A history of the Japanese people

by F. Brinkley; Dairoku Kikuchi

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 Japanese history as Chin Ikei—who was instructed not to conclude peace but only to make such overtures as might induce the Japanese to agree to an armistice, thus enabling the Chinese authorities to mobilize a sufficient force. Konishi Yukinaga fell into this trap. He agreed to an armistice of fifty days, during which the Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese forces in the north of the peninsula to concentrate in Seoul, but Kohayakawa, one of Hideyoshi'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 Japanese 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 Japanese, therefore, made proposals of peace, and the Chinese agreed, on condition that the Japanese 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 Japan 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 Japanese attack had been beaten back from Chinju, which was reckoned the strongest fortress in Korea. Hideyoshi now ordered that the Japanese 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 assaults were delivered against the fortress during the space of nine days, and when it passed into Japanese possession the Koreans are said to have lost between sixty and seventy thousand men and the casualties on the Japanese side must have been almost as numerous.

THE NEGOTIATIONS

After the fall of Chinju, all the Japanese troops, with the exception of Konishi's corps, were withdrawn from Korea, and the Japanese 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 Japan'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 Japan 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. Hideyoshi refused to give audience to the Korean members of the mission, and welcomed the Chinese members only, from whom he expected to receive a document placing him on a royal pinnacle at least as high as that occupied by the Emperor of China. The document 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 Japan; 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 Hideyoshi, 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 Japan," 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 gratitude 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 Hideyoshi.

Hideyoshi had already donned the robe and crown mentioned in the above despatch, his belief being that they represented his investiture 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 Hideyoshi's investiture as monarch of China, he stated that nothing was needed except China's formal acknowledgement of the kwampaku's real rank. Hideyoshi, in his natural anger, ordered the Chinese ambassadors 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 Japanese 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 Japanese commanders seem to have waited for some practical assurances 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese 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 Japanese. Their strategy and desperate valour proved invincible, however, and the Kagoshima samurai won, on October 30, 1598, a victory so signal that the ears and noses of thirty-seven thousand Chinese heads were sent to Japan 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.