The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China
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In Pyongyang, meanwhile, the Japanese army under Konishi Yukinaga was still anxiously awaiting the appearance of the first ships along the Taedong River bearing reinforcements from Pusan. But the days passed and the ships never came. Konishi also requested that reinforcements be sent up from the capital of Seoul and regions farther south, but few were sent. Supreme Commander Ukita Hideie was duty-bound to remain with his force in Seoul until Hideyoshi himself arrived to assume overall authority, while daimyo garrisoning other cities found themselves increasingly embattled by local resistance and in need of every man. Upon receiving word of the approach of a sizable Chinese army from the north, therefore, Konishi had nothing but his own troops and his own cunning with which to hold the city.
Chinese general Zhao Chengxun joined forces at Uiju with Shi Ru, the “attacking commander” in charge of the thousand-man bodyguard that had preceded him to Korea, and together the two men led their army to Pyongyang. They arrived outside the north wall of the city in a pouring rain near dawn on August 23, everyone plastered with mud and uncomfortable in wet armor. The darkness and weather had masked their approach; the Japanese inside the city were caught completely off guard. Deciding to make the most of this, Zhao sent his men charging at the undefended Chilsongmun, “Seven Stars Gate,” and got his army inside the city before the startled Japanese could grab their weapons and respond.
What followed began for Konishi’s men as a fight for their lives. They soon realized, however, that the attacking Chinese army was in fact rather small. They thus started falling back and spreading out, encouraging the Ming troops to split up and chase them down the city’s narrow streets. When Zhao’s concentrated attack had been dispersed in this manner, the Japanese then turned and began to counterattack. The Chinese, outnumbered and facing increasingly effective arquebus fire, were soon turned about and sent fleeing back toward the Seven Stars Gate. Konishi’s men followed, hacking down stragglers as they went. Just outside the city they came upon a number of Ming troops floundering in a muddy depression. These men were quickly dispatched. Others were cut down along the road to the north. By the end of the day three thousand Chinese lay dead or dying in the rain and the mud, including Attacking Commander Shi Ru, the second in command.[317]
Commanding General Zhao Chengxun was among those who managed to escape with their lives. He mounted his horse and rode hard for the north, not stopping until he was back at Uiju on the Chinese border. He remained here for two days, in company with King Sonjo and his government in exile. It rained incessantly, and Zhao’s soldiers, huddled on the bare ground in soaking armor, spent the time complaining bitterly and blaming Zhao for their ignominious defeat. During this brief halt the general attempted to downplay to the understandably anxious Koreans the severity of the defeat, dressing it up as a tactical withdrawal forced upon him by the heavy rains and muddy roads. They were not to worry, he said; it was only a minor setback. He would soon return from China with more soldiers and attack the Japanese again. With that General Zhao left Uiju and returned to his home province of Liaodong where, evidently fearing punishment, he proceeded to draft a report to Beijing blaming the Koreans for the debacle at Pyongyang. Their lack of support, he claimed, had turned certain victory into defeat. An envoy subsequently sent to Korea to investigate this accusation found it to be groundless.[318]
Following their victory in the First Battle of Pyongyang, the Japanese sent a taunting message north to the Koreans saying that the Ming assault had been like “a herd of goats attacking a tiger.”[319] Privately, however, their elation was tempered by a creeping sense of danger. The Chinese had been soundly defeated. But they would likely be back, and in much greater numbers. On September 12 Konishi Yukinaga thus traveled south to Seoul for a conference with supreme commander Ukita Hideie and his three military advisers, Ishida Mitsunari, Otani Yoshitsugu, and Mashita Nagamori, plus Kuroda Nagamasa and Kobayakawa Takakage. What would be needed to guard against the return of the Chinese, it was decided, was a defense in depth: a line of forts between Pyongyang and Seoul that would allow Konishi’s forward forces to effect a controlled withdrawal in the event of overwhelming attack. The forts would be garrisoned by Kuroda’s third contingent, already on the scene in Hwanghae Province, and by Kobayakawa’s sixth contingent, currently encamped on the northern border of Cholla Province. It would be redeployed to Kaesong in the following month.[320]
Konishi and his colleagues were right to be cautious, for China at last was beginning to stir. The defeat of Zhao Chengxun’s army at Pyongyang had finally awakened Beijing to the fact that the Japanese invasion was no mere sideshow on the periphery of the empire, but a real danger to China itself. Hideyoshi’s armies apparently were every bit as powerful as the Koreans had been saying all along, and it seemed certain that they would try to cross the Yalu River and enter the Middle Kingdom if left unchecked. This realization threw Beijing into a heated debate over national survival. Should they leave Korea to its fate and concentrate on amassing forces along their own border? Or should they throw all their strength against the invaders while they were still in Korea, and thus save their loyal tributary state? Minister of War Shi Xing eventually set the tone with his statement that China’s fate was inextricably tied up with Korea’s, and that the Ming therefore had little choice but to march to its aid:
If Japan should complete the occupation of Korea, her next objects of conquest would be Liao-Tung [Liaodong] and other districts of Manchuria. Then the Shan-Hai-Kuan in the Great Wall would be under her control. Our imperial capital, Peking, would then be in danger. Therefore, Korea’s present national suffering is a serious national event to us. Were the Emperor Tai-Tsu [the Hongwu emperor, founder of the Ming dynasty] on the throne today, he would give serious attention to this matter.[321]
And so the matter was decided: Korea had to be saved. On October 6, 1592, the Wanli emperor sent the following imperial edict to King Sonjo that left no doubt about Chinese support:
We have now sent our two state ministers in charge of civil and military affairs to Manchuria with instructions to take with them experienced troops one hundred thousand strong selected from Liao-Yang and other military stations, and then to proceed to your country in order to destroy the robber troops.... If the military force of Korea would cooperate with our imperial army and attack those atrocious creatures from both sides, we should be able to exterminate them.... We have ascended the throne in accordance with the command of heaven and have come to rule both the Hua [Chinese] and the barbarian peoples. Peace has prevailed within the four seas and the myriad of nations therein are enjoying prosperity and happiness. Nevertheless, those insignificant and malignant brutes have dared to come forward and overrun your country. In addition to sending our troops to your land, we have issued imperial edicts to several military stations in the southeastern coast provinces as well as the Liu Chiu [the Ryukyu Islands], Siam, and other nations. We have instructed them to muster several hundreds of thousand fighting men and invade Japan. These troops will soon cross the sea to that island country and destroy their haunts. The day will soon come when that whale-like monster Hideyoshi must submit his head and be slain. Then the waves will again become quiet.[322]
(The poor Ryukyu Islands! Having first been called upon by Hideyoshi to raise a force to help invade Korea, they would now be ordered by China to help invade Japan. Such a counter-invasion would never take place. But the Ryukyus, Siam, and other Southeast Asian kingdoms would eventually respond to Beijing’s call for help and send troops to Korea.[323] These never amounted to more than token units. But they nevertheless added an interesting touch of international solidarity to the conflict.)
In addition to his edict, the Wanli emperor placed a bounty on the heads of those “robbers” he deemed most responsible for Korea’s present woes:
Any person who should either capture or kill the atrocious Hideyoshi, who [has] originated the trouble in Korea, [will] be elevated to nobility with the rank of marquis and [will]
receive the corresponding reward.
Any person who should either capture or kill Hidetsugu [will] be elevated to nobility with the rank of marquis.
Any person who should kill Konishi Yukinaga, Ukita Hideie, or other Japanese military leaders of similar rank in Korea [will] be rewarded with five thousand taels of silver.
Any person who should propose and successfully carry out a plan for the restoration of peace in Korea [will] be elevated to nobility with the rank of count, and [will] receive a reward of ten thousand taels of silver.[324]
These were strong and uncompromising words from the Chinese court and must have warmed the hearts of King Sonjo and his ministers, for they had an unshakeable belief in the limitless power of the Middle Kingdom. They had warned the Japanese, both during their prewar negotiations and later in the brief meeting with Konishi at the Taedong River, that to challenge the awesome might of China was to court certain defeat. Now, at last, they hoped to be proven correct. Hideyoshi and his islanders would be reminded in no uncertain terms of their relative insignificance in a Chinese-centered world, and would be punished severely for their temerity in thinking that they could invade a loyal and civilized kingdom like Korea and usurp the Celestial Throne in Beijing.
That, anyway, was the hope.
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While King Sonjo and his government in exile clutched at the promise of salvation from China, events were unfolding in southern waters that would have a much more immediate impact on Hideyoshi’s plans. Indeed, if the Japanese could be said to have been dealt with like a “swarm of ants and wasps” at any time during the Imjin War, it would be now, at the hands of naval commander Yi Sun-sin.
Following its drubbing by Yi in August, the Japanese navy under the command of Wakizaka Yasuharu, Kuki Yoshitaka, Kato Yoshiaki, and Todo Takatora, retreated to its Pusan stronghold and did not venture west again. Hideyoshi in fact issued orders to his naval commanders not to challenge the Koreans and to cease trying to open a sea route into the Yellow Sea. They were to restrict their activities to rebuilding their strength, defending their positions at Pusan and on Koje Island, and ferrying men and supplies across the strait from Nagoya.
At his base at Yosu, Cholla Left Naval Commander Yi Sun-sin had spent the month following his return from the extraordinarily successful Hansan-do and Angolpo campaign training his men and strengthening his fleet. A number of ships that had been hastily put into production upon the outbreak of the war four months earlier were just now being completed, swelling the combined strength of the Korean navy to a respectable 166 ships, 74 of them large battleships. With this tremendous increase in the size of his fleet, Yi Sun-sin began to consider seriously a plan that he and Won Kyun had dreamed up back in June “for washing away the national disgrace”: a direct attack upon Pusan. Yi had discarded the scheme then as dangerous and even foolhardy. Now, flushed with the success of the previous months and possessing a navy that had tripled in size, it seemed like the right thing to do.
The operation began on September 29, when Yi Sun-sin and Cholla Right Navy Commander Yi Ok-ki led their ships east from Yosu. Kyongsang Right Navy Commander Won Kyun’s small flotilla joined the group the following day, and together they continued on in the direction of Pusan. They reached the estuary of the Naktong River, a few kilometers west of the city, on October 4. Here a scouting craft brought word that some five hundred enemy vessels lay at anchor in Pusan harbor. The number was not unexpected, but it must nevertheless have sent a chill down the spines of even the most steely nerved of the Koreans. They had already proven themselves the most dangerous and the most confident warriors in the service of King Sonjo. They had met and defeated more than fifty enemy ships at Okpo, twenty-one ships at Tangpo, twenty-six at Tanghangpo, seventy-three off Hansan Island, and forty-two at Angolpo. They had unleashed a degree of blood-and-thunder destruction that had forced the Japanese to fall back all the way to Pusan and had left them unwilling to venture out again. But could the Koreans really take on an armada of five hundred ships? Could they challenge almost the entire bulk of the Japanese navy, concentrated in one place, at one time?
The answer came on October 5. The combined Korean fleet fought a strong east wind around the headland between the Naktong River and Pusan, pitching and rolling heavily through the rough seas. In the waters off Pusan harbor they encountered several small groups of Japanese vessels, each of which they burned and destroyed, 24 ships in all. Then they proceeded into Pusan harbor itself, toward what Yi Sun-sin estimated to be 470 enemy ships, anchored close to shore in three sprawling masses. As the Koreans approached, they could see the crews of these ships jumping overboard and joining their comrades in the fortifications on the heights above the shore.
The fight that followed was a replay of the Battle of Sachon, but on a huge scale. The Koreans sculled their warships as close to shore as they dared, splintering the hulls of the unmanned Japanese ships with their cannons and setting them ablaze with fire arrows. The Japanese fought back from behind their fortifications on the heights above, unleashing a barrage of musket fire and a rain of arrows, and occasional stone cannonballs, “as big as rice bowls,” fired from Korean cannons that had been captured at Pusan and Tongnae.[325] But, as usual, they were unable to inflict any serious damage upon the heavy Korean warships and the warriors ensconced within. They pockmarked the thick planking with lead balls; they festooned the hulls and roofs with arrows until they bristled like porcupines. But they could not stop the Koreans, nor save their own fleet.
Yi Sun-sin and his combined fleet destroyed 130 Japanese ships in Pusan harbor that day. They would have claimed more, but the light was nearly gone. Yi thus ordered his captains to withdraw to the open sea to pass the night. According to his subsequent dispatch to the throne, Yi initially intended to return to Pusan the following day to destroy more of the enemy fleet, but discarded this plan after realizing that to deprive the Japanese of all their vessels would leave them trapped in Korea with no avenue of retreat. “[S]o I changed my operational plan to repair and re-supply our ships before returning to annihilate the enemy when he is driven to sea by a major counter-offensive on land.” It was an idea that Yi would mention frequently in the months and years to come: a coordinated, two-stage push against the Japanese that would ensure their complete annihilation, first a land attack to drive them south and back onto their ships, then a sea assault to finish them off when they were out in open water. “With this idea in mind,” Yi concluded, “I disbanded the combined fleet and returned to my headquarters on the second of ninth moon [October 6].”[326]
The Korean navy’s attack on Pusan had been astonishingly successful. It had destroyed fully a quarter of the Japanese fleet at a cost of just five men killed, twenty-five wounded, and no ships lost. It had also extinguished any lingering hopes the Japanese may have had of somehow gaining access to the Yellow Sea and ferrying reinforcements to their comrades in Pyongyang. From this point onward the prospect of amassing an army in the north large enough to march on Beijing was well and truly dead.
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Despite the Wanli emperor’s edict promising “experienced troops one hundred thousand strong,” China was in no position in the fall of 1592 to dispatch a sizable army to Korea, nor did it possess anywhere near the wherewithal to launch a counter-invasion of the Japanese home islands. In October it received an offer of substantial military assistance from Nurhaci, chieftain of the united Jurchen tribes—later known as the Manchus—on China’s northeastern border, an offer that, had it been accepted, might have changed the course of the war. Beijing, however, politely declined. Although Nurhaci had recently entered into tributary relations with China, he was seen as a serious and rising threat and acceptance of his offer to send his cavalry south into Korea tantamount to an invitation for him to further expand his power.[327] No, if China wanted to save Korea, it would have to send troops of its own. There was not a great deal it could do, however, until the Ordos Campaign against the Mongols was settled. This would not occ
ur until October with the fall of the city of Ningxia, where the rebels had taken refuge. After that, troops would have to be shifted all the way from the Mongolian border in the northwest to Korea in the east, a journey of more than two thousand kilometers. All this would take many weeks if not months. Beijing thus started looking for ways to buy some time.
It was at this time that a tall, bearded stranger named Shen Weijing presented himself at Beijing with an offer to help. Shen was evidently some sort of adventurer who had been attracted to the capital from Jiaxing on the central coast, near present-day Shanghai, by the emperor’s edict offering ten thousand taels of silver and noble rank to anyone who could restore peace in Korea. He was a complete unknown in government circles and was regarded by some as rather unsavory. But he had a persuasive way about him, and apparently knew a great deal about Japan through his friendship with a man who had lived in those faraway islands for several years, the captive of wako pirates. He could even speak some Japanese. He therefore seemed just the man to engage the Japanese in time-consuming but ultimately meaningless negotiations. Shen was thus granted the military title of commander and dispatched east to see what he could arrange with Konishi Yukinaga in Pyongyang.[328]