The movement was violently suppressed, and numerous Koreans fled the peninsula and continued resisting the Japanese from abroad.

Lee asked if he could join the KPG, but Kim said it wouldn't be worth it, as the group was unstable and lacked power.

In the July 1931 Wanpaoshan Incident, it sensationalized a minor dispute between Chinese and Korean farmers in order to stir up anti-Chinese sentiment in Korea and Japan.

Jo So-ang initially dubbed it Ŭisaenggun (의생군) and made Kim the leader of the group.

[2] The KPO was allocated half of the budget of the entire KPG and given relative autonomy on how to execute its missions.

In November 1931, Jo received support money from the Chinese government, but instead of handing half of it over to Kim Ku (who was the treasurer of the KPG at that time), kept it for his own purposes.

Jo then sought approval from the KPG for that group, but it was ultimately rejected due to the strong protests of Kim.

[2] In late 1931, Kim Ku sent Lee Bong-chang to Tokyo to assassinate Japanese Emperor Hirohito.

In front of the Sakurada Gate, Lee threw a hand grenade that missed Hirohito's carriage.

[5][6] On April 29, 1932, KPO member Yun Bong-gil detonated a bomb at a Japanese rally in Hongkou Park, Shanghai.

[8] Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Republic of China, said of the incident "One Korean succeeding in accomplishing what a million Chinese soldiers failed to do".

After the January 28 incident between China and Japan, Kim developed a plan to use Korean laborers to sabotage Japanese airplane hangars and ammunition dumps with explosives.

[17] Kim dispatched members Ch'oe Heung-sik in late March and Yu Sang-kŭn on 27 April to Dalian, in Manchuria.

Various Japanese government bodies put bounties on him worth a combined 60,000 Dayang (Chinese: 大洋), an enormous sum for that time.

The attacks also led to the assassination of Ok Kwan-bin and several other Japanese sympathizers of Korean descent in China.