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

by Samuel Hawley

  By the early summer of 1592 the majority of the regular armed forces still remaining in Korea, a total of approximately 84,500 men,[354] had been driven far to the north by the Japanese advance. A large portion of these troops were now encamped at Sunan, a short distance beyond Pyongyang, waiting for assistance from China before they dared attempt a counteroffensive. Throughout the country, meanwhile, particularly in the south, private citizens were awakening from the initial shock of the invasion and were beginning to take up arms on their own accord to resist the Japanese. The guerrilla bands of civilian volunteers that subsequently came into being were called uibyong, “righteous armies.” Their leaders were for the most part upper-class yangban scholars—literate, well-educated landowners who commanded the respect of the peasantry, and who in many cases possessed the wealth necessary to outfit private armies. A few had some military experience; most were just committed amateurs who learned as they went along. They were all driven by a deep sense of patriotism, a desire to protect their families, their land, and their king, and an all-consuming hatred of the Japanese. Beginning in June of 1592, one month after the start of the invasion, these civilian volunteers harassed the enemy throughout the south, threatened supply lines, massed together to attack strongholds, and gradually succeeded in turning the peninsula into an ungovernable headache for the Japanese.

  Significant military activity among the civilian population first occurred in Kyongsang-do, the southeastern province through which the Japanese vanguard under Konishi Yukinaga and Kato Kiyomasa had marched during their twenty-day blitzkrieg north to Seoul in May and June. During this incredibly rapid advance a number of important cities in the province had been taken, including Pusan, Taegu, Kyongju, and Sangju. But the province as a whole had been by no means subdued. The Japanese had in fact taken only a strip of territory running up its center, with large regions on either side being left untouched. As news of this catastrophe spread, and with it the realization that government troops were unable to protect them, villagers and townspeople throughout the province formed guerrilla bands and leaders began to emerge, men like Kim Myon, Chong In-hong, and Kwak Jae-u.

  Kwak Jae-u, one of the most flamboyant of these civilian commanders, remains particularly revered in Korea today. He was known as the “Heaven Descending Red Coat General,” so named for the unique coat and trousers he wore, dyed red in the first menstrual blood of young girls. Kwak believed this turned the garments into a sort of armor by infusing them with yin energy, which would repel the yang energy of Japanese bullets.[355] Tales of Kwak’s exploits have been told and retold by Koreans for the past four hundred years, with the usual embellishments being added along the way. He remains today a figure instantly recognized by young and old alike, a Korean folk hero of a stature similar to America’s Sam Houston or Davy Crockett.

  Kwak was from a respectable yangban family in Kyongsang Province. He was by all accounts well educated, intelligent, and a forceful and persuasive speaker. But he tended to be too outspoken and temperamental for his own good. Although he passed the civil service exam at the age of thirty-four, he submitted an essay that was so critical of the authorities that it sank any chance he had of securing a government post. With nothing else to do, Kwak spent the next several years in quiet retirement, apparently doomed to live out his days in obscurity.[356]

  Then the Imjin War began, providing this prickly, outspoken “failure” a chance to prove his true worth to the nation. Immediately after the start of the invasion, Kwak began raising a force of civilian volunteers to protect those parts of Kyongsang that had not yet been overrun by the Japanese, reportedly selling his patrimony to raise money to arm his men. In a typically stirring recruitment speech at the village of Uiryang, he roused the locals to action with the following words: “The enemy is fast approaching! If you don’t stand up and do something now, your wives and your parents and your children will all be slain! Are you going to just sit here and wait for the sword to fall? Or will you join with me now, and go to Chong-am ford! I can see that there are hundreds of strong young men among you. If you will make a stand with me at Chong-am; if we can together prevent the Japanese from crossing the river, you will teach the enemy something about the bravery of the men in these parts! And you will keep your town safe!”[357]

  By mid summer of 1592 Kwak Jae-u, the “Red Coat General,” had raised a force of one thousand men in this manner and was beginning to prove a nuisance to the Japanese units assigned to hold the south. According to popular lore he dashed about Kyongsang so quickly that the Japanese came to believe that he possessed magical powers and could transport himself and his men across vast distances in the twink-ling of an eye. The mere sight of Kwak’s fiery red coat was thus supposedly enough to send the enemy into instant retreat. While such tales are undoubtedly exaggerated, the “Red Coat General” does seem to have been a skilled guerrilla leader. He wisely avoided meeting the Japanese in open battle, where they had amply proved themselves to be superior. Instead he concentrated on harassing them and wearing them down. He ambushed small parties of Japanese when they were out foraging for food. He severed supply lines. He delivered rapid strikes against enemy strongholds when their guard was down, then melted back into the hills.

  And he used trickery wherever he could. When the Japanese attempted to enter a new district, Kwak is said to have sent men into the hills surrounding their camp, each carrying a frame bearing five torches so that the enemy, thinking they were surrounded by a large force, would be unable to sleep for fear, and would flee the area the next morning. According to another tale, probably apocryphal, he once dug up an ancient tomb and placed a large lacquered box full of hornets beside the excavation for the Japanese to find. Sure enough, when the Japanese stumbled upon the box they assumed that it was a treasure trove that had been plundered from the grave and greedily pulled it open—only to release the furious insects and be badly stung. The next day, the now wary Japanese came upon a similar treasure box, conveniently sitting beside a second excavated tomb. Thinking that the Koreans were trying to use the same trick a second time, they threw it into the fire to burn up the hornets that they supposed were inside. But this time the box did not contain hornets. The wily Kwak had instead filled it with gunpowder, resulting in an explosion that killed a hundred Japanese.[358]

  As a heroic guerrilla leader, Kwak Jae-u remained just as critical and cantankerous as he had before the war. It was a trait that quickly made him enemies. One of the first was Kim Su, the governor of Kyongsang Province. During the first days of the war Kim had led a force of several thousand government troops south from the provincial capital of Kyongju to meet the Japanese. Upon hearing of the fall of Tongnae, however, he concluded that the invaders could not be stopped, so he retreated with his army and issued a public order for the people of Kyongsang to flee into the hills. Kwak Jae-u was furious when he learned of this and sent Kim a heated letter accusing him of cowardice and listing seven reasons why he should be put to death. It was the start of an ongoing feud. Kim, deeply offended, wrote back to Kwak, calling him a “robber,” and sent a letter north to King Sonjo accusing the “Red Coat General” of disloyalty to the throne. Kwak then wrote a letter of his own to the king: “Governor Kim ran away from his post of duty, and when I upbraided him for it he called me a robber. I have killed many of the ‘rats,’ but as I have been called a robber I herewith lay down my arms and retire.”[359]

  After abandoning his life as a guerrilla leader, Kwak was drawn into the government in recognition of his contribution to the war effort, serving first as a section chief in the Ministry of Justice in late 1592, magistrate of the town of Songju in 1593, then magistrate of Chinju in 1595. As a government official Kwak remained just as prickly as ever and continued to alienate others with his criticisms and apparent arrogance, so much so that at one point he was dismissed and sent into exile. He finally withdrew from government service altogether, saying, “If I am not going to be listened to then I may as well leave.” He lived out
the rest of his life in the countryside, declining offers of other appointments, immersed in scholarship and literary work under the pen name Mangudang, “Hall of Forgotten Cares.”[360]

  The people of the neighboring southwestern province of Cholla-do, meanwhile, had not been inactive. It was from bases along this region’s southern coast that Korean naval commander Yi Sun-sin delivered the first blows against the Japanese beginning in June, sinking nearly three hundred of their ships and preventing them from establishing the crucial supply route north via the Yellow Sea. It would now be from this region’s fertile inland plains that some of the most eminent uibyong leaders—most notably the scholar-warriors Ko Kyong-myong, Kim Chon-il, and Cho Hon—would arise and begin organizing guerrilla bands to resist the Japanese.

  Ko Kyong-myong was a yangban landowner from the town of Changhung on the far southwestern tip of the peninsula, a typical upper-class gentleman who had had to settle for a quiet life of scholarship after failing to pass the civil service exam in his youth and obtain a government career. Upon receiving the shocking news that the Japanese had occupied Seoul and forced King Sonjo to flee, Ko put up posters throughout the region calling for recruits, and soon organized an army of peasants, slaves, and scholars numbering between six and seven thousand. King Sonjo sent a letter of thanks south to Ko when he heard of this, along with General Kwak Yong to provide experienced military leadership, which Ko himself lacked. Kwak brought with him several hundred government troops.

  Ko’s initial intention had been to lead his force north to Seoul and attack the Japanese there. They had only just begun their march to the capital when they learned that enemy forces were being amassed on Cholla’s northern border at Kumsan with the evident intention of overrunning the province, which had been bypassed in the initial invasion. Ko and General Kwak Yong thus made a change of plans: they would attack Kumsan first and forestall the Japanese invasion of Cholla-do, then resume their march against Seoul.[361]

  Ko Kyong-myong and General Kwak reached Kumsan with their combined force of civilian volunteers and government troops on August 16, 1592. They arrived with a total of only eight hundred men; the bulk of their six to seven thousand-man force had either deserted along the way or the number of volunteers that Ko had raised had been much smaller than historical records show. Inside the walls of the town was a force of indeterminate size from Kyushu under fifty-nine-year-old Kobayakawa Takakage, the seasoned commander of the sixth contingent, the oldest daimyo to serve in Korea during Hideyoshi’s war. On the first day of the battle General Kwak threw his troops against the walls of the town in a direct frontal attack, but their heart wasn’t in the fight and they were easily driven back. Ko’s patriotic followers enjoyed somewhat more success. With their leader beating a large drum to urge them on, the uibyong managed to breach the outer ramparts of the town’s defenses and set a number of buildings inside the walls ablaze with their hwapo fire tubes. They were unable to advance any farther, however, and eventually withdrew for the night.

  The Koreans went on the offensive again the next morning, General Kwak’s soldiers against the north gate, Ko’s volunteers at the gate to the west. By this time the Japanese within the walls had devised a plan. Having observed the previous day that the government troops were less motivated than Ko’s fiery-eyed volunteers, Kobayakawa’s men concentrated their fire against Kwak’s soldiers at the north gate and soon put them to flight. The sight of their retreat, as the Japanese had undoubtedly hoped, broke the resolve of the uibyong to the west. A cry soon arose from Ko’s ranks—“The government soldiers are running away!”—and their lines began to waver and then break. With that the Japanese threw open the gates and went on the offensive. In the confusion of the counterattack Ko Kyong-myong’s horse threw him to the ground and ran off, leaving him bruised and on foot. Ko’s lieutenants, seeing that the battle was lost, tried to get their leader onto another horse and away to safety. The graying scholar refused to budge. “Save yourselves,” he told them. “But I will not retreat.” Ko’s eldest son Chong-hu pleaded with him to withdraw, but still the old man would not relent.

  Several men stayed with Ko to the end. Two of them, An Yong and Yu Paeng-no, shielded him with their bodies when the hand-to-hand fighting commenced and were cut to pieces. Then Ko himself fell, and with him his second son, Ko In-hu.[362]

  Ko Kyong-myong and his band of civilian volunteers, one of the first guerrilla armies to emerge after the start of the war, did not inflict much damage on the Japanese during their short-lived period of resistance. But the courageous way in which they met death must have left the Japanese defenders of Kumsan with a sense of foreboding of the tide of resistance that was rising against them. It also served as an example to and fueled the anger of thousands of other potential guerrilla fighters—including Ko’s one surviving son, Ko Chong-hu. After the loss of his father and brother at Kumsan, Chong-hu organized his own force of guerrillas under the banner “The Band That Seeks Revenge.” And so the fight passed from father to son, and Cholla remained a dangerous place for the Japanese to enter.[363]

  Elsewhere in Cholla Province a fifty-five-year-old scholar-official named Kim Chon-il was raising an army of his own. Unlike other uibyong leaders like Ko Kyong-myong and Kwak Jae-u, who had failed to achieve their ambition of a government career, Kim had passed the civil service exam as a young man and had subsequently risen to the middle ranks of public office—although he never quite made it into the company of the daesin, that select group of top officials of rank 3A and above. At the outbreak of the war he mustered a force of three hundred men in his hometown of Naju in southwestern Cholla, with the intention of leading them north to Uiju to protect their endangered king. They all swore an oath prior to setting out that they would fight to the death and sealed the vow with a drink of blood after ancient Korean military custom. Kim and his followers then started marching north, picking up volunteers along the way until their numbers had swollen to several thousand. They never made it as far as Uiju. Kim instead made his base in an old mountain fortress south of Seoul, launching hit-and-run attacks on Japanese units in the area and dealing harshly with any locals suspected of truckling with the foe. In August of 1592 he then led them farther north to the royal fortress on Kanghwa-do, an island at the mouth of the Han River fifty kilometers west of the capital, which for centuries past had been maintained as a place of refuge for the king. Here they dug themselves in and became yet another knot of resistance that the Japanese could not dislodge.[364]

  One final uibyong leader who demands introduction is Cho Hon, a talented forty-eight-year-old government official whose outspokenness during the prewar years had guaranteed him a rocky career in public office, punctuated with occasional dismissals and even a banishment or two. Cho was an untiring letter writer who penned hundreds of memorials to the throne over the years suggesting ways the country could be reformed. In the late 1580s one of his particular grievances was the government’s willingness to receive emissaries from Japanese dictator Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Hideyoshi was unworthy of a relationship with Korea, Cho thundered, because he had “killed his king” prior to seizing power for himself. This misconception, universally held within the government, probably grew from the Koreans’ misunderstanding of the final demise of the Ashikaga shogunate during the ascendancy of Oda Nobunaga in the 1570s. Oda did not actually “kill” the final Ashikaga shogun, Yoshiaki—who had by this time been reduced to a puppet—but rather sent him into exile. The Ashikagas, moreover, while they had indeed been granted the title “King of Japan” by the Ming court nearly two hundred years before, had never been the ultimate monarchial authority in Japan. The emperor was. But Cho understood none of this. To him Hideyoshi was a foul usurper who had upset the proper order of his society and as such should be ostracized. As for the emissaries he sent to Seoul, Tsushima daimyo So Yoshitoshi, the retainer Yanagawa Shigenobu, and the monk Genso, Cho wrote to King Sonjo suggesting that their heads be cut off and hung in the street.[365]

  Pron
ouncements like this earned Cho Hon the reputation of a hothead and fanatic in the years prior to 1592. He proclaimed that war was coming, but no one would listen. He reportedly even sat outside the gates of Kyongbok Palace for three days, wailing and striking his head on the ground in an attempt to awaken the king to the danger facing the nation. But still he was ignored. Then, just as he had predicted, the Japanese attacked, providing Cho with vindication. During the first weeks of the invasion the now-prescient official raised a force of eleven hundred civilian volunteers in the central province of Chungchong. They would participate in two major engagements during the next few weeks: the retaking of Chongju and the second battle of Kumsan.

  They would not fight alone. At the same time that leaders like Cho Hon were raising “righteous armies” of civilian volunteers, a second resistance movement was gathering momentum, one that, although numerically quite small, would play a significant role in the battles ahead. This was the rise of the monk-soldiers.

  * * *

  It was King Sonjo who first considered calling upon the nation’s monks to rise up and fight the Japanese. Prior to the war the Korean government wanted nothing to do with this religious community, and in fact had done everything in their power to suppress it. But now they needed the manpower. They needed every able-bodied man they could get, even those who insisted on shaving their heads and wearing the robes of a monk. Sonjo knew that any call to arms from himself or his government would be ignored by this disaffected group; the call would have to come from someone who commanded the monks’ respect. Early in the summer of 1592 the king accordingly summoned the aged Buddhist master Hyujong from his mountain retreat to ask him to organize the nation’s monks into some sort of resistance movement to fight the Japanese.

  Korea’s monks had every reason to be disaffected and unwilling to help the government, for throughout the previous two centuries they had been mercilessly persecuted by the kingdom’s Neo-Confucian elite. The founders of the Choson dynasty had adopted Neo-Confucianism as their official state ideology—making Choson Korea the only nation in history to do so—because they believed it contained a model for perfect government. To firmly establish Neo-Confucianism, it was thought necessary to suppress the competing ideology of Buddhism, which had served as the foundation of the preceding Koryo dynasty. From the beginning of the fifteenth century onward the pressure that was brought to bear on Korea’s Buddhists was therefore unceasing. Temples were closed throughout the land. Buddhist property was appropriated. The law allowing the ordination of monks was rescinded. The number of sects was reduced, and then reduced again, until only two remained: the Meditation School (Sonjong) and the Doctrinal School (Kyojong). And through it all a steady stream of anti-Buddhist rhetoric poured out of Seoul, in many instances attacks of the most virulent nature.