Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

Lively fighting began, but this time the Coreans seemed invulnerable. They not only gained the advantage by the greater length of their lances and grappling-hooks, with which, using them like long forks, they pulled their enemies into the sea, but they sunk a number of the Japanese junks, either by their artillery or by ramming them with their prows. The remnant of the beaten fleet crept back to Fusan, and all hope of helping the army was given up. The moral effect of the victory upon the Corean people was to inspire them to sacrifice and resistance, and in many skirmishes they gained the advantage. They now awaited hopefully the approach of Chinese reinforcements.

To the Chinese it seemed incredible that the capture of the strongest castles, the capital, and the chief northern city, could be accomplished without the treasonable connivance of the Coreans. In order to satisfy his own mind, the Chinese mandarin sent a special agent into Corea to examine and report. The government at Peking were even more suspicious, but after some hesitation, they despatched, not without misgiving, a small body of Chinese soldiers to act as a body-guard to the Corean king. These braves crossed the frontier; but while on their way to Ping-an, heard of the fall of the city, and, facing about, marched back into Liao Tung. The king and the fragments of his court now sent courier [[109]]after courier with piteous appeals to Peking for aid, even offering to become the subjects of China in return for succor rendered. A force of 5,000 men was hastily recruited in Liao Tung, who marched rapidly into Corea. Early in August the Japanese pickets first descried the yellow silk banners of the Chinese host. These were inscribed with the two characters Tai-Ming (Great Brightness), the distinctive blazon of the Ming dynasty. For the first time, in eight centuries, the armies of the rival nations were to meet in pitched battle.

The Chinese seemed confident of success, and moved to the attack on Ping-an with neither wariness nor fear. Having invested the city, they began the assault on August 27th. The Japanese allowed them to enter the city and become entangled in its narrow lanes. They then attacked them from advantageous positions, which they had occupied previously, assailing them with showers of arrows, and charging them with their long lances. One body of the Ming soldiers attempted to scale the wall of a part of the fortifications, which seemed to have been neglected by the Japanese, when near the top, the whole face of the castle being covered with climbing men, the garrison, rushing from their hiding-places, tumbled over or speared their enemies, who fell down and into the mass of their comrades below. Those not killed by thrusts or the fall, were shot by the gunners on the ramparts, and the Chinese now received into their bosoms a shower of lead, against which their armor of hide and iron was of slight avail. In this fight the Ming commander was slain. The rout of the Chinese army was so complete, that the fugitives never ceased their retreat until safely over the border, and into China.

The government at Peking now began to understand the power of the enemy with whom they had to deal. An army of 40,000 men was raised to meet the invaders, and, in order to gain time, a man, named Chin Ikei, was sent, independently of the Coreans, to treat with Konishi and propose peace. Some years before the Japanese pirates had carried off a Chinaman to Japan, where he was kept captive for many years. Returning to China, he made the acquaintance of Chin Ikei, and gave him much information concerning the country and people of his captivity. Chin Ikei was evidently a mercenary adventurer, who could talk Japanese, and hoped for honors and promotion by acting as a go-between. He had no commission or any real authority. The Chinese seem to have used him only as a cat’s-paw. [[110]]

Arriving at the Corean camp, at Sun-an, early in October, and fully trusting the honor of the Japanese commander, Chin Ikei ventured, in spite of the warnings of the frightened Coreans, and to their intense admiration, within the Japanese lines, and had a conference with Konishi, Yoshitoshi, and Genshō. The Chinese agent agreed to proceed to Peking, and, returning to Ping-an after fifty days, to report the approval or disapproval of his government. To this Konishi agreed, and there was a truce. The conditions of peace, insisted on by Konishi, were that the Japanese ancient territory in the peninsula, namely, those portions covered by the old states of Shinra and Hiaksai, should be delivered over to Japan, to be held as vassal provinces. This demand virtually claimed all Corea south of the Ta-tong River, in right of ancient possession and recent conquest and occupation.

Arriving in Peking, Chin Ikei found the Chinese army nearly ready to march, and, as their government disowned his right to treat with the Japanese, nothing, except the time gained for the Chinese, resulted from the negotiations. Meanwhile Kato Kiyomasa, with his troops, had overran the whole extent of Ham-kiung, the longest and largest province of Corea, occupying also parts of Kang-wen. No great pitched battle in force was fought, but much hard fighting took place, and many castles were taken after bloody sieges. In one of these, the two royal princes, sent north by their father on his flight from Seoul, and many men of rank were captured. Among his prisoners, was “a young girl reputed to be the most beautiful in the whole kingdom.” In the pursuit of the fugitives the Japanese were often led into wild and lonely regions and into the depths of trackless mountains and forests, in which they met, not only human foes, but faced the tiger disturbed from his lair. They were often obliged to camp in places where these courageous beasts attacked the sentries or the sleeping soldiers. Kato himself slew a tiger with his lance, after a desperate struggle. After a hard campaign, the main body of the troops fixed their camp at Am-pen, near Gensan, but closer to the southern border of the province. Nabéshima’s camp was in Kang-wen, three days’ journey distant. From a point on the sea-coast near by, in fair weather, the island cone of Dagelet is visible. To the question of Kato, some Corean prisoners falsely answered that this was Fujiyama—the worshipped mountain of the home-land, and “the thing of beauty and a joy forever” to the Japanese people. Immediately the Japanese reverently uncovered their heads [[111]]and, kneeling on the strand, gazed long and lovingly with homesick hearts—a scene often portrayed in Japanese decorative art.

Thus the year 1592 drew near its close; the Japanese, necessarily inactive, and the spirit of patriotism among the Coreans rising. Collecting local volunteer troops and forming guerilla bands, they kept the Japanese camps, along the road from Fusan to Ping-an, constantly vigilant They ferreted out the spies who had kept the Japanese informed of what was going on, and promptly cut off their heads. Isolated from all communication, Konishi remained in ignorance of the immense Chinese army that was marching against him. The discovery, by the Japanese, of the existence of the regular Chinese troops in Corea, was wholly a matter of accident. According to Chinese report, the commander of the Ming army, Li-yu-son (Japanese, Ri Jo Shō), was a valiant hero fresh from mighty victories over the rising Manchiu tribes in the north. The march of his host of 60,000 men through Liao Tung in winter, especially over the mountain passes, was a severe one, and the horses are said to have sweated blood. Evidently the expectation of the leader was to drive out the invaders and annex the country to China. When the Corean mountains appeared, as they reached the Yalu River, the leader cried out, “There is the place which it depends on our valor to recover as our hereditary possessions.” On the sixth day, after crossing the frontier, he arrived at Sun-an. It was then near the last of January, 1592, and the New Year was close at hand. Word was sent to Konishi that Chin Ikei had arrived and was ready to reopen negotiations, with a favorable reply. Konishi promptly despatched a captain, with a guard of twenty men, to meet Chin Ikei and escort him within the lines. It being New Year’s Day, February 2, 1593, the guard sallied out amid the rejoicings of their comrades who, tired of desolate Chō-sen, longed for peace and home. The treacherous Chinamen received the Japanese with apparent cordiality, and feasted them until they were well drunk. Then the unsuspicious Japanese were set upon while their swords were undrawn in their scabbards. All were killed except two or three. According to another account, they fell into an ambuscade, and fought so bravely that only three were taken alive. From the survivors Konishi first learned of the presence of the Ming army. The pretext, afterward given by the lying Chinaman, was that the interpreters misunderstood each other, and began a quarrel. The gravity of the situation was now apparent. A Chinese army, of [[112]]whose numbers the Japanese were ignorant, menaced them in front, while all around them the natives were gathering in numbers and in courage to renew the struggle for their homes and country. The new army from China was evidently well equipped, disciplined, and supplied, while the Japanese forces were far in an enemy’s country, distant from their base of supplies, and with a desolate territory in the rear. Under this gloomy aspect of affairs, the faces of the soldiers wore a dispirited air.

Konishi’s alternative lay between the risk of a battle and retreat to Kai-seng. He was not long in resolving on the former course, for, in six days afterward, the Ming host, gay with gleaming arms, bright trappings, and dragon-bordered silk banners, appeared within sight of the city’s towers. Konishi anxiously watched their approach, having posted his little force to the best advantage. The city was defended on the west by a steep mountainous ridge, on the north by a hill, and on the south by a river. The Japanese occupying the rising ground to the north, which they had fortified by earthworks and palisades.

At break of day, on February 10th, the allies began a furious assault along the whole line. The Japanese at first drove back their besiegers with their musketry fire, but the Chinese, with their scaling ladders, reached the inside of the works, where their numbers told. When night fell on the second day of the siege, all the outworks were in their possession, and nearly two thousand of the Japanese lay dead. The citadel seemed now an easy prize to the Corean generals; but the Chinese commander, seeing that the Japanese were preparing to defend it to the last, and that his own men were exhausted, gave the order to return to camp, expecting to renew the attack next morning.

Konishi had despatched a courier to Otomo, the Japanese officer in command at Hozan, a small fortress in Whang-hai, to come to his aid. So far from obeying, the latter, frightened at the exaggerated reports of the numbers of the Chinese, evacuated his post and marched back to Seoul. Unable to obtain succor from the other garrisons, and having lost many men by battle and disease, while many more were disabled by wounds and sickness, Konishi gave orders to retreat. One of his bravest captains was put in command of the rear-guard, and the castle was silently deserted at midnight. In this masterly retreat, little was left behind but corpses. Crossing, upon the ice, the river, which was then frozen many feet in thickness, their foes were soon left behind. [[113]]Next day the allied army, surprised at seeing no enemy to meet them, entered the castle, finding neither man nor spoil of any kind. The Coreans wished to pursue their enemy, but the Chinese commander, not only forbade it, but glad of a pretext by which he could shift the blame on some other person, cashiered the Corean general for allowing the Japanese to escape so easily. Konishi, without stopping at Kai-seng, was thus enabled to reach Seoul, now the headquarters of all the invading forces. Fully expecting the early advance of the Chinese, the men were now set to work in fortifying the city.