Kim Sang-yong

**Kim Sang-yong (金尙容, 1561–1637)** was the elder brother of Kim Sang-heon and a high-ranking statesman who attained the office of **Right State Councilor (Uuijeong)** during the mid-Joseon period.

When the Qing army invaded Joseon in December 1636, Kim Sang-yong was assigned the solemn duty of escorting the royal ancestral tablets (*sinju*), the Crown Princess, and the royal princes to the fortress island of **Ganghwa**. When Qing forces breached Ganghwa's outer defenses in early 1637, Kim Sang-yong ascended the South Gate tower of the fortress. Refusing to let the royal lineage and ancestral dignity fall captured into foreign hands, he gathered gunpowder kegs and detonated them, martyring himself with extraordinary courage.

His sacrifice was immortalized in royal records and celebrated throughout the remaining centuries of the Joseon dynasty as the ultimate fulfillment of scholar-official devotion.