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

by Samuel Hawley

  The Chinese, meanwhile, joined by Korean forces under Kwon Yul and others, established camps at Uiryong and Changnyong a short distance to the north and waited to see what the Japanese would do. Hopes were soon dashed that they would sail back to Japan: intelligence was received that enemy soldiers were planting vegetables and grain at many of the camps, a sign that they intended to stay for at least the next several months.[467] By the time the Koreans realized this, any chance of launching an offensive was gone. The Japanese were too concentrated and too deeply dug in to be dislodged. The two sides thus settled down to a standoff that would last for the next four years.

  CHAPTER 19

  Negotiations at Nagoya, Slaughter at Chinju

  [A] report has come saying that the envoys who have come from China to apologize have arrived at the harbor of Korea and are waiting for a favorable wind [to sail to Nagoya]....I shall be back [to Osaka] in triumph shortly.[468]

  Hideyoshi to his wife O-Ne, early May 1593

  At invasion headquarters at Nagoya on the island of Kyushu, Toyotomi Hideyoshi gave every appearance of regarding developments in Korea in a positive light. He does not seem to have considered the retreat of his troops south to the Pusan perimeter as any sort of setback. Nor did he bemoan the loss of what has been estimated as a third of his 158,800-man expeditionary force. On the contrary, in his correspondence Hideyoshi wrote as if his troops in Korea had already achieved their core objective and were now logically withdrawing toward home. No, they had not succeeded in marching to Beijing as he had envisioned in his pre-invasion plans drawn up in early 1592. But they had advanced north almost all the way to the Chinese border and had given the Ming a good shaking up, to say nothing of the devastation they had wrought in China’s vassal Korea. They had awakened China to the extent of Hideyoshi’s power, so much so that Beijing was now sending two envoys to him to convey China’s apologies and receive his demands. Surely this had to be deemed a success.

  Did Hideyoshi really believe that he had somehow emerged victorious from the largely disastrous Korean campaign? Was he really so self assured as to think that the Wanli emperor was about to accede to his demands without Japanese troops having set foot on Chinese soil? Probably not. Hideyoshi’s true assessment of the situation in Korea was almost certainly closer to reality than he ever publicly acknowledged. His foremost reason for engaging in such dissembling was his concern for the stability of Japan, and more particularly for his own security as its supreme ruler. In order to complete the unification of the country as rapidly as he did, it had been necessary for Hideyoshi throughout the 1580s to seek accommodations with other powerful daimyo, men like Tokugawa Ieyasu, Shimazu Yoshihiro, Mori Terumoto, and Date Masamune, leaving them with sizable landholdings and bases of power. Now, in 1593, he must have known that his control over these former rivals remained tenuous, and was likely to crumble the moment they scented weakness. To acknowledge the failure of his Korean campaign was therefore not an option for Hideyoshi. To maintain the appearance of his own boundless power, the taiko had no choice but to paint defeat in Korea as victory at home.

  This is not to say that beneath the bravado, the talk of “accepting China’s apologies” and making a “triumphal return” to Osaka, Hideyoshi had an accurate idea of the situation in Korea and in faraway Beijing. He had clearly been misled, by both the Chinese and his own daimyo generals, into overestimating the strength of his position. To bring hostilities to a quick end on the peninsula, Ming commander in chief Li Rusong, through his negotiator Shen Weijing, had encouraged the Japanese to believe that Beijing was prepared to go to great lengths to accommodate Hideyoshi and reach a lasting peace. Toward this end Li had disguised two of his own officers as imperial envoys and sent them south to accept Hideyoshi’s terms, all without the knowledge of his superiors in Beijing. Hideyoshi’s commanders in the field, meanwhile, notably Konishi Yukinaga, played their own willing part in the charade, softening what they knew to be their master’s true thirst for conquest into a mere desire for recognition and trade, for they were just as eager to avoid further bloodshed. Thanks to this two-sided duplicity, the reports that found their way back to Hideyoshi naturally led him to believe that he stood to gain much more from the Korean campaign than was actually the case. The physical conquest of China might be no longer in the cards. But perhaps a readjustment in the balance of power in Asia was, a negotiated readjustment that would officially recognize the might and the importance of Hideyoshi, elevating him to a position of equality with the emperor of the Ming.

  In addition to the misleading reports he was receiving from Korea, a second factor serving to cloud Hideyoshi’s judgment was his preoccupation with other things. Indeed, one wonders just how much attention the aging taiko was paying to matters overseas. Throughout the first year of the war in Korea, he continued to hone his skills at poetry and linked verse. His teahouses, both the rustic Yamazato and the glorious golden tearoom, remained central fixtures in his life. He also became deeply immersed in the study of noh theater under the tutelage of master Kurematsu Shinkuro of the Konparu school. This alone entailed long hours practicing the elaborate movements and voicings of the art and memorizing pages and pages of dialog. In April of 1593, just as his troops were evacuating Seoul, Hideyoshi wrote to his wife O-Ne that he had already learned ten noh plays and that he had in fact “become very skilled in these numbers and I will try to learn more.”

  And then there were the taiko’s eccentric entertainments, the little diversions he staged for the amusement of himself and the daimyo luminaries residing with him at Nagoya. On one occasion he organized an earthy costume ball in his melon garden where everyone came attired as common folk. Tokugawa Ieyasu, the most powerful man in Japan after Hideyoshi himself, was a reed merchant; the stately Maeda Toshiie came as a monk with a begging bowl; the taiko’s nephew Hideyasu was a pickled-melon vendor, and Kyoto governor Maeda Gen’i a nun. As for Hideyoshi, he wandered among his guests as a melon hawker kitted out in black hood, robe, and wide-brimmed hat, calling out, “Melons! Melons! Get your nice fresh melons!”[469]

  The poetry, the tea, the noh, the parties. These were preoccupations for the taiko, but it would be too much to say that they signaled in themselves a wholesale loss of interest on his part in events overseas. That would come a little later, on June 21, 1593. On that day Hideyoshi received news from Osaka Castle that his concubine Yodogimi was pregnant. Rumors soon started making the rounds that the child was not Hideyoshi’s, but had been fathered by a secret lover of Yodogimi’s, possibly one of the noh actors that the taiko kept around him. There is no hard evidence to support such claims, only speculation: Hideyoshi was growing old and weak and his libido was undoubtedly flagging; he did not have a good track record of fathering children with any of his numerous concubines, even in the prime of his life; the child in question would grow into a handsome man, with a face completely unlike the taiko’s homely visage.[470] In support of Hideyoshi’s paternity, on the other hand, is the fact that Yodogimi had resided together with him at Nagoya until early 1593, and so there had been opportunity for her legitimately to conceive. As for Hideyoshi himself, he never questioned that he was the father. The aging taiko, now in his late fifties, greeted the news with untrammeled delight. Here was a second chance to have a real heir following the death of his first child Tsurumatsu in 1591. Here was a second chance to build the house of Toyotomi based not on adoption, but on blood. In his correspondence Hideyoshi feigned indifference to the momentous event, but only so as not to attract the capricious attention of the gods: to show the full extent of his happiness might tempt them into taking the source of that happiness away.[471] But he was happy. Deliriously happy. The subsequent birth of a son in late August would carry him away from Nagoya, never to return. In time the child would become an obsession for Hideyoshi, completely overshadowing the situation in Korea.

  * * *

  As imperial envoys have come from the Great Ming country to bring an apology, be assured that I shall
agree with them about peace negotiations. After giving orders about the administration of Korea, I shall be back [to Osaka] in triumph around the 10th month. I shall try to put on noh [for the envoys], and after sending them back, I am looking forward to visiting you.... Hachiro [Ukita Hideie] has already reached the bay of Pusan without any trouble, so do not worry. I am very happy about it.[472]

  Hideyoshi to Ukita Hideie’s mother, June 26, 1593

  Xie Yongzu and Xu Yihuan, the two Chinese generals sent south by Ming commander in chief Li Rusong disguised as imperial envoys, arrived at Pusan at the beginning of June, in company with negotiator Shen Weijing. Shen remained in Pusan to act as intermediary between the Chinese and Japanese, heading off any difficulties that might imperil the tenuous truce. Xie and Xu, together with Konishi Yukinaga, continued on by ship to Hideyoshi’s headquarters at Nagoya. They arrived on June 14, 1593. The two envoys left their vessel at the quay and rode through the streets on white horses, accompanied by a retinue of a hundred and fifty men. Among the solemn procession were a number of musicians playing Chinese instruments to impress upon bystanders the importance of these visitors and the gravity of the occasion. The envoys were taken first to private quarters outside the castle walls, then were moved inside the enclosure to be nearer Hideyoshi.[473]

  On June 22 Konishi Yukinaga and a gathering of daimyo formally received Xie Yongzu and Xu Yihuan on Hideyoshi’s behalf in a large reception hall at Nagoya Castle. A discussion was then held between the two sides. No interpreter was present, so communication took place in writing using Chinese characters. The Ming envoys immediately got to the point: “Why are there still Japanese troops in the Korean provinces of Kyongsang and Cholla?”

  The monk Genso, who was an expert in written Chinese and thus serving as scribe for the Japanese side, replied, “When the tail of our army was passing through those regions the Koreans there stopped us and prevented us from withdrawing completely.”

  Xie and Xu knew this was untrue, but wrote that they would investigate. “In the meantime, by keeping your troops in the south you are breaking our agreement, so you must withdraw them at once.”

  The Japanese changed the topic. China, Genso wrote, first had to show that it was sincere in its desire for peace. It could do this by accepting Japan as a tributary vassal. If this was done, Japan in turn would be willing to help Beijing deal with the Jurchen tribes that were known to be such a source of trouble along the empire’s eastern frontier. The Ming envoys politely declined the offer, pointing out that the Jurchen had been loyal to the Ming emperor for the past ten years and were no longer a problem. Beijing thus had no need for Japanese aid.

  Genso then turned attention to the causes of the war. “Our country initially asked Korea to mediate with China on our behalf,” he explained, “and convey Hideyoshi’s desire for good relations to the Emperor in Beijing. The King of Korea agreed, and sent envoys to our country. Three years then passed and nothing was done. So finally we gave up on the Koreans and sent a few soldiers across the sea to convey the taiko’s wishes directly to the Chinese Emperor. The Koreans responded with violence and blocked us from passing.”

  The war, then, had been entirely the Koreans’ fault. Japan was now upset, Genso continued, because even though “we never had any intention of attacking China, the Ming government listens only to the Koreans’ twisted version of the facts and allows us no opportunity to speak to them directly. If these attempts to falsify our true intentions continue, Hideyoshi will lead his army to Liaodong to state his case to the Emperor in person.”

  This too the Ming envoys knew to be untrue. They had come to Nagoya, however, to clear an impasse, so they let Genso’s explanation stand: Hideyoshi’s intentions were peaceful and the Koreans to blame for the war. Taking up the brush again, they wrote, “We are now satisfied that what Konishi Yukinaga conveyed to us last year through Shen Weijing was in fact a true reflection of the taiko’s wishes. So there is no need for Hideyoshi to visit China to appeal to the Emperor.”[474]

  Hideyoshi never learned what actually was said in this written conversation. With only a limited knowledge of Chinese characters, his understanding of what had transpired was based solely on the encouraging and entirely misleading reports that Konishi Yukinaga and others fed him. For the month that Xie and Xu remained at Nagoya the taiko therefore continued to believe that they had come to Japan to apologize for China’s recent aggression and cater to his demands, and thus he treated them with the utmost generosity to show his satisfaction. He had all the highest-ranking daimyo at Nagoya entertain them lavishly with banquets and drinking and the exchange of gifts. He personally treated them to a tea ceremony in his golden tearoom, and possibly to a performance of noh with himself in the starring role, an experience the Chinese must have found surreal. Hideyoshi also laid on a uniquely taiko-esque entertainment, a waterborne parade in which hundreds of boats were sculled by singing oarsmen past the comfortably seated guests, each boat bearing a daimyo’s emblem and giant imperial chrysanthemums, its bows heaped with opulent displays of swords and spears and other weaponry, all inlaid with gold and mother-of-pearl.[475]

  Hideyoshi intended these various displays to impress upon the Ming envoys that he and his nation were rich and powerful and civilized and deserving of China’s respect. But, as he had in his prewar reception of envoys from Korea, the taiko went too far: in trying to aggrandize himself, he took on an air of superiority that only served to offend. This was nowhere clearer than at one of the banquets he hosted, an account of which was recorded by Che Man-chun, a well-educated Korean naval officer and prisoner of war who was put to work as a clerk in the taiko’s entourage before managing to escape. According to Che, the affair took place in a reception hall at the center of Nagoya Castle. In a neighboring courtyard dancers and singers entertained while crowds of onlookers jostled for a peek inside. Hideyoshi himself did not appear in the hall. He sat on a dais in the six-story castle that formed the centerpiece of his walled city, overseeing the event but well beyond reach, as befitted his lofty position. His daimyo subordinates and Chinese guests were seated on two facing platforms in the hall below. Significantly, the platform bearing the Japanese was higher, and more richly decorated with red brocade tapestries and gilt-edged folding screens; the Chinese were obliged to sit on a lower floor, with a bamboo screen behind. Such treatment of representatives from the Wanli emperor—even bogus ones—would have been viewed by both the Chinese and the Koreans as the height of incivility, a glaring indication that, behind the strength of arms and riches, the Japanese were still the barbarians that Beijing always took them for.[476]

  In order to “look down on the enemy,” understand that you should take your stand on the highest ground, even if it is only slightly elevated. Indoors, the seat of honor should be regarded as the high ground. [477]

  Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645)

  Go-rin no sho (The Book of Five Rings)

  * * *

  While Hideyoshi wined and dined the Ming envoys at Nagoya, his commanders in Korea were preparing once again for battle. Their target: Chinju. This strongly fortified southern city, sixty kilometers to the west of Pusan, had remained a sore spot with the Japanese ever since they had failed to take it in November of the previous year. In that battle a disciplined force of only 3,800 Koreans held out for five days against a 15,000-man army from Mori Terumoto’s seventh contingent from Honshu, inflicting such heavy casualties—some accounts put the figure as high as fifty percent—that the Japanese were forced to withdraw. This loss never ceased to rankle the Japanese. It also left an enemy stronghold in uncomfortably close proximity to their defensive perimeter on Korea’s southern tip. There were a number of hawks within the Japanese camp, meanwhile, notably Kato Kiyomasa and Kobayakawa Takakage, who felt angry and humiliated at the unexpected setbacks suffered in the war, and who now urged Hideyoshi to allow them the opportunity to inflict one final attack against the incompliant Koreans, a parting blow to remind them and in turn the Chinese th
at the might of Japan remained undiminished and would have to be appeased.

  It was for these three reasons that Hideyoshi, although ostensibly immersed in negotiations with the two Ming envoys, sent the order to Kato in Korea: attack Chinju. Wipe it off the map.

  * * *

  News of the planned assault on Chinju soon reached the ears of Ming negotiator Shen Weijing at Pusan, passed to him by Konishi Yukinaga, who claimed that he had tried without success to dissuade Kato from launching such an attack. Shen in turn warned Commander in Chief Kim Myong-won, explaining that the Japanese were out to avenge themselves upon the Koreans for defeating them at Chinju the previous year, for destroying so many of their ships, and for repeatedly ambushing Japanese soldiers who were out working in the fields. Shen assured Kim that the coming attack would be a single act of face-saving aggression, and not part of any renewed offensive to grab more territory. The Koreans should therefore keep clear of Chinju for a time and let the Japanese have their revenge, for then they would be satisfied and would surely return home.[478]