On May 22, 1593, the Japanese, with due precautions, evacuated the city, and the vanguard of the Chinese army entered on the same day. The retreat of the Japanese was effected in good order, and, to guard against treachery, they bivouacked in the open air, avoiding sleeping in the houses or villages, and rigidly kept up the vigilance of their sentinels and the discipline of the divisions. In this way the various detachments of the army safely reached Fusan, Tong-nai, Kinka, and other places near the coast. Here, after fortifying their camps, they rested for a space from the alarms of war, almost within sight of their native land. The allies later on marched southward and went into camp a few leagues to the northward. Since crossing the Yalu River, the Chinese had lost by the sword and disease twenty thousand men. [[121]]
CHAPTER XVI.
CESPEDES, THE CHRISTIAN CHAPLAIN.
The aspect of affairs had now changed from that of a triumphal march through Corea into China and to Peking, to long and tedious camp life, with uncertain fortunes in the field, which promised a long stay in the peninsula. Konishi had now breathing time and space for reflection. Being an ardent Christian—after the faith and practice of the Portuguese Jesuits—he wished for himself and his fellow-believers the presence and ministrations of one of the European friars to act as chaplain. He therefore sent, probably when at or near Fusan, a message to the superior of the Mission in Japan, asking for a priest.
Toward the end of 1593, the Vice-Provençal of the Company of the Jesuits despatched Father Gregorio de Cespedes and a Japanese convert named “Foucan Eion” to the army in Chō-sen. They left Japan and spent the winter in Tsushima, the domain of Yoshitoshi, one of the Christian lords then in the field. Early in the spring of 1594 they reached Corea, arriving at Camp Comangai (most probably a name given by the Japanese after the famous hero Kumagayé), at which Konishi made his headquarters. The two holy men immediately began their labors among the Japanese armies. They went from castle to castle, and from camp to camp, preaching to the pagan soldiers, and administering the rite of baptism to all who professed the faith, or signed themselves with the cross. They administered the sacraments to the Christian Japanese, comforted and prayed with the sick, reformed abuses, assisted the wounded, and shrived the dying. New converts were made and old ones strengthened. Dying in a foreign land, of fever or of wounds, the soul of the Japanese man-at-arms was comforted with words of hope from the lips of the foreign priest. Held before his glazing eyes gleamed the crucifix, on which appeared the image of the world’s Redeemer. The home-sick warrior, pining for wife and babe, was told of the “House not made with hands.” [[122]]
The two brethren seem to have been very popular among the Japanese soldiers. Perhaps they already dreamed of planting the faith in Corea, when, suddenly, their work was arrested at its height by Kato, whose jealousy of Konishi was only equalled by his fanatical zeal for the Buddhist faith. Being in Japan he denounced the foreign priest to Taikō, declaring that these zealous endeavors to propagate the Christian faith only concealed a vast conspiracy against himself and the power of the mikado. At this time Taikō was dealing with the Jesuits in Japan, and endeavoring to rid the country of their presence by shipping them off to China. He fully believed that they were political as well as religious emissaries, and that their aim was at temporal power. These suspicions, as every student of Japan knows, were more than well founded.
Besides accusing Cespedes, Kato insinuated that Konishi himself was leading the conspiracy. The cry of chō-téki (rebel, or enemy of the mikado) in Japan is enough to blacken the character of the bravest man and greatest favorite. Treason against the mikado being the supreme crime, Konishi found it necessary to return to Kiōto, present himself before Taikō, and cleanse his reputation even from suspicion. This the lull in the active operations, occasioned by the negotiations of Chin Ikei, enabled him to do.
Immediately sending back the priest, he shortly afterward crossed the straits, and, meeting Taikō, succeeded in fully ingratiating himself and allaying all suspicion.
The wife of Konishi had also embraced the Christian faith, her baptized name being Marie. To her, while in camp, he had sent two Corean lads, both of whom were of rank and gentle blood, the elder being called in the letters of the Jesuits “secretary to the Corean king.” He was the son of a brave captain in the army, and was thirteen years old. The lady, Marie, touched by their misfortune, kept the younger to be educated in the faith under her own direction, and sent the elder to the Jesuit seminary in Kiōto. Of this young man’s career we catch some glimpses from the letters of the missionaries. At the college he was a favorite, by reason of his good character, gentle manners, and fine mind. Professing the faith, he was baptized in 1603, taking the name of Vincent. He began his religious work by instructing and catechising Japanese and his numerous fellow Coreans at Nagasaki. When about thirty-three years old, the Jesuits, wishing to establish a mission in Corea, proposed to send him to his native land as missionary; but not being able, on account of the persecution [[123]]then raging in Japan, he was chosen by the Father Provençal to go to Peking, communicate with the Jesuits there, and enter Corea from China. At Peking he remained four years, being unable to enter his own country by reason of the Manchius, who then held control of the northern provinces of Manchuria and were advancing on Peking, to set on the throne that family which is still the ruling dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. Vincent was recalled to Japan in 1620, where, in the persecutions under Iyémitsŭ, the third Tokugawa shō-gun, he fell a victim to his fidelity, and was martyrized in 1625, at the age of about forty-four.