The Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592

First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Osprey Publishing,

Midland House, West Way, Botley, Oxford OX2 0PH, UK

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Print ISBN: 978 1 84603 254 7

PDF e-book ISBN: 978 1 84603 758 0

ePub e-book ISBN: 978 1 78200 712 8

Editorial by Ilios Publishing Ltd, Oxford, UK (www.iliospublishing.com)

Page layout by: The Black Spot

Index by Alan Thatcher

Typeset in Myriad Pro and Sabon

Maps by The Map Studio Ltd

3D bird’s-eye views by The Black Spot

Battlescene illustrations by Peter Dennis

Originated by PDQ Digital Media Solutions

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DEDICATION

To Richard and Helen on the occasion of their wedding, 23 August 2008.

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 and the subsequent six-year-long war between China and Japan was one of the most important and tragic events in pre-modern East Asian history. It gave the region its first ‘world war’, and caused a degree of devastation in Korea itself that was unmatched until the Korean War of the 1950s. It has also been a story that has for too long been told from only one point of view. Japan’s occupation of Korea during the 20th century and a lack of access to Chinese source materials have meant that this has been a conflict where the history was very much written by the aggressors. At the hands of historians influenced by the Japanese nationalism of the 1930s, Chinese and Korean victories were dismissed, fighting retreats were exaggerated into major achievements, and atrocities were airbrushed out of the record. My previous work Samurai Invasion: Japan’s Korean War 1592–98 (Cassells:, London, 2002) suffered in particular from the lack of a Chinese perspective, but in this book, as in my recent Japanese Castles in Korea (Osprey Publishing Ltd: Oxford, 2007), number 67 in the Osprey Fortress series, I have had access to material that has allowed a more balanced view of this very important campaign.

In this work I have expressed Korean names using the older style of Korean Romanization rather than the new style that appears in Fortress 67: Japanese Castles in Korea. This is because much of the action of the Japanese invasions took place in what is now North Korea, where the old style is still used. It is also preferable for people’s names and is therefore consistent with most academic writing on the subject. I wish to acknowledge the help received from the War Memorial Museum in Seoul, the Nagoya Castle Museum in Kyūshū and the helpful comments by Kenneth Swope, whose recent research into Chinese sources for the Korean invasions have added greatly to my understanding of the conflict. Recent visits to Korea, Japan and China have also enabled me to illustrate the present book with many new pictures.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Unless otherwise indicated, all images in this book are the property of the author.

ARTIST’S NOTE

Readers may care to note that the original paintings from which the colour plates in this book were prepared are available for private sale. The Publishers retain all reproduction copyright whatsoever. All enquiries should be addressed to:

Peter Dennis, The Park, Mansfield, Notts, NG18 2AT, UK

The Publishers regret that they can enter into no correspondence upon this matter.

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