A more successful attempt was made by Chöng In-hong of Hyŭn-p‘ung in Kyŭng-sang Province. He was joined by Kim Myön, Pak Song, Kwak Chun, Kwak Il and Son In-gap. These men organized a force and drove the Japanese out of Mu-gye and burned their supplies. Hearing that the enemy had fled toward Cho-gye and knowing that a river intervened, they gave chase. The Japanese came to the river but could find no boats to cross. They spent so much time looking for a ford that when at last they found one and were starting to cross, the pursuers came up. The ford was a bad one, the bottom being composed of soft sand, something like quick-sand. Soon the horses and men were floundering about in mid-stream. Chöng and his men, who knew the ford, rushed in upon them, while so entangled, and cut them down by hundreds. Those that escaped fled towards Song-ju, but one of Chöng’s lieutenants took a thousand men and gave chase. Pressed beyond endurance the Japanese turned and came on to fight. One huge fellow on a magnificent charger came dashing out ahead of the rest, brandishing his sword and yelling at the top of his voice. A hideous gilt mask added to the picturesqueness of his appearance, but it did not frighten the pursuers. Their leader aimed at the horse’s legs and soon he came crashing to the ground, where he was speedily despatched. The other Japanese thereupon turned and resumed their flight. Japanese troops who were in force in Song-ju and Ko-ryŭng came out to intercept the pursuers, but Chöng and his men formed an ambush and springing suddenly upon the Japanese threw them into confusion and chased them as far as Pyŭl Pass. In this flight the Japanese threw away their baggage, weapons and all superfluous clothing. Chöng and his men chased them six miles and then turned back.
The last adventure of this nature which we shall mention is that of Kim Ch‘ŭn-il a man of Na-ju in Chŭl-la Province. Hearing of the king’s flight he sat down and wept, but suddenly springing up he exclaimed, “I might far better be trying to aid my sovereign than sit here bewailing his misfortune.” In company with his friends Song Che-min and Yang San-do, he got together a goodly band of men whose avowed purpose was the succor of the king. Before commencing operations the leader slaughtered horses and oxen and made each man taste the blood and take an oath of allegiance to the cause in which they were embarked. Kim addressed them in these words, “Of course this means death to us all. We cannot expect to come out of it alive. We can only go forward. There must be no retreat. If any one of you desires life more than the accomplishment of the work in which we are engaged let him turn back now.” They fortified Tok-san in Ch‘ung-ch‘ŭng Province. Koreans who had sold themselves to the Japanese as spies came to this camp to gain information, but were apprehended and put to death. The Japanese camp was at Keum-nyŭng not far away. One moonless night Kim, by a forced march came and surrounded this camp, and at a given signal his forces descended like an avalanche upon the unsuspecting enemy. Those that escaped the edge of the sword found safety in flight. In the seventh moon this force, consisting of several thousand men, crossed the Han River below Yang-wha-do intending to go and join the king, but instead of doing so they entered the island of Kang-wha and fortified it. When the king heard of these deeds of Kim Ch‘ŭn-il, he was highly pleased and gave him the title of “Defender against Invaders.”
These incidents of Korean success against the Japanese cannot be taken as typical cases for, as a rule, the Japanese went where they wished and did what they wished, but they are inserted here rather to show that it was no craven submission on the part of the Koreans; that there were strong, brave and faithful men who were willing to cast their fortunes and lives into the scales and strike as hard blows as they knew how for their homes and for their king. It was of course a geurilla[geurilla] warfare and it was only small detachments of the main army of the Japanese that they could successfully withstand, but the utter pusilanimity[pusilanimity] of the Koreans, as sometimes depicted, is not a true picture of them. Their worst fault was that they were unprepared for war. This together with the strife of parties was the reason why the Japanese for a time worked their will upon the peninsula.
Chapter IX.
Attempts to secure aid from China.... divided counsels in Nanking.... an army sent.... a desperate envoy.... Gen. Suk Sŭng’s love for Korea.... the Emperor gives orders for the king’s entertainment.... great Korean victory in the south.... Japanese army of reinforcement defeated and destroyed by Admiral Yi Sun-sin.... Gen. Yi honored.... the back of the invasion broken.... a vainglorious Chinese general.... severely beaten.... the monks begin a Holy War.... a sharp answer.... various Korean forces.... a night adventure.... Japanese reverses in the south.... China awakens.... a grand conference.... a truce.... the time expires.... a celebrated soldier tracked down.... attempt to retake Seoul.... brave defense of Chin-Ju ... the first mortar and bomb ... various Korean attempts ... Korean victory in Ham-gyŭng Province ... another in the south ... Japanese confined almost entirely to P‘yŭng-yang.
The efforts that Korea put forth before she obtained aid from China make an entertaining story, and they show that China delayed it as long as possible and then complied, not so much because she wished to help Korea as because she desired to check the Japanese before they crossed the Ya-lu and began ravaging the fruitful plains of the Liao-tung peninsula. Before the Japanese ever landed in Korea the king had sent an envoy to Nanking telling the Emperor that an invasion was next to certain; and that envoy was still in Nanking. After the king’s flight to the north he sent Min Mong-nyŭng and Yi Tŭk-hyŭng as special envoys to ask aid again. On the arrival of these men with their urgent request there was a great council of war in Nanking. Some of the leading generals said, “There is no need for China to help those wild people. Let them fight it out themselves.” It would appear that the policy by which China disclaimed responsibility for Korea, when such responsibility involved sacrifice, is several centuries old. Other generals said, “No, that will not do. We must send troops and at least guard our own territory from invasion.” But the Chinese General-in-chief, Sŭk Sŭng, said, “We must, without fail, render Korea the assistance for which she asks. We must immediately despatch 2000 troops, and the Emperor must appropriate 2,000,000 cash for their maintenance.” The upshot of it all was that Gen. Nak Sang-ji took a small body of troops and marched eastward to the banks of the Ya-lu where he went into camp without attempting to render the Koreans any assistance.
In the seventh moon the king sent another envoy to Nanking on the same errand but with the same lack of success. Then the king called to him one of his most trusted officials and appointed him envoy to Nanking and said, “The salvation of the kingdom lies in your hands. Go to Nanking and leave no efforts untried whereby the Emperor may be induced to help us.” Charged with this important mission, this envoy Chöng Kon-su hastened to Nanking and, entering the enclosure of the war office, sat in the courtyard for seven days weeping; but the officials all turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, excepting the General-in-chief Sŭk Sŭng. Indignant at the apathy of his colleagues and in spite of the fact that his duty as general-in-chief demanded his presence in Nanking, he arose and said, “If none of you gentlemen will go to the aid of Korea I will go myself.” There were special and personal reasons for this man’s interest in Korea. In years gone by a Korean merchant, while in Nanking, had met in an inn a beautiful slave girl and upon inquiry had discovered that she was of noble family but had sold herself into slavery to obtain money wherewith to deliver her father from prison. The merchant was so touched by the sacrifice which she had made—for it meant the sacrifice of honor itself—that he gave all his patrimony and bought her and set her free. In after years she became the wife of this same Gen. Sŭk Sŭng, and thus it was that he was an ardent admirer of Korea and was determined to see that Korea received aid in her present extremity.
At this point the king sent a message to the prefect of Liao-tung saying, “The Japanese have come as far north as P‘yŭng-yang and I fear I shall have to cross the Ya-lu and take refuge in your district.” This the prefect immediately reported to the Emperor, who answered, “If the king of Korea enters your district, provide him with a fine house, give him food out of the imperial stores, each day four ounces of silver, a pig, a sheep, vermicelli and rice. Give him also an escort of a hundred men and let twenty women be detailed to wait upon him.”
We have now arrived at the threshold of the Chinese counter-invasion which was destined to be one of the main causes of the Japanese retreat, but before entering upon this narrative we must turn again to the south and witness some events which did far more to effect the withdrawal of the Japanese than did the coming of the Chinese armies.
The first of these was the utter defeat of a large body of Japanese who were scouring the province of Chŭl-la. Entering the town of I-ch‘i they were met by such a fierce attack on the part of Whang-jin the prefect of Tong-bok that they turned back and, crossing the Ung-ch‘i Mountain entered the prefecture of Chŭn-ju. Yö Pong-nam, the prefect of Na-ju, and Whang Pŭk, a volunteer general, lay in ambush with a large body of volunteer troops, and succeeded in driving the Japanese back, but the next day the invading host came fiercely to the attack and the Koreans had to give way. The Japanese in their exultation now thought they could go back to I-ch‘i and avenge themselves for their defeat there. Gen. Kwŭn Yŭl and the prefect of Whang-jin heard of this in time to fortify one of the mountain passes. The Japanese attacked in a desperate manner, creeping up the steep mountain sides on their hands and knees, shooting as they advanced. All day long the fight continued and the Japanese were utterly defeated. Their bodies were piled in heaps where they fell and the records say that the ground was covered with one crimson matting of leaves. This was one of the greatest land victories which the Koreans scored against the Japanese. Retreating to the valley with their dead the Japanese made two great heaps of bodies and buried them in trenches, marking the spot with rough monuments of wood. This was probably one of the bodies of troops for which the Japanese in P‘yŭng-yang were waiting, before attempting the invasion of China.