 主力部隊를包圍攻擊하야 其降服을 受한 後에 追擊은 中止하고 此艦을 措處하는中이오
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
The official dispatch of Japanese fleet. According to the general official dispatch of Japanese fleet, that is, A big unit of the Combined Fleet, after 28th, near the "Angohu(Yanko= Liancourt)" island, encircled and attacked the main force of defeated Russian fleet. And followed by the surrender of the enemy, they stopped the pursuing and in the middle of dealing with the ship...

The original Japanese Navy's war report was written under the name of famous Fleet Admiral Marquis Togo Heihachirou (東郷平八郎) and it was printed in official gazette(官報). Korean journalist mainly quoted article no.5 of the original. The original itself starts with the famous phrase "本日天気晴朗 ナレドモ浪高シ" written by Vice Admiral Akiyama Saneyuki (秋山真之). To follow is the part which coincides with the sentence above.

（官報原文 : Original - Official Gazette of Japan）

連合艦隊ノ大部ハ、前ニ電報シタル如ク、一昨二十八日午後、「リアンコルド」岩附近ニ於テ、敗残敵艦隊ノ主力ヲ包囲攻撃シテ、其降伏ヲ受ケ、追撃ヲ中止シ、之ガ處分ニ従事中、
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
(As it was already transferred, the most of Combined Fleet had encircled and attacked the main force of remaining enemy ship corps defeated near at the Liancourt Rocks in the afternoon on 28th and after their surrender, it stopped the pursuing and now engaging the dealing with the aftermath. )

* Korean reporter mistranslated "大部" as "大部隊"
* Korean reporter mistranslated "二十八日午後" as "二十八日後"
* "リヤンコルド岩(Liancourt Rocks)" is translated as "안고후島" and altered "rocks" to "island" in Korean article.

Korean reporter seems to have translated article no.5 of Japanese Navy report basically, but actually, if you read the whole article, you will notice that he/she edited the original and had put more information they got from somewhere else since some parts of them were not in the original Japanese naval report. In other words, although writer did translated the Japanese report, he/she had collected more information and re-organized this article in his/her own perspective.

Interestingly and importantly, the writer of this article used "안고후(Angohu)島(island)", which was common name of the Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks （ヤンコ島 : Yanko-to）by Japanese and used by Korean as well around early 1900s, instead of "안고후(Angohu)岩(Rock)", the direct translation of the "リアンコルド(Liancourt)岩(Rock)" in the original Japanese war report. In other words, the writer changed the name of the island into the name it commonly known by. It is the concrete evidence that the writer of the article actually identified the island in concern is Liancourt Rocks(Yanko-to(ヤンコ島)), not only copied the name of the island, and also he/she knew that the island played the important role in the battle of the Tsushima.

Moreover, the reporter wrote Liancourt Rocks as "안고후島", which is the Korean pronunciation of "Liancourt Rocks", not "Dokdo(独島)", "Seokdo(石島)" nor "Usando(于山島)", all of which Korean claim as the other nameｓ of Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks. Japanese started to call Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks, which they used to call "Matsushima(松島)" in Edo era, as "Yanko(Liancourt)" island after Meiji restoration in 1867 when they got to know that the western name of the island on the map. And it is known that Korean, in 1904 warship Niitaka report, had wrote the island "Yanko-to/안고후島"(Liancourt Rocks) as "独島(Dokdo)". This 1905 article is important Korean own evidence that Korean still called Takeshima Liancourt Rocks as "Angohu-island", just like Japanese called Yanko-to.

And lastly, in Admiral Togo's original report, notice that he/Navy officers still used "リアンコルド岩(Liancourt Rocks)" instead of "竹島(Takeshima)" which they had already officially incorporated into Japanese territory and renamed as it is four months ago. Apparently, for Japanese officials, Navy, especially Admiral Togo and his brains had not placed much importance on incorporation of Takeshima from the strategical point of view. This implies Navy Captain / A chief of Hydrograhical Department, Kimotsuki Kaneyuki(肝付兼行) had no intention of "secretly" incorporating the island when he advised Japanese fishermen that the island had not been occupied by any other countries and it should be Japanese territory, in September 1904, unlike Mr. Naito Seichu and Prof. Hosaka keep claiming falsely without any concrete evidence.

These points confirm the fact that Korean in 1905 didn't　consider Yanko-to/Liancourt Rocks/Takeshima/Dokdo as their own territorial island. And it also excludes the Korea's illogical claim that Japanese incorporation in 1905 was done secretly for the purpose of the accomplishment of Russo-Japan war. In fact, Japanese Navy started to construct watchtower on Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks in July and they started to use it in August, not before, but "after the Japan-Russo War.

During those days in 1903-1905, there were absolutely no newspaper article, official reports, requests, inquiry nor claims which object Japanese (Navy/civilian) activities on Takeshma/Lincourt Rocks from Korean at any level, including this article, which called "Angohu島", not Dokdo. It was not until Shim, the head of Ulleungdo mistook "Dokdo" as their territory, probably mysterious "Usando" which is believed to be 100-ris(40km) away from Ulleungdo, and reported the incident to his boss in mainland, which lead Korean central government require the survey of "the geography and population" of the island. This happened after he was told that Takeshima was now Japanese island, by the delegate group of Shimane prefecture who visited to Ulleungdo in 1906. If Takeshima/Dokdo had been truly their "inherent territory" and had "effective control" over the island in/before 1905 as Korean government currently claim, why they didn't even notice/claim about those open and spectacular war activities on /around Takeshima/Angohu島 by Japanese Navy, like they did about on Ulleugndo? In addition, civilian fishermen including Nakai built the huts and were hunting salions at least from 1903 and Korean definitely knew about Japanese economical activities. But still, there is absolutely no trace that Korean set any claim on them. Why?

I think it was simply because Korean, especially government officials in Seoul had no accurate nor precise information about Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks at all in the first place and didn't consider over Ulleugdo as Korean territory and thought Jukdo, the modern name of Usando, for the eastern limit of Korea, excluding this "Angohu Island/Liancourt Rocks/Yanko-to" from their territory in 1905. In 1882, Lee Gyu-won used the same name "竹島" with Japanese for Jukdo after Japanese MOFA identified Jukdo as 竹島（竹嶼） in 1881 based on Navy's survey. Although Korean had no accurate information on the whereabouts of Japanese Matsushima, they had simply swallowed the phrase "Usando is Japanese Matsushima",the lie Ahn Yong-bok started in 1696, and kept recording the phrase in the documents. Making the issue complicated, for Korean, Usan(Usanguk/Usando) was the name of Ulleungdo in ancient times. Moreover, Choson people hadn't visited Ulleungdo often since it was prohibited by the dynasty and the voyage was extremely dangerous for them, so they were not perfectly sure about the location of Ulleungdo and Usando and if those islands are two islands or one island with two names until 1711, when Bak Chang-seok's (朴昌錫) inspected Ulleungdo and labelled Jukdo as so-called Usando （鬱陵島圖形). After 1711, in most cases, Ulleungdo started to be recognised as it is today and Usando had been depicted as the neighbouring island of Jukdo(竹島 : Japanes pronunciation = Takeshima), but the Ahn's false calim still kept cited without any doubt in the documents. When they noticed that new Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks was old Matsushima in 1906, which they believed to be Usando, they again started to get confused as if Takeshima(Liancourt Rocks/old Matsushima) was Usando, which was the Korean name for Jukdo. However, in July that year, Korean Ministry of Interior officially answered Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks/Dokdo is outside of Uldo(Ulleungdo) County to the Japanese Resident-General . It is apparent that Korean had no recognition of Takeshima/Liancourt Rocks as their territory until 1950s. I believe Korean government are making use of this chain of misunderstandings and the confusion of names/locations of the islands which Korean had long held from ancient times.

In conclusion, from this article and the original Japanese Navy report, we are safely to conclude that Korean in 1905 did not have even slightest idea/recognition that Liancourt Rocks(Takeshima) was their territory. And the Korean claim that Japanese Navy secretly incorporated the island into Shimane for the purpose of the war is nothing but just a groundless accusation.

The basic idea of this post, writing of Japanese report and Korean article, Japanese translation of Korean article and the detailed analysis of whole report/article, all of them were done by our frequent commentator matsu. Though matsu translated and analysed whole article/report, I have to confess that I couldn't translate all of it. And the article itself was introduced by another commentator GTOMR. Thanks, guys !!

Reference :

1656 - "Yojiji (輿地志)" by Ryu Hyung-won (柳馨遠) didn't say "Usan is so-called Japanese Matsushima."

1692-1693 - The 1692 and 1693 incidents: Ahn Yong-bok's(安龍福) first visit to Japan

1693-1696 - The Takeshima incident(竹島一件): the 1st dispute between Japan and Korea

1696 - Ahn's so-called Matsushima/Usando was Jukdo, afterall.　(元禄九丙子年朝鮮舟着岸一巻之覚書　肅宗実録 30卷, 22年 戊寅)

1711 - Bak Chang-seok's (朴昌錫) Map of Ulleungdo （鬱陵島圖形)

1774 - Chungwanji (春官志): "Ulleungdo is called Sambongdo (三峯島)" ( "盖 是島 以其産竹也 故 謂 竹島 以有三峯也 故謂 三峯島 至於 于山 羽陵 蔚陵 武陵 礒竹 皆音 轉 訛而然 也" )

1881 - Kitazawa Masanari(北澤正誠), a official of MOFA concluded that "Takeshima" is Jukdo in "A Study of Takeshima (Takeshima Kosho 竹島考証) "

Lies, Half-truths, and Dokdo Video, Part 5 : "The King, Lee Gyu-won & Many Names for a Neighboring Island"

Korean Eastern limits described in various books exclude Takeshima/Dokdo from KoreanTerritory

1905 - January 28th: the decision to incorporate Takeshima in to Shimane by a Cabinet meeting （公文類集第29編 竹島編入閣議決定）