The Korean Martyrs were the victims of religious persecution against Catholics during the 19th century in Korea. Between 8,000–10,000 Korean Christians were killed during this period. 103 Catholics were canonised en masse in May 1984, including the first Korean Catholic priest, Andrew Kim Taegon, who was executed by sword in 1846. In addition, Paul Yun Ji-Chung and 123 companions were declared "Venerable" on 7th February 2014, and on 16th August 2014. They were beatified by Pope Francis during the Asian Youth Day in Gwanghwamun Plaza in Seoul. They further moved to beatify Catholics who were killed by North Korean communists during the Korean War. Background At the end of the eighteenth century, Korea was ruled by the Joseon Dynasty. It was a society based on Confucianism and its hierarchical, class relationships. There was a small minority of privileged scholars and nobility while the majority were commoners paying taxes, providing labor, and manning the military, all above a slave class. Even though it was scholars who first introduced Christianity to Korea, ordinary people flocked to the new religion. The new believers called themselves Chonju Kyo Udul, literally "Friends of the Teaching of God of Heaven". The term "friends" was the only term in the Confucian understanding of relationships which implied equality. History During the early seventeenth century, Christian literature written in Chinese was imported from China to Korea. On one of these occasions, around 1777, Christian literature obtained from Jesuits in China led educated Korean Christians to study the faith. Although no Koreans were converted to Catholicism by these books until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the ideas of the Catholic priests espoused in them were debated and denounced as heterodoxy as early as 1724. When a Chinese priest managed to secretly enter the country a dozen years later, he found 4,000 Catholics, none of whom had ever seen a priest. The dynamic Catholic communities were led almost entirely by educated laypeople from the aristocracy, as they were the only ones who could read the books that were written in Hanja. The community sent a delegation on foot to Beijing, 750 miles away, to ask the city's bishop for their own bishops and priests. Eventually, two Chinese priests were sent, but their ministry was short-lived, and another forty years passed before the Paris Foreign Mission Society began its work in Korea with the arrival of Father Maubant in 1836.