1. The Volunteer Army and the Discourse of Nation

The Imjin War was an epochal event in which hundreds of thousands participated directly. Three states fought, each closely directed by its respective head, assisted by ministers, staff, and advisors for the course of war. There were thus three armies and three navies deployed, commanded by generals and admirals, some of whom acquired immortal fame. In Korea, where the battles were waged, there were also thousands of volunteer army members, moving amid a population of millions suffering the ravages of war, not to mention the hundreds of thousands killed or taken prisoner. The Imjin War was to be writ large in tales of heroes and victims. The three states entwined in battle each had its own unique perspectives, with separate legends and corresponding hagiographies and canons of heroes and victims. As befits a war that occupies a central place in their defining imaginings, Koreans canonized and deployed a huge number of heroes in the aftermath of the Imjin War, the most honored among them arguably being Admiral Yi Sunsin (1545–1598) and a number of volunteer army leaders. Non’gae, a courtesan who threw herself into a river, bringing a Japanese general with her, also earned legendary status.¹ I will argue that the Imjin War became the war that defined or redefined “Korea” as an imagined community in Korean historical discourse, so that these heroes became the patriotic faces of Korea.

Yi Sunsin was a state military officer. His famous admiralship qualities—a superb strategist who never lost a battle, an inventor of the famous battleships known as turtle ships (kŏbuksŏn), and a fearless soldier who, when felled in the final battle as the Japanese retreated from Korea, ordered that his death be kept secret until the fighting was over—achieved near mythic status, and he became the hero of popular Korean history and the exemplar of patriotic virtue in contemporary South Korean elementary textbooks. But Yi’s special place in Korean history does not rest only on his being a superior admiral. More important still to his heroism and his status as a “sage-hero” (sŏng’ung) (as the popular 2004–2005 television drama, Pulmyŏl ŭi Yi Sunsin,2 refers to him) was his unwavering loyalty to the very throne that rejected and humiliated him. Indeed, the Chosŏn state had not always appreciated or valued him. Despite the early victories he earned for Korea, Yi Sunsin was recalled in the midst of the war and demoted to the lowest soldier rank (paegŭi chonggun). It was only after his successor, the infamous Wŏn Kyun (?–1597), suffered a drastic defeat in which the entire fleet was destroyed and he himself was killed that Yi was reappointed as commander of the navy. Though his disgrace and fall lent humanity to this seemingly perfect man, Yi Sunsin’s story is after all that of a soldier.

What of the volunteer army? Known as the Righteous Army (Ŭibyŏng), it consisted of countryside civilians who formed volunteer army units and waged guerilla warfare against the Japanese Army of 158,000 after it landed and swept across Korea.³ Benedict Anderson has argued that “the idea of the ultimate sacrifice comes only with an idea of purity, through fatality.” He elaborates that “dying for one’s country, which usually one does not choose, assumes a moral grandeur” because of “an aura of purity and disinterestedness.”⁴ In this vein, the leaders of the volunteer army, despite their civilian status and the absence of any obligation to fight, felt compelled to rise for their country. Although none of the members of this army have achieved the instant name recognition of Admiral Yi Sunsin in the popular media, arguably they achieved an even greater moral grandeur precisely because of their “aura of purity and disinterestedness.” Collectively they occupy a place of honor in the Korean historical imagination that is no less revered than that of the great naval hero.

Not surprisingly, the volunteer army movement has received a great deal of attention from historians in contemporary Korea. There are innumerable studies on different aspects of the army. Some consider the movement on a local or national scale and evaluate its effectiveness as an army; others discuss its relations with the state, focusing on the social and political constraints under which the volunteer army operated; and some examine its effects on the socioeconomic positions of the local elites before and after the war. By far the greatest number of studies detail the deeds of individual leaders, most often in a timeless heroic narrative mode well-suited to biographies of national heroes highlighting selfless acts of courageous devotion to the country in the face of impossible odds.5

Despite the enormous attention devoted to the volunteer army, I believe that the army’s political and historical significations have yet to be properly examined. Issues such as the texture of the political culture from which the movement emerged and the changes wrought have not been adequately addressed. For example, while the missives of exhortation the leaders of the volunteer army sent out are casually quoted in the secondary literature, they have not been properly appreciated as an integral component of the movement. I believe these missives to be foundational communiqués from which discourse of nation emerged. Still unexamined are the process and political meaning of the immortalization of volunteer army leaders as patriotic symbols in postwar Chosŏn.

Thus missing in modern scholarship is proper recognition of the exceptional nature of the volunteer army. We can perhaps attribute this oversight to a primordialist vision of the nation as timeless, so that patriotic uprisings in the face of foreign invasion can be seen as natural. In this view, the rise of the volunteer army was an admirable venture worthy of endless encomium but not a remarkable historical phenomenon deserving to be studied for its origin, impact, and meaning. It is also possible that centuries of adulation may have turned these figures into familiar images, depriving them of the aura of wonderment with which they were viewed by their contemporaries and by postwar Chosŏn society.

This primordialist view, however, flies in the face of history. Just as the Japanese invasion was unanticipated, so too the volunteer army was unimagined. The Chosŏn was a state that fit Max Weber’s definition of a state: it possessed a monopoly on legitimate violence. Private armies and private possession of arms had been outlawed since 1400. Local elites, who were a majority of the leaders of the volunteer army, were scholars not warriors. Thus when the civilian-volunteer army first appeared it was greeted with bewilderment and awe. The volunteer army had to get state permission to organize and bear arms and, at some point, to be made a part of the royal army. Although it is disputed whether government encouragement or the appearance of the volunteer army came first, and it is known that the relationship between the government and the volunteer army often was complex and even tense, nonetheless the government encouraged and supported the movement. Awe and wonderment at the appearance of the volunteer army lasted for centuries, and these “structures of feeling,” to borrow Raymond Williams’s phrase, lay at the heart of their becoming national heroes.6 This was true during the war and remained so through centuries afterward, as various agencies competed to appropriate and honor volunteer army fighters and leaders. Eventually, it is hardly an exaggeration to say, nearly every family scrambled to claim an ancestor who had been active in the volunteer army. Posthumous honors were showered on them, shrines were built in their name, and their resistance activities were researched, revealed, narrated, and even published—an industry that continues to this day in Korea.

The volunteer army is hard to characterize. On the one hand locally based, on the other hand it grew into a nationwide force as well as a national movement. Then again it was a military movement, but its growth was inextricably intertwined with the emergence and expansion of the communicative space that connected Koreans to one another, and in which they exchanged discourse on an imagined community of Chosŏn. It was at this moment of crisis—when the Chosŏn community seemed to be irrevocably torn asunder—that Koreans fashioned an alternative communicative space through which a nation emerged. In this and the subsequent chapter, I am foremost interested in the local and national components of the army and in the way its activities were subsumed into a national movement. I will argue that a vision of national community emerged between the space of action and the space of communication. I will concentrate on what I call the horizontal space of communication that was created by volunteer army leaders, and on the way in which the discourse on the Chosŏn community evolved from one limited by social status and region to one that extended to all inhabitants of Korea.

Prelude

I have already mentioned that on the eve of the Imjin War, the identity and aspirations of Japan and Korea were nearly opposite: Korea, having enjoyed two hundred years of uninterrupted peace, aspired to be a society of civil culture, while Japan, having just been unified under Hideyoshi after many years of civil strife, was intent on building a huge Asian empire through invasion, with Korea as its first target. The irregular and inadequate communication that existed between Korea and Japan for decades prior to the war also contributed to their mutual incomprehension. The ambassadorial mission of investigation that Korea sent to Japan in 1590 amply displays this. The Korean court dispatched the embassy to investigate whether Hideyoshi genuinely intended to invade Korea as he had threatened in his missives. The embassy, headed by Hwang Yun’gil (1536–?) and Kim Sŏng’il (1538–1593) as ambassador and deputy ambassador, respectively, the first since 1443, left in April 1590 and returned a year later. This ill-fated mission would become notorious in the narration of Korean history. In their audience with the king upon return, the two were queried for their views as to whether Hideyoshi was planning an attack. Hwang replied affirmatively; Kim negatively. Later historians often attributed their conflicting views to their differing factional affiliations and cite the incident to refer to the sorry factionalism of the Chosŏn bureaucracy.7

Perhaps the greater misfortune of the embassy was that it inadvertently conveyed the wrong message to Hideyoshi. When the Korean investigative embassy arrived, the official mediator between the two countries, the Sō feudal house of Tsushima, led Hideyoshi to believe that the Korean envoys had come as tributaries and that Korea accepted his demand for cooperation in the invasion of China.⁸ Thus he ordered his own envoys, Keitetsu Genso and Sō Yoshitoshi, to accompany the Korean embassy on its return to Seoul to present his letter to the Korean king. This letter invited Koreans to join in his planned campaign against China. After describing his pacification and unification of Japan, he announced his dream of building a greater Asian empire:

A man born on this earth, though he might live to a ripe old age, will not, as a rule, reach a hundred years. Why then should I rest grumbling in frustration where I am? Disregarding the distance across the sea and across the mountain reaches that lie between us, I shall in one fell swoop invade Great Ming. I have it in mind to introduce Japanese customs and values to the four hundred and more provinces of that country and to bestow upon it the benefits of imperial rule and the culture of the coming hundred million years.

He then gave an ultimatum:

Your esteemed country has done well to make haste in attending our court. To the farsighted, grief does not approach. Those who lag [in offering homage], however, will not be granted pardon, even if this is a distant land of little islands lying in the sea. When the day of my invasion of Great Ming arrives and I lead my troops to the staging area, that will be the time to make our neighborly relations flourish all the more. I have no other desire but to spread my fame throughout the three countries, this and no more.9

This letter left no doubt as to Hideyoshi’s intention to invade.¹⁰ From this point on, the Korean government made some attempt to devise defense plans: it chose and placed talented men in charge of crucial military posts, fortified the fortresses of walled towns, and streamlined weapons.¹¹ These measures were half-hearted and were rebuffed and resented by local residents.¹² The Chinese scholar Li Guangtao justifiably characterized the confused manner in which Koreans approached the Japanese this way: “Korea adopted a policy of trying to hide its mistakes by going to sleep and ignoring the threat as if hoping the Japanese would be gone when they woke up.”¹³ No one seems to have believed or wanted to believe in the likelihood of an imminent invasion. This would perhaps have required too large a leap of both imagination and disposition.

Even taking into consideration Chosŏn incredulity and unpreparedness for the war, Korea fared miserably, especially in the early phase of the war. Though the navy continued to function, the Chosŏn Royal Army could offer no resistance to the invaders. Narrative after narrative, private or official, portrays this period as one of unmitigated doom. The Japanese vanguard army landed in Pusan on May 23, 1592, and the first battles fought in Pusan and Tongnae set the stage for what was to come. On May 24 a Japanese army of 18,700 led by Sō Yoshitoshi and Konishi Yukinaga encircled the port town of Pusan, despite Korean resistance led by Chŏng Pal, the commander of the navy of Pusan, and entered the town.14 On May 25 the Japanese Army attacked Tongnae and overcame fierce resistance led by the magistrate, Song Sanghyŏn, within a day. Both Chŏng Pal and Song Sanghyŏn were killed, and Song, because of the dignified manner in which he met his death, became one of the heroes of the war. Other government officials in charge, including Kim Su, governor of Kyŏngsang Province, either ran away or were unwilling to come to the site of battle. The number of people killed in battle or after the Japanese occupation began seems to have been quite high.¹⁵ One Japanese source put the number killed in Pusan at 30,000, although it is likely that the real number was considerably lower.¹⁶ Another Japanese document describes the massacre at Tongnae: “We beheaded about 3,000 people and took 500 as prisoners of war.”¹⁷

It must have been profoundly shocking and terrifying for Koreans to see a huge number of Japanese on their land. Most of them had never seen foreigners, not to mention a foreign army, and certainly not a foreign army attacking with sword and arquebus, a kind of musket. As news of the power and mercilessness of the Japanese army spread, very few towns mounted even token resistance, and residents fled to mountains and other hiding places.¹⁸ The Japanese Army, which reached its full planned force of 158,800 in Korea after a very short period of time, marched north to the capital in three groups taking three different paths,¹⁹ burning towns and killing residents on the way. The Korean Royal Army made several attempts at resisting the invaders, but the fighting always ended disastrously for them; they were decimated at battles fought at Sangju on June 4 and Ch’ungju on June 6.20 The Korean government invested all its hopes of defending the capital in successfully stopping the invaders at Ch’ungju and devoted all its remaining resources to this battle. Thus the miserable defeat there, for which commander Sin Ip earned infamy, represented the destruction of the final Korean defenses.²¹ In a hastily called meeting, the terrified Sŏnjo insisted on leaving the capital for the North. Despite strong opposition voiced by a majority of officials, it was decided that the capital would be temporarily moved (p’ach’ŏn) to P’yŏngyang.

It hardly needs to be mentioned that the power of the monarchy was vested in the symbolism of “court-and-capital” as “a microcosm of supernatural order” and “the material embodiment of political order.”²² The removal of the royal court, thus separating the court from the capital, would destabilize the very basis of the power of the state and was thus a frightening prospect. Chosŏn took several desperate measures: it sent envoys to the Ming requesting military assistance; it appointed Prince Kwanghae as heir apparent; and it dispatched Princes Imhae and Sunhwa to Hamgyŏng and Kangwŏn Provinces, respectively, to recruit additional soldiers.²³

The tale of the Sŏnjo court’s flight to the North rings both pathetic and perilous.²⁴ Worse still, the powerlessness and irresponsibility of the government symbolized by this flight were communicated time and time again as it repeatedly took flight. Indeed, a pattern emerged in which the royal entourage would depart from the capital as news arrived of the approaching Japanese. In this instance the king in a public announcement of June 7 assured fearful residents of safety and protection,²⁵ only to renege by departing surreptitiously two days later, leaving behind vulnerable residents totally exposed. The government appointed Kim Myŏngwŏn commander-in-chief of the Korean Army, directing him to encamp with the remaining soldiers of Kyŏnggi Province along the Han River and to guard the city wall.²⁶ In a short time the army crumbled as soldiers took flight. Enraged mobs attacked the palace, setting fire to several buildings.²⁷ The Miscellaneous Record of the War describes Seoul on the eve of Japanese occupation: “The people of the city have all fled. The knaves of the town have formed themselves into groups and whenever they see beautiful women or valuable goods, they take them by force, paying no attention to the status of the people they are violating. In this disorder, father and son, husband and wife are separated from each other, and take flight.”28

The Japanese troops, which had taken different routes, converged on the capital and, on June 11, entered the evacuated capital completely unopposed. In Kaesŏng and P’yŏngyang the same set of events was repeated: the king’s promise of protection and security to the residents followed by furtive departure of the royal entourage, causing the cities to fall into chaos and lawlessness and eliciting in turn a burst of rage from the residents. Descriptions abound of the state of disorder into which cities fell even before the arrival of the Japanese armies.²⁹

Had there been any hope that government troops could recoup and muster some sort of offensive, it was dashed in the debacle of the battle of Yongin in Kyŏnggi Province near the capital. On July 14 the governors of the three southern provinces, who also were serving concurrently as commanders-in-chief of the army, leading a newly recruited army of 60,000, suffered a massive defeat in an ill-advised, poorly strategized battle. While scores of brave souls died in the fighting, all three governors fled.

What appears to have been a dysfunctional Korean military may require some explanation. Although a detailed discussion of the Chosŏn’s military system is beyond the scope of this work, I will briefly explain its basic ingredients. The royal army consisted of two components: the palace guard, which was the military body that protected the king and his family, and the general army. The latter consisted of five commands (owi), each of which was responsible for protecting specific areas in the capital and certain provinces. In other words, the military was organized as a centripetal system with the provincial offices attached to one of the five commands, whose headquarters were in the capital.

Despite an appearance of cohesiveness, it was a system that evolved over time, and each part was only loosely connected to the others. Several factors seem to have been at work. Each command had been established at a different time for a specific purpose, and each had a distinct organization and composition. The Chosŏn state maintained the principle of universal military service for men between the ages of sixteen and sixty on rotation but in reality allowed very flexible arrangements depending on status, residence, and inclination. Moreover there was a great deal of difference in the operation of the army in the capital and the provinces. In the capital the five commands were staffed continually at a more or less fixed number, whereas in the provinces, although the number of leadership posts was specified, they were filled only when a crisis demanded and soldiers were conscripted. Thus the military does not seem to have maintained a fixed independent bureaucracy. On these occasions civilian officials took on additional duties as military commanders. There were exceptions—specific commanders were appointed in the navy and sometimes stationed in the troublesome border regions to the north.30

As peace continued, provinces had few active military men. There is little evidence that the regulations specifying that men between the ages of sixteen and sixty be in reserve and in training during the slack farming season were put into practice. This negligence of military affairs caused anxiety for some people. The most renowned instance was the proposal of 1582 by the famous scholar-official Yi I (1536–1584) that argued for a stronger and more systematic arrangement.³¹ Any military reform, especially involving an increase in the army, required fiscal arrangements, a tremendously difficult proposition in an agrarian economy. It does not appear that the Chosŏn elite felt the need for it.

When the Imjin War broke out, the governor of each province served as the military commander of his province, as was required by his position. Even during the war, when most Korean territory was under Japanese occupation, the Chosŏn bureaucracy did not disappear but went underground. Though vested with leading the Royal Army on the battlefield, these governors were civilian officials, unschooled in the arts of war. They were not known for valor; indeed many are known to have fled the battlefield when, or even before, the situation proved to be unfavorable. The defeat at Yongin amply testifies to this view.

After the Imjin River defense fell, there was no further plan for obstructing the Japanese advance. Unimpeded, the Japanese Army pursued the royal entourage. By the end of the seventh month, Sŏnjo’s court was hiding in the border town of Ŭiju. To make things worse, early in October Princes Imhae and Sunhwa were captured by Katō Kiyomasa, reputedly the most ferocious Japanese general.32 To add insult to injury, it was discovered that this event had been accomplished with the help of a Korean, Kuk Kyŏng’in, who captured the two princes and their entourage and handed them over to the Japanese.³³ The incident seems to have been considered the ultimate humiliation to the Korean monarchy and grist for the expression of popular disenchantment.³⁴ It was as though almost the entire territory was given over to the pillaging Japanese, and the people’s faith in government plummeted to its lowest level. O Hŭimun’s (1539–1613) The Records of Trivial and Insignificant Matters records a verse from a widely circulated song that satirized the government: “Though we may build a high wall around the city, who would defend us against the enemy. The wall is no wall; the people are the wall.”³⁵

The Rise of the Righteous Army

It was against this background of demoralization, panic, and loss of faith in government that the volunteer army emerged. From its inception it was both local and national. All volunteer army units were locally based and remained so to a great extent; they were initiated by local elite who mobilized residents with the immediate objective of defending homes, families, and localities. However, the army also projected a national aspiration and vision, in that local interests were tied to national destiny. What transformed the volunteer army into a national movement from what could have remained disparate local activities was the creation of a horizontal space of communication by volunteer army leaders. To recruit volunteers, local leaders sent a succession of open letters of exhortation (kyŏksŏ) and circulars (t’ongmun) to an ever wider circle of people, creating an imagined Chosŏn community that came to include every Korean, transcending social status and region. In this way military action and a discourse of nation moved forward hand in hand.

There was another, though related, force at work that influenced the course of the volunteer army movement: the ambivalent, tense, and shifting relationship between the volunteer army and the state. As mentioned above, Chosŏn was a centralized state committed to Confucian civil rule, and it enforced strict regulations against armament and the formation of armies by private individuals.36 A violation of this prohibition was deemed an act of sedition and was punished as such. Thus the volunteer army was a contradiction in terms, arising as it did under a colossal and imminent sense of crisis, a sense that also seems to have guided the state’s response to this unprecedented predicament. On its flight north, the central court had already resorted to desperate measures, militarizing civilians and relinquishing its monopoly over the military. This was announced in mid-June in the royal edict of self-castigation in which the monarch blamed himself (choegisŏ) for the tragic situation into which the country had been plunged and asked the people to take up arms against the invaders to preserve the country.³⁷

Urging the people to take up arms not under the control of the state was a radical move, unprecedented and not to be repeated during the Chosŏn dynasty. The volunteer army rose with pledges of loyalty to the state, and the state responded with promises of support and recompense. The government publicized specific rewards for killing Japanese. Chŏng T’ak’s The Diary of the Dragon and Snake War contains a memo that he, serving under the Crown Prince, sent to Sŏnjo to propose and report on a systematic way to reward those who brought in the severed heads of Japanese. These rewards included promises to raise the social status and grant additional privileges to those who could provide evidence of their military accomplishments.³⁸ This reflects an implicit assumption that many Koreans were seeking to improve their status.³⁹ While the volunteer army regarded the state as its raison d’être, the state saw the volunteer army as a means of survival, at least for the duration of 1592, until the Chinese Army arrived toward the end of 1592. Nevertheless, if the volunteer army was reassuring, its very existence signified to the state its own failure and inadequacy. Moreover, the question of state authority over the army emerged as an issue: should the volunteer army be given total autonomy and if not, how and to what extent should it be made subject to state sovereignty? Should there be a uniform policy or case-by-case control?

These elements—local versus national, and volunteer army versus the state—played out somewhat differently in various regions. The volunteer armies of Kyŏngsang and Chŏlla Provinces, which are viewed as having been two of the most active, represent opposite poles in their appearance, structure, vision, and relation to the state. The first volunteer army to proclaim itself the “Righteous Army” was in Kyŏngsang, the province the Japanese landed in and quickly occupied. Narratives abound describing the confusion and desperation surrounding the emergence of the volunteer army. The Chosŏn officials in charge, from Governor Kim Su down to the heads of towns, fled, leaving the region to fall into complete disarray.40 From this chaos appeared Kwak Chaeu (1552–1617), who is believed to be the first volunteer army leader. Kwak’s story is instructive. He was a private scholar with neither a position nor a relationship to officialdom, but he began to mobilize civilians into a volunteer army, which he named the Righteous Army. It is said that Kwak sought and found brave people proficient in archery and began guerilla warfare with a unit of fifty people in his hometown of Ŭiryŏng on either June 1 or June 3, eight or ten days after the Japanese landing at Pusan.⁴¹ He financed the army with his own funds but still needed help and appropriated grain from the state granary to feed his soldiers.⁴² In the context of the long-standing Chosŏn prohibition against private armies, Kwak’s act was greeted with incredulity and suspicion. The Miscellaneous Record describes the initial reaction: “People thought he was stark mad. Some thought he was engaged in stealing. The magistrate of Hapch’ŏn reported to the governor that Kwak was a thief, and this scared volunteers away.”⁴³ Kwak’s mobilization of the volunteer army could have been interpreted as an insurgency against the state, and indeed, when he later came into conflict with Governor Kim Su, Kim would bring this very charge against him.

The problem of illegality was resolved by the state’s lifting of the ban on private armies through the edict of Sŏnjo, mentioned above. The court also instructed officials on site to encourage the mobilization of civilians. For occupied areas, new posts such as recruiter were created and granted substantial authority. Kim Sŏng’il, who was on the way to the capital to be interrogated for his inaccurate report on Japan, was exonerated and instead appointed to the newly created post of chief recruiter of the army for Kyŏngsang.44 Kim moved quickly to legally sanction the volunteer army. The Miscellaneous Record reports that after Kim interviewed Kwak and encouraged him to find more recruits, volunteers returned. Sometime in mid-June Kim sent out a letter of exhortation to the residents of Kyŏngsang Province encouraging them to rise and join the volunteer army.⁴⁵ With this official imprimatur, Kwak’s army grew and its guerilla warfare became much more effective.⁴⁶

One notices a swift and profound transformation in the way in which the volunteer army was perceived. In their glowing accounts of Kwak, both private records and official histories display the change. The Revised Veritable Records of Sŏnjo, in an entry within two months of his first appearance, lauds Kwak’s loyalty, integrity, and bravery, “which earned soldiers’ trust and led many volunteers to join him in the battle.”⁴⁷ It recounts that he started out with a few tens of men, but that his followers soon numbered more than a thousand. It also describes him “as a principled scholar who mobilized the Righteous Army with empty hands and inspired soldiers with righteous spirit.”⁴⁸ Other accounts refer to Kwak’s fearlessness, his imaginative tactics that elicited awe from the enemy (including his self-styled title of “Red-Robed General Descended from Heaven” (ch’ŏn’gang hong’ŭi changgun), his extraordinary speed of movement that enabled him to evade enemy bullets, his sudden and unpredictable methods of attack, and his care for the livelihoods of the local residents.⁴⁹ In these encomiums, Kwak was transformed into an iconic figure symbolizing courage and an uncompromising commitment to principle. In the telling he was even endowed with superhuman powers. Kwak’s tale vividly illustrates the near mythical ascent of the Righteous Army even at this very early stage.

While Kwak quickly earned fame and trust, the sphere of his guerilla activity was confined to his province and even to an area near his home village. This was also true of other volunteer army units that appeared in Kyŏngsang Province in the early stages. News of the royal court’s flight from the capital and the capture of Seoul by the Japanese galvanized the local elites. More than anything else, it symbolized the terrible disarray and peril into which the state had fallen. With legal obstacles cleared, and possessed of a sense of urgency, the volunteer army gained momentum in the provinces. There also seems to have been a groundswell of support from residents, many of whom had witnessed the atrocities inflicted by the invaders. One witness account reports that residents who had been hiding in mountains and valleys began to form groups that attacked and killed many Japanese.50

In June and July many other civilian leaders appeared with newly recruited armies of varying size. Chŏng Inhong of Hapch’ŏn, for example, a former official of the Censorate, formed an army consisting mostly of his students, and Kim Myŏn of Koryŏng, another former official, became prominent leading a small army. Chŏng Inhong and Kim Myŏn coordinated forces and fought effectively.⁵¹ After one such battle, they received a letter from Sŏnjo praising them: “Why does the royal army always get defeated so easily and why does the Righteous Army invariably win? This is because the former is bound by punishment by which the law cannot be upheld whereas the latter is galvanized by just principle which does not allow them to contemplate retreat.”⁵²

The volunteer army in Chŏlla Province proceeded on a different trajectory. The Japanese march north in 1592 did not pass through this western province, and for more than half a year Chŏlla was the only region that was not occupied by the Japanese Army. Thus the country looked on Chŏlla, situated in a fertile area rich in resources, as the hope for the restoration. The mobilization of a volunteer army in this province thus had special meaning, quite different from other regions. However, the bureaucratic structure in Chŏlla remained intact, and hence the need for civilian armies was questionable. True, in view of the new state policy of militarization of civilians, a plethora of official messages, from the throne and the governor down to town magistrates, encouraged the raising of volunteer armies.53 Nonetheless, Governor Yi Kwang, even though he did not enjoy a sterling reputation, actively recruited new enlistees for the royal army.⁵⁴ An even more crucial question was that of an objective. Unlike other regions, Chŏlla Province was neither being destroyed nor immediately threatened by this prospect. What should the mission of a Chŏlla volunteer army be?

Kim Ch’ŏnil (1537–1593) and Ko Kyŏngmyŏng (1533–1592), the first two leaders of the volunteer army of Chŏlla, reformulated the army’s objectives, setting their military goals and articulating an idea of a unified Chosŏn community. Kim and Ko, older scholars, were hesitant to compete with the governor but were disillusioned by his evasive and ineffectual military campaigns. A decisive moment for Kim was the discovery that the royal army of sixty thousand, heading north under the command of Yi Kwang, had turned back at Kongju and returned to Chŏnju upon hearing that the court had left Seoul.⁵⁵ Kim quickly summoned residents of his town, Naju, to a meeting and, in a passionate appeal for “determined action transcending life or death,” was able to secure three hundred men, horses, and expenses for them. After declaring the formation of his army on June 25, he began a march to the capital on July 11.⁵⁶

Ko Kyŏngmyŏng seems to have entertained a grander vision. He announced the formation of an army on July 8 at Tamyang and, as an attempt to expand it, immediately began to send out open letters not only to the residents of Chŏlla but also to other provinces as far away as Cheju Island, exhorting them to take up arms and pleading for assistance in procuring arms and provisions.⁵⁷ Ko too was affected by the incompetence of the royal army. The disastrous defeat of the royal armies of the three provinces at Yongin on July 14 seems to have convinced him that he had no choice but to take steps to publicly challenge the enemy. On July 19 he led his army, in an impressive formation with colorful flags, on a march north toward the capital. These volunteer armies were no longer merely local guerilla forces defending local territories but a force that sought to retake the capital, return the court to it, and reestablish the order of the Chosŏn state.

Summoning a People: Letters of Exhortation and the Emergence of a Discourse of Nation

I have already mentioned that the expansion of the volunteer army proceeded in tandem with the emergence of a communicative space of discourse, and that open letters of exhortation greatly shaped the nature of this space.58 Letters of exhortation and other genres of open letters at this time were written specifically to mobilize the volunteer army and seek donations to finance it. The writers were aware of the affective power of language and the importance of appeals to emotion.⁵⁹ In constructing a vision of a community for whose protection they were asking their audience to sacrifice their lives, they drew on metaphors and imagery from the Korean landscape, common ancestry, and a shared history. These metaphors resemble the elements of discourse that Anthony Smith describes as signifying the transformation from ethnie to nation.⁶⁰ The goal and the content of national imaginings for Koreans at this time, however, were immediate and urgent, and the vision they presented was also impregnated with danger, anxiety, and determination.⁶¹ The writers constructed a vision of Korea as the sacred and inviolable land of Koreans and Korean culture—a land that was being trampled, its people killed and defiled, and its culture soon to be annihilated by barbarous Japanese. As their choice of name—the Righteous Army—revealed, they argued that it was the moral duty of all Koreans to rescue, defend, and restore Korea. These components were intimately interwoven in the rhetoric, but the letters were a call to arms, employing every possible mode of persuasion to propel readers to action. Ultimately it was a contemplation on personal and collective identity—on the meaning of living and dying as moral human beings, and of remaining a Korean and not being transformed into a “bestial” other. Constructed in defense against the cruelties inflicted on Koreans, the rhetoric is searing and inflammatory.

The discursive space was interpenetrating and dynamic; each writer tailored his rhetoric to the time of his writing, the occasion, and the audience, and different writers interacted with and were influenced by the responses. As this space was constantly reconstituted with hundreds of letters coming from and going to different directions, it is impossible to fully reconstruct the evolving process and the content of this discursive space. Here I will discuss the letters of Kim Sŏng’il and Ko Kyŏngmyŏng, which set the process in motion. I will return to other letters later.

The letters by Kim and Ko parallel the distinct characters of the volunteer armies of Kyŏngsang and Chŏlla Provinces. Kim’s letter, addressed to “magistrates, generals in outlying areas, children of officials, gentlemen of leisure, soldiers and the people” and sent out in mid-June, is the first letter known to have specifically asked people to join the volunteer army.62 Since Chosŏn was a Weberian state maintaining its monopoly of legitimate violence as the only agency that could legitimately send out a letter exhorting the people to take up arms, it is not surprising that the first letter was sent by a royal messenger. The letter is considered a masterful piece of writing, and its format seems to have been a paradigm for others.⁶³ Its metaphors, imagery, and logic of persuasion are frequently repeated in other letters. Nevertheless, it differs in tone from most letters by civilians in that, as an official, Kim had to defend the government, and his tone is more commanding than persuading. After lamenting the terrible state into which the country has fallen and the miserable and irresponsible way in which officials and generals of the province behaved, it shifts its gaze downward: “The easy crumbling of Yŏngnam [Kyŏngsang Province] to the enemy should not be attributed solely to irresponsible magistrates, generals, and officers; soldiers and the people cannot escape their share of responsibility.” It stresses the justness of the cause and calls for retribution against the cruel invaders: “When those black-toothed [Japanese] barbarians landed on our soil, they were intent on occupation; they took our women as concubines; they exterminated our men to the last one, attacked villages burning them to the ground; looted the treasure of the government and private households. A poisoned air pervaded all; blood flowed through ten thousand li.⁶⁴ Who dares to speak the sufferings of our remaining people!”

Kim’s letter is also revelatory in its equating of the local and the national. It speaks of the ethical imperative to remain a human being and a person of the Chosŏn: “Can you sully that body of yours trained to honor propriety and music? Can you accept the [barbarian] custom of shaving your hair and tattooing your body? Can you bear to turn over to Japanese thugs the dynastic mantle that we have guarded for two hundred years? Can you let the thousands of li of our mountains and rivers turn into the caves and dens of Japanese thugs?” It then constructs a unified national vision by conjuring up the images for ethnic Koreans: “the great principle that binds lord and subject is the law of Heaven, the way of Earth. Therein resides the inalienable way of morality (tori) for all. We are the people who acquired blood and spirit from this land, who are nurtured by its crop. Can we just watch, unconcerned and unaroused, as our ruler’s carriage flies north, our dynasty is overturned, our people are set out to rot like heaps of fish?” Later the national vision is embodied in locality, in this case, in the special quality of Kyŏngsang Province. The letter points out the crucial role the province played in the brilliant and long history of Korea: “Our Yŏngnam has been called the treasure-house of the talented. It is known to all that during the thousand years of the Silla dynasty, the five hundred years of Koryŏ, and the two hundred years of this dynasty, the fame and the exemplary virtue of its loyal subjects and filial sons and the indefatigable thirst for justice of its people have shone in history. All scholars and all the people acknowledge that its beautiful customs shrouded in integrity and honor are first in the East.”

Then the letter moves to the present:

In our time, T’oegye [Yi Hwang; 1501–1570] and Nammyŏng [Cho Sik; 1501–1572],65 working in one generation, have promoted the Way and made the hearts and minds of the people clear. They took as their own responsibility discipline and order and trained and taught many young students. Scholars and students were deeply inspired by their teaching; many emulated them even without benefit of studying with them in person. How countless the scholars who pored over the books of the sage and the wise who emerged proud and self-confident in their learning and their ethical way of life?

Finally it strikes to elicit ethnic rage: “These grass-clothed, wormlike island barbarians are impossibly disgusting. They pillage and occupy our land, kill and abuse our people! How can you not seek ways to drive them out, to annihilate them?” Speaking in an authoritative official voice, perhaps it is natural that Kim foregrounds and closes the letter with national vision while highlighting local specificities.

Ko Kyŏngmyŏng’s letters of exhortation are completely new, not only in their content but also because of the space of communication they forged. Ko was renowned for his fine prose,66 and, as might be expected of a fine stylist, he composed a number of exhortations addressed to various groups, which, taken together, are viewed as a definitive declaration of the rationale for the voluntary army. Two of them—one addressed to all Koreans and one to residents in four provinces—are particularly noteworthy. In fact, they were the first ones with which a private person legitimately addressed all Koreans and half of the Korean population, respectively, and they created a new nationwide horizontal space of communication. Previously only the throne had the privilege of addressing all Koreans in royal missives from the ruler to the ruled, in what can be thought of as a vertical space of communication.

The letter in which Ko addressed all Koreans, sometimes known as “the letter written on horseback” (masang kyŏngmun) because he purportedly wrote it in haste while riding, is praised for its emotional power.⁶⁷ While it is addressed to the widest possible audience, it is written in a confessional mode. Though Ko uses some of the same metaphors, images, and logic as Kim Sŏng’il does, he does so from the perspective of a private person. Fully aware of the fatal nature of his decision to accept the patriotic duty to bear arms, Ko gives reasons for doing so. Indeed, the letter resembles a brief spiritual autobiography that chronicles an awakening to the inevitability of choosing this path: “I am an aging scholar with a loyal heart. I took this role with an undivided heart with nothing more than devotion to my lord. . . . This was in complete disregard for the meagerness of my power.” The letter is constructed very much in the Habermasian mode of communicative rationality:

Who among the living with blood and spirit is not angry and who would wish to die without vengeance for the atrocities visited upon us? . . . Men so brave as to capture bears and wrestle tigers arrived like wind and thunder; a multitude on chariots passed through the gates, gathering like clouds and rain. . . . No one was forced; none hesitated. All followed the dictates of their loyal, devoted hearts. At this critical moment when the country is at stake, we do not spare our bodies. We are the Righteous Army; we are not bound by duty. The strength of our army is the justness of our cause; comparison to the enemy’s strength is no concern of ours.68

In speaking of how, in time of trial, personal morality would inevitably be transformed into patriotic action, Ko extends this personal vision to everyone in his audience: “Big or small, there is no difference; we unite under one goal. Far and near, all rise on these tidings.” He argues that all Koreans are moral, that all would share his sense of justice, and that all would decide on loyalty despite the extraordinary risk:

Magistrates, all! Scholars and commoners (samin), all on roads and byways! Can your loyal hearts forget your sovereign? Rightful duty calls upon us to die for our country (sun’guk). Each within the limits of your ability, whether with weapons or food, whether mounting on horseback, charging into battle, or rising from your rice paddy, casting aside your plow to join in battle, each do your utmost to reclaim your righteous heart. If anyone has strategies to cease this chaos, let us act with him.

In a letter sent to the people of four provinces—two middle ones, Ch’ungch’ŏng and Kyŏnggi, and two northern ones, Hwanghae and P’yŏngan—seeking food provisions to assist the army, Ko emphasizes the interconnectedness of all the provinces and the importance of working together. He states that though the three southern provinces are the heart of Chosŏn, since Ch’ungch’ŏng and Kyŏngsang are occupied by the invaders, Honam (Chŏlla) Province would have to bear most of the burden: “We know that both the government and the people rely solely upon Honam. Thus, with the resolve to die ten thousand times, we appealed to people, and with their hearts filled with devotion to the country, multitudes gathered like clouds.” Appealing to their moral sense, he seeks their help: “We are planning to go north to exterminate evil. However, it would be too difficult for us to carry food provisions such a distance. You are committed to righteousness; we urge you to combine your strength and help us. How can a great deed be accomplished by one singly?” He then focuses on the interdependence of all regions: “There is no place within our borders that is not the land of Chosŏn. We feel that if we are assisted by the volunteer armies of Ch’ungch’ŏng and Chŏlla, we will be able to restore our land to us. We sincerely hope that with renewed determination to die for the country, you will help us with food for the army.”69

Perhaps the most powerful and enduring tropes summoned by Ko’s letters were a romanticized vision of volunteers choosing to fight for the justness of the cause entirely of their own free will yet responding to destiny and the equally romantic idea of dying for one’s country. Here we encounter the aforementioned vision evoked by Anderson: “The idea of the ultimate sacrifice comes only with an idea of purity, through fatality.” As the famous phrase of the letter has it, “no one was forced; none hesitated,” the volunteers’ choosing the path of fatality is based solely and completely on a moral imperative. In the letter, they assume a “moral grandeur” and an “aura of purity.”⁷⁰ In presenting the choice of dying for the country as a morally autonomous yet inescapable path for Koreans, Ko redefined the concept of loyalty as an activist ideal, akin to “popular sovereignty.” This vision seems to have deeply touched an emotional chord in readers of the time.

Dying for the Country: In the Mind and on the Battlefield

It was, however, the volunteers’ actual dying en masse for the country that galvanized the population. Ko Kyŏngmyŏng’s impressive army of six thousand suffered a total defeat at the battle of Kŭmsan in the month of its formation. The army, joined by a contingent of the royal army, attacked a Japanese battalion garrisoned at Kŭmsan, a Japanese headquarters on the edge of Chŏlla, on August 3. After two days of intense fighting, first the royal army and then Ko’s army were destroyed. Ko, his second son Ko Inhu, and many of his colleagues died in this battle.71 Ko had solicited and received pledges from other volunteer army units, including that of Cho Hŏn (1544–1592) from Ch’ungch’ŏng Province. Cho Hŏn arrived after Ko’s death, and on October 23, together with Yŏnggyu, a Buddhist monk who had mobilized an army of monks, he waged another battle at Kŭmsan. Cho and his army of seven hundred as well as Yŏnggyu and his monks all died in battle.⁷²

The defeat of Ko’s army, the first test of a large volunteer army unit, which had been watched with anxious hope tempered by skepticism, must have been a terrible blow for the movement. Alarmed by the potentially negative impact, many sent out letters of exhortation. Different themes were introduced. One was that not only was the act of dying for the country supremely noble, but this noble act was extended to all as a moral requirement. This idea reached a new heights of urgency and poignancy, represented by a letter from Song Chemin (1549–1602), who came to the scene after the battle. The letter displays a palpable sense of desperation: “From the appearance of the Righteous Army proclaiming firm determination, the hearts of the people (insim) have regained some self-possession; their antipathy for the invaders has soared. But the Righteous Army suffered defeat; the morale of the populace has plummeted to a nadir.” The emotional center is the nobility of Ko’s dying: “He gave his life for the country (sun’guk) to repay his indebtedness to the sovereign. Following his father, his son died too. These acts of loyalty and filiality were the product of a single family. In dying, they left behind glory that burns brilliantly for eternity. A person has only one death. Chebong [Ko Kyŏngmyŏng] fulfilled his mission and died in the right place. We need not weep for him.”⁷³

Eager to pass the torch, Song cast his net more widely. He radically expanded the circle of those required to offer patriotic action. The people he called to arms are not only those who have maintained their Heaven-sent humanity but also those who have lost it and their virtue as well: “Ah! Humanity and right principle (inŭi) are the qualities everyone receives from Heaven; no one is different from anyone else in this. Despite equal endowment, there are those who, blinded by greed for selfish gain, lose their true hearts. There may be those who, despite human appearances, took on the hearts of beasts. We cannot always expect loyalty or filiality. The extermination of the invaders is not something desired only by loyal subjects or principled scholars, but something that even the disloyal and unfilial wish for.” Clearly Song felt that he could not afford to exclude anyone, and in his argument he employs the Mencian theory of human nature, according to which people are originally and naturally good. By this logic, no one is beyond redemption. Since the Mencian notion of the goodness of human nature was the basis of the Neo-Confucian worldview, Song’s logic must have been familiar. What is interesting is that he inverts this familiar trope: he does not reason that because a person has innate goodness, he will fight for family and country; rather, he argues that no rational person could but feel compelled to fight for his own survival, that of his family, and that of the people of his province, and that in the process his true nature, which he might have lost, will reemerge. By this logic, by embracing his Koreanness, he regains his humanity.

While Song expanded inclusivity by relativizing one’s exhibited virtue, Yi Chun (1560–1635) specifically focuses on the insignificance of social status. In his exhortation written in the winter of 1592, Yi stresses the fundamental equality of all Koreans as loyal subjects and moral human beings: “When it comes to loyalty and the sense of justice, from the descendants of scholars to slaves in mangers, there is no difference; all are equal.”74 The idea of equality implicit in many letters is made explicit here.

Another theme that appeared after the battles at Kŭmsan was the idea of revenge—that Koreans could not let the martyrs’ deaths go to waste unavenged. A letter by Ko Chonghu (1554–1593), Kyŏngmyŏng’s first son, written five months after the death of his father and his brother Inhu, exhibits the theme. After his father’s death, he mobilized an army and took the title general of the Righteous Army of Vengeance (Poksu ŭibyŏngjang). In a letter titled “Oath of Revenge Sent to All the Towns of the Province [of Chŏlla],” Ko uses a familiar trope, the duty to avenge the death of a loved one, but he also links family to nation: “Because I could not turn away from fighting the Japanese thugs, I dared to unexpectedly don the golden belt [of a general], but if brave men do not gather, with whom shall I be able to avenge the enemy of my family and my country (kaguk)?” He recalls the inseparable bond of the people of the province: “Is it not true that all in our province, whoever they might be, are brothers and sisters sharing the same womb (tongp’o chi min)? Did we not mount the platform together and, in blood, pledge ourselves to my deceased father? We patted our shoulders and shook one another’s sleeves. We may have even gazed upon one another! Even though we may not have seen one another face-to-face, we live in a close, mutually connected community. Even in a hundred generations, we would feel for one another; how much more true is this for us born in the same age!” He then expands the sphere of the community, transforming personal revenge into a national project: “Towns should look across their boundaries, and counties should see beyond their borders; please do not view this matter as the affair of others. All within the four seas are brothers. A single peck of crops will do. Even in the last room [of Hell], one finds loyalty and faithfulness. Can we ignore affairs of such urgency as those of the present?”75

Tropes of Ethnie and the Discourse of Nation

Discourse of the imagined Chosŏn community spread rapidly nationwide. Although I have concentrated on the horizontal space of communication created by exhortations by the volunteer army leaders, this space was a part of interpenetrating multidirectional and multilayered space, closely connected to vertical space as well. We have already observed the consistent themes across many exhortations. Indeed, within a short span of time, by the autumn of 1592, tropes and images of imagined community had become the common currency of communication binding different groups across different spaces. These lines of communication work as conduits through which we can envision the ways in which sixteenth-century Koreans imagined themselves and their country. Although there were many variations on the themes, they can be grouped into several larger categories. Befitting the emergence of a discourse of nation in the face of invaders, the most common theme was the atrocities inflicted by the invaders. Such phrases as “our parents were killed, our wives and children were taken prisoner of war, our houses were burned to the ground, and our livelihood that has sustained us for generation upon generation has evaporated overnight”76 or “the black-toothed [barbarians]” “charging like wild boar,” “like black bees,” “raped our women, ransacked our properties” abound.⁷⁷

A second central image is that of Korean land—its sacralization, laments over its violation by the enemy, Korean embeddedness in it, its inseparability from ethnicity, and its interconnectedness. The land was sacralized for being “ours”: “This is the land in which the souls of our ancestors reside, in which our parents received beneficent nurture and our brothers and children were born, in which we formed families and enjoyed closeness with friends and neighbors. How unspeakably degrading would it be if suddenly one morning a calamity made us servants and concubines to these barbarians and compelled us to work as slaves to a brutish enemy?”⁷⁸ Thus its defilement by the enemy was even more unbearable: “The mountains and rivers of Yŏngnam have become caves and dens of tigers and leopards while the plants and grasses of Hosŏ are contaminated with the stenches of dogs and sheep”;⁷⁹ “Our mountains and rivers are bathed in shame. How can anyone with spirit not feel deeply aggrieved?”⁸⁰ Koreanness was in turn inseparable from the land: “We have been nourished by food produced from this land. We are all subjects of the ruler, not only those on official salaries”;⁸¹ “Anyone who lives in this land surrounded by the sea, no matter who he/she is, is the child of the Yi royal house?”;⁸² “The entire land of our country is [inhabited by] one people who share the same womb”;⁸³ “There is no place in our land which does not belong to our dynasty. The army from the two Ho⁸⁴ is sufficient to restore our country”;85 “Tamna (Cheju) is indeed a part of our territory.”⁸⁶

A third constellation of tropes evoked “Korean culture,” its glorious history and civilized customs, pride in the local history and culture of various regions, and chagrin over its destruction. Exhortations claim such ideas as “the people’s hearts are loyal,” “The sagacious twelve kings of our dynasty with their virtue have benefited the people. We know vividly that our civilized Small Brilliant Center (Sojunghwa)⁸⁷ will not turn barbarous overnight!”⁸⁸ “The beautiful virtue of our country,”⁸⁹ and “during the long years of peace, the people have been accustomed to royal grace and benevolent governance.”⁹⁰ Pride in local history and culture was also explicit: “Honam [Chŏlla] is called the region of decorum. It is the place where talented people are congregated, and it is the place where the people are like unmovable grass that resists strong and fast wind. All will become loyal subjects during this terrible national crisis”;⁹¹ “In our province (Kyŏngsang), propriety is observed, and customs among people are generous vividly displaying that the traditions of one thousand years of Silla still remain”;⁹² “The scholars and the common people of three Han [southern part of Korea] have lived under the benevolent rule of the sagacious dynasty, and received great moral instruction.”⁹³

Some exhortations lament the very destruction of Korean culture: “Within three months of the war, the provinces of Yŏngnam, Hosŏ, Kyŏnggi have become the sweet home of the enemy. The place of civilization and propriety in which exquisite material culture and refined customs have been flourishing for two hundred years was desecrated one morning by cruel bloody ransacking, our people and their ways mercilessly cut down like weeds, their [refinement] reduced to the state of birds and monkeys.”⁹⁴

A fourth trope was an individual’s moral duty and commitment, a moral being here defined by the logic of the Confucian worldview. As a civilized being, a Korean could not entertain the possibility of becoming a barbarian: “If you betray your country and submit to the enemy, how can you find peace, and how can you bear to shave your head and blacken your teeth?”⁹⁵ “Our sense of knowing shame has been deeply ingrained in our civilization of two hundred years, and thus we pledge that we cannot possibly live with the Japanese enemy.”96 “The officials and the people of this country cannot become barbarians. Nor can the costumes of our court be exchanged for those of barbarians.”⁹⁷ This impossibility is due to Koreans’ inborn humanity: “All of you are born with the talents and physique to render useful deeds to our sovereign. We have been born into a time that values the civilization. How can we not show our devotion to the country?”⁹⁸ “If we possess one ounce of human heart we cannot eat or sleep in peace. We wail and weep.”⁹⁹

A fifth trope appears with the question of who should rise up to give their life for the country. The issue discussed was who should be willing to sacrifice themselves out of loyalty to the dynastic state. Some pointed at scholars as the group that had received more favors and privileges: “How can the elite of each town, who have received so much more grace from our state, bear to sit still?”¹⁰⁰ “The state nurtured scholars for two hundred years. . . . This is the time to sacrifice our bodies to save our country.”¹⁰¹ Much more common was rhetoric that appealed to all Koreans: “We would be most happy if anyone, regardless of high or low status, who is brave, capable of handling bow and arrow and talented, were to come”;¹⁰² “I sincerely hope that when this letter arrives, all will take up arms, that all will arise in passionate devotion and accomplish great deeds”;¹⁰³ “Whether the sun and moon will shine again in this land depends entirely on our common people”;¹⁰⁴ “All who are loyal to our sovereign, and who love our country, whether they have a civil or a military post, are of high or low status, young or old, whether a slave, or are among the nine categories of lowborn, or whether they belong to any of the miscellaneous categories, all come to the station of Samnye on the 27th.”¹⁰⁵

The sixth trope equated defeat with an unbearable loss of civilization. This logic was embedded in calls to die for the country: The assertion that keeps appearing is that surrender to a barbaric other is tantamount to a fundamental loss of civilization and hence humanity: “When we remember our indebtedness to our king, unless we are willing to become beasts, we cannot live under the same Heaven with the enemy. We have no choice but to rise in determination ready to give our lives for our country”;¹⁰⁶ “It is much more honorable to die. How much more is this true when your own flesh and bones and your relatives are all being slaughtered by this enemy? If you are to die, is it not better to die fighting them? If you avoid fighting to seek life but do not find a way, we shall face another disaster like the one we face today. If we are determined to fight, and if we are not afraid of dying, then there is no reason that we must die. We may thus avoid death and receive endless blessing”;107 “Although we hate to die, there is no way for us to escape since the net is spread everywhere, and even if we seek to live, it would be as unbearable as living among dogs and pigs. Since it result in death no matter what we do, it is better to die with principle. Give your life for principle.”¹⁰⁸

The final trope was the dream of restoration and peace: “If the volunteer army can make the people see the vast, clear sky again, and since you many not even die, wouldn’t it be lovely to celebrate the joy of restoration (chunghŭng)?”¹⁰⁹

These tropes were the leitmotifs of ethnic nationalism. Taken together, they fashioned a vision in which all Koreans, as members of one community, shared the responsibility of defending Korea, and all localities were integrated into a unified Korea that all needed to defend. No longer were civilians passive subjects who looked toward the state for protection; they had become active agents responsible for driving out the invaders, preserving the country, and restoring its way of life. After all, their community had to be defended from barbaric domination to preserve its special moral and civilized way of life.¹¹⁰