Shifanzhou

部分书架，可供参考

Jang Song-thaek was the powerful uncle and mentor of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un who was publicly purged and executed for treason on December 12, 2013... He married Kim Kyong-hui, the sister of former leader Kim Jong-il, making him an uncle-in-law and close relative to the ruling Kim dynasty. He served as Vice-Chairman of the National Defence Commission (NDC)—widely considered the second-most powerful position in North Korea. Following Kim Jong-il's death in 2011, he acted as a key policy advisor and mentor to the young new leader, Kim Jong-un. In December 2013, state television broadcast footage of Jang being forcibly dragged out of a Workers' Party of Korea meeting by military guards. A special military tribunal convicted him of treason, attempting to overthrow the state, corruption, womanizing, gambling, and drug use. He was executed by firing squad (machine gun) on December 12, 2013. North Korean state media systematically scrubbed his existence from official records, digital archives, and documentary film footage. . . . Two uniformed guards in olive-drab tunics stepped down the carpeted aisle of a packed auditorium in Pyongyang, marching directly toward the front row. On December 8, 2013, an enlarged meeting of the Politburo of the Workers’ Party of Korea was underway, presided over by thirty-year-old supreme leader Kim Jong-un. As hundreds of high-ranking cadres sat frozen in their seats, the guards seized sixty-seven-year-old Jang Song-thaek by his arms, hoisted him to his feet, and marched him out of the hall. Hours later, North Korean state television took the unprecedented step of broadcasting still images of the arrest to the entire nation. For decades, purges in the hermit kingdom had unfolded in the dead of night, shrouded in total secrecy. But this spectacle was designed as a public execution of authority: the man being dragged away was the regime’s second-most powerful figure, Kim Jong-un’s uncle by marriage, and the guardian who had mentored the young dictator into power. For over four decades, Jang had navigated the treacherous corridors of North Korean dynastic politics. In 1972, he had married Kim Kyong-hui, the formidable younger sister of supreme leader Kim Jong-il. That marriage vaulted him into the royal circle, granting him near-absolute latitude. As Vice-Chairman of the National Defence Commission and director of the party’s administrative department, Jang accumulated vast wealth and patronage, overseeing lucrative coal and mineral trade with China and spearheading special economic zones. When Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke in 2008 and died in December 2011, Jang was designated the de facto regent tasked with anchoring the dynastic succession. On a bitterly cold morning in Pyongyang, Jang walked immediately behind the twenty-seven-year-old Kim Jong-un beside the hearse bearing the elder Kim’s casket through the snow—an indelible image broadcast across the globe signaling that the uncle was the power behind the throne. Yet in a totalitarian monarchy built around the quasi-religious infallibility of the ruling bloodline, having an independent base of power was a fatal offense. To Kim Jong-un, Jang was not a protective guardian, but an overbearing rival whose vast patronage network, deep ties to Beijing, and control over state resources challenged his own absolute authority. Tensions escalated in late 2013 when Kim’s inner circle moved against Jang's administrative empire, reclaiming lucrative export licenses and demanding complete subservience. In November, two of Jang’s closest deputies, Ri Ryong-ha and Jang Su-gil, were publicly executed by firing squad. When Jang resisted the dissolution of his influence, Kim resolved to extinguish the entire faction with theatrical finality. #archaeohistories