On April 20, 1992 Kim Jong Il was promoted to his first military rank – that of marshal of the DPRK. The next day, on April 21, Rodong Sinmun published the government decree to this effect on the first page. That however, was not the only promotion that took place. On the same day, O Chin U, Minister of the People’s Armed Forces, was promoted to marshal of the DPRK – a truly unique event, since no one else in North Korean history shared a rank with a Kim after the latter was formally anointed as a successor.

This was an unusual day, since eight other officers were given a lesser rank of vice marshal. That was a mark of the beginning of Kim Jong Il’s era, in which the value of high military rank was to be inflated: under Kim Il Sung, he himself was the only marshal, with no more than one person holding the next rank of vice-marshal simultaneously. Under Kim Jong Il, almost two dozens vice-marshals and three marshals were created.