Hildreth's "Japan as It Was and Is": A Handbook of Old Japan, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Richard Hildreth

CHAPTER XIV

The Expedition against Corea—The Emperor associates his Nephew—City of Fushimi—Correspondence of the Emperor with the Governor of Manila—The Jesuits denounced by the Spanish Envoys—Consequences thereof—Departure of Valignani—A. D. 1592.

Meanwhile, an army of eighty thousand men,[56] divided into four corps, had been raised for the war against Corea; and not to leave the country without a head, should the emperor choose himself to lead the invading forces, he took his nephew [Hidetsugu by name] as an associate in the empire, resigning to him the title of Kwambacudono, while he assumed for himself that of Taikō-Sama, the title by which this most illustrious of the Japanese emperors is commonly known.

Though much engaged in this foreign enterprise, he still found time to lay the foundations of the new city of Fushimi, which he designed to make his capital, but the nearness of which to Miyako ultimately placed it in the position of a sort of suburb to that ancient city.

The first division of the invading army, which at length set sail, was led by the grand admiral, king of Higo [Konishi Yukinaga], whose troops, as well as those of the second division, led by the son of Kodera, the king of Buzen [Kuroda Nagamasa], were drawn from the island of Shimo, and were composed almost entirely, officers as well as men, of Catholic converts. And, indeed, the suspicion soon began to be entertained that Corea had been invaded, not so much to add new provinces to the Taikō-Sama’s empire, as to keep the converted princes employed away from home.

The Expedition against Corea
From Official History of Japan

While the emperor, to look after and to second the invasions, hastened to Shimo, where his presence caused no little alarm to the missionaries, the grand admiral was already making rapid progress. Having taken two places by assault, all the others, as far as the capital, opened their gates. To save their capital, the Coreans fought and lost a pitched battle. A second victory, on the part of the grand admiral, drove the Corean king to seek refuge in China, while the capital opened its gates to the triumphant Japanese.[57]

But the joy of the missionaries at the success of an army led by one of their adherents, and so largely composed of converts, was not a little damped by a side blow from another and an unexpected quarter. So anxious was the Spanish governor of Manila to improve every chance for opening a trade with Japan, that, in spite of the imperious character of the emperor’s letter, he sent an answer to it by a Spanish gentleman named Liano, in which, indeed, he evaded its demands by suggesting that the mean quality of the person who had brought it, and his not having heard anything on the subject from the Jesuits at Nagasaki, had led him to suspect its authenticity. Liano, accompanied by a Dominican friar, landed in Satsuma, where he met with Solis, the Spaniard from Peru, still busy with his ship-building enterprise, and in no very good humor with the Portuguese and the Jesuits. To confer with Harada, the envoys proceeded to Nagasaki, which city they left again without any communication with the Portuguese merchants, or the missionaries; and, accompanied by Harada, and his Japanese friend, Hasegawa, they hastened to the northern coast of Shimo, where the emperor then was. Hasegawa and Harada translated so ill the letter of the governor of Manila, as to make it express something of a disposition to comply with the emperor’s pretensions, who thereupon wrote a second letter, declaring the other to be genuine, and renewing the demand which it had contained of submission and homage. The envoys, without fully understanding its contents, consented to receive this letter; and in the hope that, if the Portuguese were driven away, the commerce of Japan might fall into the hands of the Spaniards of Manila, they proceeded to suggest heavy complaints against the Portuguese at Nagasaki, whom they not only charged as guilty of great harshness in support of their commercial monopoly, but also with protecting the Jesuits, great numbers of whom, in spite of the emperor’s edicts, still continued to be sheltered in that city and its neighborhood. The emperor either was, or had affected to be, ignorant of the extent to which his edicts had been disregarded. This information put him into a great rage; and he issued instant orders for the destruction of the splendid church at Nagasaki, hitherto untouched, and also of the house of the Jesuits, who had now no place of residence left there except the hospital of Misericordia. But these wicked Spaniards did not long go unpunished. Solis, on his way back to Satsuma, perished by shipwreck, as did the Spanish envoys on their return voyage to Manila. It was stated, too, that the emperor’s mother died at Miyako, at the very moment of his signing the order for the destruction of the church,—judgments so striking as to become, so we are told by the missionaries, the occasion of many conversions.

Such was the state of affairs when Father Valignani, leaving Japan for the second time, sailed for Macao in October, 1592.