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

by Samuel Hawley

  [141] Boots, 20 gives this interesting translation from an old Korean source of how to make gunpowder: “Take one pound of saltpeter, one yang of sulphur and 5 yang of the ash of the willow; grind it together into flour, making it into one mixture. Put it into a big wooden bowl with one rice bowl of water, and with a wooden tamper strike it ten thousand times…. When it becomes about half dry, take it out and dry it in the sun. Then pound it some more until it becomes like a small bean…. After that, take it out and with good water take out the strength of the saltpeter. Dip it into water about 20 times, then weigh out one tone of it and, placing it in the palm of a man’s hand, set fire to it. When it burns, if it is not necessary to pull the hand away, it can be used in a gun.” (1 tone = 3.8 grams; 1 yang = 10 tone)

  [142] Yang Jae-sook, Dashi ssunun imjin daejonchaeng, vol. 1 (Seoul: Koryo-won, 1994), 178-184; Park Yune-hee, 75-76.

  [143] Yang Jae-suk, Dashi ssunun, vol. 1, 187-197; Boots, 22-23.

  [144] Yang Tai-zin, “On the System of Beacons in Korea,” Korea Journal 11, no. 7 (July 1971): 34-35. The problems plaguing Korea’s beacon fire system were not overcome until the military took it over in the mid-18th century and began handing out the task of beacon tending to retired soldiers, who “were often glad to get the post, which carried with it land enough to support a family, rights to woods or sometimes to fisheries.” The system remained in effect until 1894, when the establishment of the telegraph rendered it obsolete.

  [145] Yu Song-nyong, 19-20.

  [146] Ibid., 49; Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 227-228 (11/Sonjo 24; Dec. 1591) and 231 (3/Sonjo 25; April 1592).

  [147] Park Yune-hee, 125-140; Jho Sung-do, 17-48; Yi Pun, “Biography of Yi Sun-sin,” in, Imjin changch’o: Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s Memorials to Court, trans. Ha Tae-hung and ed. Lee Chong-young (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1981), 199-210. (Yi Pun was the nephew of Yi Sun-sin, and served under him during the later years of the Imjin War.)

  [148] Yu Song-nyong, 18-19; Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 178 (13/2/Sonjo 24; Mar. 8, 1591); Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 228 (11/Sonjo 24; Dec. 1591).

  [149] Diary entry for 5/3/Imjin (April 16, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o: Admiral Yi Sun-sin’s Memorials to Court, trans. Ha Tae-hung and ed. Lee Chong-young (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1981), 11. (The Korean title of Yu Song-nyong’s military treatise is Chungson chonsu bangryak.)

  [150] “The Book of Lord Shang,” in The Art of War in World History, ed. Gerard Chaliand (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 244.

  Chapter 7: The Final Days

  [151] The Jesuit Luis Frois of Portugal witnessed the occasion. Elison, “Hideyoshi,” 332, n. 16.

  [152] Park Yune-hee, 95-6.

  [153] H. Paul Varley and George Elison, “The Culture of Tea: From Its Origins to Sen no Rikyu,” in Warlords, Artists, and Commoners, ed. George Elison and Bardwell Smith (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1981), 217–219. Hideyoshi’s flashy Kigane stood in glaring contradiction to the “way of tea” as practiced by his own tea master, Sen no Rikyu, who for obscure reasons Hideyoshi ordered to commit suicide in 1591, which he soon came to regret. The rustic Yamazato, on the other hand, was the epitome of Rikyu’s style, and in turn of chado as it is practiced in Japan today. For a concise overview of chado, see Sen Soshitsu XV, “Chado: The Way of Tea,” Japan Quarterly 30, no. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1983): 388-394. (Sen Soshitsu is a descendent of Sen no Rikyu.)

  [154] Yu Song-nyong, 21.

  [155] Diary entries for 16/1/Imjin and 25/2/Imjin (Feb. 27 and April 7, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 4 and 10.

  [156] Diary entry for 12/4/Imjin (May 22, 1592), ibid., 16.

  [157] Katano, 97-98.

  [158] “The Precepts of Kato Kiyomasa,” in Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors, trans. William Scott Wilson (Burbank, Calif.: Ohara Publications, 1982), 127-132.

  [159] Several older English-language accounts of Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea, for example in Hulbert, vol. 1, 351, and Jones, 119, describe Kato as an “old warrior” who resented “the boy” Konishi. This is not correct. Konishi was in fact the older of the two, having been born around 1556, and Kato in 1562.

  [160] Kuroda Nagamasa, “Notes on Regulations,” in Wilson, 133-141.

  PART 3: IMJIN

  [161] Lionel Giles, trans., Sun Tzu on the Art of War (Taipei: Ch’eng Wen Publishing Company, 1971), 32.

  Chapter 8: North to Seoul

  [162] The ten heavenly stems were hard wood, soft wood, sun fire, kitchen fire, mountain earth, sand earth, rough metal, refined metal, seawater, and rainwater.

  [163] Yu Song-nyong, 50; Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 201-202 (13/4/Sonjo 25; May 23, 1592); dispatch of 15/4/Wanli 20 (May 25, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin Changch’o, 19-20.

  [164] Sansom, 355.

  [165] Ibid., 354.

  [166] In response to a list of questions regarding the Japanese invasion that Beijing subsequently submitted to the government of Korea, it was reported that four hundred Japanese ships anchored at Pusan in the initial invasion, and that this number then rose to between seven and eight hundred. Sonjo sillok, vol. 6, 253 (11/11/Sonjo 25; Dec. 14, 1592).

  [167] Giuliana Stramigioli, “Hideyoshi’s Expansionist Policy on the Asiatic Mainland,” Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, third Series , 3 (Dec. 1954): 94.

  [168] Katano, 102-103.

  [169] Konishi here was following Hideyoshi’s lead in eschewing the traditional brocade banner in favor of something more prosaic. Early in his career Hideyoshi had stuck a gourd on the end of a pole and made it his banner. He then added an additional gourd for each of his subsequent victories, until his “gourd-banner” was heavy with evidence of his success. William Griffis, Corea. The Hermit Nation (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1894), 97.

  [170] Ibid., 96.

  [171] Katano, 100-102.

  [172] Min Jong-jung, “Nobong-chip,” in Saryoro bonun imjin waeran. Ssawo chuggi-nun swiwo-do kil-ul bilryo jugi-nun oryop-da, compiled by Chinju National Museum (Seoul: Hye-an, 1999), 39-40; Hulbert, vol. 1, 351-352.

  [173] Yoshino Jingozaemon oboegaki, quoted in Stephen Turnbull, Samurai Invasion (London: Cassell, 2002), 51.

  [174] Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 233 (4/Sonjo 25; May 1592).

  [175] Min Jong-jung, “Nobong-chip,” in Saryoro bonun, 41-44; Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 232 (4/Sonjo 25; May 1592).

  [176] Yu Song-nyong, 72; Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 252 (5/Sonjo 25; June 1592); Jho Sung-do, 70. This traditional account of how Won Kyun lost his fleet has been challenged by Yi Jae-bom in Won Kyun-ul wihan byonmyong (Seoul: Hakmin-sa, 1994), 34. Yi hypothesizes that the Japanese navy did not venture much west of Pusan until twenty days after the start of their invasion because Won was putting up an effective defense from his base on Koje Island. I disagree. For the first two weeks of the invasion the Japanese navy was busy ferrying troops to Pusan from Nagoya and Tsushima, and thus was not free to begin probing west along the Korean coast. It was only after this job was done, some time in early June, well after Won’s fleet had disappeared, that Japanese ships began advancing toward the Yellow Sea.

  [177] This third alternative is suggested by Turnbull, Samurai Invasion, 54.

  [178] Lee Hyoun-jong, “Military Aid of the Ryukyus and Other Southern Asian Nations to Korea During the Hideyoshi Invasion,” Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 46 (Dec. 1977): 17.

  [179] Report by Yun Kwan on military setbacks suffered against the Jurchen, in Henthorn, History, 118.

  [180] Diary entries for 15-18/4/Imjin (May 25-28, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 16-17.

  [181] “Ssu-ma Fa” (“The Marshal’s Art of War”), in Sawyer, 139.

  [182] Diary entries for 18-22/4/Imjin (May 28-June 1, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 17-18, and for 1-3/5/Imjin (June 10-12, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Nanjung ilgi, 3-4; dispatch of 30/4/Wanli 20 (June 9, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 28; Park Yune-hee, 144-45; Roger Tennant, A History of Korea (London: Kegan Paul, 1996), 166-
167.

  [183] Choi Byong-hyon, trans., The Book of Corrections (Berkeley, Calif.: Institute of East Asian Studies, 2002), 55-56 and 27, footnote 11.

  [184] Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 233 (4/Sonjo 25; May 1592).

  [185] James Palais, Confucian Statecraft and Korean Institutions. Yu Hyongwon and the Late Choson Dynasty (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996), 79.

  [186] Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 202, 17/4/Sonjo 25; May 27, 1592).

  [187] Stephen Turnbull, The Samurai. A Military History (London: Osprey Publishing, 1977), 204-206; Turnbull, Samurai Sourcebook, 48-49; Griffis, Corea, 97.

  [188] Turnbull, Military History, 205.

  [189] Yu Song-nyong, 62-64; Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 234-235 (4/Sonjo 25; May/June 1592). According to Yu Song-nyong, Yi Il had “800 to 900” men at Sangju, while the sillok says he had “no more than 6,000.” Yu’s lower figure is the one usually quoted in Korean accounts of the battle and is the one I have given in the text.

  [190] Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 238-239 (4/Sonjo 25; May 1592).

  [191] Burton Watson, trans., Records of the Grand Historian of China. Translated from the Shih chi of Ssu-ma chien, vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 217. (“Grand Historian” Ssu-ma ch’ien [c.145– c.90 B.C.] was the first major Chinese historian whose work has survived until today.)

  [192] Taikoki, quoted in Turnbull, Samurai Invasion, 59.

  [193] Murdoch, 323. There are discrepancies in the literature regarding when Kato’s and Konishi’s forces joined up. Murdoch’s account, based upon information Konishi himself provided the Jesuits, seems the most authoritative.

  [194] Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 238-239 (4/Sonjo 25; May/June 1592).

  [195] This was not the first time that the validity of “fighting with a river to one’s back” had been undermined by technological change. In 1575 Hideyoshi himself, then a general in Oda Nobunaga’s army, was a witness to this fact in a battle against Takeda Katsuyori. Takeda, considering his situation desperate, resorted to the borrowed Chinese strategy known in Japanese as haisui-no-jin (arranging troops with water to the rear), and positioned his traditionally armed force of fifteen thousand with their backs to the Takinosawa River. In the ensuing battle, the hand-to-hand fighting that Takeda expected his desperate men would excel at never occurred. Hideyoshi’s army simply stood back and mowed them down with musket fire (Dening, 157-158).

  [196] Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 202 (27/4/Sonjo 25; June 6, 1592).

  [197] Katano, 123-126; Murdoch, 324; Jones, 149.

  [198] Hulbert, vol. 1, 359-360; Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 203 (28/4/Sonjo 25; June 7, 1592).

  [199] Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 203-204 (28/4/Sonjo 25; June 7, 1592).

  [200] Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 206 (29/4/Sonjo 25; June 8, 1592); Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 240-241 (4/Sonjo 25; May/June 1592).

  [201] Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 206-207 (30/4/Sonjo 25; June 9, 1592); Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 244-245 (5/Sonjo 25; June 1592).

  [202] Hulbert, vol. 1, 366.

  [203] Jones, 149.

  [204] Yang Jae-suk, Imjin waeran-un uri-ga igin chonjaeng iottda (Seoul: Garam, 2001), 103-109.

  [205] Taikoki, quoted in Turnbull, Samurai Invasion, 63-64.

  [206] For example, Park Yune-hee, 107.

  [207] Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 216-217 (3/5/Sonjo 25; June 12, 1592); Jones, 151-152.

  [208] Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 248 (5/Sonjo 25; June 1592); Alan Clark and Donald Clark, Seoul: Past and Present (Seoul: Hollym, 1969), 99-102. The Japanese also established a military camp at what is today Seoul’s Itaewon district (ibid., 152-53).

  [209] Order issued by Hideyoshi on 1/Bunroku 1 (Feb. 1592), in Cho Chung-hwa, Paro chap-un imjin waeran-sa (Seoul: Salmgwa-ggum, 1998), 40.

  Chapter 9: Hideyoshi Jubilant

  [210] Hideyoshi to Saisho (a lady-in-waiting to his mother Lady O-Mandokoro), 6/5/Bunroku 1 (June 15, 1592), in Boscaro, Letters, 45-46. The festival Hideyoshi refers to is the Chrysanthemum Festival, which falls on the ninth day of the ninth month.

  [211] Hideyoshi to O-Ne, 6/5/Bunroku 1 (June 15, 1592), ibid., 46.

  [212] Hideyoshi to Kato Kiyomasa and Nabeshima Naoshige, 3/6/Bunroku 1 (July 11, 1592), in Kuno, vol. 1, 324-325.

  [213] Yamakichi (Hideyoshi’s private secretary) to Ladies Higashi and Kyakushin (ladies-in-waiting to Hideyoshi’s wife), 18/5/Bunroku 1 (June 27, 1592), ibid, 318.

  [214] Some of these articles are quoted Turnbull, Military History, 210.

  [215] Articles 1-4 and 17-22 are from Ryusaku Tsunoda and others, Sources, vol. 2, 318-319 (articles 17-22 are numbered in this source as 18-23). Articles 16, 23, and 24 are from Kuno, vol. 1, 316-317.

  [216] Yamakichi to Ladies Higashi and Kyakushin, 18/5/Bunroku 1 (June 27, 1592), in Kuno, vol. 1, 320.

  [217] Ibid., 320.

  [218] According to Berry, 276-277, n. 2, “After 1587 Hideyoshi’s constant inquiries into the health of his intimates are combined with comments upon his own health, particularly his failing appetite…. Hie eye problems, which caused him to postpone departure for Nagoya and supervision of the Korean campaign in 1592, caused him the greatest difficulty, although we know little about them in detail.” One of the earliest references Hideyoshi made to his deteriorating health was in a letter to his mother in 1585: “I am becoming dark in complexion and thin in body, and the trouble with my eyes is worse. I would like to write a reply to Gomoji, but my eyes are getting bad, so please understand my condition.” (Hideyoshi to Iwa (a lady-in-waiting to his mother), 11/8/Tensho 13 (Oct. 4, 1585), in Boscaro, Letters, 22.

  [219] Hideyoshi to Saisho (a lady-in-waiting to his mother), 6/5/Bunroku 1 (June 15, 1592), in Boscaro, Letters, 45-46.

  [220] Emperor Go-Yozei to Hideyoshi, summer 1592, in Kuno, vol. 1, 323.

  [221] Ibid., 324.

  [222] Dening, 254-255.

  [223] Asakawa, 393.

  [224] Berry, 278, n. 21.

  [225] Dening, 254.

  [226] Hideyoshi to Koya (a lady-in-waiting to his wife), 20/6/Bunroku 1 (July 28, 1592), in Boscaro, Letters, 47.

  Chapter 10: The Korean Navy Strikes Back

  [227] Dispatch of 30/4/Wanli 20 (June 9, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 27.

  [228] Diary entry for 3/5/Imjin (June 12, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Nanjung Ilgi, 4.

  [229] Park Yune-hee, 122-123.

  [230] Dispatch of 10/5/Wanli 20 (June 19, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 31-32; Sonjo sillok, vol. 5, 303 (21/6/Sonjo 25; July 29, 1592).

  [231] Dispatch of 10/5/Wanli 20 (June 19, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 34-35.

  [232] Ibid., 36-37.

  [233] Dispatch of 30/4/Wanli 20 (June 9, 1592), ibid., 28.

  [234] Dispatch of 10/5/Wanli 20 (June 19, 1592), ibid., 38.

  [235] For example Katano, 190.

  [236] Park Yune-hee, 150, makes this suggestion, based upon the claim that Todo Takatora had not yet arrived in Korea.

  [237] Ibid., 141-142.

  [238] Taejong kongjong daewang sillok (Seoul: Sejong daewang kinyom saophwe, no date), vol. 5, 304 (5/2/Taejong 13; Mar. 7, 1413). The passage reads: “While passing by Imjin Island, the King viewed a kobukson and a Japanese ship fighting against each other.” Two years later an official named Tak Sin sent a memorial to King Taejong recommending the further development of kobukson. (Taejong sillok, vol. 7, 11-12 (16/7/Taejong 15; Aug. 20, 1415).

  [239] Dispatch of 14/6/Wanli 20 (July 22, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 40-41.

  [240] Yi Pun, 210.

  [241] Sonjo sujong sillok, vol. 3, 253 (5/Sonjo 25; June 1592).

  [242] Nam Chon-u, Yi Sun-sin (Seoul: Yoksa bipyongsa, 1994), 68-81; Yang Jae-suk, Dashi ssunun, vol. 1, 212-213; Horace H. Underwood, Korean Boats and Ships (Seoul: Yonsei University Press, 1979), 76-77; Jho Sung-do, 57-63; Park Yune-hee, 71-74.

  [243] Choi Byong-hyon, 122.

  [244] There is, however, an enigmatic reference in Japanese sources. At the Battle of Angolpo in August 1592, the Korai Funa Senki record
s that “Among the large [Korean] ships were three mekura-bune [blind ships, i.e. turtle ships], covered in iron, firing cannons, fire arrows, large (wooden) arrows and so on” (Turnbull, Samurai Invasion, 106). This reference to the ships being “covered in iron” does not necessarily mean they were covered with iron plates. It could refer to the iron spikes on their roofs.

  [245] Bak Hae-ill, “A Short Note on the Iron-clad Turtle-boats of Admiral Yi Sun-sin,” Korea Journal 17, no. 1 (Jan. 1977): 34-39.

  [246] Diary entry for 13/2/Imjin (March 26, 1592), Yi Sun-sin, Imjin changch’o, 8.

  [247] Underwood (80) made this point back in 1933: “It was not necessary for him [Yi Sun-sin] to make his ship iron-clad for he needed protection only against musket-balls and arrows. This he had in 4 inch timbers.”

  [248] Murdoch, 336, n. 17.

  [249] Hulbert, vol. 1, 377.

  [250] Jones, 187.

  [251] Griffis, Corea, 134.

  [252] Hulbert, vol. 1, 376-377.

  [253] Choi Du-hwan, ed., Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin chonjip (Seoul: Wooseok Publishing Co., 1999), 81 and 83; Cho Song-do, Chungmugong Yi Sun-sin (Seoul: Yongyong munhwasa, 2001), 80; Underwood, 78. With regard to the iron-plating controversy, the illustration of the tongjeyong turtle ship depicts what appear to be wooden planks covering the roof of the vessel. They look exactly like the planks of the hull. The roof of the Cholla chwasuyong turtle ship is covered with some sort of hexagonal pattern that is today typically assumed to indicate iron plates.

  [254] Yi Pun, 212.

  [255] Mekura-bune, or “blind ships,” were vessels with covered decks and no openings through which enemy boarders could enter.

  [256] Taiko-ki, quoted in A. L. Sadler, “The Naval Campaign in the Korean War of Hideyoshi (1592-1598), The Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, second series, 14 (1937): 188.

  [257] This embellishment first appeared in Yi Pun’s biography of his uncle, written at the beginning of the seventeenth century. (Yi Pun was not present at the battle.) It has been repeated many times in more recent works, for example in Park Yune-hee’s biography of Yi (153), which states that after the engagement the Admiral “dug the bullet out of the wound, several inches deep, with his sword.”