The History of Korea (vol. 2 of 2)

by Homer B. Hulbert

And so the old year died—the terrible Im-jin year which witnessed the indescribable horrors of the ruthless invasion which swept it from end to end; which saw, too, the gradual awakening of the dormant military spirit of the people, until at its close the wave of invasion had not only broken and spent itself but had left the remnant of the invaders cut off from their home land by one of the greatest naval geniuses of his own or any other age, surrounded on all sides and hemmed in by forces which though perhaps unable to cope with them in the open field in a pitched battle could yet harrass[harrass] and cut them off on every side. It must be clearly borne in mind that the Chinese did not raise a hand to help Korea until the invasion virtually collapsed. The Koreans without the aid of China could probably have starved the Japanese out of P‘yŭng-yang and driven them southward, cutting them off on the left and right till they would have been glad to take ship for home. In a sense the Chinese counter-invasion was an extremely unfortunate thing for Korea, for the dormant energies of the people were just rousing themselves to action. Armies were being levied, every day saw the Japanese forces melting away and there was a magnificent opportunity for Korea to turn upon her devastators and drive them headlong into the sea. It would have given a tremendous impulse to patriotism and national self-respect, and it might have been a stepping-stone to a strong national life; but the coming of the Chinese soldiery immediately threw everything into Chinese hands and they reaped all the benefits of the situation. Even the Koreans themselves did not realize how they were playing into the hands of China. The Japanese in P‘yŭng-yang were weary and sick, and at heart glad of any excuse for retreating if it could be done without too great a loss of dignity. It was at just this moment that the Koreans put the game, already won, into the hands of China to reap all the credit and all the prizes of success. The Koreans leaned back upon China and relapsed into their old self-complacent “fool’s paradise.”

With the beginning of the new year Gen Yi moved southward toward P‘yŭng-yang as far as Suk-ch‘ŭn where he intended to halt for the night, as the winter days were short, but hearing of the massacre at Sun-an and wishing to give as little time for preparation as possible, pushed on by night, and in the morning planted his banners before the ancient city of P‘yŭng-yang. The city was forthwith surrounded. The Japanese could be seen covering the slope of the hill within the wall with their blue and white flags, and soon they opened fire on the besiegers. At the same moment they rushed to the walls and manned them. The Chinese Generals of the Left, Center and Right were stationed with their respective forces before the three gates Ch’il-sŭng, Ham-gu and Po-t’ong. The General-in-chief Yi, with a banner in one hand and a drum-stick in the other, rode swiftly from one division to another encouraging the men. His forces could hardly be held in check, they were so eager, in spite of their long, cold night march, to rush at the wall and scale it. They were not long kept from their desire, for at eight o’clock word was given for the whole assaulting force to advance to the wall. The cannon thundered, the fire-arrows flashed through[through] the air, the very ground fairly trembled with the noise of battle and the tramp of eager feet. One of the fire-arrows alighted in the quarters of the Japanese general-in-chief and it was soon in flames, which rapidly spread to all the surrounding buildings. The Japanese guarded the walls with the greatest gallantry, and with spear and arrow, hot water and stones they made it quite impossible for the Chinese to effect an entrance. The wall bristled with weapons, so that in the words of a native chronicler it was “a hedge-hog’s back.” So it happened that the Chinese forces fell back from the fierce defense of the Japanese. Many of them contemplated a general retreat and started to leave the field, but Gen. Yi, who was always found where most needed, saw the defection of his men and, pursuing them, struck off the heads of a few as an example to the rest. Then he turned and cried, “Fifty ounces of silver to the first man to set foot upon the battlements of P’yŭng-yang.” This was doubtless a more powerful appeal than he could have made had he called upon their patriotism or love of glory. Immediately the tide of battle turned. A Chinese captain, Nak Sang-ji, a man well along in years and whose proportions were so ample that the Korean chronicler says of him that he weighed a thousand pounds, led on a company of men and by a mighty effort succeeded in reaching the top of the wall. He held his ground there while others could scale the wall at his back, and so an entrance was effected. The Japanese began to desert the wall, and soon the Chinese entered by the Po-t’ong and Ch’il-sŭng gates, while Korean allies entered by the Ham-gu Gate. By this time the Japanese had entirely left the wall and had massed themselves as best they could in various parts of the city, determined to make a desperate stand. The Chinese infantry and cavalry both swarmed in on every side and all Japanese stragglers were cut off, while the fight throughout the city became general. Before the Japanese could firmly establish themselves upon the hill and in other defensible parts of the town they lost two captains, 2,285 men, and 45,002 weapons of various kinds, besides 1,051 Koreans whom they had held as captives.

Many of the Japanese had taken refuge in various government buildings which they had barricaded as best they could. The Chinese went to work systematically to burn these down, and in the few hours remaining before the fall of night nearly half of the entire Japanese force succumbed to the weapons of Chinese. One instance will suffice to illustrate the method of procedure. Many of the Japanese had taken refuge in a large building on the wall, well up on the side of the mountain and looking directly down upon the waters of the river. Gen. Yi had it surrounded with piles of wood, the timbers of houses and hewn logs, and these were set on fire. The entrapped Japanese then had the choice of roasting to death or leaping down upon the ice of the river. Hundreds chose the latter alternative, but the ice was not strong enough to stand the tremendous strain and they were all engulfed in the river and carried under the ice below. As for those that remained, it is said that the smell of burning flesh could be discerned a quarter of a mile away.

Gen. Konishi had taken refuge with a large body of troops in a building called the Yŭn-gwang-jŭng, very near the Ta-dong Gate which opens directly upon the water front. Night had fallen and the fight had lulled for a time. What took place at this time may be open to some doubt. The Korean account says that the Chinese commander sent a message to Konishi demanding the surrender of his whole force and that Konishi replied, “Our remaining force is small and we wish to evacuate the city and retreat if we may be allowed to leave quietly.” It is affirmed that Gen. Yi consented to this and left the Ta-dong Gate unguarded, and in the dead of night the Japanese troops passed swiftly out and crossed the river. On the face of it this statement is hardly credible, but judging from future events the Koreans believe that Gen. Yi received a large bribe from the Japanese as the price of this act of leniency. It is true that future events justified the Koreans in suspecting some such thing, but as the Japanese were immediately beside the Ta-dong Gate and, under cover of night, might easily have forced their way out, especially as the Chinese were exhausted by their long forced march and the fight about the city, we may well believe that the Japanese did not need to appeal either to the pity or the avarice of the Chinese in order to effect their escape. It may be, too, that Gen. Yi did not wish to be hampered with so many prisoners of war and was rather glad than otherwise to let them get away. Of course the Koreans who had suffered so terribly at the hands of the Japanese would have been glad to see every one of them massacred, and their anger at seeing them escape may have led them to impute wrong motives to Gen. Yi. Subsequent events, however, gave some color to these suspicious, as we shall see.

This retreat from P’yŭng-yang in the dead of winter was like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, on a small scale. The Japanese were without provisions or proper clothing. Many of them threw aside their arms and luggage and, turning from the main road, begged their way from house to house. When at last they reached the city of Seoul and found food and safety they were in a savage humor. Most of the Koreans who had fled from the capital had now returned, and on them these half-famished and wholly disappointed Japanese wreaked their vengeance. They seized hundreds of the unoffending people and put them to the sword. Scores of them were taken outside the South Gate and slaughtered like oxen.

Gen. Kato, who had led an expedition eastwards into Ham-gyŭng Province, hearing of the evacuation of P’yŭng-yang, immediately put his troops in motion and hastened down to Seoul, burning and ravaging as he came. And in a short time all the remnants of the Japanese army were congregated in the capital.

The Japanese retreat from P’yŭng-yang was not without its casualties. A Korean general, Ko On-băk, met a body of the Japanese, probably a part of the retreating army, at P’a-ju, seventy li out of Seoul, and punished them severely, taking as it is said, seventy heads; not a great achievement when we remember that the Japanese were practically unarmed.

But by this time the Chinese Gen. Yi was on his way south from P’yŭng-yang, rather tardily as the Koreans thought, but hearing of this engagement of Gen. Ko, he quickened his pace. Coming to He-on Pass, some seventy li out from Seoul, his horse slipped, throwing him heavily on his face. He was severely though not dangerously hurt. At that moment a company of Japanese was sighted on the mountain side and Gen. Yi ordered instant pursuit. The Japanese, probably a foraging party from Seoul, closed with them and as the Chinese were on a marshy piece of land, where they sank to their knees in the mud, and had no other weapons with them but their swords, the Japanese inflicted severe punishment on them, killing eighty of their number. Gen. Yi was so weak from loss of blood that he did not dare to prolong the fight. So he called a retreat and the next day went into camp at Tong-p’a, a hundred li from Seoul. From that point he immediately despatched a letter to the Emperor saying: “There are 20,000 Japanese firmly intrenched in Seoul and with my present force I dare not attack them. I am also ill and cannot fight. I would be glad if you would send someone to relieve me of the command.” Then he retreated fifty li further, to Song-do, in spite of the earnest entreaties of the Koreans. The Korean General Yi Pin said, “You came to render aid to our country. Why is it that you now retreat?” whereupon one of the general’s staff promptly kicked him out of the house.

Gen. Yi ordered Gen. Sa Tă-su to go and guard the ferry at the Im-jin river which was now partly frozen but impassable for boats and ordered the Koreans to go to work building a bridge for the transport of the Chinese army. Here was a piece of work that might have daunted a better engineer than the average Korean general. But the way the Koreans went about it and the brilliant success they achieved show what the Korean was capable of when really in earnest. And it shows as well how thoroughly they were determined to see chastisement inflicted upon the Japanese. A swift broad river partly frozen, no possibility of driving piles nor of erecting any supports from the bed of the river itself. It must be a suspension bridge or none at all. On either side of the river heavy timbers were planted firmly in the ground some twenty feet apart. Behind these horizontally were laid heavy logs. Then between these supports on either bank were stretched fifteen heavy strands of the tough fibrous vine called chik by the Koreans. It is the pueraria thunbergiana. Of course these sagged in mid-stream so that they swept the water. To remedy this, stout levers were inserted between the strands and twisted until the cables swung clear of the water by many feet. The foundation having thus been laid, willow branches were spread thickly upon the cables and finally a heavy layer of earth was added and the whole was packed down tight by the treading of many feet. And so was completed the first suspension bridge which history records. We see that during this war the Koreans had originated three important things, namely the iron-clad, the mortar and bomb, and now the suspension bridge. And on this bridge the whole Chinese army crossed in safety.

But Gen. Yi was tired of the war and was extremely anxious to get back to China. So when he heard that Kato[Kato] was crossing the peninsula he said, “He may come to P’yŭng-yang and in that case I must hasten back to that place and hold it against him.” So he started back toward that city, leaving Gen Wang P’il-jŭk in charge of the forces that were advancing on Seoul.