The Japanese were all embarked and it was determined to try and slip by the terrible Admiral in the gray of morning; but he was well aware of the intentions of the enemy, and before break of day he massed all the ships at his command and came down upon the Japanese fleet as it lay at anchor before the fortress of Sun-ch’ŭn. As he approached he is said to have uttered the following prayer to his gods: “To-day I am to die. Give me but one more victory over these Japanese and I shall die content.” He well knew that he had enemies at court who would eventually secure his downfall and so he determined to make an end in one last desperate struggle. The fight was short and fierce and when the morning breeze swept the smoke of battle away it disclosed fifty of the Japanese boats in flames and the water filled with struggling forms. The old veteran had taken upwards of two thousand heads in that brief time. But Gen. Kato had slipped away in a small boat and made his escape. The work however was only begun. The sea was covered with boats frantically endeavoring to escape from the dreaded arm of the merciless Admiral Yi. The good work went on and every hour added to the score that Admiral Yi had sworn to made before the night should fall. Notice reached him that a fresh Japanese fleet had come and was attacking Admiral Chil Lin’s fleet. Hurrying thither he found that it was indeed true. He now changed his tactics and without coming to a hand to hand fight he circled round and round the Japanese fleet driving them closer and closer together. When all was ready he began playing upon them with a new machine of his own manufacture called the pun-t’ong or “spraying tube.” What this was we can not exactly discover, but in a short time it sufficed to set the Japanese fleet on fire. A wind sprang up and fanned the flame and ere long the Japanese fleet was one mass of fire. Hundreds of boats were consumed with all their occupants. After seeing this well under way Admiral Yi turned his attention to the fugitive craft that were striving to make their escape. Standing in the prow of his boat in an exposed position he urged on the chase. While he stood in the midst of one of the grandest victories of the war, he was pierced by a bullet. They caught him as he fell, and his last words were, “Do not let the rest know that I am dead, for it will spoil the fight.” Then he expired—the man who may well be called the Nelson of Korea.
Yi Wan, the nephew of the fallen Admiral, still urged on the battle; but the work was almost done. The fugitive boats became fewer and fewer. Admiral Chil Lin happened to come near the boat of the dead admiral and noticing that the sailors in it were quarrelling over some Japanese heads he exclaimed, “The Admiral must be dead.” He entered the boat and found it even so. Throwing himself three times at full length on the deck he uttered this lament: “I thought that he would save me and still live, but here he lies dead and there is no soldier now left in Korea.”
We have now come to the end of actual hostilities in the peninsula but we must cross to Japan and inquire into the immediate causes which led to the final recall of all the Japanese troops. The Korean account of these events is very remarkable and faith is to be put in it only in-so-far as it is not directly antagonized by the Japanese account. For events that transpired in Korea the Korean account must be taken as the standard, but for events that transpired in Japan the Japanese account must of course be accepted as the more trustworthy. The Korean account is as follows.
THE FARRIER.
When the Japanese first invaded Korea, in the year 1592, it so happened that a young Korean boy named Yang Pu-ha, a native of Tong-nă, became attached to the Japanese army as a slave, and was eventually taken to Tsushima. From there he made his way to the mainland of Japan and at last reached the court of Hideyoshi. That observant man spied him out and said, “Korean and Japanese boys resemble each other strongly. Take this boy and teach him Japanese, and if he does not learn well cut off his head.” With this incentive it would be strange if a less intelligent boy than Yang Pu-ha would not learn rapidly. In the space of three months he could converse creditably in Japanese, and Hideyoshi as reward made him one of his body-servants. For some years the boy performed the duties of this position, until at last the Chinaman Sim Yu-gyŭng arrived. That official was kept practically in confinement at the court of Hideyoshi. One day the Korean servant asked his master to be allowed to see Sim Yu-gyŭng. Permission was granted and the young man found the Chinese envoy in great perplexity, in fact in tears. This excited the pity of the young man and he secured the release of the Chinaman, who from that time was often called into the presence of Hideyoshi, with whom he soon became on familiar[familiar] terms. One day as he sat with the great Taiko he took out a pill and swallowed it. He did the same on several days in succession until at last the curiosity of Hideyoshi was excited and he asked what it was. The Chinaman answered that it was an antidote to indigestion and that by eating it the strength and vigor of the body was preserved intact. Hideyoshi took one in his hand and eyed it suspiciously. On one side of the pill was written the Chinese character so meaning “hot.” The Japanese deliberately took a knife and cut the pill in two and handing half to Sim said, “You eat half and I will eat half.” Its immediate effects were stimulating and pleasant but in the end it proved a deadly poison[poison] for it slowly dried up the blood. Each day Sim shared one with his captor but upon retiring to his room swallowed a potion which entirely neutralized the effect of the poison. Before long Hideyoshi’s hands began to grow hard and dry and one day when he happened to cut his hand he was astonished to find that no blood followed. He called for a moxa and applied it to his hand and yet no blood came. Then he laughed aloud and cried, “I am a dead man. When I cease to breathe take out my bowels and sew my body up again with horse-hair; and then preserve my body in wine and do not let the outsiders know that I am dead.” He wanted to have the fact concealed for he feared it would have a dispiriting effect upon the troops in Korea. Shortly after this he died and his orders were minutely carried out. For two months no one outside the palace knew of his decease, but at last the stench became so great that they confessed that the great Hideyoshi had passed away. Such is the Korean story.
The Koreans sum up his character as follows: He was a crafty and cunning man, and by his talk, now sharp, now suave, now sarcastic, now bullying, he managed to sway the minds of all who came near him. He managed all his generals like puppets. He liked to take boys and girls under his patronage and see them grow up together and marry them to each other and thus have them completely under his control. His two most powerful generals were Whi Wŭn and Ka Kang. They hated him and would have been glad of an opportunity to overthrow him, but it was out of the question. He knew them well, and for fear they might combine against him he made one of them governor of the east and the other of the west and ordered them to keep watch of each other. By thus pitting them against each other he made himself safe. He loved intrigue and diplomacy and had a most restless temperament. He was ever on the lookout for some kind of excitement. Gen. Ka Kang was with him when he died, and, fearing lest rebellion should break out, he filled the body with salt and so preserved it. He made a wooden form which would hold the body stiff in a sitting position and placing it in a place where the light was not very bright with the eyes wide open, the people saw him sitting there day after day and supposed of course he was alive. It was in the eighth moon when the odor was so strong that the truth could no longer be concealed. Thereupon Gen. Ka Kang took the son of Hideyoshi and made him Shogun. He then threw into prison the wives and children of Generals Kato and Konishi and sent a messenger ordering them to collect all their troops and return immediately to Japan. The order was obeyed willingly and all that was left of the Japanese army of invasion set sail from Fusan, and the great invasion was a thing of the past.
The Korean annalists say that when the invasion began the Japanese arms were far superior to those of Korea; also that the Japanese displayed tiger skins, pheasant feathers, gilded masks and plumes; all which glitter and show terrified the Koreans. Thus at first the Japanese had an easy victory, but toward the last it was not so. The Koreans had improved their arms and had learned not to fear the grand rush of the Japanese in their hideous masks which made them look more like demons than men.
At the time of the second invasion a Korean named Kang Han was caught and sent to Japan and, being unable to escape, he set to work learning Japanese. He became a teacher of Chinese and had a large following of students who treated him very well and supported him in comfortable style. At the end of the war they clubbed together and bought a boat into which they put this man with all his goods and sent him back to Korea. On his return he wrote a book entitled Kang yang-rok or “Relation of Adventures among Sheep,” a sarcastic pleasantry.
The Chinese arms in Korea did not move till the following spring, and then the king sent to the Emperor asking that Generals Man Se-dok, Ta Cham and Yi Sung-hun be allowed to remain in Korea for a time until things should become thoroughly settled.