Corea: The Hermit Nation

by William Elliot Griffis

The long-continued abandonment of the soil, owing to the war and the presence of three large armies, bore their natural fruits, and turned fertile Corea into a land of starvation. Famine began its ravages of death on friend and foe alike. The peasants petitioned their government for food, but none was to be had. Thousands of the poor people died of starvation. The fathers suffered in camp, while the dead mothers lay unburied in the houses, and the children, tortured with hunger, cried for food. One day a captain in the Chinese army found, by the roadside, an emaciated infant vainly seeking for nourishment from the cold and rigid breast of its dead mother. Touched with compassion, the warrior took the child and reared him to manhood under his own care.

Some rice was distributed to the wretched people from the government store-houses in certain places, but still the groans and cries of the starving filled the air. Pestilence entered the Japanese camp, and thousands of the home-sick soldiers died ingloriously. The long winter rains made the living despondent and gloomy enough to commit hara-kiri, while the state of the roads and the dashing courage of the guerillas, who pushed their raids to the very gates of the camps, made foraging an unpopular duty among the men. In such discomfort, winter wore away, and tardy spring approached. In this state of affairs the Japanese were willing to listen, and the allies ready to offer, terms of peace. A Corean soldier, named Rijunchin, by permission of his superior officer, had penetrated into Seoul to visit the two captive princes. On his return to the camp, he stated that the Japanese generals were very homesick and heartily tired of the war. At the same time, a letter was received from Konishi, stating his readiness to receive terms of peace. Chin Ikei was again chosen to negotiate. Reaching the Japanese lines at Kai-jo, he held an interview with Konishi, and the following points of agreement were made:

1. Peace between the three countries.

2. Japan to remain in possession of the three southern provinces of Chō-sen.

3. Corea to send tribute to Japan as heretofore.

4. Hidéyoshi to be recognized as King of Corea. The three other articles drawn up were not made public, but the acknowledgment of Taikō as the equal of the Emperor of China was evidently one of them. The Japanese, on their part, were to return the two captive princes, withdraw all their armies to Fusan, and evacuate the country when the stipulations were carried out. [[119]]

Both parties were weary of the war. The Ming commander had requested to be relieved of his command and to return to China, while the three old gentlemen, who were military advisers in the Japanese camp, yearning for the pleasures of Kiōto, wrote to Taikō, asking leave to come home, telling him the object of his ambition was on the eve of attainment, and that he was to receive investiture from the Chinese emperor, and recognition as an equal.

Scholarship and literature were not at a very high premium at that time among the Japanese military men. The martial virtues and accomplishments occupied the time and thoughts of the warriors to the exclusion of book learning and skill at words. The sword for the soldier, and the pen for the priest, was the rule. The bluff warrior in armor looked with contempt, not unmingled with awe, upon the shaven-pated man of ink and brush. One of the bonzes from the monastery was usually of necessity attached to the service of each commander. It was by reason of the ignorance, as well as the vanity, of the illiterate Japanese generals that such a mistake, in supposing that Taikō was to be recognized as equal to the Emperor of China, was rendered possible. The wily Chin Ikei, who drove a lucrative trade as negotiator, hoodwinked Konishi, who would not have been thus outwitted if he had had a bonze present to inspect the writing. Being a Christian, however, he was on bad terms with the bonzes.

In both camps there were those who bitterly opposed any peace short of that which the sword decided. The Corean generals chafed at the time wasted in parley, and wished to march on the Japanese at once, whose ranks they knew were decimated with sickness, and their spirit and discipline relaxed under the idea of speedy return home. An epidemic had also broken out among their horses, probably owing to scant provender. Thus crippled and demoralized, victory would certainly follow a well-planned attack in force. Within the camp of the invaders Achilles and Agamemnon were as far as ever from harmony. Kato sullenly refused to entertain the idea of peace, partly because Konishi proposed it, but mainly because, if the two princes were given up, his achievements would be brought to naught, and all the glory of the war would redound to his rival. Only after the earnest representation by his friends of the empty granaries, and the danger of impending starvation, the great sickness among the troops, and the fearful loss of horses, was he induced [[120]]to agree with the other commanders that Seoul should be evacuated.

Meanwhile, the allies were advancing toward the capital.