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

by Samuel Hawley

  The next day Shen and the Chinese generals continued on by boat along the Han River to Seoul with the Wanli emperor’s imperial banner prominently displayed. They arrived outside the city walls at Yongsan, the site of the recently destroyed food depot, and were met by Konishi Yukinaga, Kato Kiyomasa, and other daimyo. The two sides then sat down to talk. The Chinese by this point had received intelligence that the Japanese within the capital were in desperate straits and anxious to withdraw, so in the parlay Shen was forceful. “China will strike you from every side with an army 400,000 strong,” he warned. “Stay here in Seoul and you will be slaughtered. Or release the two Korean princes and all captured officials and retreat with your armies to the south, and you may live. Which do you choose?” Konishi and his compatriots were eager to choose the latter; they were sick of the fight and wanted to go home. Even gung-ho commanders like Kato Kiyomasa, who had captured the two princes during his foray into the northeast, and Kobayakawa Takakage, architect of the win at Pyokje and a self-proclaimed expert at snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, could not help but see the wisdom of falling back to the south before all their troops starved. They knew, however, that the Chinese were also eager to avoid further bloodshed and that there was thus room for negotiation. Konishi accordingly replied that, while they were not unwilling to entertain the notion of withdrawing from the capital and reaching some sort of amicable settlement with the Chinese, they would first have to receive from China proof of the sincerity of its desire for peace. What sort of proof do you need? asked Shen. Bring us an envoy with authority to negotiate directly on your emperor’s behalf, Konishi replied. Then we will see what can be worked out.[453]

  The Chinese had no such envoy close at hand. But for Li Rusong this posed no problem. When Shen returned with the Japanese demand, the Ming commander simply pulled two officers from his staff, Xu Yihuan and Xie Yongzu, dressed them up in the robes of high officials, and sent them back to Seoul with Shen. The unflappable Shen thus appeared before Konishi Yukinaga for a second time and introduced his two august-looking comrades as imperial envoys from Beijing, empowered to negotiate with Japan directly in the name of the Wanli emperor himself.[454]

  Konishi and his colleagues were satisfied and a deal was made. The Japanese agreed to evacuate the capital and march south with their armies in ten days, on May 19. Konishi also said they would release the two Korean princes, Sunhwa and Imhae, once they reached the south. The daimyo’s word was shakier here, for the princes were in the custody of Kato Kiyomasa, who was adamant that he would not release them without direct orders from Hideyoshi himself; they were, after all, the only thing Kato had left to show for his campaign in the northeast. As for the Chinese, they would hold their troops at their present positions north of Seoul until the Japanese were safely away. They also agreed to send Shen Weijing and the two “imperial envoys” south in company with the withdrawing Japanese, and from there on to Nagoya to appear before Hideyoshi to discuss terms for a lasting peace.

  A good deal more was said at this conference, mostly empty promises that left both sides feeling they had won the upper hand. Shen, for example, spoke of the coming investiture of Hideyoshi as the King of Japan, a move that would place him alongside Korea’s King Sonjo as a vassal of the Ming emperor. Konishi knew that Hideyoshi would never accept such a subsidiary position, but he held his tongue and nodded his head. Shen also made grand promises of what the Japanese could expect in return for such a show of allegiance to China. It could be arranged, he said, that they keep a portion of Korea, perhaps the three southernmost provinces of Kyongsang, Cholla, and Chungchong. The Koreans might even be pressed into sending them tribute. Shen surely knew that neither the Koreans nor Beijing would ever agree to such a thing; he was spinning castles in the air to coax the Japanese out of Seoul. It was just the sort of talk, however, that Konishi Yukinaga wanted to hear, for it gave him something positive to report to Hideyoshi, something to further the fiction that the Ming Chinese had been badly mauled, and were now about to concede.[455]

  The Koreans, of course, were told nothing of this.

  * * *

  On the morning of May 19, 1593, the ironclad gates of Seoul were swung open and the 53,000 Japanese troops stationed there began filing out. They crossed the Han River on a bridge of boats that had been previously prepared. The boats, we may assume, were then unlashed and destroyed. Near the front of the column were Chinese negotiator Shen Weijing and the two false envoys, who had agreed to accompany the Japanese to Pusan and then on to Nagoya to appear before Hideyoshi. Behind them rode many of the daimyo luminaries of the Korean campaign. There were Konishi Yukinaga and Tsushima daimyo So Yoshitoshi, the two Christian commanders who had spearheaded the invasion and who now stood at the forefront of the movement to bring the war to an end. Nearby was the diehard Kato Kiyomasa, the bearded Buddhist in his trademark tall gold helmet, grim-faced no doubt in the face of retreat. There was young Ukita Hideie, head of the eighth contingent, one year older but ten years wiser after his experience as Hideyoshi’s commander in chief. Kobayakawa Takakage, victor of Pyokje and the veteran of many wars, rode at the fore of his sixth contingent, the epitome of the grizzled warrior in his worn samurai armor. And of course there was Kuroda Nagamasa at the head of the third contingent, not as colorful a character in the historical record perhaps, but certainly as battle hardened as any after many hundreds of kilometers of marching and one year of fighting from Pusan to Pyongyang.

  The retreat south began like a carnival parade. Beautiful women, dragooned from among the citizens of Seoul, accompanied the soldiers. Musicians played gay tunes and dancers gamboled among the ranks. Were the Japanese so glad to be at last heading home? Or were they putting a good face on retreat? If it was all an act it was very well done, for according to the Koreans the sound of their merrymaking “filled the mountains and the fields as they made their way south.”[456]

  Li Rusong, meanwhile, made no move to pursue. He was now encamped with the bulk of his army at Tongpa, just south of the Imjin River, a day’s march north of Seoul. From here he refused to advance any farther, ignoring entreaties from the Koreans to lead his troops against the Japanese now that he had tricked them into leaving Seoul and made them vulnerable to attack. What was even more galling, however, was that he now prohibited the Koreans from attacking on their own: as Shen Weijing explained to Yu Song-nyong and Commander in Chief Kim Myong-won, negotiations were now in the works to make Japan a vassal of China, and therefore their soldiers must not be captured or killed. Yu and Kim were incensed by this. “If our country had wanted peace,” they said, “we would not have waited until now. The Japanese sent a letter to us from Tongnae asking for peace negotiations, another from Sangju, and a third from Pyongyang. We rejected these overtures because we are angry at their disrespectful behavior toward China. Even if it means death for us all, we will not be humiliated by negotiating with them.” The argument grew increasingly heated, until finally one of the Chinese generals shouted, “This is the order of the Emperor! How can you dare refuse to obey?”[457]

  Throughout the next week Li Rusong continued to brush aside the Koreans’ pleas to attack as the Japanese got farther and farther away. He had no reason to do so. The enemy was moving south, away from the Chinese border. As far as Li was concerned, his objective had been achieved. The Koreans, beside themselves with frustration, began to grumble that he must have taken a bribe from the Japanese in exchange for their safe passage. Perhaps they were right, for the Japanese proceeded south at a remarkably leisurely pace—as if they had no fear of being attacked on the way.

  * * *

  It was at about this time that a 5,000-man Ming force crossed the Yalu River and marched south to reinforce the 40,000-odd Chinese troops already in Korea. They were led by a colorful forty-year-old Sichuan general named Liu Ting, nicknamed “Big Sword Liu” for his supposed ability to wield a 120-catty sword while galloping on horseback. General Liu led an unusual collection of men drawn from the furthest
reaches of the vast Ming empire. In addition to his own Sichuan troops, there were soldiers from the vassal kingdom of Thailand and from islands in the southeastern sea, possibly Sumatra and Java. These strange apparitions, clad in unusual clothes and armor and speaking unintelligible tongues, must have seemed like men from another planet to the Koreans and the Chinese. Reports circulated that some of them could swim like fish and were able to scuttle enemy vessels from beneath.[458]

  (In November 1592 a delegation of Thai envoys on a tribute mission to Beijing presented the Chinese with an offer from their king, Naresvara, to send a fleet of warships in a direct attack on Japan, which would be under-defended with so many of Hideyoshi’s troops tied up in Korea. It was both a show of loyalty to the Ming, and was probably also backed by a desire on Naresvara’s part to see Japan “dealt with,” for it was known even in his distant part of Asia as a source of pirates, adventurers, and troublemakers. The proposal was discussed, and rejected, by the Chinese on February 6, 1593, much to the indignation of Naresvara’s envoys. The subsequent appearance of a token number of Thai troops in Korea—had they perhaps been drawn from the entourage of the tribute mission?—may have been a face-saving alternate contribution suggested by the Ming.[459])

  “Big Sword” Liu led his army south by the main road, first to Pyongyang, then across the Imjin River and into Commander in Chief Li Rusong’s forward camp. With their arrival the Imjin War became a thoroughly international conflict, involving combatants from the length and breadth of Asia.

  * * *

  The Koreans and their Chinese allies entered Seoul on May 20, the day after the Japanese withdrawal. What they saw pierced their hearts: the city was destroyed. The damage had begun on the night King Sonjo had fled in June of the previous year, in the orgy of vandalism wrought by the Koreans themselves, angry over what they felt was the betrayal of their king. During the next ten months the Japanese had done the rest.

  “When I entered the capital with the Ming soldiers,” recalled National High Commissioner Yu Song-nyong, “I saw that scarcely one in a hundred citizens still remained. Those few people to be seen were all starving. They were gaunt, sick, and exhausted, the color of their faces like that of a ghost. The weather at this time was extremely hot and humid, so the dead bodies and horse carcasses that lay exposed and unattended throughout the city had begun to rot, emitting such a stench that passersby had to plug their nostrils.”[460]

  Yu wandered within the walls in what must have been a state of shock. Private residences that had survived the flames had been long since abandoned and looted. Government offices and schools were destroyed. The city’s three royal palaces were gone. On the sprawling grounds of King Sonjo’s former residence of Kyongbok-gung, “the Palace of Shining Happiness,” all that remained were blackened stone pillars and a few stinking outbuildings, uninhabitable after many months of use by the Japanese as barracks and stables. By the time Yu reached Chongmyo where the ancestral tablets of the Choson kings were traditionally kept, he could bear no more. Upon sighting the burned-out ruins of this, the most sacred place in the city, he broke down entirely, wailing like an orphaned son.

  Yet another outrage discovered by the Koreans was the desecration of the royal tombs at Chongnung, a short distance north of Chongmyo. Three burial mounds here bearing the remains of King Chungjong, who had reigned from 1506 to 1544, together with his father and his wife, had been dug into by the Japanese and the corpses removed and burned. But strangely, one body had been left lying in the open, removed from its grave but otherwise untouched. It was a male, and appeared to have been dead for about fifty years. Was this Chungjong himself? Aged government ministers who had served the former king were brought out to view the remains. An old doctor who had examined the king in life was also found, and provided detailed information on his appearance. Other descriptions were retrieved from history books and diaries. In the end, it was decided that the body was not that of King Chungjong. All the evidence seemed to point to the conclusion that the king’s remains had been burned by the Japanese, and this unidentified corpse left behind to fool the Koreans into reinterring and revering a commoner in a sacred tomb meant for a king. The body was thus buried elsewhere—but with all royal honors, just in case.[461]

  The first few days after the freeing of Seoul were like a time in hell. Rice was so scarce that a mere three liters of it cost a whole bolt of cloth, while a good-sized sack went for the price of a horse. Those who had not yet starved to death were reduced to the lowest form of animal existence. People hunkered in gutters, picking through garbage for any scrap of food. Some resorted to cannibalism. It is said that when a drunken Chinese soldier vomited in the street, starving men crawled to the spot and fought over the right to eat the steaming mess. Yu Song-nyong ordered government grain distributed to ease the desperation. But for many the relief came too late. People continued to die, some from hunger, others from the typhus epidemic that deprivation had brought on. When the contagion had run its course, the dead bodies littering the streets were gathered up and dumped outside the city’s Water Mouth Gate for cremation. The pile reportedly rose three meters higher than the walls.[462]

  After surveying the destruction of the capital, National High Commissioner Yu Song-nyong rode back north to Tongpa where the main body of the Ming army was still encamped. In a voice breaking with emotion, he again urged Li Rusong to pursue the retreating Japanese, this time to exact revenge for what they had done to Seoul. Li tried to calm Yu with words of sympathy, claiming that the only thing holding him back was the fact that the Japanese had removed all the boats from the Han River, leaving him with no way to get his troops across. “If you will agree to pursue the Japanese,” replied Yu, “I will see that there are boats at the Han to ferry your men across.” The chagrined Li Rusong could do nothing but agree.

  Armed with Li’s assurance that the Japanese would at last be pursued, Yu Song-nyong sent out a public appeal for all available boats to be brought to the river crossing south of Seoul. By the time he reached the Han, eighty vessels had been assembled. This heartening news was rushed back to the Ming commander and, as promised, he sent ten thousand men marching south under his younger brother, Li Rubo. They reached the Han the following day and the hastily assembled fleet of small craft began ferrying them across. Then, just as the vessel bearing Li Rubo himself had reached the midpoint of the river, the commander suddenly complained that his feet were paining him and that he would have to return north to recuperate. He would resume the pursuit, he assured the incredulous Koreans, just as soon as he felt better. When they saw their commander turning back, the Chinese soldiers who had already reached the Han’s south bank recrossed the river and followed him north. Yu Song-nyong was left behind, fuming in anger. The whole thing, he said bitterly, was just another of Li Rusong’s tricks to keep the Koreans quiet while he let the Japanese escape.[463]

  In the days that followed, Li Rusong moved from his Imjin River camp into what was left of Seoul. He made his headquarters in the Nambyol-gung, the former headquarters of Japanese supreme commander Ukita Hideie, one of the few respectable dwellings still standing and inhabitable. The Koreans continued to appear before him daily, pressing him to pursue the retreating Japanese. Cholla Army Commander Kwon Yul, hero of the Battle of Haengju, was particularly adamant, saying that if Li would not set out after the fleeing enemy, then he, Kwon, would do so with the men under his own command. Li Rusong vetoed this in no uncertain terms and had the boats Yu Song-nyong had assembled at the Han River removed to ensure that his orders were obeyed. The Chinese and Korean armies thus continued to sit idle as the Japanese got farther away.[464]

  Finally, at the beginning of June, a full twenty days after the Japanese had withdrawn from the capital, a letter arrived from Li Rusong’s civilian superior, Song Yingchang, now headquartered in Pyongyang, ordering him to cease his delaying and get on with the pursuit. The Koreans believed that Song’s letter was merely a blind, that he was no more eager than Li to send Min
g soldiers into battle and had thus intentionally delayed his orders to advance so that there would be no chance of actually catching the Japanese. This was not necessarily true. Since China’s entry into the war, Song had consistently been more hawkish than Li. When one considers the time it took for documents to be conveyed between Seoul and Pyongyang, and the time it would have taken for Song to realize that Li was in fact not going to pursue, but intended to remain idle in Seoul, the twenty days it took for his orders to reach the capital do not seem so suspicious.

  In any event Li Rusong did as he was ordered. He gathered his forces, crossed the Han, and proceeded south along the main road. He traveled slowly, stopping here and there for prolonged rests, clearly making no effort to gain on the retreating Japanese. When he reached the Sobaek mountain range that cut a diagonal swatch across the peninsula, he received word that the Japanese had left behind forces blocking Choryong (Bird Pass), and had large contingents amassed farther south at Taegu. This intelligence brought Li up short. He fell back to Chungju, sending other units ahead to continue the pursuit in his stead, including “Big Sword” Liu and his Siamese troops and “ocean imps.” This force bypassed Choryong and proceeded south in a wide arc with the intention of outflanking the Japanese and forcing them back all the way to the coast. Skirmishes subsequently occurred to the west of Taegu, but no major engagements. The Japanese, no longer wanting a “decisive battle” with the Chinese, fell back to Korea’s southeastern tip and Li Rusong called off his pursuit.[465]

  The Japanese arrived back on Korea’s southern coast in the middle of June 1593. Their supplies were now gone, and they were living off the land. They thus could not consolidate their forces into one big camp; they would have to be spread out to afford each unit an adequate foraging range. Seventeen forts were accordingly constructed around the original beachhead at Pusan, stretching from Sosaengpo in the east, where Kato Kiyomasa made his camp, to Konishi Yukinaga’s base at Ungchon in the west, to the islands of Koje and Kadok offshore. Most were situated on promontories and hilltops protected on one or more sides by the sea. Fortifications of stone and earth and wood were built all around, and moats dug on the landward side for additional protection.[466]