17
THAT OTHER KOREAN WAR
By William Terdoslavich
Korea and Poland must be the world’s two most invaded nations.
Hideyoshi Toyotomi was Japan’s ultimate badass in the early 1590s. He had just vanquished lesser rivals to unify Japan after a century of civil war. But he needed respect. With it, he could rule Japan as shogun, with the emperor sidelined as political window dressing, as usual.
But how do you get respect?
Invade Korea.
This may sound harebrained, until you realize that brute force has its own logic. The more wars you win, the more powerful you become. No one challenges a winner.
Conquering Korea was something Hideyoshi pondered for several decades as he fought under Oda Nobunaga to knock the other daimyos—or lords—into line. Winning that civil war left thousands of samurai with nothing to do, but still under arms and answering to their provincial masters. Moving Japan’s war to Korea would give them purpose, cement Japanese unification, and most importantly, keep war’s destruction on foreign soil and away from home. If Hideyoshi could conquer Korea, it might also be possible for him to conquer China!
Diplomatic overtures to get Korea to submit to Japan proved fruitless. A vassal of China, Choson Dynasty Korea believed it deserved Japan’s submission. Hideyoshi chose to end the farce, dispatching an army of 158,000 from Japan’s southernmost home island of Kyushu to teach the Koreans a lesson.
Same War, Different Century
The Imjin War began with the Japanese army landing in Busan (Pusan) in 1592. Nine divisions were sent to the Korean peninsula, taking Seoul and Pyongyang with ease. The Korean army really sucked, breaking under the charge of sword-wielding samurai and Japanese infantry armed with muskets and spears. The Japanese met with little resistance as they approached the Yalu River, which marked the border with China. This looked like the Korean War the US once fought, only it was happening centuries earlier!
While the Korean army was hopeless, the Korean navy proved deadly. Tucked away in southwestern Korea was a fleet under the command of Yi Sun-Shin. He understood strategy. All he had to do was vanquish the Japanese fleet in Korean waters, thus cutting off the invading army from resupply and reinforcement. He also understood tactics and sought to match the strengths of his fleet against the weakness of his enemy’s ships.
This was shown to great effect at the Battle of Hansan Do, an island about twenty miles southwest of Busan. Here the coast is rocky and irregular. Numerous offshore islands bracket local waters into narrow straits. Yi knew a Japanese fleet of eighty-two warships was anchored nearby. The Koreans had between sixty and eighty ships, so it looked like an even match. Yi ordered six war galleys to advance within sight of the Japanese. Headstrong admiral Wakizaka Yasuharu took the bait and gave chase with about sixty ships. His fleet pursued the fleeing Korean squadron through a narrow passage into the wider waters beyond.
That is when Yi sprang his trap. Galleys tucked behind smaller islands rushed out, surrounding the Japanese. The squat Korean vessels stood off at a distance, using their superior cannons to bash the Japanese galleys into splinters. Three Korean “turtle boats”—armored galleys covered in iron sheets—rowed into the Japanese formation, firing their cannons at close range. The Japanese depended on closing with the enemy, grappling and boarding with their superior infantry, but the turtle boats could not be boarded. And the Japanese could not close with the distant Korean galleys firing from afar. Admiral Yi destroyed more than sixty Japanese vessels that day. This was his sixth naval victory. He would win seventeen more.
With the Choson Dynasty on the ropes, China intervened. The Ming army crossed the Yalu and besieged Pyongyang, driving the Japanese southward to Seoul. (The Americans would make the same retreat, centuries later.) The Japanese eventually abandoned Seoul, retreating to Busan. A cease-fire was declared as diplomatic talks resumed.
Talk, Followed by Action
From 1594 to 1596, Japanese and Chinese envoys tried to hammer out a peace treaty, to no effect. The Chinese treated Japan as a supplicant, offering recognition of Hideyoshi as Japan’s king, provided he became a vassal. Conversely, Hideyoshi’s representatives believed China was asking for peace. Hideyoshi issued demands as a victor, which the Ming emperor dismissed.
War resumed in 1597, when Hideyoshi dispatched a second army to Busan. Only now the campaign was aimed at controlling the southern quarter of the Korean peninsula, with one force invading southwestern Korea to deprive Admiral Yi of his much-needed naval bases.
Also aiding the Japanese was political infighting in the court of Korean king Seonjo. Admiral Yi had a bad habit of disobeying orders from the court, even though he usually won battles by doing so. But Yi fell into disfavor with the king, who fired and jailed him. Command of the fleet went to the more impulsive Won Gyun.
With a hundred ships, Won attacked the Japanese fleet near Busan. This time the Japanese won, safeguarding their supply line back to Japan. However, thanks to a disobedient Korean captain, thirteen galleys broke off from the action and retreated. Yi was released from prison and restored to command, but these thirteen war galleys were all that was left of Korea’s navy. And there were no turtle boats handy.
In 1597, in the narrow waters of the Myeongnyang strait in southwestern Korea, Admiral Yi lined up his galleys from shore to shore so that they blocked the passage of an oncoming Japanese war fleet. Crossing the Japanese T, the Korean ships poured gunfire into the advancing Japanese warships, forcing them to retreat.
The following year, Yi commanded a combined Chinese-Korean fleet. At Noryang Point, he attacked the remaining Japanese warships at night. The enemy either fled or was sunk. At sunrise, Yi ordered one last charge at the remaining Japanese galleys, only to be shot on deck while closing with the enemy. Yi knew his wound was mortal and ordered his officers to keep secret the news of his demise, lest it undermine morale. Like Nelson at Trafalgar, Yi did not live to see his last victory.
The Outcome
Hideyoshi died of natural causes in 1598, though some chroniclers claim it was due to a broken heart after his Korean scheme was defeated. The war weakened the Toyotomi clan and its surrounding allies. By default, the eastern faction headed by Tokugawa Ieyasu strengthened, as he was wise enough to give Korea a pass. In 1600, at Sekigahara, Tokugawa won the last battle in Japan’s century-long civil war, becoming shogun and closing the country to all outsiders. Japan became backward as a result.
It would have been a hundred times better if Hideyoshi had kept his eyes on the real prize—control of Japan—rather than gambling on foreign conquest and glory. Hideyoshi could have kept Japan open to outsiders, able to absorb Western technology. Japan would have become a regional power sooner rather than later. And it would have had mastery over a different map of East Asia, perhaps conquering other islands and states before any European power had a chance to colonize in the region.
Win or lose, Korea is still a prisoner of its geography, caught between a rock (China) and Japan (a hard place). But as a vassal of China, Korea was able to keep its language and culture. Winning the Imjin War brought Korea some breathing space under Chinese protection, but not much else.
As for China, the Ming Dynasty limped along for another fifty years until it was overthrown by the Manchurians. A Japanese invasion might have weakened Manchuria to the point of preventing this. But Chinese dynasties always succumb to the passage of time. The Ming would fall sooner or later.