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.
CHAPTER XV
Progress of the Corean War—Success of the Japanese—Konishi Settsu-no-kami, Viceroy of Corea—Edict of the Emperor for disarming the Converts in Shimo—Disgrace and Downfall of the Royal Family of Bungo—Terazawa, Governor of Nagasaki—His Conversion and Friendly Acts—A. D. 1592-1593.
Though the emperor did not himself pass into Corea, he sent thither such reinforcements as to raise his army there to the number of two hundred thousand men. But the Coreans having abandoned their cities and fled to inaccessible places, burning everything, even to provisions which they could not carry away (thus setting an example long afterwards followed by the Russians on a similar occasion), this great force was soon reduced to extremities, by which its numbers were rapidly diminished. The Chinese also came to the assistance of the Coreans; and the grand admiral, with forces so reduced as to be greatly inferior in numbers, was obliged to encounter these new enemies in several desperate engagements. Compelled at last to retreat, he fell back upon a garrison which he had left to keep up his communications with the coast, the command of which he had entrusted to Yoshimune, king of Bungo. But that feeble prince, in a moment of terror, had abandoned his post; and, the grand admiral’s communications thus cut off, nothing but his distinguished firmness and courage saved his army from total destruction. After a drawn battle under the walls of the Corean capital, terms of peace were agreed upon, according to which five of the eight provinces of Corea were assigned to the Japanese; and the commerce between China and Japan, which by the act of the former had for some time been broken off, was again renewed.[58]
The admiral was named viceroy of Corea, and the converted princes were still detained there at the head of their troops. The missionaries, thus separated from their protectors, were filled with new alarms by an order of the emperor for disarming all their converts in Shimo. The king of Bungo, as a punishment for his cowardice, was stripped of his estates; and in the end he and his family, reduced to absolute poverty, were obliged to retire to Nagasaki, and to live there on the charity of the Jesuits. His territories were assigned to pagan lords, and the converted inhabitants soon felt the consequences of the change. Indeed, throughout Shimo the converts suffered greatly by the absence of their princes, of whom several died about this time. But, in general, the Catholics stood firm; and several of the Jesuit fathers having made their way to Corea, new converts were made in the ranks of the army.