The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China

by Samuel Hawley

  16. After our military campaign in China is begun, we shall request Miyabe Keijun to take entire charge of the national capital of Korea. He will be summoned to Korea in due time. Your Excellency is hereby instructed to advise Miyabe to prepare for this important post.

  17. Since His Majesty [Emperor Go-Yozei] is to be transferred to the Chinese capital, due preparation is necessary. The imperial visit will take place the year after next [1594]. On that occasion, ten provinces adjacent to the Capital shall be presented to him. In time instructions will be issued for the enfeoffment of all courtiers. Subordinates will receive ten times as much (as their present holdings)....

  18. The post of Civil Dictator [kampaku] of China shall be assigned as aforementioned to Hidetsugu, who will be given 100 provinces adjacent to the Capital. The post of Civil Dictator of Japan will go either to the Middle Counsellor Yamato [Hideyoshi’s half-brother, Hidenaga], or to the Bizen Minister [Hideyoshi’s adopted son, Ukita Hideie], upon declaration of his readiness.

  19. As for the position of the Sovereign of Japan, the young Prince or Prince Hachijo shall be the choice.

  20. As for Korea, the Gifu Minister [Hashiba Hidekatsu, allied to Hideyoshi by marriage] or Bizen Minister [Ukita Hideie] shall be assigned. In that event the Middle Counselor Tamba [Kobayakawa Hideaki] shall be assigned to Kyushu.

  21. As for His Majesty’s [Emperor Go-Yozei’s] visit to China, arrangements shall be made according to established practices for Imperial tours of inspection. His Majesty’s itinerary shall follow the route of the present campaign. Men and horses necessary for the occasion shall be requisitioned from each country involved.

  22. Korea and China are within easy reach, and no inconvenience is anticipated for any concerned, high or low. It is not expected that anyone in those countries will attempt to flee. Therefore, recall all commissioners in the provinces to assist in preparations for the expedition....

  23. As for the persons who are to take charge of Heian-Jo [Kyoto] and of the Juraku palace in our absence, their names will be announced later.

  24. Miyabe Keijun, Ishikawa Sadamasa, and other persons should begin immediately to prepare for the work to be assigned them. I hereby request Your Excellency to advise them to present themselves at our military headquarters [at Nagoya] as soon as they can.[215]

  In sum, then, Hideyoshi foresaw the Korean campaign soon drawing to a close. In the coming weeks he hoped to cross over to that country to take personal command of his armies for the big push on to Beijing. Then would begin the task of organizing his nascent empire and putting a new administration in place. Korea would become in effect a fourth island in the Japanese archipelago, with either Hashiba Hidekatsu or Ukita Hideie at the helm in Seoul. (Hashiba was currently leading the ninth contingent in Korea and Ukita the eighth.) Hidetsugu, presently kampaku of Japan and thus second only to Hideyoshi, would assume the loftier position of kampaku of China, with a new kampaku being appointed to take command solely of Japan. Emperor Go-Yozei would be installed in Beijing’s Forbidden City as emperor of China, and his son and heir would assume the now-subsidiary role of emperor of Japan. Finally, with Japan, Korea, and China all firmly in his grasp, Hideyoshi envisioned extending his reach even further, into India, presumably sometime after 1594. He did not intend doing this himself, but rather would leave it to those worthy daimyo who rendered him good service in the coming China campaign. They “will be liberally rewarded with grants of extensive states near India, with the privilege of conquering India and extending their domains in that vast empire.”[216]

  So there it was. Hideyoshi’s empire would extend from the northern tip of Honshu to the southern tip of India. It would stretch north into Manchuria and Mongolia, and eastwards through China to the Tibetan plateau. It would branch south into Vietnam, Thailand, Burma and Cambodia. It would reach offshore to the Philippine Islands, Taiwan, and Hainan. It would, in short, embrace what Hideyoshi would have regarded as virtually the entire known world.

  And what of Hideyoshi himself? What would his role be in this huge empire, the largest the world had ever seen? First he would remain for a time in Beijing. Then he would appoint a deputy to stay there in his place, while he himself would settle in a permanent residence at the southern port city of Ningpo, where the Chinese mainland comes closest to Japan.[217] In these comfortable semitropical surroundings he would simply exist as the taiko, the kingmaker and puppet master, the omnipotent being who sat quietly to the side, controlling everything, missing nothing, governing the governors with a firm but generally benign hand.

  Not everyone agreed with Hideyoshi’s plans. Some felt he was reaching too far in trying to conquer China, and that he should satisfy himself with just a piece of southern Korea. By far the biggest worry in that summer of 1592, however, was not that Hideyoshi wanted to rule the world, but rather that he planned to leave Japan and sail to Korea to take personal command of his armies. A number of his inner coterie of daimyo, members of the imperial court, his wife, even his eighty-year-old mother, all expressed grave reservations about this. To them the idea seemed uncharacteristically reckless, particularly for a man who had during the course of his career displayed such patience, astuteness, and plain common sense.

  One of their concerns was the taiko’s health. Indeed, it is evident in his private correspondence that Hideyoshi himself was worried about this; it was probably a main reason why he was not already in Korea, commanding his armies in person. He was no longer the youthful “Bald Rat” who had caught Oda Nobunaga’s eye, nor the steely-eyed warrior who had emerged victorious at Tennozan. Hideyoshi was now an old man. Although only in his mid fifties, he looked and apparently felt much older, a small, wizened wraith, worn out and used up after thirty years of war. Loss of appetite, first reported in 1585, had become a serious problem, leaving him thin and weak, his face gaunt, his cheekbones sharp. His eyesight was troubling him as well, to the point where he was having difficulty writing letters.[218] Hideyoshi had high hopes of returning to health, and during the summer of 1592 sent a glowing report to his mother of the progress he was making. But even by his own reckoning he was scarcely fit for war. “Do not worry,” he wrote on June 15, “as I find myself more and more in good health and have a good appetite.... I am feeling better and better, and I am happy to say that yesterday, after a tea ceremony in Rikyu’s style, I enjoyed eating a meal. How is your appetite?... It is not necessary to worry about me. I am so well that I can go outside for a walk and have meals more and more often.”[219]

  Eating a meal. Going for a walk outside. These are prerequisites for a happy retirement, not for leading armies in the field and enduring the hardships that that entails. If Hideyoshi was serious about going to Korea, it was thus imperative that the trip be postponed until he had at least recovered a greater portion of his strength. Otherwise he would only succeed in destroying his health for good.

  An even greater worry than Hideyoshi’s health was the prospect of Hideyoshi’s absence. He had completed the unification of Japan barely two years before. He had done so by co-opting a number of powerful rivals, allowing them to retain sizable land holdings, large armies, and positions of power in exchange for oaths of loyalty to him. Japan was at peace now, domestic affairs were in order, and every peg was in its hole. But would all this remain so if Hideyoshi withdrew his commanding presence? If he were now to leave Japan and set off on some distant adventure, what were the chances that conflict would break out anew? If that happened and Hideyoshi was many weeks away in Korea or worse yet China, might not Japan slip back into anarchy before the news reached him and drew him home?

  These concerns must have been weighing heavily on the mind of Emperor Go-Yozei in Kyoto, for that summer he took the unusual step of writing to Hideyoshi to urge him to abandon his plan:

  Your plan to proceed to Korea, braving great storms and dangerous seas, is both too serious and too desperate to be considered. You should realize how precious is your life and how necessary you are to the national welfare.
A man of your genius and attainments may direct an army thousands of miles distant and be able to win a brilliant victory, as great military leaders of yore have done. Moreover, the military men whom you have already sent to the continent, together with those whom you are about to send, will be capable of conducting the military work satisfactorily. For the sake of the throne and for the sake of the empire, we urgently request that you abandon your plan to go in person.[220]

  This personal appeal from the emperor did little to sway Hideyoshi. He remained adamant about crossing to Korea as soon as his health allowed. But the emperor was not alone in his concern. The inner circle of daimyo attending Hideyoshi with their reserve forces at Nagoya were equally adamant that he abandon his plan. They warned him of the dangers of the sea crossing to Pusan during typhoon season, particularly for the large number of men and ships that Hideyoshi was proposing to take, and they urged him to postpone his trip for at least a few months. The danger certainly was real. It was a typhoon, after all, that had wrecked the Mongol armada of Kublai Khan in the thirteenth century when he attempted to invade Japan.

  According to Hideyoshi it was these entreaties that eventually caused him to change his mind and postpone his crossing. In a letter of explanation sent to his daimyo commanders in Korea later in the fall, he announced that he would be joining them at a later date than had been originally planned, on account, he said, of the weather:

  All preparations for crossing the waters having been completed, I made ready to sail. However, Iyeyasu, Toshiiye, and several other prominent military men came forward and begged that I change the plans, saying that the hurricane season was approaching, and that the transportation of our troops to Korea would require several months, extending to even August and September, after which water traffic would be closed because of the stormy weather. The transportation of troops in these seasons would cause great loss of life and possibly end in disaster. Therefore, we decided to postpone sailing to Korea until next March when the sea should be open and the sailing safe.

  Taking the God of War and other deities as witnesses, we pledge that this decision to delay is wholly contrary to our desire, but was necessary because of conditions. As it is a settled national question that Tai-Min [China] is to be conquered, my plan of sailing to the continent and assuming personal charge of our entire army in the coming spring will certainly be carried out.[221]

  Was weather the only concern that prompted Hideyoshi to postpone his trip to Korea? Possibly not. There may also have been political considerations behind his decision. At some point during July, Hideyoshi held a council meeting with the principal daimyo attending him at Nagoya: Maeda Toshiie, Gamo Ujisato, Asano Nagamasa, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. (Maeda, Gamo, and Asano were all fudai daimyo, meaning that they had voluntarily entered Hideyoshi’s service early in his career, and had risen to prominence on his coattails. Tokugawa Ieyasu was a tozama daimyo who risen to prominence independently and allied himself with Hideyoshi in the later stages of national unification.) At this meeting Hideyoshi proposed that he, Maeda, and Gamo lead their forces to Korea to help finish off that country and add their weight to the upcoming push to Beijing. Tokugawa Ieyasu, he said, would stay behind to oversee affairs in Japan. No one present openly questioned this idea. After the meeting, however, Asano Nagamasa muttered that “Hideyoshi is out of his mind.” The taiko, overhearing this comment or having it reported to him, flew into a rage and confronted Asano. “What do you mean insulting me in this way?” he roared. “If you have a reason for making such a rude speech I will hear it; otherwise I will cut off your head!”

  “You can cut my head off whenever you please,” replied Asano coolly. “But as to what I have said, of course I have a reason for it.... You say that it is your intention to go in person to Korea...and that you will leave the whole of these sixty-odd provinces in the hands of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Now, you are perfectly well aware that by dint of years and years of hard fighting you have only just succeeded in bringing the whole of Japan under your control. At present there is peace. But why? Only because you are feared. Your departure to another country would be a signal for a general uprising. The great lords who have been humiliated would take this opportunity of avenging themselves on you. At such a crisis what could Tokugawa do? It is because you do not see this, because your usual sharpness in forecasting what is likely to happen under given circumstances seems to have left you, that I say you are out of your mind....”

  Asano’s explanation had little effect. Hideyoshi drew his sword and rushed at his retainer, but was restrained by Maeda and Gamo. “If Nagamasa is to be beheaded,” they said, desperately trying to calm him, “let it be done by someone else. It is beneath the dignity of a man of your rank to slay a subordinate.” Asano in the meantime was quietly hustled out of the room, and returned to his home to wait for what he expected would be an inevitable sentence of death.[222]

  A few days after this episode, an event occurred that changed Hideyoshi’s mind and saved Asano’s life. A message arrived at Nagoya from the nearby Kyushu province of Higo that a minor vassal of the Shimazu, one Umekita Kunikane, had refused to join the expedition to Korea and was intending to march his force instead against Nagoya Castle. According to the Shimazu family history, Umekita acted as he did because he feared he would be punished by Hideyoshi for being so tardy in raising the force required of him and leading it to Korea.[223] But this was not the whole story. Umekita in fact had the sympathy of at least one member of the Shimazu, the clan Hideyoshi had subdued during his conquest of Kyushu in 1587, and he undoubtedly hoped that his small action would draw large support from this daimyo family and lead to a general uprising. But in this Umekita made a fatal miscalculation. The Shimazu were not willing to openly resist Hideyoshi, certainly not with him at Nagoya, less than two hundred kilometers away. Umekita’s rebellion thus remained an isolated occurrence, involving no more than one hundred and fifty samurai. It was quickly crushed by the Shimazu themselves, most of the participants were killed, and the leading Umekita sympathizer in the family, Shimazu Toshihisa, was forced to commit suicide.[224] The threat to national peace and unity therefore subsided almost as soon as it arose. But the affair nevertheless awoke Hideyoshi to the truth of what Asano had said just days before. If he had been away in Korea when Umekita made his move, what might the Shimazu have done? Would they have acted promptly to control the situation? Or would they have joined this rebel, thinking they could reclaim their lost island before Hideyoshi could respond? The nation clearly required the taiko’s own commanding presence if peace and unity were to be maintained.

  Hideyoshi therefore summoned Asano back to Nagoya Castle to apologize and to thank him for his candor. As a sign of his renewed favor he offered Asano’s son the honor of putting down the rebellion, but shortly thereafter word arrived that the Shimazu themselves had already completed the task.[225]

  If Hideyoshi was concerned that Japan might fall apart in his absence, he certainly could not admit it, for that would have been an admission that he was not in full control. Nor could he cite his own ill health, for that would have made him look feeble. In the end the only reason he could openly give for postponing his trip to Korea was the weather. Which consideration was foremost in his mind we do not know. All that is certain is that the decision was made and that it was made some time prior to July 28, as revealed in a letter he penned to his wife on that date: “As I said the other day,” he wrote, “since I have been told that the sea will be calm in the 3rd month [April of the following year, 1593], I have decided to postpone my visit to Korea until spring and to greet the New Year in Nagoya....[P]lease do not worry.”[226]

  Hideyoshi was now caught on the horns of a dilemma. To safeguard the fragile unity he had imposed on the nation over the past ten years, he had to remain in Japan. In this regard his decision to postpone his trip to Korea was the right one. By putting off the journey, however, he was placing his great dream of empire in jeopardy. The Korean campaign was proceeding very nicely at the mo
ment, even without his personal leadership. The news from the front was excellent, better than even he could have hoped. But Hideyoshi was no fool. His success in unifying Japan is evidence of just how well he could manipulate powerful men, and by inference of how well he understood them. He knew he could not crush every rival from Satsuma Province in the south to Mutsu in the north and make everyone his groveling servant. That approach would have greatly prolonged the process of national unification. Instead he cut deals, allowing rivals to keep large land holdings and positions of power in exchange for oaths of loyalty to him. It was this approach that so speeded up the drive toward national unification after Hideyoshi seized the domain of his fallen master, Oda Nobunaga. But it meant that Hideyoshi’s Japan was governed at the provincial level by a number of powerful and strong-willed men, daimyo who had outwardly sworn loyalty to Hideyoshi, but inwardly remained quite independent.

  These were the generals who were now fighting in Korea. They were doing Hideyoshi’s bidding. But their loyalty and fear of him would take them only so far. They were all still more or less on track in these early days of the war, reveling in the glory of the thing as they slashed their way to Seoul. But in time their individualism was bound to assert itself, leading them to question Hideyoshi’s orders, to resent their hardships, and to compete among themselves for honors they felt they deserved. The first signs of this were already appearing in reports Hideyoshi was receiving of the rivalry between Kato Kiyomasa and Konishi Yukinaga. This must have worried him. He must have understood that, sooner or later, his unquestioned leadership would be needed in the field to hold his enterprise together and keep it moving forward. When this critical point would be reached one could only guess. Did Konishi, Kato, Kuroda and their colleagues have the determination to carry on all the way to Beijing without Hideyoshi at the lead, urging them on? Would they only go as far as the Yalu River before their enthusiasm petered out? Or would they stop at Seoul?