Chapter 65
After a short interval, Hideyos.h.i.+ retired behind a curtain, but all his officers remained in their places. Soon after, a man came out dressed in ordinary clothes, with a baby in his arms, and strolled about the hall. This was no other than Hideyos.h.i.+ himself, and everyone present bowed down his head to the ground. Looking out between the pillars of the hall, Hideyos.h.i.+ espied the Korean musicians. He commanded them to strike up all together as loud as they could, and was listening to their music when he was reminded that babies could despise ceremonies as much as princes, and laughingly called one of his attendants to take the child and bring him a change of clothing. He seemed to do exactly as he pleased, and was as unconcerned as if n.o.body else were present. The amba.s.sadors, having made their obeisance, retired, and this audience was the only occasion on which they were admitted to Hideyos.h.i.+'s presence.
After long delay Hideyos.h.i.+ replied to the letter carried by the above envoys, and his language is important as clearly indicating the part which he designed for Korea in the pending war. The doc.u.ment is thus translated by Mr. Aston:
This empire has of late years been brought to ruin by internal dissensions which allowed no opportunity for laying aside armour.
This state of things roused me to indignation, and in a few years I restored peace to the country. I am the only remaining scion of a humble stock, but my mother once had a dream in which she saw the sun enter her bosom, after which she gave birth to me. There was then a soothsayer who said: "Wherever the sun s.h.i.+nes, there will be no place which shall not be subject to him. It may not be doubted that one day his power will overspread the empire." It has therefore been my boast to lose no favourable opportunity, and taking wings like a dragon, I have subdued the east, chastised the west, punished the south, and smitten the north. Speedy and great success has attended my career, which has been like the rising sun illuminating the whole earth.
When I reflect that the life of man is less than one hundred years, why should I spend my days in sorrow for one thing only? I will a.s.semble a mighty host, and, invading the country of the great Ming, I will fill with the h.o.a.r-frost from my sword the whole sky over the four hundred provinces. Should I carry out this purpose, I hope that Korea will be my vanguard. Let her not fail to do so, for my friends.h.i.+p with your honourable country depends solely on your conduct when I lead my army against China.
The Korean envoys entrusted with the delivery of the above despatch were accompanied by one of the chief va.s.sals of the Tsus.h.i.+ma baron, and a monk, named Genso, who acted in the capacity of interpreter. By these two j.a.panese the Korean Government was clearly informed that nothing was required of Korea beyond throwing open the roads to China, and that she would not be asked to give any other a.s.sistance whatever in the war against her northern neighbour. In the context of this explanation, the Seoul Government was reminded that, three centuries previously, Korea had permitted her territory to be made a basis of Mongolian operations against j.a.pan, and therefore the peninsula might well allow itself to be now used as a basis of j.a.panese operations against China. From Korean annals we learn that the following despatch was ultimately sent by the Korean sovereign to Hideyos.h.i.+*:
*Hulbert's History of Korea.
Two letters have already pa.s.sed between us, and the matter has been sufficiently discussed. What talk is this of our joining you against China? From the earliest times we have followed law and right. From within and from without all lands are subject to China. If you have desired to send your envoys to China, how much more should we? When we have been unfortunate she has helped us. The relations which subsist between us are those of parent and child. This you know well.
Can we desert both Emperor and parent and join with you? You doubtless will be angry at this, and it is because you have not been admitted to the Court of China. Why is it that you are not willing to admit the suzerainty of the Emperor, instead of harbouring such hostile intents against him? This truly pa.s.ses our comprehension.
The bitterness of this language was intensified by a comment made to the j.a.panese envoys when handing them the above despatch. His Majesty said that j.a.pan's programme of conquering China resembled an attempt to bail out the ocean with a c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l. From Korea's point of view her att.i.tude was perfectly justifiable. The dynasty by which the peninsula was then ruled owed its very existence to China's aid, and during two centuries the peninsula had enjoyed peace and a certain measure of prosperity under that dynasty. On the other hand, Korea was not in a position to think of resisting j.a.pan on the battle-field. The only army which the former could boast of possessing consisted of men who were too indigent to purchase exemption from service with the colours, and thus she may be said to have been practically without any efficient military organization.
Moreover, her troops were not equipped with either artillery or match-locks. The only advantage which she possessed may be said to have been exceedingly difficult topographical features, which were practically unknown to the j.a.panese. j.a.pan had not at that time even the elements of the organization which she was ultimately destined to carry to such a high point of perfection. She had no secret-service agents or any cartographers to furnish her generals with information essential to the success of an invasion, and from the moment that her troops landed in Korea, their environment would be absolutely strange.
j.a.pAN'S PREPARATIONS
These considerations did not, however, deter Hideyos.h.i.+. Immediately on receipt of the above despatch from the Korean Court, preparations were commenced for an oversea expedition on a colossal scale. Nagoya, in the province of Hizen, was chosen for the home-basis of operations. It has been observed by several critics that if Hideyos.h.i.+, instead of moving by Korea, had struck at China direct oversea, he would in all probability have seen his flag waving over Peking in a few months, and the whole history of the Orient would have been altered. That may possibly be true. But we have to remember that the Korean peninsula lies almost within sight of the sh.o.r.es of j.a.pan, whereas to reach China direct by water involves a voyage of several hundred miles over seas proverbially tempestuous and dangerous. Even in modern times, when maritime transport has been so greatly developed, a general might well hesitate between the choice of the Korean and the ocean routes to China from j.a.pan, were he required to make a choice. In the face of the certainty of Korean hostility, however, Hideyos.h.i.+'s selection was certainly open to criticism. Nevertheless, the event showed that he did not err in his calculations so far as the operations on sh.o.r.e were concerned.
He himself remained in j.a.pan throughout the whole war. He went to Nagoya towards the close of 1592 and stayed there until the beginning of 1594, and it was generally understood that he intended ultimately to a.s.sume direct command of the oversea armies. In fact, at a council held to consider this matter, he proposed to cross the water at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men, handing over the administration of affairs in j.a.pan to Ieyasu. On that occasion, one of his most trusted followers, Asano Nagamasa, provoked a violent outburst of temper on Hideyos.h.i.+'s part by declaring that such a scheme would be an act of lunacy, since Hideyos.h.i.+'s presence alone secured the empire against recurrence of domestic strife. The annals are not very clear at this point, but everything seems to indicate that Hideyos.h.i.+'s purpose of leading the armies in person would have been carried into practice had it not become certain that the invasion of China would have to be abandoned. The time and the manner in which this failure became clear will be seen as we proceed.
CONDITIONS FROM THE INVADER'S POINT OF VIEW
The sea which separates j.a.pan from the Korean peninsula narrows on the south to a strait divided by the island of Tsus.h.i.+ma into two channels of nearly equal width. Tsus.h.i.+ma had, for centuries, been the j.a.panese outpost in this part of the empire. To reach the island from the j.a.panese side was always an easy and safe task, but in the fifty-six-mile channel that separates Tsus.h.i.+ma from the peninsula of Korea an invading flotilla had to run the risk of an attack by Korean wars.h.i.+ps.* The army a.s.sembled at Nagoya totalled over three hundred thousand men, whereof some seventy thousand const.i.tuted the first fighting line and eighty-seven thousand the second, the remainder forming a reserve to meet contingencies. The question of maritime transport presented some difficulty, but was solved by the expedient of ordering each maritime feudatory to furnish two large s.h.i.+ps for every hundred thousand koku of the fief's a.s.sessment, and their crews were obtained by compelling each fis.h.i.+ng village to furnish ten sailors for every hundred houses it contained. These were not fighting vessels but mere transports. Fighting men to the number of ninety-two hundred were, however, distributed among the s.h.i.+ps, and were armed with match-locks, bows, and swords. The problem of commissariat was very formidable. This part of the enterprise was entrusted solely to Asano Nagamasa, minister of Justice, one of the five bugyo,--that is to say, five officials called administrators, in whose intelligence and competence Hideyos.h.i.+ placed signal reliance.
In the records of the Asano family it is stated that an immense quant.i.ty of rice was s.h.i.+pped at the outset, but that on landing in Korea the army found ample supplies of grain in every castle throughout the peninsula. Nevertheless, the problem of provisions ultimately became exceedingly difficult, as might well have been predicted.
*See the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "j.a.pan," by Brinkley.
PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
As for the plan of campaign, it was precisely in accord with the principles of modern strategy. The van, consisting of three army corps, was to cross rapidly to Fusan on the south coast of the peninsula, whence a movement northward, towards the capital, Seoul, was to be immediately commenced, one corps marching by the eastern coast-road, one by the central route, and one by the western.
"Thereafter the other four corps, which formed the first fighting line, together with the corps under the direct orders of the commander-in-chief, Ukita Hideiye, were to cross for the purpose of effectually subduing the regions through which the van had pa.s.sed; and, finally, the two remaining corps of the second line were to be transported by sea up the west coast of the peninsula, to form a junction with the van which, by that time, should be preparing to pa.s.s into China over the northern boundary of Korea, namely, the Yalu River. For the landing-place of these re-enforcements the town of Pyong-yang was adopted, being easily accessible by the Tadong River from the coast. In later ages, j.a.panese armies were destined to move twice over these same regions, once to the invasion of China [in 1894], once to the attack of Russia [in 1904], and they adopted almost the same strategical plan as that mapped out by Hideyos.h.i.+ in the year 1592. The forecast was that the Koreans would offer their chief resistance, first, at the capital, Seoul; next at Pyong-yang, and finally at the Yalu, as the approaches to all these places const.i.tuted positions capable of being utilized to great advantage for defensive purposes."*
*Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "j.a.pan," by Brinkley.
THE MARCH TO SEOUL
On the 24th of May, 1592, the first army corps (18,700 men), under the command of Konis.h.i.+ Yukinaga, crossed unmolested to the peninsula.
So little did the Koreans antic.i.p.ate an invasion that the earliest intelligence they had of the advent of the invaders was furnished by the commandant of Fusan, who happened that day to be hunting on Deer Island at the entrance to the harbour, and who sighted the approach of the hostile flotilla. On the 25th, Konis.h.i.+'s troops carried the castle of Fusan by storm, after a brave resistance by the garrison, and, on the 27th, the same fate befell another and stronger fortress lying three miles inland and garrisoned by twenty thousand picked soldiers. Four days after the landing of Konis.h.i.+'s army, the second corps (20,800 strong), under Kato Kiyomasa, reached Fusan, and immediately took the east-coast road, according to the programme of campaign.
Thenceforth, however, it was really a race between the two armies as to which should form the van. At the pa.s.s of Cho-ryung a reunion was effected.
In short, although the two generals have been accused of crippling themselves by jealous compet.i.tion, the facts indicate that they co-operated effectively as far as the river Imjin, where a strenuous effort to check them was expected to be made by the Koreans.
From the landing place at Fusan to the gates of Seoul the distance is 267 miles. Konis.h.i.+'s corps covered that interval in nineteen days, storming two forts, carrying two positions, and fighting one pitched battle on the way. Kato's corps, travelling by a circuitous and more arduous road but not meeting with so much resistance, traversed the distance between Fusan and the capital in four days less. At Seoul, with its thirty thousand battlements and three times as many embrasures, requiring a garrison ninety thousand strong, only seven thousand were available, and nothing offered except flight, a course which the Royal Court adopted without hesitation, leaving the city to be looted and partially destroyed, not by the j.a.panese invaders but by the Korean inhabitants themselves.
The King did not halt until he had placed the Imjin River between himself and the enemy. Moreover, as soon as he there received news of the sack of the city, he renewed his flight northward and took up his quarters at Pyong-yang. It was on the 12th of June that the Korean capital fell, and by the 16th four army corps had a.s.sembled there, while four others had effected a landing at Fusan. After a rest of fifteen days, the northern advance was resumed from Seoul, with the expectation that a great struggle would take place on the banks of the Imjin. The conditions were eminently favourable for defence, inasmuch as the approach to the river from the south was only by one narrow gulch, whereas, on the northern side, lay a long, sandy stretch where troops could easily be deployed. Moreover the j.a.panese had no boats wherewith to negotiate a broad and swiftly flowing river. During ten days the invaders remained helpless on the southern bank. Then the Koreans allowed themselves to be betrayed by the common device of a simulated retreat. They crossed in exultant pursuit, only to find that they had been trapped into an ambush.
Konis.h.i.+ and Kato now again separated, the former continuing the direct advance northward, and the latter taking the northeastern route, which he ultimately followed along the whole of the coast as far as Kyong-sang, whence he turned inland and finally reached Hai-ryong, a place destined to acquire much importance in modern times as the point of junction of the Kilin-Korean railways.
The distance from Seoul to Pyong-yang on the Tadong is 130 miles, and it was traversed by the j.a.panese in eighteen days, ten of which had been occupied in forcing the pa.s.sage of the Imjin. On the southern bank of the Tadong, the invaders found themselves in a position even more difficult than that which had confronted them at the Imjin. They had to pa.s.s a wide rapid river with a walled city of great strength on its northern bank and with all the boats in the possession of the Korean garrison, which was believed to be very numerous. Some parleying took place, and the issue of the situation seemed very doubtful when the Koreans lost patience and crossed the river, hoping to destroy the j.a.panese by a night attack. They miscalculated the time required for this operation, and daylight compelled them to abandon the enterprise when its only result had been to disclose to the invaders the whereabouts of the fords. Then ensued a disorderly retreat on the part of the Koreans, and there being no time for the latter to fire the town, storehouses full of grain fell into the hands of the invaders. The Korean Court resumed its flight as far as Wi-ju, a few miles south of the Yalu River, whence messengers were sent to China to solicit succour.
THE COMMAND OF THE SEA
Thus far, everything had marched in perfect accord with the j.a.panese programme. A force of nearly two hundred thousand men had been carried over the sea and had overrun practically the whole of Korea.
"At this point, however, the invasion suffered a check owing to a cause which in modern times has received much attention, though in Hideyos.h.i.+'s days it had been little considered; the j.a.panese lost the command of the sea. The j.a.panese idea of sea fighting in those times was to use open boats propelled chiefly by oars. They closed as quickly as possible with the enemy and then fell on with the trenchant swords which they used so skilfully. Now, during the fifteenth century and part of the sixteenth, the Chinese had been so hara.s.sed by j.a.panese piratical raids that their inventive genius, quickened by suffering, suggested a device for coping with these formidable adversaries. Once allow the j.a.panese swordsman to come to close quarters and he carried all before him. To keep him at a distance, then, was the great desideratum, and the Chinese compa.s.sed this in maritime warfare by completely covering their boats with roofs of solid timber, so that those within were protected against missiles or other weapons, while loop-holes and ports enabled them to pour bullets and arrows on a foe.
"The Koreans learned this device from the Chinese and were the first to employ it in actual warfare. Their own history alleges that they improved upon the Chinese model by nailing sheet iron over the roofs and sides of the 'turtle-sh.e.l.l' craft and studding the whole surface with chevaux de frise, but j.a.panese annals indicate that in the great majority of cases timber alone was used. It seems strange that the j.a.panese should have been without any clear perception of the immense fighting superiority possessed by such protected war-vessels over small open boats. But certainly they were either ignorant or indifferent. The fleet which they provided to hold the command of Korean waters did not include one vessel of any magnitude; it consisted simply of some hundreds of row-boats manned by seven thousand men. Hideyos.h.i.+ himself was perhaps not without misgivings.
Six years previously, he had endeavoured to obtain two war-galleons from the Portuguese, and had he succeeded, the history of the Far East might have been radically different. Evidently, however, he committed a blunder which his countrymen in modern times have conspicuously avoided; he drew the sword without having fully investigated his adversary's resources.
"Just about the time when the van of the j.a.panese army was entering Seoul, the Korean admiral, Yi Sun-sin, at the head of a fleet of eighty vessels, attacked the j.a.panese squadron which lay at anchor near the entrance to Fusan harbour, set twenty-six of the vessels on fire, and dispersed the rest. Four other engagements ensued in rapid succession. The last and most important took place shortly after the j.a.panese troops had seized Pyong-yang. It resulted in the sinking of over seventy j.a.panese vessels, transports and fighting s.h.i.+ps combined, which formed the main part of a flotilla carrying reinforcements by sea to the van of the invading army. This despatch of troops and supplies by water had been a leading feature of Hideyos.h.i.+'s plan of campaign, and the destruction of the flotilla to which the duty was entrusted may be said to have sealed the fate of the war by isolating the army in Korea from its home base.
"It is true that Konis.h.i.+ Yukinaga, who commanded the first division, desired to continue his northward march from Pyong-yang without delay. He argued that China was wholly unprepared, and that the best hope of ultimate victory lay in not giving her time to collect her forces. But the commander-in-chief, Ukita Hideiye, refused to endorse this plan. He took the view that since the Korean provinces were still offering desperate resistance, supplies could not be drawn from them, neither could the troops engaged in subjugating them be freed for service at the front. Therefore it was essential to await the consummation of the second phase of Hideyos.h.i.+'s plan, namely, the despatch of re-enforcements and munitions by water to Pyong-yang. The reader has seen how that second phase fared. The j.a.panese commander at Pyong-yang never received any accession of strength. His force suffered constant diminution from casualties, and the question of commissariat became daily more difficult.... j.a.panese historians themselves admit the fact that no wise effort was made to conciliate the Korean people. They were treated so harshly that even the humble peasant took up arms, and thus the peninsula, instead of serving as a basis of supplies, had to be garrisoned perpetually by a strong army."* Korean historians give long and minute accounts of the development and exploits of guerilla bands, which, though they did not obtain any signal victory over the invaders, hara.s.sed the latter perpetually, and compelled them to devote a large part of their force to guarding the lines of communication.
*Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "j.a.pan," by Brinkley.
CHINESE INTERFERENCE
Having suffered for their loyalty to China, the Koreans naturally looked to her for succour. Peking should have understood the situation thoroughly. Even without any direct communication from j.a.pan, the Peking Court had cognizance of Hideyos.h.i.+'s intentions. A letter addressed by him in the year 1591 to the King of Ryukyu stated clearly his intention of extending j.a.panese sovereignty throughout the whole Orient, and the ruler of Ryukyu had lost no time in making this fact known to Peking.* Yet it does not appear that the Chinese had any just appreciation of the situation. Their first response to Korea's appeal was to mobilize a force of five thousand men in the Liaotung peninsula, which force crossed the Yalu and moved against Pyong-yang, where the j.a.panese van had been lying idle for over two months. This occurred early in October, 1592. The incident ill.u.s.trated China's confidence in her own superiority. "The whole of the Korean forces had been driven northward throughout the entire length of the peninsula by j.a.panese armies, yet Peking considered that five thousand Chinese braves would suffice to roll back this tide of invasion."
*There is still extant a letter addressed by Hideyps.h.i.+ in June, 1592, to Hidetsugu, his nephew, and then nominal successor. In this doc.u.ment it is distinctly stated that the attention of the Emperor of j.a.pan should be directed to the Chinese capital, inasmuch as the j.a.panese Court would pay a visit to Peking in 1594, on which occasion the ten provinces surrounding the Chinese capital would be presented to his Majesty, and out of this territory the Court n.o.bles would receive estates.
The result was a foregone conclusion. Three thousand of the Chinese were killed, and the rest fled pele-mele across the Yalu. China now began to be seriously alarmed. She despatched to Pyong-yang an envoy named Chen Weiching--known in j.a.panese history as Chin Ikei--who was instructed not to conclude peace but only to make such overtures as might induce the j.a.panese to agree to an armistice, thus enabling the Chinese authorities to mobilize a sufficient force. Konis.h.i.+ Yukinaga fell into this trap. He agreed to an armistice of fifty days, during which the j.a.panese pledged themselves not to advance more than three miles northward of Pyong-yang while Chen proceeded to Peking to arrange terms of peace. It is very evident that had the j.a.panese seen any certain prospect of proceeding to the invasion of China, they would not have agreed to such an arrangement as this--an arrangement which guaranteed nothing except leisure for the mobilization of a strong Chinese army. It had, indeed, become plain to the j.a.panese commanders, after six months of operations in the peninsula, that the wisest course for them was to arrange a satisfactory peace.
The second force put in the field by China is estimated by the Jesuits and the j.a.panese at 200,000 men and at 51,000 by Korean history. Probably the truth lies midway between the two extremes.
This powerful army moved across Manchuria in the dead of winter and hurled itself against Pyong-yang during the first week of February, 1593. The j.a.panese garrison at that place cannot have greatly exceeded twenty thousand men, for nearly one-half of its original number had been detached to hold a line of forts guarding the communications with Seoul. Neither Chinese nor j.a.panese history comments on the instructive fact that the arrival of this army under the walls of Pyong-yang was China's answer to her envoy's promise of a satisfactory peace, nor does it appear that any discredit attached to Chen Weiching for the deception he had practised; his competence as a negotiator was subsequently admitted without cavil. The Chinese, though their swords were much inferior to the j.a.panese weapon, possessed great superiority in field artillery and cavalry, as well as in the fact that their troopers wore iron mail which defied the keenest blade. Thus, after a severe fight which cost the j.a.panese twenty-three hundred men, they had to evacuate Pyong-yang and retreat towards Seoul, the army under Kato Kiyomasa retiring at the same time from the northeast and fighting its way back to the central route.
Orders were then issued by the commander-in-chief, Ukita, for the whole of the j.a.panese forces in the north of the peninsula to concentrate in Seoul, but Kohayakawa, one of Hideyos.h.i.+'s most trusted generals, whose name has occurred more than once in these annals, conducted a splendid covering movement at a place a few miles northward of Seoul, the result of which was that the Chinese fled in haste over the Injin, losing ten thousand men in their retreat.
But, though the j.a.panese had thus shaken off the pursuit, it was impossible for them to continue in occupation of Seoul. The conditions existing there were shocking. Widespread famine menaced, with its usual concomitant, pestilence. According to Korean history, the streets of the city and the roads in the suburbs were piled with corpses to a height of ten feet above the wall. The j.a.panese, therefore, made proposals of peace, and the Chinese agreed, on condition that the j.a.panese gave up two Korean princes held captive by them, and retired to the south coast of the peninsula. These terms were accepted, and on May 9, 1593, that is to say, 360 days after the landing of the invaders' van at Fusan, the evacuation of the Korean capital took place. The Chinese commanders showed great lack of enterprise. They failed to utilize the situation, and in October of the same year they withdrew from the peninsula all their troops except ten thousand men. Negotiations for permanent peace now commenced between the Governments of j.a.pan and China, but while the pourparlers were in progress the most sanguinary incident of the whole war took place. During the early part of the campaign a j.a.panese attack had been beaten back from Chinju, which was reckoned the strongest fortress in Korea. Hideyos.h.i.+ now ordered that the j.a.panese troops, before sailing for home, should rehabilitate their reputation by capturing this place, where the Koreans had mustered a strong army. The order was obeyed. Continuous a.s.saults were delivered against the fortress during the s.p.a.ce of nine days, and when it pa.s.sed into j.a.panese possession the Koreans are said to have lost between sixty and seventy thousand men and the casualties on the j.a.panese side must have been almost as numerous.
THE NEGOTIATIONS
After the fall of Chinju, all the j.a.panese troops, with the exception of Konis.h.i.+'s corps, were withdrawn from Korea, and the j.a.panese confined their operations to holding a cordon of twelve fortified camps along the southern coast of the peninsula. These camps were nothing more than bluffs overlooking the sea on the south, and protected on the land side by moats and earthworks. The action at Chinju had created some suspicion as to the integrity of j.a.pan's designs, but mainly through the persistence and tact of the Chinese envoy, Chen Weiching, terms were agreed upon, and on October 21, 1596, a Chinese mission reached j.a.pan and proceeded to Osaka. The island had just then been visited by a series of uniquely disastrous earthquakes, which had either overthrown or rendered uninhabitable all the great edifices in and around Kyoto. One corner of Osaka Castle alone remained intact, and there the mission was received.
Hideyos.h.i.+ refused to give audience to the Korean members of the mission, and welcomed the Chinese members only, from whom he expected to receive a doc.u.ment placing him on a royal pinnacle at least as high as that occupied by the Emperor of China. The doc.u.ment actually transmitted to him was of a very different significance as the following extract shows:
The Emperor, who respects and obeys heaven and is favoured by Providence, commands that he be honoured and loved wherever the heavens overhang and the earth upbears. The Imperial command is universal; even as far as the bounds of ocean where the sun rises, there are none who do not obey it. In ancient times our Imperial ancestors bestowed their favours on many lands: the Tortoise Knots and the Dragon Writing were sent to the limits of far j.a.pan; the pure alabaster and the great-seal character were granted to the monarchs of the submissive country. Thereafter came billowy times when communications were interrupted, but an auspicious opportunity has now arrived when it has pleased us again to address you. You, Toyotomi Taira Hideyos.h.i.+, having established an Island kingdom and knowing the reverence due to the Central Land, sent to the west an envoy, and with gladness and affection offered your allegiance. On the north you knocked at the barrier of ten thousand li, and earnestly requested to be admitted within our dominions. Your mind is already confirmed in reverent submissiveness. How can we grudge our favour to so great meekness? We do, therefore, specially invest you with the dignity of "King of j.a.pan," and to that intent issue this our commission. Treasure it carefully. As a mark of our special favour towards you, we send you over the sea a robe and crown contained in a costly case, so that you may follow our ancient custom as respects dress. Faithfully defend the frontier of our empire; let it be your study to act worthily of your position as our minister; practice moderation and self-restraint; cherish grat.i.tude for the Imperial favour so bountifully bestowed upon you; change not your fidelity; be humbly guided by our admonitions; continue always to follow our instructions.*
*Quoted by W. Dening in A New Life of Hideyos.h.i.+.
Hideyos.h.i.+ had already donned the robe and crown mentioned in the above despatch, his belief being that they represented his invest.i.ture as sovereign of Ming. On learning the truth, he tore off the insignia and flung them on the ground in a fit of ungovernable wrath at the arrogance of the Chinese Emperor's tone. It had never been distinctly explained how this extraordinary misunderstanding arose, but the most credible solution of the problem is that Naito, baron of Tamba, who had proceeded to Peking for the purpose of negotiating peace, was so overawed by the majesty and magnificence of the Chinese Court that, instead of demanding Hideyos.h.i.+'s invest.i.ture as monarch of China, he stated that nothing was needed except China's formal acknowledgement of the kwampaku's real rank. Hideyos.h.i.+, in his natural anger, ordered the Chinese amba.s.sadors to be dismissed without any written answer and without any of the gifts usual on such occasions according to the diplomatic custom of the Orient.
He was, however, induced not to prosecute his quarrel with the Middle Kingdom, and he turned his anger entirely against Korea. Accordingly, on March 19, 1597, nine fresh corps were mobilized for oversea service, and these being thrown into Korea, brought the j.a.panese forces in that country to a total of 141,000 men. But the campaign was not at first resumed with activity proportionate to this great army. The j.a.panese commanders seem to have waited for some practical a.s.surances that the command of the sea would not be again wrested from them; a natural precaution seeing that, after five years' war, Korea herself was no longer in a position to make any contributions to the commissariat of the invaders. It is a very interesting fact that, on this occasion, the j.a.panese victories at sea were as signal as their defeats had been in 1592. The Korean navy comprised the same vessels which were supposed to have proved so formidable five years previously, but the j.a.panese naval architects had risen to the level of the occasion, and the Korean fleet was well-nigh annihilated.
Meanwhile, the Chinese had sent a powerful army to southern Korea, and against these fresh forces the j.a.panese attacks were directed.
Everywhere the invaders were victorious, and very soon the three southern provinces of the peninsula had been captured. No actual reverse was met with throughout, but an indecisive victory near Chiksan, in the north of the metropolitan province, rendered it impossible for the j.a.panese to establish themselves in Seoul before the advent of winter, and they therefore judged it advisable to retire to their seaboard chain of entrenched camps. Early in 1598, a fresh army of forty thousand men reached Seoul from China, and for a moment the situation seemed to threaten disaster for the j.a.panese.
Their strategy and desperate valour proved invincible, however, and the Kagos.h.i.+ma samurai won, on October 30, 1598, a victory so signal that the ears and noses of thirty-seven thousand Chinese heads were sent to j.a.pan and buried under a tumulus near the temple of Daibutsu in Kyoto, where this terrible record, called Mimizuka (Mound of Ears), may be seen to-day.
Just about this time, intelligence of the death of Hideyos.h.i.+ reached the j.a.panese commanders in Korea, and immediately an armistice was arranged. The withdrawal of the invading forces followed, not without some serious difficulties, and thus the six years' campaign terminated without any direct results except an immense loss of life and treasure and the reduction of the Korean peninsula to a state of desolation. It has been repeatedly pleaded for the wholly unprogressive state into which Korea thenceforth fell. But to conclude that a nation could be reduced by a six-years' war to three centuries of hopelessness and helplessness is to credit that nation with a very small measure of resilient capacity.