Imjin War

Template:Short description Template:Very long {{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= Template:Ambox }} Template:Use dmy dates {{#invoke:Infobox military conflict|main}} Template:Infobox Chinese

The Imjin War (Template:Korean) was a series of two Japanese invasions of Korea: an initial invasion in 1592 also individually called the "Imjin War", a brief truce in 1596, and a second invasion in 1597 called the Chŏngyu War (Template:Korean). The conflict ended in 1598 with the withdrawal of Japanese forces<ref name="Lee 108"/>Template:Sfn from the Korean Peninsula after a military stalemate<ref>Template:Harvnb, Chapter 322: Japan. "Template:Zhi" (For seven years, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were killed, and millions have been spent. There were no chances of victory in China and Korea.)</ref> in Korea's southern provinces.<ref>Template:Harvnb "Korean and Chinese forces were able to hold off the Japanese troops and confine the fighting to the southern provinces."</ref>

The invasions were launched by Toyotomi Hideyoshi with the intent of conquering the Korean Peninsula and China proper, which were ruled by the Joseon and Ming dynasties, respectively. Japan quickly succeeded in occupying large portions of the Korean Peninsula, but the contribution of reinforcements by the Ming,<ref name="The History of Ming chapter 238">Template:Harvnb</ref>Template:Sfn<ref name=Turnbull2002p134>Template:Harvnb "(Korean) war minister Yi Hang-bok pointed out that assistance from China was the only way Korea could survive."</ref> as well as the disruption of Japanese supply fleets along the western and southern coasts by the Joseon Navy,<ref name="www2.hawaii.edu">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Turnbull 17">Template:Harvnb "His naval victories were to prove decisive in the Japanese defeat, although Yi was to die during his final battle in 1598."</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb "Just as a complete Japanese victory appeared imminent, Admiral Yi entered the war and quickly turned the tide."</ref>Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn forced the Japanese forces to withdraw from Pyongyang and the northern provinces. Afterwards, with righteous armies (Joseon civilian militias)<ref name=Lewis160>Template:Harvnb "The righteous armies that appeared in 1592 smashed the local rule distributed across Korea's eight provinces by the Japanese military. The righteous army activities were one of the most important factors for the frustration of the Toyotomi regime's ambition to subjugate Ming China and extend dominion over Korea."</ref> conducting guerrilla warfare against the occupying Japanese forces and supply difficulties hampering both sides, neither force was able to mount a successful offensive or gain any additional territory, resulting in a military stalemate. The first phase of the invasion ended in 1596, and was followed afterwards by ultimately unsuccessful peace negotiations between Japan and the Ming.

In 1597, Japan renewed its offensive by invading Korea a second time. The pattern of the second invasion largely mirrored that of the first. The Japanese had initial successes on land, capturing several cities and fortresses, only to be halted and forced to withdraw to the southern coastal regions of the peninsula. However, the pursuing Ming and Joseon forces were unable to dislodge the Japanese from these positions,Template:Sfn<ref name="Turnbull2002p222">Template:Harvnb "The Chinese Ming forces retreated with 30,000 losses"</ref><ref name="HotM Ch320">Template:Harvnb. "Template:Zhi" (20000 losses)</ref> where both sides again became locked in a ten-month-long military stalemate.

With Toyotomi Hideyoshi's death in 1598, limited progress on land, and continued disruption of supply lines by the Joseon Navy, the Japanese forces in Korea were ordered to withdraw back to Japan by the new governing Council of Five Elders. Final peace negotiations between the parties followed, and continued for several years, ultimately resulting in the normalization of relations.Template:Sfn

Names

In Korean, the first invasion (1592–1593) is called the Template:Zhi, where 1592 is an imjin year in the sexagenary cycle. The second invasion (1597–1598) is called the Template:Zhi. Collectively, the invasions are referred to as the "Imjin War".

In Chinese, the wars are referred to as the "Wanli Korean Campaign", after the reigning Chinese emperor.

In Japanese, the war is called Template:Nihongo. Bunroku referring to the Japanese era name spanning the period from 1592 to 1596. The second invasion (1597–1598) is called Template:Nihongo. During the Edo period (17–19th centuries), the war was also called Template:Nihongo, "entry into Tang", the dynasty whose name is synonymous with China.

Background

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Japan and Korea before the war

In 1392, General Yi Sŏnggye led a successful coup to take political power in Korea from U of Goryeo. Seonggye's followers forced him to take the crown as Taejo of Joseon, thus establishing a new dynasty.Template:Sfn In search of justification for its rule, the new regime received recognition from China and integration into the Chinese tributary system within the context of the Mandate of Heaven.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Within this tributary system, China assumed the role of a "big brother", with Korea maintaining the highest position among the tributary states,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn which also included countries such as the Ryukyu Kingdom, Lan Xang, Đại Việt, and the Ayutthaya Kingdom,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn in return for accepting the subservient tributary role of a "younger brother".Template:Sfn

Ming China and Joseon Korea had much in common. Both emerged during the 14th century after the end of the Yuan dynasty, embraced Confucian ideals in society, and faced similar threats (Jurchen people, who raided along the northern borders, and the Sino-Japanese wokou pirates, who pillaged coastal villages and trade ships),Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Both had competing internal political factions, which would influence decisions made prior to and during the war.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Because of close trade and common enemies, Joseon and Ming had a friendly alliance.

In 1402, the Japanese shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (despite not being the Emperor of Japan) was conferred the title of "King of Japan" by the Chinese emperor, and in 1404, he had Japan enter the Chinese tributary system, which it left under his successor, Ashikaga Yoshimochi, in 1408.Template:Sfn Membership in the tributary system was a prerequisite for any economic exchange with China; by exiting, Japan relinquished its trade relationship with China.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Refn

Hideyoshi's preparations

By the last decade of the 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the most preeminent daimyō, had unified all of Japan, bringing about a period of peace. Since he came to hold power in the absence of a legitimate successor of the Minamoto lineage necessary for the imperial shōgun commission, he sought military power to legitimize his rule and to decrease his dependence on the imperial family.Template:Sfn It is also suggested that Hideyoshi planned an invasion of China to fulfill the dreams of his late lord, Oda Nobunaga,<ref name="wsu">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and to keep his newly formed state united against a common enemy, mitigating the possible threat of civil disorder or rebellion posed by the large number of now-idle samurai and soldiers, and by ambitious daimyōs who might have sought to usurp him.<ref name="rebel">Template:Cite newsTemplate:Dead link</ref>

For thousands of years, China had been the intellectual, economic, military, and political center of East Asia, and traditionally, the states of East Asia had acknowledged the emperors of China as their overlords and paid tribute in exchange for being allowed to trade with China. By seeking to invade China, Hideyoshi was in effect attempting to claim for Japan the role traditionally played by China as the center of the East Asian international order. He rallied support in Japan as a man of relatively humble origins who owed his position to his military might.Template:Sfn

Hideyoshi spoke not only of his desire to "slash his way" into Korea to invade China, but also the Philippines, and India.Template:Sfn However, it's possible that Hideyoshi might have set a more realistic goal of only subjugating smaller neighbouring states (like the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, and Korea) and of treating larger or more distant countries as trading partners, as throughout the invasion of Korea, Hideyoshi sought legal tally trade with China.Template:Sfn Japan's right to pay tribute and, with it, the right to trade with China was ended in the 1540s by the Ming court in response to raids by Sino-Japanese pirates known as the wokou, though Japan usually resisted paying tribute in any case.Template:Sfn

Hideyoshi planned for a possible war with Korea long before he had completed the unification of Japan. As early as 1578, Hideyoshi, then fighting under Oda Nobunaga against Mōri Terumoto for control of the Chūgoku region, informed Terumoto of Nobunaga's plan to invade China.Template:Sfn In 1585, Hideyoshi told the Portuguese Jesuit Father Gaspar Coelho of his wish to conquer all of East Asia. Hideyoshi asked Coelho to send a message to King Philip II of Spain, who was also King Philip I of Portugal, asking that he make his navy available to help Japan. However, Philip refused Hideyoshi, preferring not to upset China.Template:Sfn

Beginning in March 1591, the Kyūshū daimyōs and their labor forces constructed Nagoya Castle in Nagoya, Saga (modern-day Karatsu, Saga, not to be confused with present-day Nagoya city in Aichi Prefecture), as the center for the mobilization of the invasion forces.Template:Sfn In 1592, Hideyoshi sent a letter to the Philippines demanding tribute from the Spanish governor general and stating that Japan had already received tribute from Korea (a misunderstanding) and the Ryukyus.Template:Sfn

As for the military preparations, the construction of as many as 2,000 ships may have begun as early as 1586.Template:Sfn To estimate the strength of the Korean military, Hideyoshi sent an assault force of 26 ships to the southern coast of Korea in 1587Template:Sfn (during the 1540s–1550s, successful large-scale wokou raids of Joseon were conducted, which may have also influenced Hideyoshi's perceptions of their strength).Template:Sfn On the diplomatic front, Hideyoshi began to establish friendly relations with China long before he had completed the unification of Japan. He also helped to police trade routes against the wokou.<ref name="japan101">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Diplomatic dealings between Japan and Korea

In 1587, Hideyoshi sent his first envoy, Template:Nihongo,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn to Korea, which was during the rule of King Seonjo,<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> to re-establish diplomatic relations between Korea and Japan (broken since the wokou raid in 1555).<ref name="tiger12JIMWTC">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Hideyoshi hoped to use this as a foundation to induce the Korean court to join Japan in a war against China.Template:Sfn Yasuhiro, with his warrior background and an attitude disdainful of the Korean officials and their customs, failed to receive the promise of future ambassadorial missions from Korea.Template:Sfn

Around May 1589, Hideyoshi's second embassy, consisting of Sō Yoshitoshi,Template:Sfn Template:Nihongo,Template:Sfn and Buddhist monk Template:Nihongo, reached Korea and secured the promise of a Korean embassy to Japan in exchange for a group of Korean rebels which had taken refuge in Japan.Template:Sfn

In 1587, Hideyoshi had ordered the adopted father of Yoshitoshi and the daimyō of Tsushima Island, Template:Nihongo,Template:Sfn to offer the Joseon Dynasty an ultimatum of submitting to Japan and participating in the conquest of China, or facing the prospect of open war with Japan. However, as Tsushima Island enjoyed a special trading position as the single checkpoint to Korea for all Japanese ships and had permission from Korea to trade with as many as 50 of its own vessels,Template:Sfn the Sō family had a vested interest in preventing conflict with Korea, and delayed the talks for nearly two years.Template:Sfn Even when Hideyoshi renewed his order, Sō Yoshitoshi reduced the visit to the Korean court to a campaign to better relations between the two countries. Near the end of the ambassadorial mission, Yoshitoshi presented King Seonjo a brace of peafowl and matchlock guns—the first advanced firearms to come to Korea.Template:Sfn Yu Sŏngnyong, a high-ranking scholar official, suggested that the military put the arquebus (a matchlock firearm) into production and use, but the Korean court failed to appreciate its merits. This lack of interest and underestimation of the power of the arquebus greatly contributed to the failures of the Korean army early in the war.

In April 1590, the Korean ambassadors, including Hwang Yun-gil and Kim Sŏngil,Template:Sfn left for Kyoto, where they waited for two months while Hideyoshi was finishing his campaign against the Hojo clan.Template:Sfn Upon his return, they exchanged ceremonial gifts and delivered King Seonjo's letter to Hideyoshi.Template:Sfn Hideyoshi mistakenly assumed that the Koreans had come to pay a tributary homage to Japan. For this reason, the ambassadors were not given the formal treatment that was due to diplomatic representatives. In the end, the Korean ambassadors asked for Hideyoshi to write a reply to the Korean king, for which they waited 20 days at the port of Sakai.Template:Sfn The letter, redrafted as requested by the ambassadors on the ground that it was too discourteous, invited Korea to submit to Japan and join in a war against China.Template:Sfn

Upon the ambassadors' return, the Joseon court held serious discussions concerning Japan's invitation,Template:Sfn while Hwang Yun-gil reported conflicting estimates of Japanese military strength and intentions. They nonetheless pressed that a war was imminent. Kim Sŏngil claimed that Hideyoshi's letter was nothing but a bluff. Moreover, the court, aware only that Japan was in turmoil with various clan armies fighting each other, substantially underrated the combined strength and abilities of many Japanese armies at the time. Some, including King Seonjo, argued that Ming should be informed about the dealings with Japan, as failure to do so could make Ming suspect Korea's allegiance, but the court finally concluded to wait further until the appropriate course of action became definite.Template:Sfn

In the end, Hideyoshi's diplomatic negotiations did not produce the desired result with Korea. The Joseon Court approached Japan as a country inferior to Korea, and saw itself as superior according to its favored position within the Chinese tributary system. It mistakenly evaluated Hideyoshi's threats of invasions to be no better than the common wokou Japanese pirate raids.Template:Sfn The Korean court handed to ShigenobuTemplate:Sfn and Genso, Hideyoshi's third embassy, King Seonjo's letter rebuking Hideyoshi for challenging the Chinese tributary system. Hideyoshi replied with another letter, but since it was not presented by a diplomat in person as expected by custom, the court ignored it.Template:Sfn After this denial of his second request, Hideyoshi proceeded to launch his armies against Korea in 1592.

Military

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The defensive stance adopted within an environment of relative peace pushed the Koreans to depend on the strength of their fortresses and warships. Gunpowder and cannon technology originally transmitted from China to the Goryeo dynasty were used to develop advanced cannon which were used with great efficiency at sea. Even though China was the main source of new military technologies in Asia, Korea was a manufacturing base for both cannon and ships during this era.Template:Sfn

Korean cannons were not adapted for effective use on land, and firearms were of a less advanced design. On the other hand, Japanese small arms, particularly the tanegashima matchlock arquebuses/muskets (later called hinawajū), proved to be particularly effective during land engagements and sieges. This strategic difference in weapons development and implementation contributed to a trend of Japanese dominance on land and Korean dominance at sea.Template:Sfn

As Japan had been at war since the mid-15th century, Hideyoshi had 500,000 battle-hardened soldiers at his disposalTemplate:Sfn to form a remarkable professional army in Asia for the invasion of Korea.Template:Sfn While Japan's previously chaotic state had left the Koreans with a very low estimate of Japan as a military threat,Template:Sfn there was a new sense of unity among the different political factions in Japan, as indicated by the "sword hunt" in 1588 (the confiscation of all weapons from the peasants).Template:Sfn Along with the hunt came "The Separation Edict" in 1591, which effectively put an end to all Japanese wokou piracy by prohibiting the daimyōs from supporting the pirates within their fiefs.Template:Sfn Ironically, the Koreans believed that Hideyoshi's invasion would be just an extension of the previous pirate raids that had been repelled before.Template:Sfn

Land forces

Japan

File:Ashigaru using shields (tate).jpg

Japanese infantry employing fusillade tactics using tanegashima matchlocks

At the core of the Japanese military were the samurai, the military caste of Japan who dominated Japanese society.Template:Sfn The standard samurai weapon by 1592 was the yari, a spear meant to stab, often with a cross-blade that allowed a samurai to pull his opponent from his horse.Template:Sfn If a samurai wished to cut his opponent rather than stab, the weapons were the ōdachi, an extremely long sword with a huge handle, or the naginata, a polearm with very sharp curved blade.Template:Sfn The most famous of all the samurai weapons was the katana, a sword described by British military historian Stephen Turnbull as "...the finest edged weapon in the history of warfare".Template:Sfn Samurai never carried shields, with the katana being used to deflect blows.Template:Sfn By 1592, the armor of the samurai was lamellae made from iron or leather scales tied together which had been modified to include solid plate to help protect the samurai from bullets.Template:Sfn Samurai on horseback would often dismount when engaged in action, acting as mounted infantry. While specialized firearms were used on horseback, most cavalrymen preferred the yari,Template:Sfn but its use was limited by the increasing use of firearms by the Koreans and Chinese.<ref name="tiger12JIUASS">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Samurai engaged in psychological warfare by wearing iron masks into battle with a mustache made of horsehair and a "sinister grin" illustrated.Template:Sfn

Most of the Japanese troops sent into Korea were ashigaru (light infantry), who were usually conscripted peasants armed with yari, tanegashima, or yumi, Japanese bows.Template:Sfn Unlike the samurai with their expensive suits of armor, ashigaru wore cheap suits of iron armour around their chests.Template:Sfn Japanese arquebusiers were trained to fight in the European style, with the men trained to fire their guns in formation to create a volley of fire, then to go down on their knees to reload, while the men behind them fired, and the cycle repeated.Template:Sfn

Toyotomi Hideyoshi mobilized his army at Nagoya Castle, located in the old Hizen Province on Kyushu, newly built for the sole purpose of housing the invasion forces and the reserves. None of the original structures remain, but the castle's ruined foundations survive in the formerly separate town of Chinzei, now part of the city of Karatsu in Saga Prefecture. The Japanese used a total of 320,000 troops throughout the entire war.Template:Sfn Overall, 158,800 soldiers, laborers, and transport troops (of whom a quarter had firearms)Template:Sfn spread across nine divisions were prepared to take part in the invasion, with roughly a third of the force being armed fighting units (samurai, their attendants, and ashigaru conscripts), and the remaining two thirds filling a support ion (doctors, priests, secretaries, boatmen, and labourers). The last two divisions, with 21,500 between them, were held in reserve on Tsushima Island and Iki Island, respectively.Template:Sfn One daimyō whose military service quota has been preserved in a written record is Shimazu Yoshihiro, whose contribution consisted of:Template:Sfn

• 600 samurai
• 300 flag bearers
• 1,500 arquebusier ashigaru
• 1,500 archer ashigaru
• 300 spearmen ashigaru
• 6,400 laborers and boatmen

Joseon

Joseon maintained only a few military units with no field army, and its defense depended heavily on the mobilization of the citizen soldiers in case of emergency.<ref name="tiger12JIMWTC" /> During the first invasion, Joseon deployed a total of 84,500 regular troops throughout, assisted by 22,000 irregular volunteers.Template:Sfn

Light infantry protected their chests by wearing ŏmsimgap (Template:Korean), which was made of leather over a cloth robe that served a similar function to the gambeson. Scale armour was also used.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>Template:Sfn

P'aengbaesu (Template:Korean), heavy infantry specializing in hand-to-hand combat, were the mainstay of early Joseon infantry, wearing chain mail or mail and plate armour and armed with a round shield and sword. They would respond to nomadic raids with shields and knives in mountain warfare, and in the plains, they formed shield walls to deter cavalry.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Kapsa (Template:Korean) were elite formations of noble origin. Their armor, tujŏng-gap (Template:Korean), was brigandine, popular in Manchuria and Mongolia at the time. Kapsa were required to have a certain amount of wealth to join, as they were expected to self-fund their operations, including by bringing their own horses. To cut costs, Joseon increased its reliance on kapsa, growing the lower ranks, and the number of kapsa increased to 14,000 by 1475. Alongside this, however, the standing army, which had a quota, was neglected, resulting in falsely stated troop figures just before the war.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

The Koreans actively deployed their cavalry divisions in action. But the terrain was often mountainous, which was not generally suitable for cavalry. The farmland tended to have many ditches, and it was often barren and lacked grass essential for feeding the horses. In addition, Japanese use of the arquebus at long range and in concentrated volleys negated any possibility of effective cavalry tactics.Template:Sfn The Korean cavalrymen's primary weapons were bows, with swords and lances holding only subsidiary positions. Most cavalry action for the Koreans took place in the Battle of Chungju at the beginning of the war, where they were outnumbered and wiped out by Japanese infantry.Template:Sfn

The standard Korean sword was the hwando, a curved sword shorter and lighter than its Japanese counterparts. A uniquely Korean weapon was the flail, consisting of a Template:Convert red-painted hardwood stick acting as the handle for a chain attached to a shaft with iron nails.Template:Sfn Joseon infantrymen often fought as archers, and a Japanese source from 1592 commented that Koreans were superior as soldiers to the Japanese only in archery, because their bows had a range of Template:Convert against the Template:Convert of Japanese archers.Template:Sfn

Ming

The Ming Chinese army was the largest in Asia, with a total of around 845,000 troops; however, in 1592, the Imperial Army was engaged in wars with the Mongols and in crushing a rebellion in the northwest.Template:Sfn Over the course of the war, the Ming sent in total 166,700 troops,Template:Sfn though Ming troops in Korea never numbered more than 60,000 at any given point.Template:Sfn They also sent 17 million liang worth of silver and supplies to Korea (equivalent to about half a year of revenue for the Ming Empire).Template:Sfn The Ming army was capable of considerable feats of organization, for example bringing 400 artillery guns across 480 km of harsh landscape to provide firepower against the Mongols.Template:Sfn

The core of the Ming army was the infantry, divided into five sections; gunmen, swordsmen, archers with fire arrows, archers with ordinary arrows, and spearmen, backed up by the cavalry and artillery.Template:Sfn The basic weapons for the Chinese infantry were the crossbow and the arquebus, while the cavalry were usually mounted archers.Template:Sfn Early kinds of land mines and hand grenades were also used.Template:Sfn Chinese infantry wore conical iron helmets and suits of armor made from leather or iron.Template:Sfn During siege actions, Chinese deployed rattan shields and iron pavises (large shields), reputed to be musket-proof.

Land weapons

Firearms

File:Tempo-p1000697.jpg

Japanese arquebuses of the Edo period

File:Seungja Chongtong Gun.jpg

Joseon seungja chongtong hand cannon

Since its introduction by traders of the Portuguese Empire on the island of Tanegashima in 1543,Template:Sfn the arquebus had become widely used in Japan.Template:Sfn From the 1560s, tanegashima were produced on a scale of at least several thousand a year,Template:Sfn and by the late sixteenth century, Japan may have had more muskets than any other nation in the world,Template:Sfn though bows were still used alongside them.Template:Sfn

Both Korea and China had also been introduced to firearms similar to the Portuguese arquebus, but most were older models. Korean soldiers would sometimes use hand cannons with a simple mechanism and either a gunstock or wooden shaft attached.

While tanegashima were superior to Korean bows in terms of penetration and range,<ref>Template:Harvnb "When [our] soldiers are lined up against the enemy ranks, our arrows do not reach the enemy while their musket balls rain down upon us."</ref> the former lacked the fire rate of the latter. Numerous battle accounts from the Annals of Joseon, essays, and diaries of Korean officials express that muskets alone could not ensure victory. In many cases, ferocious charges of Japanese troops with spears and swords were more decisive than musketry. This was because the Koreans were poorly trained in close combat, and lacked battlefield experience and discipline, which made them susceptible to routing. The following words from a Korean military official named Template:Ill to the Korean king discusses this weakness:

The King asked him [Yi Siŏn], "You have already told me about the low accuracy of Japanese muskets. Why, then, are Korean armies having great problem with defeating them?" [Yi Siŏn] then answered, "The Korean soldiers cower before the enemy and flee for their lives even before they have engaged the enemy. As for the commanders, they seldom leave their positions because they fear that they might be executed for deserting. However, there is a limit to executing deserting soldiers since there are so many of them. Truly, the Japanese aren't good musketeers, but they advance so rapidly that they appear right in front of the Koreans in the time Koreans can shoot only two arrows. It is said that Koreans are good archers, but they seldom hit the targets when the enemy is too far away, and are too scared to shoot when the enemy is near because they fear Japanese swords. Archery often becomes useless because Koreans, fearing the Japanese arme blanche, can barely shoot. The Japanese are reputed to be good swordsmen, but it is possible for Koreans to draw swords and hold their ground. However, the Koreans seldom do this and merely run for their lives."Template:Sfn

However, another Korean official, Yu Sŏngnyong, claims that the Japanese arquebusiers had undeniable superiority over long distances, which (along with low discipline and combat experience of the Korean army) was the main cause of defeats:

In the 1592 invasion, everything was swept away. Within a fortnight or a month the cities and fortresses were lost, and everything in the eight directions had crumbled. Although it was [partly] due to there having been a century of peace and the people not being familiar with warfare that this happened, it was really because the Japanese had the use of muskets that could reach beyond several hundred paces, that always pierced what they struck, that came like the wind and the hail, and with which bows and arrows could not compare.Template:Sfn

Today, the Japanese exclusively use muskets to attack fortifications. They can reach [the target] from several hundred paces away. Our country's bows and arrows cannot reach them. At any flat spot outside the walls, the Japanese will build earthen mounds and "flying towers." They look down into the fortifications and fire their bullets so that the people inside the fortifications cannot conceal themselves. In the end the fortifications are taken. One cannot blame [the defenders] for their situation.Template:Sfn

The Japanese also saw arquebuses as crucial. A Japanese commander wrote home in 1592:

Please arrange to send us guns and ammunition. There is absolutely no use for spears. It is vital that you arrange somehow to obtain a number of guns. Furthermore, you should certainly see to it that those person departing [for Korea] understand this situation. The arrangements for guns should receive your closest attention.Template:Sfn

The Japanese commander Asano Yoshinaga wrote home to his father:

When the troops come [to Korea] from the province of Kai, have them bring as many guns as possible, for no other equipment is needed. Give strict orders that all men, even the samurai, carry guns.Template:Sfn

Artillery

File:Hudunpao-huolongjing.jpg

Hu dun pao cannon illustrated in the Huolongjing treatise

File:Hwacha2.jpg

A hwacha on display

There were very few instances of Koreans employing artillery in the field, with largely ineffective results; artillery was mainly used in siege action and for defending castles.<ref name="DoaM">"The Diary of a Militia" (향병일기; Hyangbyeong-ilgi), stored in the database of the National Institute of Korean History,</ref> Some irregular Korean units with government-supplied weapons fired explosive shells from mortars, but this occurred only in isolated instances.<ref name="DoaM" /> The Koreans also made use of hwacha, two-wheeled carts carrying hole-filled boards fitted to carry either 100 steel-tipped rockets or 200 singijeon (rocket arrows) to be fired all at once. They were especially effective against dense formations of troops.Template:Sfn

The Chinese were more active in employing field artillery than the Koreans. According to Turnbull, Chinese field artillery and siege cannon were the finest in the region.Template:Sfn Chinese artillery was made from cast iron, and were divided into several types, the most important being the "great general cannon", large breech-loading cannon atop two-wheeled carts, shooting iron balls weighing about 10 kilograms, and the folang zhi (Template:Zhi), also breech-loading.Template:Sfn Also employed by the Chinese was the hu dun pao ("crouching tiger cannon") bombard, which was noted for being decisive in retaking Pyongyang.Template:Sfn

The Japanese employed field artillery only where strategically advantageous in both siege and field warfare situations, often using captured pieces where available.Template:Citation needed

Naval forces

File:Panokseon.jpg

An old painting of a Korean panokseon

File:Joseoncannon1.JPG

Joseon cannons such as this one were extensively used by the Joseon navy.

In contrast to the Japanese advantages on land, the Koreans possessed an advantage at sea. Korean ships were faster and more maneuverable, more heavily built, with thick wooden hulls impervious to musket fire, and were equipped with large cannons capable of blasting cannonballs clean through Japanese hulls.Template:Sfn The standard Korean ship was the panokseon, similar in appearance to standard Japanese warships, but larger and with heavy cannons; most Japanese ships had no cannons at all at the start of the war.Template:Sfn The famous heavily armored and armed "turtle ships" were a minority of the Korean navy's ships.Template:Sfn Korean and Japanese accounts both talk much of the "turtle ships", but no such ship has survived, and historians still debate about what turtle ships looked like, though most now agree that they were, in fact, turtle-shaped.Template:Sfn

The centralized structure of the Korean navy was also a factor in its successes. With Hideyoshi unable to directly command the Japanese naval effort, each daimyō was left to himself to work out how best to face the Korean threat, according to his own interests. Personal motivations greatly hindered the Japanese in facing the unified fleet of Yi Sun-sin, eventually made supreme commander of the whole Korean navy, a role the Japanese had no counterpart to.Template:Sfn

The Japanese, who almost totally lacked naval artillery as they relied on anti-personnel naval techniques such as boarding and small arms fire,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn could be outranged and bombarded with impunity by Korean ships outside the range of Japanese muskets, arrows, and catapults.Template:Sfn When the Japanese attempted to outfit cannon to their ships,Template:Sfn their lightweight ship design (most Japanese ships were modified merchant vessels)Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn prohibited using more than a few per vessel, and they usually lacked the range or firepower of their Korean counterparts.Template:Sfn In order to bolster their fleet, the Japanese considered employing two Portuguese galleons in the invasion.Template:SfnTemplate:Clarify

Command

Japan

File:Daimyo Konishi Yukinaga Ukiyo-e.jpg

Ukiyo-e art of Konishi Yukinaga

Unlike the armies of its opponents, the Japanese army had no central command system with a hierarchy of government-appointed officers; rather, it consisted of armies raised, maintained, and led by daimyō, feudal lords subordinate to the shōgun who owned most of the land in Japan. This decentralized structure allowed armies to operate fully independently of one another.Template:Sfn Hideyoshi himself never left Japan, remaining near Kyoto; however, the idea of conquering China was his obsession, and throughout the war, he refused to accept defeat, treating the war as simply a matter of willpower. Turnbull writes: "In a tactical sense, therefore, Hideyoshi cannot be considered as one of the commanders, but, as his will drove the whole project along until he died, his political influence cannot be underestimated".Template:Sfn

File:Katō Kiyomasa.jpg

Katō Kiyomasa

The commander of the Japanese First Division and overall commander of the invasion force was Konishi Yukinaga, daimyō of Uto in Higo Province of Kyushu, chosen as commander of the invasion force more because of his diplomatic skills than military skills, as Toyotomi Hideyoshi did not expect the Koreans to resist.Template:Sfn Konishi had converted to Catholicism in 1583, and was known to the Spanish and Portuguese as Dom Agostinho.Template:Sfn Katō Kiyomasa, who led the Second Division into Korea, was known in Japan as Toranosuke ("the young tiger") and to the Koreans as the "devil general", on account of his ferocity.Template:Sfn Katō was one of the "Seven Spears of Shizugatake", a group of seven samurai who distinguished themselves in combat at the Battle of Shizugatake in 1583, where samurai had fought one another mano a mano, and where Katō demonstrated his skills with a cross-bladed spear with great effect by cutting so many men, whose severed and salted heads were thereafter tied to a stalk of green bamboo and carried by one of Katō's attendants into battle.Template:Sfn Katō was a devoted follower of Nichiren Buddhism, a type of Buddhism closely associated with militarism and ultra-nationalism in Japan, and his relations with the Catholic Konishi were extremely unfriendly, to the extent that the two men almost never met during the campaign in Korea.Template:Sfn Katō's battle standard was a white pennant which carried a message alleged to have been written by Nichiren himself reading Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō ("Hail to the Lotus of the Divine Law").Template:Sfn Wakisaka Yasuharu was one of Hideyoshi's leading naval commanders. He was another of the "Seven Spears of Shizugatake", who had been named daimyō of the island of Awaji in the Seto Inland Sea in 1585, where he learned much about seafaring as the island is located close to whirlpools which are notoriously dangerous for sailors.Template:Sfn

Joseon

File:이순신.jpg

Yi Sun-sin

Officers in the Joseon Army and Navy also came exclusively from the aristocracy, but unlike the militarist Japanese aristocrats trained to be soldiers from their youth onward, for the Joseon aristocracy, scholarship was valued and war was disparaged as something unworthy of a Confucian gentleman-scholar.Template:Sfn The quality of Korean generalship was quite variable, with some Korean officers being able and others being men who had not devoted much time to the study of war, preferring archery, writing, practicing their calligraphy, and reading Confucian classics.Template:Sfn

Admiral Yi Sun-sin, who began the war as the Left Naval CommanderTemplate:Refn of Jeolla Province, was to become the commander of the Korean navy and was described by Turnbull as "Korea's greatest hero" and "one of the outstanding naval commanders in the entire history of the world".Template:Sfn

Ming

One of the Chinese commanders was Li Rusong, a man who has traditionally been disparaged in Japanese accounts; by Turnbull's estimate, he was "one of Ming China's most accomplished generals".Template:Sfn Chen Lin, a native of Guangdong, was a major Chinese naval commander who proved pivotal in defeating Japan and defending Korea. After helping win the war, Chen was celebrated as a hero in Korea and China. Chen subsequently became the founder of the Gwangdong Jin clan of Korea, and today, his descendants are spread across China and Korea. Chen was given the nickname Guangdong Master for his naval and military accomplishments.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Problems with Joseon defense policies

Korean scholar official Yu Sŏngnyong observed, "not one in a hundred [Korean generals] knew the methods of drilling soldiers";Template:Sfn rising in rank depended far more on social connections than military knowledge.Template:Sfn Korean soldiers were disorganized, ill-trained, and ill-equipped,Template:Sfn and they had been used mostly in construction projects such as building castle walls.<ref name="tiger12JIMWTC" />

Local officers were forbidden from responding to enemy activities and battles outside of their jurisdiction until a higher ranking general, appointed by the king's court, arrived with a newly mobilized army to take command, hindering flexibility.Template:Sfn The appointed general also often came from an outside region, and was likely to be unfamiliar with the natural environment, the available technology, and manpower of the invaded region.Template:Sfn

The Korean court managed to carry out some reforms, but they remained problematic. For example, the military training center established in 1589 in Gyeongsang Province recruited mostly men either too young or too old to be good soldiers, augmented by some adventure-seeking aristocrats and slaves buying their freedom, because able-bodied men of the right age, targeted by the policy, had higher priorities such as farming and other economic activities.Template:Sfn

The dominant form of the Korean fortresses was the sanseong ("mountain fortress"),Template:Sfn which consisted of a stone wall that continued around a mountain in a serpentine fashion.Template:Sfn These walls were poorly designed with little use of towers and cross-fire positions (usually seen in European fortifications), and were mostly low in height.Template:Sfn It was a wartime policy for these fortresses to serve as refuge castles and for everyone to evacuate to one, with those who failed to do so being assumed to be collaborators with the enemy; however, the policy never held any great effect because the fortresses were out of reach for most refugees.Template:Sfn

Korean military reorganization

Proposal for military reforms

{{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= {{ safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||date=__DATE__ |$B= Template:Ambox }} }} During the period between the first and second invasions, the Korean government had a chance to examine the reasons why they had been easily overrun by the Japanese. Yu Sŏngnyong, the Prime Minister, spoke out about the Korean disadvantages.

Yu pointed out that Korean castle defenses were extremely weak, a fact which he had pointed out before the war. He noted how Korean castles had incomplete fortifications and walls that were too easy to scale. He also wanted cannons set up in the walls. Yu proposed building strong towers with gun turrets for cannons. Besides castles, Yu wanted to form a line of defenses in Korea. In this kind of defense, the enemy would have to scale many walls in order to reach the capital, Hanseong.

Yu also pointed out how efficient the Japanese Army was, since it took them only one month to reach Hanseong, and how well-organized the Japanese were. He noted how the Japanese moved their units in complex maneuvers, often weakening their enemy with the use of arquebuses, then attacking with melee weapons.

Military Training Agency

King Seonjo and the Korean court finally began to reform the military. In September 1593, the Military Training Agency (Template:Langx, alternately translated as Military Training Command) was established. The agency carefully divided the army into units and companies. Within the companies were squads of archers, arquebusiers, swordsmen, and spear infantry. The agency set up divisional units in each region of Korea and garrisoned battalions at castles. The agency, which originally had less than 80 troops, soon grew to about 10,000.Template:Citation needed

One of the most important changes was that both upper-class citizens and slaves were subject to the draft. All males had to enter military service to be trained and familiarized with weapons.Template:Citation needed

It was also around this time that the military officer and military scholar Han Kyo (Template:Korean) wrote the martial arts manual Muyejebo, based on the book Jixiao Xinshu by the famous Chinese general Qi Jiguang.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Imjin War: Japanese first invasion (1592–1593)

First wave of the Japanese invasionTemplate:Sfn
1st div.	Konishi Yukinaga	7,000	18,700
	Sō Yoshitoshi	5,000
	Matsura Shigenobu	3,000
	Arima Harunobu	2,000
	Ōmura Yoshiaki	1,000
	Gotō Sumiharu	700
2nd div.	Katō Kiyomasa	10,000	22,800
	Nabeshima Naoshige	12,000
	Sagara Yorifusa	800
3rd div.	Kuroda Nagamasa	5,000	11,000
	Ōtomo Yoshimune	6,000
4th div.	Shimazu Yoshihiro	10,000	14,000
	Mōri Yoshimasa	2,000
	Takahashi Mototane, Akizuki Tanenaga, Itō Suketaka, Shimazu Tadatoyo<ref> {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>		2,000
5th div.	Fukushima Masanori	4,800	25,100
	Toda Katsushige Ikoma Kazumasa	3,900
	Chōsokabe Motochika	3,000
	Ikoma Chikamasa	5,500
	Kurushima Michifusa	700
	Hachisuka Iemasa	7,200
6th div.	Kobayakawa Takakage	10,000	15,700
	Kobayakawa Hidekane, Tachibana Muneshige, Tachibana Naotsugu, Tsukushi Hirokado, Ankokuji Ekei	5,700
7th div.	Mōri Terumoto	30,000	30,000
Subtotal		162,300
Reservers (8th div.)	Ukita Hideie (Tsushima Island)	10,000	21,500
(9th div.)	Toyotomi Hidekatsu and Hosokawa Tadaoki (Iki Island)	11,500
Subtotal		183,800
Stationed force at Nagoya	Tokugawa Ieyasu, Uesugi Kagekatsu, Gamō Ujisato, Satake Yoshinobu and others	75,000	75,000
Subtotal		258,800
Naval force exclusion	Kuki Yoshitaka, Wakizaka Yasuharu, Katō Yoshiaki, Ōtani Yoshitsugu	−9,000
Total (rounded)		250,000

Initial attacks

Landing of the First Division

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File:Dongnaebusunjeoldo.jpg

"Dongnaebu Sunjeoldo", a Korean painting from 1760 depicting the Battle of Dongnae

On 23 May 1592, the First Division of the Japanese invasion army, consisting of 7,000 men led by Konishi Yukinaga,Template:Sfn departed from Tsushima Island in the morning, arriving outside the Korean port city of Busan in the evening.Template:Sfn Korean naval intelligence had detected the Japanese fleet, but Wŏn Kyun, the Right Naval Commander of Gyeongsang Province, misidentified the fleet as trading vessels on a mission.Template:Sfn A later report of the arrival of an additional 100 Japanese vessels raised his suspicions, but he did nothing about it.Template:Sfn Sō Yoshitoshi landed alone on the Busan shore to ask the Koreans for safe passage to China one last time. The Koreans refused as they had previously done, and Sō Yoshitoshi laid siege to the city. Konishi Yukinaga attacked the nearby fort of Dadaejin the next morning.Template:Sfn Japanese accounts claim that the battles resulted in the complete annihilation of Korean forces (one claims 8,500 deaths, and another, 30,000 heads), while a Korean account claims that the Japanese themselves took significant losses before sacking the city of Busan.Template:Sfn Jeong Bal, the Korean commander at Busan, was killed by a Japanese bullet, and with his death, Korean morale collapsed.Template:Sfn In the meantime, Konishi took the fort of Dadaejin, where under heavy volleys of supporting fire, the Japanese were able to place ladders against the walls, and took the fort.Template:Sfn Konishi ordered that no prisoners be taken, and the entire garrison was massacred.Template:Sfn Konishi and the First Division then turned north, marching to take Hanseong.Template:Sfn The disciplined Japanese brought down a rain of bullets that was lethal to anyone not taking cover.Template:Sfn

First Division attack

On the morning of 25 May 1592, the First Division arrived at the Dongnae Fortress.Template:Sfn Konishi sent a message to Song Sang-hyeon, the commander of the fortress, explaining to him that his objective was the conquest of China and if the Koreans would just submit, their lives would be spared. Song replied, "It is easy for me to die, but difficult to let you pass", which led Konishi to order that no prisoners be taken to punish Song for his defiance.Template:Sfn The resulting siege of Dongnae lasted twelve hours, killed 3,000, and resulted in a Japanese victory.Template:Sfn The Japanese took no prisoners and killed everyone at Dongnae, civilian and military, even killing all of the cats and dogs there.Template:Sfn Konishi's intention was to terrify the Koreans into submission by showing them what the price of resisting Japan was, but he instead stimulated Korean resistance, as ordinary Koreans were enraged at an enemy who invaded without provocation and behaved so brutally.Template:Sfn

After taking Dongnae, Konishi took the castle of Miryang, which he followed up by taking Daegu, which surrendered without opposition as the Koreans were concentrating their army further north.Template:Sfn Having crossed the Nakdong River, Konishi learned that the Koreans were concentrating their troops at Sangju.Template:Sfn In the meantime, desperate Korean envoys had been sent to the Forbidden City in Beijing to ask the Wanli Emperor to protect his loyal tributaries in Korea by sending an army to drive out the Japanese.Template:Sfn The Chinese assured the Koreans that an army would be sent, but they were engaged in a major war in Ningxia, and the Koreans would have to wait for the arrival of their assistance.Template:Sfn

Occupation of Gyeongsang Province

Katō Kiyomasa's Second Division landed in Busan on 27 May, and Kuroda Nagamasa's Third Division, west of Nakdong River, on 28 May.Template:Sfn The Second Division took the abandoned city of Tongdo on 28 May, and captured Gyeongju on 30 May.Template:Sfn The Third Division, upon landing, captured nearby Kim hae castle by keeping the defenders under pressure with gunfire while building ramps up to the walls with bundles of crops.Template:Sfn By 3 June, the Third Division captured Unsan, Changnyeong, Hyeonpung, and Seongju.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, Konishi Yukinaga's First Division passed the Yangsan mountain fortress (captured on the night of the Siege of Dongnae, when its defenders fled after the Japanese scouting parties fired their arquebuses), and captured Miryang castle on the afternoon of 26 May.Template:Sfn The First Division secured the Cheongdo fortress in the next few days, and destroyed the city of Daegu.Template:Sfn By 3 June, the First Division crossed the Nakdong River, and stopped at Seonsan mountain.Template:Sfn

Battle of Sangju

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Upon receiving news of the Japanese attacks, the Joseon government appointed General Yi Il as the mobile border commander, as was the established policy.Template:Sfn General Yi headed to Mungyeong near the beginning of the strategically important Choryong Pass to gather troops, but he had to travel further south to meet the troops assembled at the city of Daegu.Template:Sfn There, General Yi moved all troops back to Sangju, except for the survivors of the Siege of Dongnae, who were to be stationed as a rearguard at the Choryong Pass.Template:Sfn On 4 June, General Yi deployed a force of less than 1,000 men on two small hills to face the approaching First Division.Template:Sfn Assuming that the sight of rising smoke was from the burning of buildings by a nearby Japanese force, General Yi sent an officer to scout on horseback. However, as he neared a bridge, the officer was ambushed by Japanese musket fire from below the bridge, and was beheaded.Template:Sfn The Korean troops, watching him fall, were greatly demoralized.Template:Sfn Soon the Japanese began the Battle of Sangju with their arquebuses. The Koreans replied with their arrows, which fell short of their targets.Template:Sfn The Japanese forces, having been divided into three, attacked the Korean lines from both the front and the two flanks. The battle ended with General Yi Il's retreat and 700 Korean casualties.Template:Sfn

Battle of Chungju

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} General Yi Il then planned to use the Joryeong pass, the only path through the western end of the Sobaek mountain range, to check the Japanese advance.Template:Sfn However, another commander appointed by the Joseon government, Sin Rip, had arrived in the area with a cavalry division and moved 100,000 combined troopsTemplate:Sfn to the Chungju fortress located above Joryeong pass.Template:Sfn Rather than face a siege, Sin Rip decided to fight a battle in the open fields of Tangeumdae, which he felt ideal for the deployment of his cavalry unit.Template:Sfn Since the cavalry consisted mostly of new recruits, however, Sin Rip was concerned that his troops may easily be tempted to flee the battle. As a result, he felt the need to trap his forces in the triangular area formed by the convergence of the Tancheon and Han rivers in the shape of a "Y".Template:Sfn This field, however, was dotted with flooded rice paddies and was generally not suitable for cavalry action.Template:Sfn

On 5 June 1592, the First Division of approximately 18,000 men led by Konishi Yukinaga left Sangju and reached an abandoned fortress at Mungyeong by nightfall.Template:Sfn The next day, the First Division arrived at Tangeumdae in the early afternoon, where they faced the Korean cavalry unit at the Battle of Chungju. Konishi divided his forces into three and attacked with arquebuses from both flanks as well as the front.Template:Sfn The Korean arrows fell short of the Japanese troops, which were beyond their range, and General Sin's two charges failed to break the Japanese lines. General Sin then killed himself in the river, and the Koreans that tried to escape by the river either drowned or were decapitated by the pursuing Japanese.Template:Sfn

Capture of Hanseong

The Second Division, led by Katō Kiyomasa, arrived at Chungju, with the Third Division camped not far behind.Template:Sfn There, Katō expressed his anger against Konishi Yukinaga for not waiting at Busan as planned, and attempting to take all of the glory for himself; Nabeshima Naoshige then proposed a compromise of dividing the Japanese troops into two separate groups to follow two different routes to Hanseong (the capital and present-day Seoul), and allowing Katō Kiyomasa to choose the route that the Second Division would take to reach Hanseong.Template:Sfn The division of the Japanese forces was mainly due to the rivalry between Katō and Konishi, but there was a certain "strategic merit" in dividing their forces in that Katō's advance into northeastern Korea would protect the Japanese from any attempt by the Jurchen leader Nurhaci to attack their eastern flank.Template:Sfn However, the division of the Japanese forces also meant that Konishi would have to take on the Chinese alone when their army arrived in Korea.Template:Sfn

The two divisions began the race to capture Hanseong on 8 June, and Katō took the shorter route across the Han River while Konishi went further upstream where smaller waters posed a lesser barrier.Template:Sfn Konishi arrived at Hanseong first, on 10 June, while the Second Division was halted at the river with no boats with which to cross.Template:Sfn The First Division found the castle undefended with its gates tightly locked, as King Seonjo had fled the day before.Template:Sfn The Japanese broke into a small floodgate, located in the castle wall, and opened the capital city's gate from within.Template:Sfn Katō's Second Division arrived at the capital the next day (having taken the same route as the First Division), and the Third and Fourth Divisions the day after.Template:Sfn Meanwhile, the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Divisions had landed on Busan, with the Ninth Division kept in reserve on the island of Iki.Template:Sfn

Parts of Hanseong had already been looted and torched, including bureaus holding the slave records and weapons, and they were already abandoned by its inhabitants.Template:Sfn General Kim Myŏngwŏn, in charge of the defenses along the Han River, had retreated.Template:Sfn The king's subjects stole the animals in the royal stables and fled before him, leaving their king to rely on farm animals.Template:Sfn In every village, the king's party was met by inhabitants, lined up by the road, grieving that their king was abandoning them, and neglecting their duty of paying homage.Template:Sfn Parts of the southern shore of the Imjin River were burnt to deprive the Japanese troops of materials with which to make their crossing, and General Kim Myŏngwŏn deployed 12,000 troops at five points along the river.Template:Sfn

Japanese campaigns in the north

File:History of Korea-1592-1597.svg

Map of invasions

Crossing of the Imjin River

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} While the First Division rested in Hanseong (present-day Seoul), the Second Division began heading north, only to be delayed for two weeks by the Imjin River.Template:Sfn The Japanese sent a message to the Koreans on the other bank requesting them to open the way to China, but the Koreans rejected this.Template:Sfn Afterwards, the Japanese commanders withdrew their main forces to the safety of the Paju fortress. The Koreans saw this as a retreat, and 13,000 Korean troops launched an attack at dawn against the remaining Japanese troops on the southern shore of the Imjin River.Template:Sfn The main Japanese body counterattacked against the isolated Korean troops, and acquired their boats. The Korean troops under General Kim Myŏngwŏn retreated with heavy losses to the Kaesong fortress.Template:Sfn

Distribution of Japanese forces in 1592

With the Kaesong castle having been sacked shortly after General Kim Myŏngwŏn retreated to Pyongyang,Template:Sfn the Japanese troops divided their objectives: the First Division would pursue the Korean king in Pyongan Province in the north (where Pyongyang is located); the Second Division would attack Hamgyong Province in the northeastern part of Korea; the Sixth Division would attack Jeolla Province at the southwestern tip of the peninsula; the Fourth Division would secure Gangwon Province in the mid-eastern part of the peninsula; and the Third, Fifth, Seventh, and Eighth Divisions would stabilize the following provinces respectively: Hwanghae Province (below Pyongan Province), Chungcheong Province (below Gyeonggi Province); Gyeongsang Province (in the southeast where the Japanese first had landed); and Gyeonggi Province (where the capital city is located).Template:Sfn

Capture of Pyongyang

The First Division under Konishi Yukinaga proceeded northward, and sacked Pyongsan, Sŏhŭng, Pungsan, Hwangju, and Chunghwa along the way.Template:Sfn At Chunghwa, the Third Division under Kuroda Nagamasa joined the First, and continued to the city of Pyongyang located behind the Taedong River.Template:Sfn A total of 10,000 Korean troops guarded the city against the 30,000 advancing Japanese.Template:Sfn They were led by various commanders, including the Generals Yi Il and Kim Myŏngwŏn, and their defense preparations had assured that no boats were available for Japanese use.Template:Sfn

At night, the Koreans silently crossed the river and launched a successful surprise attack against the Japanese encampment.Template:Sfn However, this alerted the rest of the Japanese army, which attacked the rear of the Korean positions and destroyed the remaining reinforcements crossing the river.Template:Sfn The remainder of the Korean troops then retreated back to Pyongyang, and the Japanese troops gave up their pursuit of the Koreans to observe the manner in which the Koreans had crossed the river.Template:Sfn

The next day, using what they had learned from observing the retreating Korean troops, the Japanese began sending troops to the other shore over the shallow points in the river, in a systematic manner, and at this sight the Koreans abandoned the city overnight.Template:Sfn On 20 July 1592, the First and Third Divisions entered the deserted city of Pyongyang.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In the city, they managed to capture 100,000 tons of military supplies and grain.Template:Sfn

Campaigns in Gangwon Province

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The Fourth Division, under the command of Mōri Yoshinari, set out eastward from the capital city of Hanseong in July, and captured a series of fortresses along the eastern coast from Anbyon to Samcheok.Template:Sfn The division then turned inward to capture Jeongseon, Yeongwol, and Pyeongchang, and settled down at the provincial capital of Wonju.Template:Sfn There, Mōri Yoshinari established a civil administration, systematized social ranks according to the Japanese model, and conducted land surveys.Template:Sfn Shimazu Yoshihiro, one of the generals in the Fourth Division, arrived at Gangwon Province late, due to the Umekita uprising, and finished the campaign by securing Chuncheon.Template:Sfn

Campaigns in Hamgyong Province and Manchuria

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Katō Kiyomasa, leading the Second Division of more than 20,000 men, crossed the peninsula to Anbyon County with a ten-day march, and swept north along the eastern coast.Template:Sfn Among the castles captured was Hamhung, the provincial capital of Hamgyong Province. There, a part of the Second Division was assigned to defense and civil administration.Template:Sfn

The rest of the division, 10,000 men,Template:Sfn continued north, and fought a battle on 23 August against the southern and northern Hamgyong armies under the command of Yi Yŏng at Songjin.Template:Sfn A Korean cavalry division took advantage of the open field at Songjin, and pushed the Japanese forces into a grain storehouse.Template:Sfn There, the Japanese barricaded themselves with bales of rice, and successfully repelled a formation charge from the Korean forces with their arquebuses.Template:Sfn While the Koreans planned to renew the battle in the morning, Katō Kiyomasa ambushed them at night. The Second Division completely surrounded the Korean forces, with the exception of an opening leading to a swamp.Template:Sfn Those that fled were trapped and slaughtered in the swamp.Template:Sfn

The Koreans who fled gave alarm to the other garrisons, allowing the Japanese troops to easily capture Kilju County, Myongchon County, and Kyongsong County.Template:Sfn The Second Division then turned inland through Puryong County toward Hoeryong, where two Korean princes had taken refuge.Template:Sfn On 30 August 1592, the Second Division entered Hoeryong, where Katō Kiyomasa received the Korean princes and the provincial governor, Yu Yŏngnip (Template:Korean), these having already been captured by the local inhabitants.Template:Sfn Shortly afterward, a Korean warrior band handed over the head of an anonymous Korean general, plus General Template:Ill, tied up in ropes.Template:Sfn

Katō Kiyomasa then decided to attack a nearby Jurchen castle across the Tumen River in Manchuria to test his troops against the "barbarians", as the Koreans called the Jurchens (Orangkae in Korean and Orangai, both derived from the Mongol term Uriankhai "forest barbarian").Template:Sfn Kato's army of 8,000 was joined by 3,000 Koreans at Hamgyong Province, because the Jurchens periodically raided across the border.Template:Sfn Soon the combined force sacked the castle, and camped near the border; after the Koreans left for home, the Japanese troops suffered a retaliatory assault from the Jurchens.Template:Sfn Katō Kiyomasa retreated with his forces to avoid heavy losses.Template:Sfn Because of this invasion, Jurchen leader Nurhaci offered military assistance to the Joseon and Ming in the war. However, the offer was refused by both countries, with Ming seeing Nurhaci as a serious and rising threatTemplate:Sfn and Yu Sŏngnyong urging King Seonjo not to accept.Template:Sfn

The Second Division continued east, capturing the fortresses of Template:Ill, Onsong, Kyongwon, and Kyonghung Counties, and finally arrived at Sosupo on the estuary of the Tumen River.Template:Sfn There the Japanese rested on the beach, and watched a nearby volcanic island on the horizon that they mistook as Mount Fuji.Template:Sfn After the tour, the Japanese continued their previous efforts to bureaucratize and administer the province, and allowed several garrisons to be handled by the Koreans themselves.Template:Sfn

Despite these measures, Katō Kiyomasa failed to maintain control of Hamgyeong Island. Because he encountered constant resistance except where his main force was located, Katō dispersed his troops by the hundreds in order to prove to Hideyoshi that he was in control of the occupied territory. This tactic, not used by other daimyo, proved to be his undoing.Template:Sfn

The cold and rough land of Hamgyong Province made it difficult for Japanese troops from the warmer southwestern regions to withstand Korean assaults and supply their troops. Unable to solve these problems, Kiyomasa Katō abandoned his ban on looting, provoking resistance from the Koreans. In response, on 20 October 1592, Chŏng Munbu, an officer in Hamgyong Province, recruited men and reassembled the scattered government troops. With the support of the people of Hamgyong Province, the 3500 men easily recaptured Kyongsong, Hoeryong and Puryong and executed those who were collaborating with the Japanese, greatly spreading the movement throughout Hamgyong Province.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>Template:Sfn On 30 October 1592, a Japanese army of 1000 men returning from looting Joseon villages is attacked by 500 Joseon cavalry at Seokseongryeong and forced to retreat, becoming isolated in the extreme cold on Mount Jangdeok. In response, the Korean soldiers set fire to the mountain the next day at sunrise, annihilating the Japanese army.Template:Sfn

Even in this situation, Katō was hesitant to send troops or retreat as the tide of battle slowly turned. Eventually, as the situation worsened and the Japanese suffered heavy losses at Jinju Castle and were forced to concentrate their forces to the south, he ordered his troops to guard Kilju Castle and wait for relief.Template:Sfn Eventually, the remaining Japanese forces in Hamgyong Province retreated to Kilju Castle, and the righteous armies laid siege to the castle for three months to prevent them from gathering firewood.Template:Sfn In January, Kiyomasa Kato leads an army to retake Hamgyeongdo. On 21 January, the Righteous armies launched a mauling attack at Dancheon, inflicting heavy losses on the Japanese vanguard but suffering three defeats against the main Japanese army, which was forced to break the siege of Kilju Castle and withdraw, allowing the trapped Japanese to escape.Template:Sfn However, Katō Kiyomasa was forced to abandon Hamgyong Province due to cold and supply problems, and withdrew to Hanyang on 29 February.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>Template:Sfn

Naval campaigns of 1592

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File:Admiral Yi Sunshin's Naval campaigns in 1592.svg

Map of Admiral Yi Sun-sin's naval campaigns – 1592

Having secured Pyongyang, the Japanese planned to cross the Yalu River into Jurchen territory, and use the waters west of the Korean peninsula to supply the invasion.Template:Sfn However, Yi Sun-sin, who held the post of the Left Naval Commander<ref group="n" name="LeftRightNavy01"/> of the Jeolla Province (which covers the western waters of Korea), successfully destroyed the Japanese ships transporting troops and supplies.Template:Sfn Japan, lacking enough arms and troops to carry on the invasion of China, changed the objective of the war to the occupation of Korea.Template:Sfn

When the Japanese troops landed at the port of Busan, Template:Ill, the Left Naval Commander of Gyeongsang Province, destroyed his entire fleet, his base, and all armaments and provisions, and fled.Template:Sfn Wŏn Kyun, the Right Naval Commander, also destroyed and abandoned his own base, and fled to Konyang with only four ships.Template:Sfn Thus, there was no Korean naval activity around Gyeongsang Province, and the surviving two, out of the four total fleets, were active only on the other (west) side of the peninsula.Template:Sfn Wŏn Kyun later sent a message to Yi Sun-sin that he had fled to Konyang after being overwhelmed by the Japanese in a fight.Template:Sfn A messenger was sent by Yi Sun-sin to the nearby island of Namhaedo to give Yi's order for war preparations, only to find it pillaged and abandoned by its own inhabitants.Template:Sfn As soldiers began to flee secretly, Yi Sun-sin gave an order "to arrest the escapees" and had two of the fugitives brought back and beheaded; he then had their heads put out for display.Template:Sfn Yi Sun-sin's battles steadily affected the war and put significant strain on the sea lanes along the western Korean Peninsula supporting the Japanese advance.Template:Sfn

The Korean navy relied on a network of local fishermen and scouting boats to receive intelligence of the enemy movements.Template:Sfn On the dawn of 21 July 1592, Yi Sun-sin and Yi Ŏkki set sail with 24 panokseons, 15 small warships, and 46 boats (i.e. fishing boats), and arrived at the waters of Gyeongsang Province by sunset.Template:Sfn The Japanese had been sailing up and down the Korean coast, looting and burning all of the seaside villages, and did not expect opposition from the Korean navy.Template:Sfn

File:Turtle boat.jpg

A turtle ship replica at the War Memorial in Seoul. The historical existence of the ironclad roof is disputed.Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn

The next day, the Jeolla Province fleet sailed to the arranged location where Wŏn Kyun was supposed to meet them, and met Yi Sun-sin on 23 July. The augmented flotilla of 91 shipsTemplate:Sfn then began circumnavigating Geojedo, bound for Gadeokdo, but scouting vessels detected 50 Japanese vessels at Okpo harbor .Template:Sfn Upon sighting the approaching Korean fleet, some of the Japanese who had been busying themselves with plundering got back to their ships, and began to flee.Template:Sfn At this, the Korean fleet encircled the Japanese ships and finished them with artillery bombardments.Template:Sfn The Japanese fired with their arrows and arquebuses, but the Koreans kept a good distance from them, rendering the Japanese fire ineffective.Template:Sfn A teenage Korean girl, taken by the Japanese to be used as a sex slave on board one of their ships, recalled:

Cannonballs and long arrows poured down like hail on the Japanese vessels from our ships. Those who were struck by the missiles fell dead, bathed in blood, while others rolled on deck with wild shrieks or jumped into the water to climb up to the hills. At that time, I remained motionless with fear in the bottom of the boat for longs hours, so I did not know what was happening in the outside world.Template:Sfn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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The Koreans spotted five more Japanese vessels that night, and destroyed four.Template:Sfn After one day's fighting, Yi Sun-sin's fleet had destroyed 26 Japanese ships.Template:Sfn The next day, the Koreans approached 13 Japanese ships at Jeokjinpo.Template:Sfn In the same manner as the previous success at Okpo, the Korean fleet destroyed 11 Japanese ships—completing the Battle of Okpo without the loss of a single ship.Template:Sfn In his report to King Seonjo about his victory, Admiral Yi Sun-sin found the samurai helmets of the Japanese to be rather strange, writing:

The red-black Japanese armour, iron helmets, horse manes, gold crowns, gold fleece, gold armour, feather dress, feather brooms, shell trumpets, and many other curious things, in strange shapes with rich ornaments strike onlookers with awe, like weird ghosts or strange beasts.Template:Sfn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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The Japanese generals were shocked to hear of the Battle of Okpo, where the Koreans had not lost a single ship, as it threatened to cut them off from Japan.Template:Sfn After his victory, Yi Sun-sin found the burnt out remains of countless coastal villages, where the Japanese had enslaved the women while killing all the men.Template:Sfn

About three weeks after the Battle of Okpo,Template:Sfn Yi Sun-sin and Wŏn Kyun sailed with a total of 26 ships (23 under Yi Sun-sin) toward the Bay of Sacheon after receiving an intelligence report of the Japanese presence.Template:Sfn Yi Sun-sin had left behind his fishing vessels that made up most of his fleet in favor of his newly completed turtle ship.Template:Sfn At Sacheon, the Japanese ships were anchored in the bay below a promontory where the Japanese had set up a command base.Template:Sfn

A turtle ship is a vessel of a panokseon design with the removal of the elevated command post, the modification of the gunwales into curved walls, and the addition of a roof covered in iron spikes (and possibly hexagonal iron plates; this is disputedTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn).Template:Sfn Its walls contained a total of 36 cannon ports, and also openings above the cannon, through which the ship's crew members could look out and fire their personal arms.Template:Sfn The design prevented enemies from boarding the ship and aiming at the personnel inside.Template:Sfn The ship was the fastest and most maneuverable warship in the East Asian theater, powered by two sails and 80 oarsmen taking turns on the ship's 16 oars.Template:Sfn No more than six turtle ships served throughout the entire war, and their primary role was to cut deep into the enemy lines, cause havoc with their cannons, and destroy the enemy flagship.Template:Sfn

On 8 July 1592, the fleet arrived at the Bay of Sacheon, where the outgoing tide prevented the Korean fleet from entering.Template:Sfn Therefore, Yi Sun-sin ordered the fleet to feign withdrawal, which the Japanese commander, Wakisaka Yasuharu, observed from his tent on a rock.Template:Sfn The Japanese decided to give chase, embarked their 12 ships, and pursued the Korean fleet.Template:Sfn The Korean navy counterattacked, with the turtle ship in the front, and successfully destroyed all 12 ships.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In his report to King Seonjo, Admiral Yi wrote: "Previously, foreseeing the Japanese invasion, I had a turtle ship made...with a dragon's head, from whose mouth we could fire cannons, and with iron spikes on its back to pierce the enemy's feet when they tried to board. Because it is in the shape of a turtle, our men can look out from inside, but the enemy cannot look in from outside. It moves so swiftly that it can plunge into the midst of even many hundreds of enemy vessel in any weather to attack them with cannonballs and fire throwers".Template:Sfn The Japanese followed their code of Bushido by fighting ferociously, but the superior firepower and armor of the turtle ships more than compensated.Template:Sfn Admiral Yi commanded from his deck, and was badly wounded when a Japanese sniper put a bullet into his shoulder.Template:Sfn

At the Battle of Dangpo, fought by Miruk Island, 21 Japanese ships commanded by Kurushima Michiyuki were in the process of sacking a Korean seaside village, when the Korean fleet appeared to offer a challenge.Template:Sfn Yi Sun-sin once again followed his usual tactic of coming forward to challenge, then making a feigned retreat with the Japanese in hot pursuit, before ambushing them on the open sea.Template:Sfn A Korean girl who had been taken prisoner and forced to become Kurushima's mistress, in an interview after the battle, said: "On the day of the battle, arrows and bullets rained on the pavilion vessel where he [Kurushima] sat. First he was hit on the brow but was unshaken, but when an arrow pierced his chest, he fell down with a loud cry", while the turtle ship "dashed close to this pavilion vessel and broke it by shooting cannonballs from the dragon's mouth and by pouring down arrows and cannonballs from other cannon".Template:Sfn

After his victory, Yi Sun-sin spent the next days searching for more Japanese ships, which he found at Danghangpo.Template:Sfn Yi formed his ships in a circle while a turtle ship rammed the Japanese flagship, resulting in a melee battle.Template:Sfn Yi wanted to annihilate the Japanese, and fearing that the Japanese might land their ships in order to escape, ordered a feigned retreat to bring the battle out to the open sea, which lowered the odds of the Japanese surviving.Template:Sfn Yi noted in his report to King Seonjo that the Japanese had given no mercy to Korean civilians, raping, torturing, and murdering without regard to age and sex, and he would likewise give them no mercy. The feigned retreat worked, with the Japanese following the Koreans to the open sea, and Yi wrote:

Then our ships suddenly enveloped the enemy craft from the four directions, attacking them from both flanks at full speed. The turtle with the Flying Squadron Chief on board rammed the enemy's pavilion vessel once again, while wrecking it with cannon fire, and our other ships hit its brocade curtains and sails with fire arrows. Furious flames burst out and the enemy commander fell dead from an arrow hit".Template:Sfn

All but one of the Japanese ships were taken or sunk, and Yi Sun-sin sent King Seonjo the salted heads of 43 samurai officers.Template:Sfn The next day, the one Japanese ship that had escaped was confronted by a Korean ship sent to capture it, leading to a savage fight when the Koreans boarded the Japanese ship.Template:Sfn The captain of the Japanese ship "stood alone holding a long sword in his hand and fought to the last without fear", taking 10 arrows to kill him.Template:Sfn All 88 sailors of the Japanese ship were killed, and Yi had their ears cut off to be "salted and packed in a box for shipment to the court".Template:Sfn

Battle of Hansan Island

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File:Su Jo Byung Pung Do.JPG

Yi Sun-sin's crane wing formation, famously used at the Battle of Hansando

In response to the Korean navy's success, Toyotomi Hideyoshi recalled three commanders from land-based activities: Wakisaka Yasuharu, Katō Yoshiaki, and Kuki Yoshitaka.Template:Sfn Hideyoshi understood that if the Koreans won command of the sea, this would be the end of the invasion of Korea, and ordered the destruction of the Korean fleet, with Yi Sunsin's head to be brought to him.Template:Sfn Kuki, a former pirate, had the most naval experience, while Katō Yoshiaki was one of the "Seven Spears of Shizugatake".Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn However, the commanders arrived in Busan nine days before Hideyoshi's order was actually issued, and assembled a squadron to counter the Korean navy.Template:Sfn Eventually, Wakisaka completed his preparations, and his eagerness to win military honor pushed him to launch an attack against the Koreans without waiting for the other commanders to finish.Template:Sfn

The combined Korean navy of 53 ships,Template:Sfn under the commands of Yi Sun-sin and Yi Ŏkki, was carrying out a search-and-destroy operation because the Japanese troops on land were advancing into Jeolla Province.Template:Sfn Jeolla Province was the only Korean territory to be untouched by major military action, and served as home for the three commanders and the only active Korean naval force.Template:Sfn The Korean navy considered it best to destroy naval support for the Japanese to reduce the effectiveness of the enemy ground troops.Template:Sfn

On 13 August 1592, the Korean fleet sailing from Miruk Island at Battle of Dangpo received local intelligence that a large Japanese fleet was nearby.Template:Sfn After surviving a storm, the Korean fleet had anchored off Dangpo, where a local man appeared on the beach with the news that the Japanese fleet had just entered the narrow strait of Gyeonnaeryang that divided Koje Island.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The following morning, the Korean fleet spotted the Japanese fleet of 82 vessels anchored in the straits of Gyeonnaeryang.Template:Sfn Due to the narrowness of the strait and the hazard posed by the underwater rocks, Yi Sun-sin sent six ships as bait to lure out 63 Japanese vessels into the wider sea.Template:Sfn The Japanese fleet pursued and, once in the open water, was surrounded by the Korean fleet in a semicircular formation, called a "crane wing" by Yi Sun-sin.Template:Sfn With at least three turtle ships (two of which were newly completed) spearheading the clash against the Japanese fleet, the Korean vessels fired volleys of cannonballs into the Japanese formation.Template:Sfn The Korean ships then engaged in a free-for-all battle with the Japanese ships, maintaining enough distance to prevent the Japanese from boarding; Yi Sun-sin permitted melee combats only against severely damaged Japanese ships.Template:Sfn During the battle, the Korean navy made use of a metal-cased fire bomb that caused substantial damage to Japanese deck crews, and caused fierce fires on board their ships.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn According to the Wakizaka ki:"A man called Manabe Samanosuke was a ship's captain that day, and the ship he was on was set on fire. This tormented him, and saying that he could face meeting the other samurai in the army again, committed suicide and died".Template:Sfn Yi noted that "countless numbers of Japanese were hit by arrows and fell dead into the water", but also complained that "...about four hundred exhausted Japanese, finding no way to escape, deserted their boats and fled ashore".Template:Sfn

The battle ended in a Korean victory, with Japanese losses of 59 ships—47 destroyed and 12 captured.Template:Sfn Not a single Korean ship was lost during the battle. Several Korean prisoners of war were rescued by the Korean soldiers throughout the fight. Wakisaka Yasuharu escaped due to the speed of his flagship.Template:Sfn When the news of the defeat at the Battle of Hansan Island reached Toyotomi Hideyoshi, he ordered that the Japanese invasion forces to cease all further naval operations.Template:Sfn

Battle of Angolpo and Danghangpo

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} For two days after the battle at Dangpo, Yi Ŏkki, with his fleet, joined Yi Sun-sin and Wŏn Kyun, and participated in a search for enemy vessels around Geojedo island and the mainland cost.Template:Sfn The admirals then received intelligence that a group of Japanese ships, including those that escaped from the Battle of Dangpo, was anchored in the Bay of Danghangpo.Template:Sfn After sending in a scout, the fleet advanced to find 26 enemy ships anchored along the shore.Template:Sfn Unable to form a line in the small bay, the Korean fleet formed a circle with the turtle ship in front and bombarded the Japanese.Template:Sfn Realizing that they would likely abandon their ships and flee inland, Yi Sun-sin ordered a feigned retreat to draw the Japanese forces out of the bay and into open water.Template:Sfn The Japanese took the bait and followed them, and were cut off.Template:Sfn All the Japanese ships were sunk or burned, and only a few survivors managed to swim to shore and escape.Template:Sfn

On 16 August 1592, Yi Sun-sin led their fleet to the harbor of Angolpo, where 42 Japanese vessels were docked, in the Battle of Angolpo.Template:Sfn After a false retreat bore no response, he arranged a relay of ships to keep up a rolling bombardment.Template:Sfn When only a few Japanese ships were left undamaged, Yi pulled his fleet back and allowed them to escape by sea, thereby protecting the inhabitants of local villages from possible reprisals by Japanese forces stranded on land.Template:Sfn

Battle of Busan

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} A naval engagement took place on the 1st day, 9th month of 1592. It was a Korean surprise attack on the fleet of Toyotomi Hideyoshi stationed at Busan. Over the course of the battle, Japanese forces lost 100 ships while no Korean ships were lost. Officer Template:Ill and six Korean soldiers, as well as countless Japanese soldiers, were killed.Template:Sfn<ref name="choongmoogong">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} Template:Korean</ref> However, ultimately, the Korean fleet retreated, failing to take over Busan.Template:Sfn In the contemporary official Korean history text Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, it is recorded that the Korean navy failed to defeat the Japanese at Busan.Template:Sfn However, in other primary historical sources, such as the official Joseon compendium (李忠武公全書) written by Joseon bureaucrats, and Yi Sun-sin's war diary Nanjung ilgi and military reports to Yi, it is recorded as a decisive Korean victory.<ref name="choongmoogong" />Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn Modern historians have also summarized the battle as a decisive Korean victory.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Some Korean historians believe the Nanjung ilgi more than the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty when they study the Imjin War because Yi was an eyewitness commander.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

After the battle, the Korean government promoted Yi to Samdo Sugun Tongjesa,Template:Refn which was the title for the commander of the Korean Navy until 1896.Template:Sfn

Korean militias

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} From the beginning of the war, Koreans organized militias that they called "righteous armies" to resist the Japanese invasion.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> These militias were raised throughout the country and participated in battles, guerilla raids, sieges, and the transportation and construction of wartime necessities.Template:Sfn

There were three main types of Korean "righteous army" militias during the war: the surviving and leaderless Korean regular soldiers, yangbans (aristocrats) and commoners, and Buddhist monks.Template:Sfn By the summer of 1592, there were about 22,200 Korean guerrillas serving the Righteous Army, who tied up much of the Japanese force.Template:Sfn

During the first invasion, Jeolla Province remained the only untouched area on the Korean peninsula.Template:Sfn In addition to the successful patrols of the sea by Yi Sun-sin, the activities of volunteer forces pressured the Japanese troops to avoid the province in favour of other priorities.Template:Sfn

Kwak Chaeu's campaigns along the Nakdong River

Kwak Chaeu was a famous leader in the Korean militia movement, the first to form a resistance group against the Japanese invaders.Template:Sfn He was a land-owner in the town of Uiryeong, situated by the Nam River in Gyeongsang Province. In Korea, Kwak is remembered as an enigmatic, romantic hero.Template:Sfn As the Korean regulars abandoned the townTemplate:Sfn and an attack seemed imminent, Kwak organized 50 townsmen. However, the Third Division went from Changwon straight toward Seongju.Template:Sfn When Kwak used abandoned government stores to supply his army, the Gyeongsang Province Governor, Kim Su, branded Kwak's group as rebels, and ordered that it be disbanded.Template:Sfn When Kwak asked for help from other landowners, and sent a direct appeal to the king, the governor sent troops against Kwak, in spite of having enough troubles already with the Japanese.Template:Sfn However, an official from the capital city then arrived to raise troops in the province, and, since the official lived nearby and actually knew him, he saved Kwak from troubles with the governor.Template:Sfn

Kwak Chaeu deployed his troops in guerilla warfare under the cover of the tall reeds on the union of the Nakdong and the Nam rivers.Template:Sfn This strategy prevented Japanese forces from gaining easy access to Jeolla Province where Yi Sun-sin and his fleet were stationed.Template:Sfn

Battle of Uiryeong/Chongjin

The Sixth Division, under the command of Kobayakawa Takakage, was in charge of conquering Jeolla Province.Template:Sfn The Sixth Division marched to Seongju through the established Japanese route (i.e. the Third Division, above), and cut left to Geumsan in Chungcheong Province, which Kobayakawa secured as his starting base for his invasion of the province.Template:Sfn

Ankokuji Ekei, a former Buddhist monk made into a general due to his role in the negotiations between Mōri Terumoto and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, led the units of the Sixth Division charged with the invasion of Jeolla Province. The units began their march to Uiryeong at Changwon, and arrived at the Nam River.Template:Sfn Ankokuji's scouts planted meters measuring the river's depths so that the entire squadron could cross the river. Overnight, the Korean militiamen moved the meters into the deeper parts of the river.Template:Sfn As the Japanese troops began to cross, the militia of Kwak Chaeu ambushed them, and caused them heavy losses.Template:Sfn In the end, to advance into Jeolla Province, Ankokuji's men had to try going north around the insecure grounds and within the security of the Japanese-garrisoned fortresses.Template:Sfn At Kaenyong, Ankokuji's target was changed to Geochang, to be taken with the aid of Kobayakawa Takakage.Template:Sfn However, the entire Jeolla campaign was then abandoned when Template:Ill and his guerillas successfully ambushed Ankokuji's troops by firing arrows from hidden positions within the mountains.Template:Sfn

Jeolla coalition and Battle of Yongin

When the Japanese troops were advancing to Hanseong, Yi Gwang, the governor of Jeolla Province, attempted to check the Japanese progress by launching his army toward the capital city.Template:Sfn Upon hearing the news that the capital had already been sacked, the governor withdrew his army.Template:Sfn However, as the army grew in size to 50,000 men with the accumulation of several volunteer forces, Yi Gwang and the irregular commanders reconsidered their aim to reclaim Hanseong, and led the combined forces north to Suwon, Template:Cvt south of Hanseong.Template:Sfn On 4 June, an advance guard of 1,900 men attempted to take the nearby fortress at Yongin, but the 600 Japanese defenders under Wakizaka Yasuharu avoided engagement with the Koreans until 5 June, when the main Japanese troops came to relieve the fortress.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref> The Japanese troops counterattacked successfully against the Jeolla coalition, forcing the Koreans to abandon arms and retreat.Template:Sfn

First Geumsan campaign

Around the time of the mobilization of the volunteer army of General Kwak Chaeu in Gyeongsang Province, Ko Kyŏngmyŏng in Jeolla Province formed a volunteer force of 6,000 men.Template:Sfn Ko then tried to combine his forces with another militia in Chungcheong Province, but upon crossing the provincial border he heard that Kobayakawa Takakage of the Sixth Division had launched an attack on Jeonju (the capital of Jeolla Province) from the mountain fortress at Geumsan. Ko returned to his own territory.Template:Sfn Having joined forces with General Template:Ill, Ko then led his soldiers to Geumsan.Template:Sfn There, on 10 July, the volunteer forces fought with a Japanese army retreating to Geumsan after a defeat at the Battle of Ichi two days earlier on 8 July.<ref>Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>

Warrior monks

Prompted by King Seonjo, the Buddhist monk Hyujeong issued a manifesto calling upon all monks to take up arms, writing, "Alas, the way of heaven is no more. The destiny of the land is on the decline. In defiance of heaven and reason, the cruel foe had the temerity to cross the sea aboard a thousand ships".Template:Sfn Hyujeong called the samurai "poisonous devils" who were "as virulent as snakes or fierce animals" whose brutality justified abandoning the pacifism of Buddhism to protect the weak and innocent.Template:Sfn Hyujeong ended his appeal with a call for monks who were able-bodied to "put on the armor of mercy of Bodhisattvas, hold in hand the treasured sword to fell the devil, wield the lightning bolt of the Eight Deities, and come forward!".Template:Sfn At least 8,000 monks responded to Hyujeong's call, some out of a sense of Korean patriotism and others motivated by a desire to improve the status of Buddhism, which suffered discrimination from a Sinophile court intent upon promoting Confucianism.Template:Sfn

In Chungcheong Province, the abbot Yeonggyu proved to be an active guerrilla leader and together with the Righteous Army of 1,100 commanded by Cho Hŏn attacked and defeated the Japanese at the Battle of Cheongju on 6 September 1592.Template:Sfn After the victory, the Korean leaders began to quarrel among themselves over who was most responsible, and it was that when the Koreans took the offensive, the regulars under Yun Songak refused to take part while the Righteous Army under Cho Hŏn and the warrior monks under abbot Yeonggyu marched separately.Template:Sfn On 22 September 1592, Cho Hŏn, with 700 Righteous Army guerrillas, attacked a Japanese force of 10,000 under Kobayakawa Takakage.Template:Sfn Turnbull described the second battle of Geumsan as an act of folly on Cho's part as his outnumbered force took on "10,000 of the toughest samurai", who encircled the Righteous Army and "exterminated" them, wiping out the entire Korean force as Kobayakawa ordered that no prisoners be taken.Template:Sfn Feeling obligated to come to Cho's aid, the abbot Yeonggyu now led his warrior monks against Kobayakawa at the third battle of Geumsan, who likewise suffered the same fate—"total annihilation".Template:Sfn However, as the Geumsan salient had taken three successive Korean attacks in a row in a single month, the 6th Division under Kobayakawa was pulled back as Toyotomi Hideyoshi decided the salient was not worth the trouble to hold it, and to the suffering people of the region that was all that mattered.Template:Sfn The Japanese withdrawal inspired further guerrilla attacks and one Righteous Army leader, Pak Chin, had an object hurled over the walls of the Japanese-held town of Gyeongju, which caused "the robbers", as Korean accounts always called the Japanese, to go examine it. The object turned out to be a bomb that killed 30 Japanese.Template:Sfn Fearing his garrison was now under-strength, the Japanese commander ordered a retreat to the coastal wajo (castle) at Sosaengpo.Template:Sfn

Siege of Jinju

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Jinju was a strategic stronghold that defended Gyeongsang Province. The Japanese commanders knew that control of Jinju would mean easy access to the ricebelts of Jeolla Province. Accordingly, a large army under Hosokawa Tadaoki approached Jinju. Jinju was defended by Kim Simin, one of the better generals in Korea, commanding a Korean garrison of 3,000 men.Template:Sfn Kim had recently acquired about 170 new arquebuses that were equal in strength to the Japanese guns.Template:Sfn As customary, the Japanese began to collect heads, with the Taikōki mentioning how a samurai named Jirōza'emon "took the first head and raised it aloft. The other five men also attacked and took some excellent heads".Template:Sfn The Japanese had usually had little trouble with taking Korean castles and towns, and a certain contempt for the fighting abilities of the Koreans was common among the samurai, so it was a great surprise for the Japanese when they assaulted Jinju to be hit with a barrage of fire as Kim 's men dropped heavy stones and bombs while firing their arquebuses, stopping their assault cold.Template:Sfn

Hosokawa ordered a new assault with the samurai advancing this time under bamboo shields with covering fire from their arquebuses, which allowed them to place ladders across the walls of Jinju.Template:Sfn A scene of carnage occurred, with the Koreans dumping rocks and delayed action bombs down on the Japanese.Template:Sfn The Taikōki reported:

As we try to become ichiban nori ["the first to climb in"], they climbed up as in a swarm. Because of this the ladders almost broke, and comrades fell down from their climb, so they could not use the ladders. Hosokawa Tadaoki's brother, Sadaoki, was one such, accompanied by foot soldiers on ladders on his right and left, and strictly ordered, "Until I have personally climbed into the castle this ladder is for one person to climb. If anyone climbs I will take his head!", then he climbed. Because of this, the ladder did not break and the men who saw him were loud in their praise. Consequently, before long he placed his hands on the wall, but when he tried to make his entry from within the castle, spears and naginata were thrust at him to try to make him fall, and lamentably, he fell to the bottom of the moat.Template:Sfn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

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For three days, the Japanese attacked Jinju fruitlessly with the moats becoming full of their dead.Template:Sfn On 11 November 1592, a force of Korean guerrillas led by Kwak Chaeu arrived as the relief force, and to fool the Japanese into thinking his force was much larger than it was, Kwak ordered his men to light fires at night on the hills while blowing their conch shells.Template:Sfn On 12 November, Hosokawa Tadaoki ordered a final attempt to storm Jinju, with heavy fighting on the northern gates, with General Kim being killed when a Japanese bullet went through his head, but the Korean arquebus fire drove off the Japanese.Template:Sfn At that time, another Korean relief force bringing badly needed ammunition arrived up the Nam River, causing Hosokawa to break off the siege, who argued that with the Japanese deep in enemy territory and no reserves to cover his rear that it was too dangerous to continue the siege.Template:Sfn Toyotomi Hideyoshi was enraged when he heard of the defeat, saying the Japanese should never be defeated by Koreans, and vowed vengeance.Template:Sfn With the help of arquebuses, cannon, and mortars, the Koreans were able to drive the Japanese from Jeolla Province. The result of the battle at Jinju prevented the Japanese from entering Jeolla Province.

Intervention of Ming China

Unable to repel the Japanese invasion, Korea ultimately had to rely on the intervention of Ming China to halt the Japanese advance, despite the various logistical and organizational difficulties suffered by the Japanese.Template:Sfn

Korean Court historian and politician Yu Sŏngnyong stated that the Korean naval victory stalled the entire strategy of the invaders by "cutting off one of the arms" with which Japan tried to envelop Korea, isolating Konishi Yukinaga's army at Pyongyang and securing Chinese waters from the feared Japanese attack, such that "the Celestial Army could come by land to the assistance" of Korea.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

File:Wanli.jpg

The Wanli Emperor of the Ming dynasty

Viewing the crisis in Joseon, the Wanli Emperor and the Ming court were initially filled with confusion and skepticism as to how their tributary could have been overrun so quickly.Template:Sfn

The Korean court was at first hesitant to call for help from the Ming dynasty, and began a withdrawal to Pyongyang.Template:Sfn After repeated requests by King Seonjo, and after the Japanese army had already reached Korea's border with China, China finally came to the aid of Korea.<ref name="www2.hawaii.edu"/> China was also somewhat obligated to come to the assistance of Korea because Korea was a tributary state of China, and the Ming dynasty did not tolerate the possibility of a Japanese invasion of China.Template:Sfn<ref name=Lewis277>Template:Harvnb "Ming's participation, however, was motivated more by self-defense than by the intention to help Chosŏn. At the time, Japan had explicitly declared its plans to "borrow a road to enter the Ming." Because of this, Ming feared for the security of Liaodong, and eventually came to worry about the threat to Beijing from a Chosŏn occupied by the Japanese army.</ref> The local governor at Liaodong eventually acted upon King Seonjo's request for aid following the capture of Pyongyang by sending a small force of 5,000 soldiers led by Zu Chengxun.Template:Sfn Zu, a general who had fought successfully against the Mongols and the Jurchens, was over-confident, holding the Japanese in contempt.Template:Sfn This cavalry force advanced almost unhindered and managed to enter Pyongyang, but was promptly and decisively defeated by the Japanese troops in the city. On 23 August 1592, the Chinese attacked under the cover of a heavy rainstorm, taking the Japanese by surprise.Template:Sfn Once the Japanese realized that they outnumbered the Chinese by six to one, they allowed the Chinese cavalry to spread out over the streets of Pyongyang and counter-attacked, using their superior numbers to annihilate the Chinese.Template:Sfn As the Chinese retreated into the muddy fields outside of Pyongyang, the samurai cut them down in the hundreds.Template:Sfn One of their leading generals, Shi Ru, was killed in this engagement. The Japanese were elated at having defeated an army from China, the foremost power in East Asia, but Konishi Yukinaga grew despondent over the fall of 1592 as it became clear that no reinforcements would arrive from Japan.Template:Sfn The fleet of Admiral Yi Sun-sin was preventing any Japanese ships from landing, while the attacks of the Korean Righteous Army guerrillas left the Japanese forces in northern Korea largely cut off from the forces in southern Korea.Template:Sfn At conference in Hanseong, Konishi told Ukita Hideie that he was not certain if Pyongyang could be held if the Chinese were to attack again with greater numbers.Template:Sfn During the later half of 1592, the Ming sent investigation teams into Pyongyang to clarify the situation.Template:Sfn The Ming became fully aware of the situation and made the decision for a full reinforcement by September 1592. With the victory in Ningxia, the Chinese finally had the forces available for Korea, and Li Rusong, the general who crushed the Ningxia revolt was sent to expel the Japanese from Korea.Template:Sfn

By then, it had become clear that this was a situation much more serious than something that could be handled by local forces. Thus, the Ming Emperor mobilized and dispatched a larger force in January 1593 under the general Li Rusong and Imperial Superintendent Song Yingchang, the former being one of the sons of Ming dynasty's Liaodong military magistrate, Li Chengliang, and the latter being a bureaucratic officer (Ming military law stipulated that any military officer would have an accompanying bureaucrat appointed by the Imperial Court acting as the general's superior). According to the collection of letters left by Song Yingchang, the strength of the Ming army was around 40,000,Template:Refn composed mostly of garrisons from the north, including around 3,000 men with experience against Japanese pirates under Qi Jiguang. Li wanted a winter campaign as the frozen ground would allow his artillery train to move more easily than it would under the roads turned into mud by the fall rains.Template:Sfn On 5 January 1593, Wu Weizhong led an advance force of 3,000 men across the Yalu River into Korea, followed by two battalions of 2,000 men each later the same day.Template:Sfn At Uiju, King Seonjo and the Korean court formally welcomed Li and the other Chinese generals to Korea, where strategy was discussed.Template:Sfn

File:Ming matchlocks.jpg

Ming-era matchlock firearms used in the 15th to 17th centuries

Thailand, a longtime faithful tributary state of the Chinese dynasties,Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn offered to directly attack Japan to intervene in Toyotomi Hideyoshi's plans, but Ming did not accept, instead ordering Thailand to attack Burma.Template:Sfn

Siege of Pyongyang

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} On 5 February 1593, the Ming expeditionary army arrived outside Pyongyang accompanied by a group of Korean soldiers. Ming general Li Rusong was appointed the supreme commander of all armies in Korea. After initial attempts to negotiate with the Japanese defenders under Konishi Yukinaga broke down,<ref name="The History of Ming chapter 238"/> the two sides began skirmishing on the outskirts over the next couple of days, with Li Rusong attempting to dislodge a Japanese garrison on the hills north of the city while Konishi Yukinaga attempted a night raid on the Ming camp.<ref name="The History of Ming chapter 238"/> The Japanese night attack was beaten off by the Chinese fire archers, and Li ordered a feigned retreat, leading the over-confident samurai to fall into a trap, resulting in their annihilation.Template:Sfn The Sino-Korean force consisted of 43,000 Chinese, 10,000 Koreans, plus Righteous Army guerrillas, and about 5,000 warrior monks.Template:Sfn Li admitted that the Japanese infantry were better equipped with guns, but assured his officers: "Japanese weapons have a range of a few hundred paces, while my great cannon have a range of five to six li [2.4 km]. How can we not be victorious?"Template:Sfn The city of Pyongyang was one of the most powerful fortresses in Korea, and to take it, Li's plans called for surrounding the city on all four sides, starting a fierce bombardment under which his infantry would advance.Template:Sfn

The Korean warrior monks, led by Abbot Hyujeong, attacked the headquarters of Konishi Yuninaga on Moranbong, coming under heavy Japanese arquebus fire, taking hundreds of dead, but they persevered.Template:Sfn Later that same day, the Chinese under Wu Weizhong joined the attack, and with a real danger that Konishi would be cut off from the rest of his army, So Yoshitoshi led a counterattack that rescued the Japanese forces from Moranbong.Template:Sfn After the fall of Moranbong after two days fighting, Li Rusong ordered his cannons to open fire while fire arrows and incendiary bombs set much of the city on fire.Template:Sfn On the morning of 6 February, Li ordered an all-out assault on three sides of the city. The Chinese took heavy losses as the Japanese fire was withering, but Li, whose horse was killed, was able to bring up the siege ladders, called "cloud ladders" by the Chinese.Template:Sfn Li had offered 5,000 ounces of silver for the first man to get over the wall, an honor that was claimed by an infantryman from Zhejiang Province named Luo Shangzhi, who got up unto the wall while using his halberd to great effect.Template:Sfn

Japanese defenders were forced off the walls fairly quickly, and retreated to the citadel they built on the eastern portions of the city. Chinese officers initially scoffed at the earth walls of the Japanese citadel, but after coming under fire from the Japanese arquebuses, soon learned to respect the defense.Template:Sfn The Jingbirok reported: "The enemy built clay walls with holes on top of their fortress, which looked like a beehive. They fired their muskets though those holes as much as they could, and as a result, a number of Chinese soldiers were wounded".Template:Sfn The allies were unwilling to commit to a direct assault on the heavily defended fortification during the day. Instead, they left an opening for the Japanese to rally while making preparations for a fire assault on their position at night. Japanese forces sallied out of the undefended eastern walls and made a run for Hanseong, and they were hit with additional ambushes on the way back south and took heavy casualties.<ref name="The History of Ming chapter 238"/>Template:Sfn

A samurai, Yoshino Jingoze'emon, wrote about the retreat:

There was hardly a gap between the dead bodies that filled the surroundings of Matsuyama Castle [Moranbong]. Finally, when we had repulsed the enemy, they burned the food storehouses in several places, so there was now no food. On the night of the seventh day, we evacuated the caste, and made our escape. Wounded men were abandoned, while those who were not wounded but simply exhausted crawled almost prostrate along the road...Because it is a cold country, there is ice and deep snow, and hands and feet are burned by the snow, and this gives rise to frostbite, which makes them swell up. The only clothes they had were the garments worn under their armour, and even men who were normally gallant resembled scarecrows on the mountains and fields because of their fatigue, and were indistinguishable from the dead.Template:Sfn{{#if:|{{#if:|}}

— {{#if:|, in }}Template:Comma separated entries

}}

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The fortress of Pungsan, held by Otomo Yoshimune of the Third Division, had been abandoned and burned down by him, before Konishi's force reached it, adding to the misery of the retreat.Template:Sfn Otomo ruined his reputation by retreating without being attacked, and as a result, the Otomo clan, one of the oldest and most respected daimyō families on Kyushu, were disgraced forever, as under Bushido, cowardice was the worst disgrace for a samurai.Template:Sfn Otomo's disgrace was also a blow for the efforts of Jesuit missionaries in Japan as Otomo had converted to Catholicism after long talks with the Portuguese Jesuits, and many Japanese concluded that Christianity with its emphasis on love and gentleness was not a suitable religion for a samurai.Template:Sfn Song Yingchang's letters on 1 March 1593, described the battle in full to the Ming court. After their defeat, the Japanese shifted their strategy to hit-and-run tactics and ambushes. The use of gunpowder technology and street fighting contributed to the victory, which would permanently deter the invasion.Template:Sfn

Battle of Byeokjegwan

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Soon after retaking Pyongyang, Li Rusong also succeeded in retaking the major city of Kaesong on 19 January 1592,<ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref> and met only minor resistance from the Japanese defenders.

Overconfident with his recent success and possibly misled by false reports,<ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref> Li Rusong advanced towards the capital city of Hanseong with his allied army of 20,000Template:Sfn on 21 January 1593. On 26 January, the force ran into an unexpected confrontation at Byeokjegwan with a large Japanese formation of about 30,000.

Initially, the scouting party of the group under Zha Dashou and a Korean general confronted a small band of Japanese numbering no more than 600 men. The party overran them successfully but soon ran into a much larger host under Tachibana Muneshige, and retreated to a nearby hill to defend themselves.

Upon hearing of his scouting party's plight, Li decided to rush forward with the rest of his small host. He met up with his scouting party around noon, but by that time even more Japanese forces were converging on the area.

The Ming forces gradually retreated north while fighting off several waves of attacks. Li Rusong and many other generals personally fought in the brawl, and they sustained heavy casualties before they met up with the rest of their army toward the later portion of the day. At that point, the Japanese gave up further attacks and both sides pulled back. Because the Ming suffered heavy casualties among their elite retinues, Li became reluctant to move aggressively for the remainder of the war.<ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref>

Battle of Haengju

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The Japanese invasion into Jeolla Province was broken down and pushed back by General Kwŏn Yul at the hills of Ichiryeong, where outnumbered Koreans fought Japanese troops in the Battle of Byeokjegwan and gained a victory. Kwŏn Yul quickly advanced northwards, retaking Suwon and then swung north toward the fortress Haengjusanseong, a wooden stockade on a cliff over the Han River, where he would wait for Chinese reinforcements. After he was informed that the Ming army under Li Rusong was pushed back at Byeokje, Kwŏn Yul decided to fortify Haengju.Template:Sfn Kwon's force of 2,300 men were a mixture of regulars, warrior monks, and Righteous Army guerrillas.Template:Sfn

Bolstered by the victory at the Battle of Byeokjegwan, Katō Kiyomasa and his army of 30,000 men advanced to the south of Hanseong to attack Haengjusanseong, an impressive mountain fortress that overlooked the surrounding area.Template:Sfn An army of a few thousand led by Kwŏn Yul was garrisoned at the fortress, waiting for the Japanese. Katō believed his overwhelming army would destroy the Koreans and therefore ordered the Japanese soldiers to simply advance upon the steep slopes of Haengju with little planning at about 6 am.Template:Sfn Kwŏn Yul responded to the Japanese advance with fierce fire from the fortification using hwachas, rocks, handguns, and bows.Template:Sfn The hwach'a ("fire wagon") was a cart that could fire either 100 rockets or 200 arrows at once; the hwach'a took much time to load, but were capable of bringing down deadly fire.Template:Sfn Kwŏn had trained his men to fire their hwach'as all at once, and as the Japanese were packed closely together, the volley from the "fire wagons" inflicted heavy losses.Template:Sfn The women of Hanseong joined their menfolk, bringing up rocks in their skirts.Template:Sfn In the course of nine assaults, the Japanese pushed the Koreans back to their second line, but could advance no further. Korean sources estimate up to 10,000 Japanese may have been killed or wounded in the process.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn The Jingbirok wrote: "Kwŏn Yul ordered his soldiers to gather the dead bodies of the enemy and vent their anger by tearing them apart and hanging them on the branches of the trees".Template:Sfn Facing unexpected resistance and mounting casualties, Katō Kiyomasa burned his dead and finally pulled his troops back.

The Battle of Haengju was an important victory for the Koreans, as it greatly improved the morale of the Korean army. The battle is celebrated today as one of the three most decisive Korean victories (the other two being the 1592 Battle of Hansan Island and the siege of Jinju). Today, the site of Haengjusanseong has a memorial built to honor Kwŏn Yul. By this time, the Japanese invasion force of about 150,000 men were down to about 53,000 men, with Chinese reinforcements arriving every day.Template:Sfn Most of the Japanese were suffering from hunger, frostbite, and snow-blindness and some Japanese soldiers were so weakened by hunger that they were unable to defend themselves from tigers in the mountains.Template:Sfn With the situation untenable, the Japanese retreated to the coast.Template:Sfn

Stalemate

After the Battle of Byeokjegwan, the Ming army took a cautious approach and moved on Hanseong again later in February after the successful Korean defense in the Battle of Haengju.<ref>Template:Harvnb "The despondent Chinese general Li Rusong resolved to return to the fray when he heard of the triumph at Haengju, and Chinese troops began to move south towards Seoul once again."</ref>

The two sides remained at a stalemate between the Kaesong to Hanseong line for the next couple of months, with both sides unable and unwilling to commit to further offensives. The Japanese lacked sufficient supplies to move north, and the defeat at Pyongyang had caused part of the Japanese leadership, such as Konishi Yukinaga and Ishida Mitsunari, to seriously consider negotiating with the Ming dynasty forces. This got them into a heated debate with other hawkish generals such as Katō Kiyomasa, and these conflicts would eventually have further implications following the war in Japan when the two sides became rivals in the Battle of Sekigahara.

The Ming forces had their own set of problems. Soon after arriving in Korea, the Ming officials began to note the inadequate logistical supply from the Korean court. The records by Qian Shizhen noted that even after the Siege of Pyongyang, the Ming forces were already stalled for nearly a week due to the lack of supplies, before moving on to Kaesong.<ref>Qian Shizhen, The records of the Eastern Expedition.</ref> As time went on, the situation only become more serious. When the weather warmed, the road conditions in Korea also became terrible, as numerous letters from Song Yingchang and other Ming officers attest, which made resupplying from China itself also a tedious process.<ref>Song Yingchang, The letter collections of the restoration management. Various letters, including the letter to Li Rusong on 10 February 1593 stating Template:Zhi</ref>

The Korean countryside was already devastated from the invasion when the Ming forces arrived, and in the heart of winter it was extremely difficult for the Koreans to muster sufficient supplies. Even though the court had assigned the majority of the men on hand to tackle the situation, their desire to reclaim their country, along with the militarily inexperienced nature of many of their administrators, resulted in their continual requests to the Ming forces to advance despite the situation. These events created an increasing level of distrust between the two sides.

Though by mid April 1593, faced with ever-greater logistical pressure from a Korean naval blockade of Yi Sun-sin, in addition to a Ming force special operation that managed to burn down a very significant portion of the Japanese grain storage,<ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref> the Japanese broke off talks and pulled out of Hanseong.

Second siege of Jinju

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

Unlike the first siege of Jinju, the second siege resulted in a Japanese victory. Toyotomi Hideyoshi was especially determined to take Jinju and ordered that the previous Japanese failure to take the city be avenged.Template:Sfn Ukita Hideie led 90,000 Japanese troops to take Jinju, making it the largest mobilization of Japanese forces for a single operation in the entire war.Template:Sfn The Koreans, not knowing where the Japanese were going, divided their forces, with Kim Ch'ŏnil commanding the garrison of 4,000 soldiers at Jinju, who were joined by volunteers, guerrillas, a small Chinese force, and a large number of civilians including women and children, making for a total of about 60,000.Template:Sfn On 20 July 1593, the Japanese began to construct wooden shields to allow them to advance against the walls.Template:Sfn To the west were Konishi Yukinaga with 26,000 men, and to the north were Kato Kiyomasa with 25,000, while Ukita Hideie commanded the reserve of 17,000.Template:Sfn On 21 July 1593, the Japanese attacked, breaking the dyke that filled the moat around Jinju, while the samurai advanced under their wooden shields, to be stopped by Korean fire arrows, cannonballs, and arquebuses.Template:Sfn On 23 July, the Japanese attacked with wooden siege towers, which were knocked down by Korean cannon fire.Template:Sfn On 25 July, under a flag of truce, Ukita sent a messenger to Kim, telling him that the Japanese would slaughter 10,000 Korean peasants whom they had taken prisoner if Jinju did not surrender at once, but Kim refused, and so 10,000 Korean peasants were beheaded.Template:Sfn

The Japanese now attacked with armored carts called "tortoise shell wagons", which allowed the Japanese to advance up to the walls, where the sappers would pull out the stones. But as a Japanese account complained: "They tried to attack, but from inside the castle, pine torches were thrown that set the grass alight. The soldiers inside the tortoise wagons were also burned and retreated".Template:Sfn On 27 July, the Japanese again attacked with the "tortoise shell wagons", but this time, there was a heavy thunderstorm that prevented Korean attempts to incinerate the Japanese by dropping torches soaked in fat.Template:Sfn The Japanese sappers broke down a section of the wall and a great rush broke out with the samurai pushed each other down as it was a great honor to be the first samurai to enter a fortress.Template:Sfn Goto Mototsugu, a retainer of Kuroda Nagamasa, was about to be the first samurai to enter Jinju when Iida Kakbei, a retainer of Kato Kiyomasa, threw the Nichiren flag into the breach to claim that honor for himself.Template:Sfn The Korean garrison was out of ammunition and were short of swords, so many Koreans fought with wooden sticks against the onrush of samurai armed with katanas.Template:Sfn One Korean, General Sŏ Yewon, engaged in a lengthy single combat with a samurai named Okamoto Gonjo, which ended when the wounded General Sŏ lost his breath and fell down by a tree, and Okamoto took the chance to sever his head with a single blow from his katana.Template:Sfn Sŏ's head fell down by the Nam River, which as it was a great honor for a samurai to take the head of their enemies, led Okamoto to order a search to find Sŏ's head, so that it could be salted and taken back to Japan.Template:Sfn The Korean commander, General Kim Ch'ŏnil, committed suicide.Template:Sfn

As usual, the Japanese took no prisoners, killing almost everyone, both military and civilian, and the Nam River ran red with blood as thousands attempted to swim across it, only to be cut down by the samurai waiting on the other side.Template:Sfn The chronicler of the Kato clan noted: "All the Chinese were terrified of our Japanese blades, and jumped into the river, but we pulled them and cut off their heads".Template:Sfn Korean accounts mention that almost all of the 60,000 soldiers in Jinju were killed while Japanese accounts mention the samurai sent 20,000 heads back to Japan after their victory.Template:Sfn Only the kisaeng (courtesans) of Jinju were spared as they were pressed into service for the victorious Japanese generals at a party they held to celebrate their victory on the evening of the same day at the Ch'oksŏngu Pavilion on a nearby hill, as it offered the best view of the "hellish scene" below them.Template:Sfn One courtesan, Nongae, attracted the attention of a samurai, Keyamura Rokunosuke, whom she lured to a cliff by promising him sex, and then threw both herself and him off the cliff, becoming a national heroine in Korea.Template:Sfn Jinju was taken only for symbolic purposes, and instead of advancing, the Japanese force at Jinju retreated back to Busan as there was a larger Chinese force to the north.Template:Sfn Toyotomi Hideyoshi was well satisfied that he had avenged the defeat of 1592 at Jinju, though Turnbull argued that to lose so many men to take a town only for symbolic reasons was wasteful.Template:Sfn

Negotiations and truce between China and Japan (1594–1596)

File:Ming army2.JPG

Painting of the Ming army camped in Ningxia

There were two factors that triggered the Japanese to withdraw: first, a Chinese commando penetrated Hanseong and burned storehouses at Yongsan, destroying most of what was left of the Japanese troops' depleted stock of food. Secondly, Shen Weijing made another appearance to conduct negotiations, and threatened the Japanese with an attack by 400,000 Chinese. The Japanese under Konishi Yukinaga and Katō Kiyomasa, aware of their weak situation, agreed to withdraw to the Busan area while the Chinese would withdraw back to China. A ceasefire was imposed, and a Ming emissary was sent to Japan to discuss peace terms.Template:Sfn For the next three years, there was little fighting as the Japanese retained control of a few coastal fortresses, with the rest of Korea being controlled by the Koreans.Template:Sfn

By 18 May 1594, all the Japanese soldiers had retreated to the area around Busan and many began to make their way back to Japan. The Ming government withdrew most of its expeditionary force, but kept 16,000 men on the Korean peninsula to guard the truce.

Once peace negotiations between China and Japan finally got underway, Chinese negotiators gave the Ming emperor the mistaken impression that he was about to deal with a minor state that had been subdued by war. Furthermore, they conveyed the idea that the Japanese regent, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, was prepared to become his vassal. Under such conditions, the Chinese sought to resolve the issue in their favor by including Japan in their tributary system of foreign relations. They would establish Hideyoshi as king of Japan and grant him the privilege of formal tribute trade relations with the Ming dynasty.

In Japan, Hideyoshi's negotiators apparently led him to believe that China was suing for peace and was ready to accept him as their emperor. Thus, Hideyoshi issued the demands of a victor; first, a daughter of the Ming emperor must be sent to become the wife of the Japanese emperor; second, the southern provinces of Joseon must be ceded to Japan; third, normal trade relations between China and Japan must be restored; and fourth, a Joseon prince and several high-ranking government officials must be sent to Japan as hostages.

Bargaining from such fundamentally different perspectives, there was no prospect whatsoever for success in the talks. Early in 1597, both sides resumed hostilities.<ref name="tiger12JITHF">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Chŏngyu War: second invasion (1597–1598)

Chŏngyu WarTemplate:Sfn
Army of the Right
	Mōri Hidemoto	30,000
	Emperor Go-Yozei	1,000
	Katō Kiyomasa	10,000
	Kuroda Nagamasa	5,000
	Nabeshima Naoshige	12,000
	Ikeda Hideuji	2,800
	Chōsokabe Motochika	3,000
	Ikoma Kazumasa	1,000
	Nakagawa Hidenari	2,500
Subtotal		67,300
Army of the Left
	Ukita Hideie	10,000
	Konishi Yukinaga	7,000
	Sō Yoshitoshi	1,000
	Matsura Shigenobu	3,000
	Arima Harunobu	2,000
	Ōmura Yoshiaki	1,000
	Gotō Sumiharu	700
	Hachisuka Iemasa	7,200
	Mōri Yoshinari	2,000
	Ikoma Kazumasa	2,700
	Shimazu Yoshihiro	10,000
	Shimazu Tadatsune	800
	Akizuki Tanenaga	300
	Takahashi Mototane	600
	Itō Suketaka	500
	Sagara Yorifusa	800
Subtotal		49,600
Army total		116,900
Naval Command
	Tōdō Takatora	2,800
	Katō Yoshiaki	2,400
	Wakisaka Yasuharu	1,200
	Kurushima Michifusa	600
	Mitaira Saemon	200
Subtotal		7,200
Total		124,100

After the failed peace negotiations of the inter-war years, Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched the second invasion of Korea. One of the main strategic differences between the first and second invasions was that conquering China was no longer an explicit goal for the Japanese. Failing to gain a foothold during Katō Kiyomasa's Chinese campaign, and the near complete withdrawal of the Japanese forces during the first invasion, had established that the Korean peninsula was the more prudent and realistic objective.

Japan's second force arrived unopposed on the southern coast of Gyeongsang Province in 1596. Soon after the Chinese ambassadors had safely returned to China in 1597, Hideyoshi sent approximately 200 ships with an estimated 141,100 men under the overall command of Kobayakawa Hideaki.Template:Sfn

However, the Japanese found that the Korean army was both better equipped and better prepared to deal with an invasion than several years prior.<ref name="tiger12JISGP">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In addition, upon hearing the news in China, the imperial court in Beijing appointed Yang Hao as the supreme commander of an initial mobilization of 55,000 troops from various (and sometimes remote) provinces across China, such as Sichuan, Zhejiang, Huguang, Fujian, and Guangdong.Template:Sfn A naval force of 21,000 was included in the effort.Template:Sfn Ray Huang, a Chinese-American philosopher and historian, estimated that the combined strength of the Chinese army and navy at the height of the second campaign was around 75,000.Template:Sfn Korean forces totaled approximately 30,000 men, with General Kwŏn Yul's army in Gong Mountain in Daegu, General Kwŏn Ŭngsu's troops in Gyeongju, General Kwak Chaeu's soldiers in Changnyeong, Yi Bok-nam's army in Naju, and Yi Si-yun's troops in Chungpungnyeong.

Initial offensive

Template:More citations needed section Initially, the Japanese found limited success, being largely confined to Gyeongsang Province and only launching numerous raids to harass and weaken the Korean defenders. In the early autumn of 1597, the Japanese began a more focused and sustained advance. The Japanese planned to attack Jeolla Province in the southwestern part of the peninsula and eventually occupy Jeonju, the provincial capital. Korean success in the First Siege of Jinju in 1592 had mostly saved this area from devastation during the first invasion (the Second Siege of Jinju in 1593, while a Japanese victory, was only undertaken for symbolic purposes). Two Japanese armies, under Mōri Hidemoto and Ukita Hideie, began the assault in Busan and marched towards Jeonju, taking Sacheon and Changpyeong along the way.

Plot to dismiss Yi Sun-sin

File:Navalzhugenu2.jpg

A naval battle. Close combat was very rare during Admiral Yi Sun-sin's operations.

The Korean navy was again to play a crucial part in the second invasion, as in the first, by hampering Japanese advances on land by harassing supply fleets at sea.Template:Sfn However, despite his previous successes, Yi Sun-sin was both demoted and jailed by King Seonjo, largely due to a Japanese plot to deceive the Korean court and take advantage of the court's political infighting. Government officials gave direct orders to launch a surprise naval operation against the Japanese, based on a tip from a presumed reliable Japanese spy. Yi refused to obey these orders, knowing that this was an obvious trap meant to have his own fleet sail into an ambush. This development allowed others within the court to further advance their personal agendas while Yi was severely punished. Ultimately, Wŏn Kyun was appointed in Yi Sun-sin's place at the head of the Korean navy.

Battle of Chilcheollyang

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} After Wŏn Kyun replaced Yi Sun-sin as head of the Korean navy, he was quick to take action and justify his newly acquired position. He gathered the entire Korean fleet, which now had more than 100 ships, outside of Yeosu, to search for the Japanese. Without any previous preparations or planning, Wŏn Kyun then had his entire fleet sail towards Busan.

After one day at sea, Wŏn Kyun was informed of a large Japanese fleet near Busan. He decided to attack immediately, despite reports of exhaustion among the crews of his ships.

At the subsequent Battle of Chilcheollyang, Wŏn Kyun was completely outmaneuvered by the Japanese in a surprise attack. His ships were overwhelmed by arquebus fire and the traditional Japanese boarding attacks, which largely resulted in the destruction of his entire fleet. Prior to this engagement, Template:Ill (1551–1599), a naval officer who did not submit to Wŏn Kyun's leadership, kept thirteen panokseons under his command and out of the battle, instead escaping to the southwestern Korean coast. These would form the entire fighting force of the Korean navy during the following months.

The Battle of Chilcheollyang was Japan's only decisive naval victory of the war. Wŏn Kyun was himself killed by a Japanese garrison after he struggled ashore on an island following the destruction of his flagship. The victory allowed the Japanese navy to safely escort its troop ships and to support planned landing operations.Template:Sfn

Siege of Namwon

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} After the disaster at Chilcheollyang, the allied defenses in the south began to quickly break down and the Japanese forces stormed into Jeolla Province. The garrison of Namwon became their next key target.

Namwon was located 50 kilometres southeast of Jeonju. Correctly predicting a Japanese attack, a coalition force of 6,000 soldiers (including 3,000 Chinese troops under Yang Yuan and civilian volunteers) were prepared to fight the approaching Japanese forces.Template:Sfn The Japanese laid siege to the walls of the fortress with ladders and siege towers.Template:Sfn The two sides exchanged volleys with arquebuses and bows. Eventually, the Japanese forces scaled the walls and sacked the fortress. According to Japanese commander Okochi Hidemoto, author of the Chosen Ki (Korean Record), the Siege of Namwon resulted in 3,726 casualtiesTemplate:Refn among the Korean and Chinese forces.Template:Sfn The Korean forces and its leaders were almost entirely killed.

When the gates were opened, many Koreans simply laid down on their knees, knowing the samurai would behead them, while others tried to flee north, where the samurai commanded by Katō Yoshiaki and Shimazu Yoshihiro were waiting and proceeded to cut down all Koreans with their katanas.Template:Sfn The Japanese Buddhist monk Keinen, who was traveling with the samurai, described a scene of utter horror as the full moon illuminated the scenes of destruction with much of the town on fire, the formerly white walls of Namwon turned red with blood, and the wailing of the Koreans, knowing it was their time to die as the samurai gave no mercy, killing all.Template:Sfn Only Yang Yuan managed to sally out after the walls were breached, with a handful of men, to return to Hanseong. He was later executed by the Ming court because of his defeat in battle. Traditionally, samurai collected the heads of those they killed, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi had insisted that the samurai send him the noses of those they had killed as proof that they were fighting.Template:Sfn Okochi counted the heads of 3,725 Koreans killed that day, and removed their noses, which were pickled in salt and sent back to Japan.Template:Sfn All of the noses of the Koreans killed by the samurai are buried near the shrine to the Great Buddha put up by Hideyoshi in Kyoto, which, as Turnbull noted "...they remain to this day inside Kyoto's least mentioned and most often avoided tourist attraction, the grassy burial mound that bears the erroneous name of the Mimizuka, the 'Mound of Ears'.".Template:Sfn

Battle of Hwangseoksan

Hwangseoksan Fortress consisted of extensive walls that circumscribed Hwangseoksan and garrisoned thousands of soldiers led by generals Cho Chongdo and Kwak Chun. When Katō Kiyomasa laid siege to the mountain with the Army of the Right, and attacked at night under the full moon, the Koreans lost morale and retreated with 350 casualties.Template:Sfn The successful siege did not, however, lead to a subsequent advance from beyond Gyeongsang Province.

First Korean and Ming counter offensive

Upon the start of the second invasion, the Ming Emperor was furious about the entire debacle of the peace talks and turned his wrath on many of its chief supporters; particularly Shi Xing, the Minister of War, who was removed from his position and jailed (he died several years later, in prison). The chief negotiator, Shen Weijing, was executed. Xing Jie, the Chief Commissioner of the Liaodong Commandery, was named the new Minister of War and Yang Hao as the new Chief Superintendent of Korea; Xing Jie himself was also stationed in Korea for the remainder of the war. The Ming leadership quickly pulled in many units stationed near its border with Korea.

Battle of Jiksan

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} After the steady advances on land, the Japanese planned to assault Hanseong by late August or early September 1597. However, the plans were foiled by a Ming defense around Jiksan (modern-day Cheonan).

Forces under Kuroda Nagamasa formed the vanguard of the Right Army and marched toward Hanseong, which deeply disturbed the court there. Several of the Ming generals stationed in Korea suggested to the court that they pull back their forces until they could gather more reinforcements, but the Ming administrators overruled their generals and ordered them to make a stand. Thus the Chief Commander of the Ming forces at the time, Ma Gui, sent out General Jie Sheng and three other generals with an elite cavalry force to confront the Japanese forces. The Battle of Jiksan halted the Japanese northward advance.Template:Sfn

According to Korean records, the Ming forces ran into the vanguard forces under Kuroda Nagamasa around the area of Jiksan. On the first day, they beat back a small scouting party. On the second day, the two forces clashed in earnest, with the Japanese being beaten back.Template:Sfn

On 16 October 1597, Kuroda Nagamasa's force of 5,000 arrived at Jiksan, where 6,000 Ming soldiers were stationed. Kuroda's forces charged the enemies and was soon joined by the rest of the army, bringing Japanese forces to 30,000. Although heavily outnumbering the Ming, the Japanese were unable to do much damage due to the Ming's superior armor. According to Kuroda and Mōri Hidemoto, their firearms could not penetrate the iron shields used by Chinese soldiers, and their armor was at least partially bulletproof.Template:Sfn The battle continued until dusk when the two sides withdrew.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Kuroda launched another attack at night, this time in a pronged sweeping crane formation that sought to crush the enemies between them. The attack failed and turned into a rout that was joined by 2,000 Ming cavalry.Template:Sfn

Jiksan was the furthest the Japanese ever got towards reaching Hanseong during the second invasion.Template:Sfn

Battle of Myeongnyang

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} After the debacle in Chilcheollyang, King Seonjo immediately reinstated Yi Sun-sin. Yi Sun-sin quickly returned to Yeosu, where he found the majority of his navy destroyed. Yi re-organized the navy, now reduced to the thirteen ships that Bae Seol had held back from Chilcheollyang and approximately 200 men.Template:Sfn On 26 October 1597, in the Myeongnyang Strait, Yi Sun-sin encountered a large Japanese fleet of approximately 133 warships, with a further 200 logistical ships in support.Template:Sfn By making use of a narrow passage, Yi positioned his ships in a battle line that prevented the Japanese navy from making use of their numerical superiority. The Battle of Myeongnyang resulted in a Korean victory, with Yi Sun-sin retaking the naval initiative.Template:Sfn The Koreans did not lose a single ship and destroyed approximately 30 Japanese combat ships, severely damaging another 30 (the oft-cited number of 333 ships in the Japanese fleet includes support ships, which would not be considered combat ships). The Battle of Myeongnyang is considered Yi Sun-sin's greatest battle, largely as a result of the disparity of numbers. Even after the victory, however, the Joseon navy was still outnumbered by the remaining Japanese navy, so Admiral Yi withdrew to the Yellow Sea to resupply his fleet and have more space for a mobile defense.<ref name="Nanjung ilgi Aftermath1">Yi Sun-sin, Nanjung ilgi, 17 Sep – Oct 2 in 1597 (Chinese Lunisolar Calendar)</ref> After the Korean navy withdrew, the Japanese navy made an incursion into the western coast of Korea, near some islands in Yeonggwang County.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Siege of Ulsan

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}}

File:Ulsan waesung attack.jpg

Korean and Chinese soldiers assault the Japanese-built fortress at Ulsan.

By 29 January 1598, the Joseon and Ming allied forces achieved victory in Jiksan and pushed the Japanese further south. After the news of the loss at Myeongnyang, Katō Kiyomasa and his retreating army looted Gyeongju, the former capital of Unified Silla.

The Japanese forces sacked the city and many artifacts and temples were destroyed, most prominently, the Bulguksa, a Buddhist temple. Ming and Joseon forces continued to harass the Japanese forces, who then withdrew further south to Ulsan,Template:Sfn a harbor that had been an important Japanese trading post a century before, and which Katō had chosen as a strategic stronghold.

Yi Sun-sin's control of the areas around the coast of Jeolla permitted no supply ships to reach the western side of the Korean Peninsula, into which many extensive tributaries merge. Without provisions and reinforcements, the Japanese forces were constrained to the coastal fortresses, known as wajō, that they still controlled. The advancing Ming forces attempted to take advantage of this situation by attacking Ulsan. This siege was the first major offensive from the Ming forces in the second phase of the war.

The effort of the Japanese garrison (about 7,000 men) of Ulsan was largely dedicated to its fortification in preparation for the expected attack. Katō Kiyomasa assigned command and defense of the base to Katō Yasumasa, Kuki Hirotaka, Asano Nagayoshi, and others before proceeding to Sosaengpo near Ulsan.Template:Sfn The Ming army's first assault on 29 January 1598, caught the Japanese army unaware and still encamped, for the large part, outside Ulsan's unfinished walls.Template:Sfn

A total of around 36,000 troops with the help of singijeons and hwachas nearly succeeded in sacking the fortress, but reinforcements under the overall command of Mōri Hidemoto came across the river to aid the besieged fortress.Template:Sfn Although the Japanese garrison was desperately short of supplies, the Ming commander Ma Gui judged the situation to be going against the allies, because more and more Japanese forces began to arrive from the surrounding area and the allied forces were quickly becoming outnumbered.Template:Sfn Late one night, Ma Gui decided to order a general organized retreat of the allied forces, but soon confusion set in, and matters were further complicated by heavy rainfall and harassing attacks by the Japanese. The Chief Superintendent Yang Hao panicked and left hastily for Hanseong ahead of the army.<ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref>Template:Sfn

The general retreat quickly turned into a chaotic rout, of which the Japanese took quick advantage by attacking the retreating Ming and Joseon forces.Template:Sfn The retreating Ming and Joseon forces had 20,000 losses.<ref name="HotM Ch320"/> The disaster was a heavy setback for Joseon, who would not be in a position to move on the Japanese position again for more than eight months.

Final allied offensive of 1598

After the siege at Ulsan, the two sides remained in a stalemate for the next several months. Xing Jie decided that they would require further reinforcements to launch a final large offensive to permanently remove the Japanese presence on the Korean Peninsula.

Reinforcements from China began to pour in through most of mid-1598, with Chen Lin and Deng Zilong and their navy arriving in May. By September 1598, the Ming presence in Korea had swelled to 75,000 overall, by far the largest at any point in the war.

Xing Jie divided his forces into four groups, with Ma Gui leading the offensive against Ulsan yet again, Li Rumei (Li Rusong's brother) leading the offensive against Sacheon, Chen Lin commanding the navy, and Liu Ting and Yi Sun-sin coordinating a land-sea effort against Suncheon.

Just before they set out, however, news came that Li Rusong was killed by Mongolian tribesmen back in Liaodong. Xing Jie decided then to remove his emotionally weakened brother Li Rumei in favor of Dong Yiyuan.

In June 1598, after Commander Konishi Yukinaga raised concerns about the supply situation and limited prospects for further territorial gains in the peninsula, 70,000 troops were withdrawn back to Japan, with only 60,000 left behind to guard the territory still under Japanese control. These forces were mostly Satsuma soldiers of the Shimazu clan under commanders Shimazu Yoshihiro and his son Tadatsune.Template:Sfn Kato Kiyomasa remained in command of the defenses of Ulsan while Konishi Yukinaga himself commanded the defenses at Suncheon. The forces at Sacheon and Ulsan continued to be engaged in a military deadlock in the months that followed.

At Ulsan, Kato Kiyomasa defended the castle with 10,000 Japanese soldiers.Template:Sfn In September 1598, 29,500 Ming and Joseon troops tried again to capture Ulsan Castle, but all their attempts were repulsed by the Japanese. The Ming and Joseon forces withdrew with heavy losses.Template:Sfn

Battle of Sacheon

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The Chinese believed that Sacheon was crucial to their goal of retaking the lost castles in Korea and ordered a general attack. Although the Chinese made initial progress, the tide of battle turned when Japanese reinforcements attacked the rear of the Chinese army and the Japanese soldiers inside the fortress sallied from the gates and counter-attacked.Template:Sfn The Chinese Ming forces retreated with 30,000 losses, with the Japanese in pursuit.Template:Sfn According to Chinese and Korean sources concerning the battle, the forces led by Dong Yiyuan had breached the castle wall and were making progress in capturing the castle until a gunpowder accident caused an explosion in their camp, and the Japanese took advantage of the situation to rout the confused and weakened troops.<ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref>

Siege of Suncheon

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} At Suncheon, Konishi Yukinaga defended his position at the Suncheon Castle along with 13,700 Japanese soldiers.Template:Sfn A total of 43,000 Ming and Joseon troops tried to capture it, but their attempts were repulsed after three failed assaults, suffering 800 losses.Template:Sfn

Death of Hideyoshi

In the fall of 1598, following the successful Japanese defense at the battles of Sacheon, Ulsan, and Suncheon, the Ming, Joseon, and Japanese forces were locked in a military stalemate in the south of the peninsula.Template:Sfn After the death of Toyotomi Hideyoshi on 18 September 1598, the Council of Five Elders, in late October, issued orders for the withdrawal of all forces from Korea. Hideyoshi's death was kept a secret by the council to preserve the morale of the army.

Battle of Noryang

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The Battle of Noryang was the final naval battle in the war. A Japanese fleet of approximately 500 ships, under Shimazu Yoshihiro, was assembled and preparing to link up with the blockaded fleet under Konishi Yukinaga, and together withdraw via Busan back to Japan.Template:Sfn

The Korean navy under Yi Sun-sin discovered the Shimazu fleet anchored in the narrow strait of Noryang. Noting the narrow geography of the area, Ming general Chen Lin, who led Deng Zilong and Yi Sun-sin,<ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref> made a surprise attack against the Japanese fleet, under the cover of darkness on 16 December 1598, using cannon and fire arrows.Template:Citation needed

By dawn, more than half of the Japanese fleet was scattered and destroyed. During the pursuit of the remaining Japanese ships, both Yi Sun-sin and Deng Zilong were killed.<ref>Template:Harvnb. Template:Zhi</ref> Despite suffering high casualties, in the end the battle was a great tactical victory for the Korean forces and resulted in the loss of over half of the Japanese fleet and the deaths of thousands of their men.Template:Sfn

Strategically, the Japanese attained their objective by allowing Konishi Yukinaga, who was earlier blockaded by the Ming and Korean forces, to leave his fortress on 16 December with his men and withdraw unopposed by sailing through the southern end of the island Namhaedo, bypassing both the Noryang Strait and the battle, with the cost of betraying his own fellow Japanese generals. Konishi Yukinaga, Shimazu Yoshihiro, Katō Kiyomasa, and other Japanese generals of the Left Army, congregated in Busan and withdrew to Japan on 21 December. The last ships damaged sailed to Japan on 24 December, bringing an end to six years of war.Template:Citation needed

Post-war negotiations

As Tsushima Island had suffered greatly from its loss of trade with Korea as a result of the invasions, Sō Yoshitoshi of the Sō clan, then dominant in Tsushima, undertook the lead in the peace negotiations by Japan. He sent four peace missions to Joseon in 1599 to normalize relations. The first three were captured and sent directly to Beijing by Chinese troops, but the fourth one, in 1601, successfully obtained from the Joseon court the promise of a normalizing of relations upon the return of remaining Joseon captives.Template:Sfn As Ming troops continued to be present in Korea following the withdrawal of Japanese forces, the major incentive for Joseon for the normalization of relations with Japan was the withdrawal of the Chinese soldiers from their territory. The Ming Chinese themselves were causing havoc, and their presence continued to strain Joseon's national economy and infrastructure.Template:Sfn In response to the Joseon request, Yoshitoshi promptly released several Joseon prisoners and between 1603 and 1604 helped the Joseon envoys to repatriate a further 3,000 by organizing negotiations at Kyoto with Tokugawa Ieyasu, by then the shogun of Japan.Template:Sfn

In the continuation of the diplomatic talks toward peaceful relations, Joseon in 1606 expanded its conditions and demanded that the shogun write a formal letter requesting peace, and to extradite the Japanese soldiers who had defiled the Joseon Royal Tombs near Hanseong.Template:Sfn Realizing that the Shogunate would never agree to such a request, Sō Yoshitoshi sent a forged letter and a group of criminals instead; the great need to expel the Ming soldiers pushed Joseon into accepting and to send an emissary in 1608.Template:Sfn The result was a return of Joseon prisoners and the restoration of diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries.Template:Sfn

Aftermath and conclusion

File:Port of Yeosu.jpg

Yeosu in 2005. Admiral Yi Sun-sin's headquarters were located here.

The Japanese invasions were East Asia's first regional wars involving massed armies equipped with modern weapons.Template:Sfn The conflict saw the regular employment of Japanese armies of up to 200,000 men, Ming Chinese armies of 80,000,Template:Sfn and the ongoing deployment of local Korean forces numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

The invasions also stood as a challenge to the existing Chinese world order on two levels:Template:Sfn the military, in which the war challenged Ming China's status as the supreme military power in East Asia, and the political, in which the war affirmed Chinese willingness to aid in the protection of its tributary states.Template:Sfn

This was the only military conflict between China, Japan, and Korea in the period between 1281 (the second Mongol invasion of Japan) and 1894 (the First Sino-Japanese War).<ref name=":Ma&Kang">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp

Losses and gains

Contrary to Toyotomi Hideyoshi's intentions, the cost of the Japanese invasions of Korea significantly weakened the Toyotomi clan's power in Japan. After Hideyoshi's death, his young son Toyotomi Hideyori became head of the Toyotomi clan. However, the losses suffered by varying daimyōs during the campaign were a contributing factor to the imbalance of power in Japan after the war. As the western-based daimyōs of Kyushu and western Honshu (partially by geographic convenience) contributed the majority of the forces used during the Korean conflict, it left the pro-Hideyoshi alliance weakened for the eventual struggle with the mostly eastern-backed forces of Tokugawa Ieyasu (who himself never sent forces to Korea). Tokugawa would go on to unify Japan and establish himself as shogun in 1603, following the decisive Battle of Sekigahara against a coalition of mostly western-based daimyōs.Template:Sfn

Ming China also sustained a heavy financial burden for its role in defending Korea while also fighting several other conflicts in the same decade. Falling tax revenues, troop desertions, a flow of foreign silver which brought unexpected problems in the Chinese economy, poor granary supervision and harsh weather eventually culminated in the collapse of the Ming Dynasty.Template:Sfn The Ming Dynasty was eventually defeated by a rebel leader named Li Zicheng.Template:Sfn With the help of Wu Sangui, a former Ming general, the Manchus defeated Li and established its rule over China in 1644.Template:Sfn However, the sinocentric tributary system that the Ming had defended continued to be maintained by the Qing, and ultimately, the war resulted in a maintenance of the status quo—with the re-establishment of trade and the normalization of relations between all three parties.Template:Sfn

Given that the conflict was fought exclusively on Korean soil, Korea ultimately suffered the most damage of the three participants.Template:Sfn It lost a large portion of its military strength and civilian population, had numerous cultural heritage sites damaged or destroyed, and many of its technological advancements pillaged.Template:Sfn In many ways the invasions proved to be more devastating than any other event in the nation's history (even, arguably, more so than the Korean War).Template:Sfn The peninsula suffered a reduction of arable land to 66% of the prewar total,<ref name="prime minister">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> greatly hurting Korea's mainly agricultural economy;<ref name="tiger12JIUASS"/> in the years that followed, famine, disease, and rebellions were widespread throughout Korea.Template:Sfn In Gyeongsang Province alone 90% of the land under cultivation was destroyed.<ref name="JWK" >Jinwung Kim, A History of Korea: From "Land of the Morning Calm" to States in Conflict,</ref> Significant losses of historical archives, cultural and scientific artifacts (such as the Ja-gyuk-roo water clock<ref name="Donga">Template:Cite news</ref>), and skilled artisans resulted in a waning of Korean science.Template:Sfn The main Korean royal palaces Gyeongbokgung, Changdeokgung, and Changgyeonggung were burned down, and Deoksugung was used as a temporary palace. The Baekjeong (Korean natives of the lowest social rank) took advantage of the lack of internal security brought on by the invasions, and set fire to changnye (Korean government offices) in which census ledgers had been kept.Template:Sfn The destruction of land and census registers made fiscal recovery difficult since taxation and corvée labour were based on them. The government was forced to trade rank and titles in order to obtain grain, using a practice called napsok pogwan (appointment through grain contributions),<ref name="JWK"/> and the yangban elite, which was exempt from household taxes, exploited the occasion to increase its landholdings, thereby further depriving the central government of taxes raised on property.Template:Sfn

The total military and civilian casualties, as estimated by the late-19th-century historian, George H. Jones, were one million,Template:Sfn and total combat casualties were estimated at between 250,000 and 300,000.<ref name="users">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> A total of over 100,000 Japanese,<ref name="thoughtco"/><ref name="horizons1997"/> 185,000 Korean and over 29,000 Chinese troops were killed, and an estimated 50,000 to 60,000 captives were taken by the Japanese throughout the war.Template:Sfn Among those captured, a total of 7,500 were later returned to Korea through diplomatic means at the conclusion of the conflict.Template:Sfn A large portion of the remaining captives were sold to European traders—mainly Portuguese in Macau, who then resold them throughout Southeast Asia.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Although Korea suffered the most of the three combatants, there were some significant technological and cultural transfers that resulted from the war. Japanese swords, which were sometimes collected in the battlefield from dead Japanese soldiers, would inspire some of the basic designs of later Korean swords such as the hwando. Arquebus rifles, which the Joseon court had initially dismissed as ineffective and useless due to their low rate of fire, was rapidly adopted during and after the war by the Joseon military and production began as early as 1593.Template:Sfn Some scholars believe that the reason the Joseon-Ming Army was not easily driven out and defeated during the reignition of hostilities in 1597 was in part due to the widespread adoption of arquebuses in the Joseon military.Template:Sfn Besides this, Catholicism was first introduced in Korea during the war, as Catholic missionaries had begun arriving in Japan before the war and had become acquainted. In Korea, many of the first converts to Catholicism were Korean captives in Japan, records indicate more than 7,000 Korean captives converted from 1594 to 1598.Template:Sfn Spanish missionary Gregorio de Céspedes (1551–1611) was a prominent driver behind this missionary work, and was also the first recorded Westerner to arrive in Korea and the only European eyewitness to the war.Template:Sfn Last but not least, significant food and luxury items were introduced to Korea via the invasions. Evidence heavily suggests this, because Korean records initially recorded chili peppers, one of the most important ingredients in modern Korean cuisine as "Japanese mustard", "southern barbarian herb" and "Japanese herb."Template:Sfn

The captives brought to Japan, including scholars, craftsmen, medicine makers, and gold smelters, provided Japan with many cultural and technological gains.Template:Sfn In the years that followed, Japanese pottery and art advanced and developed a significant similarity to their Korean counterparts.Template:Sfn Advances in other areas such as agriculture were also aided by technology and artisans acquired and captured during the invasions. Japanese typography advanced with the adoption of Chinese fonts.Template:Sfn Because Korean pottery was highly prized in Japan, many Japanese lords established pottery-producing kilns with captured Korean potters in Kyushu and other parts of Japan.Template:Sfn The production of Arita porcelain in Japan began in 1616 at the town of Imari with the aid of Korean potters who had been enticed to relocate there after the war.Template:Sfn

Furthermore, Neo-Confucianism, which had originated from China and spread to Korea, was introduced to Japan because of the invasions. Many Korean scholars who were captured during the war by the Japanese would later become tutors of prominent Japanese daimyo.Template:Sfn Furthermore, many classical Confucian texts were captured during the early stages of the war and taken back to Japan.Template:Sfn

War atrocities

Japanese troops engaged in crimes against civilians in battles and often killed indiscriminately. Scorched earth policies were often employed: over 60% of farmland was destroyed and burned, and farm animals were slaughtered to prevent their use by Joseon or Ming forces.Template:Sfn Outside of the main battles, raids to acquire food and supplies from civilians were common.Template:Sfn Captured prisoners were often mistreated or worked to near-death by starvation and neglect.Template:Sfn In following their battlefield practice at the time, the Japanese also collected the ears and noses of dead soldiers as proof of their exploits on the battlefield and as a record of casualty counts.Template:Sfn The high casualty rate of the Joseon and Ming forces, and the large number of ears collected during the campaign was enough to build a large mound near Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Great Buddha, called the Mimizuka ("Mound of Ears").Template:Sfn

Korean armies were also known to forcefully acquire food and supplies from civilians, both on an individual and organized level.Template:Sfn Korean bandits and highwaymen also took advantage of the chaos during the war to form raiding parties and rob other Koreans.Template:Sfn

According to British historian who specializes in Japanese military history, Stephen Turnbull, the Ming forces arriving in support of Joseon were often no better than the Japanese in the amount of destruction they caused and the degree of the crimes they committed.Template:Sfn After the immediate Japanese military threat was neutralized, Turnbull states that the Joseon desire for the Ming armies to quickly withdraw from Korean territory was a contributing factor to the pace of the eventual peace resolution.Template:Sfn

Rape was common during the war, and Korean women were indiscriminately assaulted and brutalized by Japanese, Chinese and Korean soldiers throughout the conflict.Template:Sfn Records from the war indicate that Japanese soldiers "frequently decapitated all the young men of a locale and carried off all the attractive women—along with the goods they had stolen—on the backs of horses and oxen" and descriptions claim that the key priorities of Japanese soldiers during the conflict were "granaries, understanding local geography, and beautiful women."Template:Sfn Meanwhile, Joseon soldiers, such as those led by Kim Myŏn, captured not only Japanese soldiers but also many Korean women who had "been taken prisoner by the enemy. [The women] begged for their lives, only to be burned to death by the Choso˘n guerrillas along with the Japanese."Template:Sfn Records also indicate that Ming Chinese and Joseon Korean forces committed rape against the civilian populace during the conflict.Template:Sfn

Legacy

The war left significant legacies in all three countries. In the context of Japanese imperialism, the invasions are seen as the first Japanese attempt to become a global power.Template:Sfn The partial occupation of Korea developed the Japanese concept that Korea belonged within Japan's sphere of influence, and the Japanese leaders of the late 19th and the early 20th centuries used the 1592–1597 invasions to reinforce the justification for their 20th-century annexation of Korea.Template:Sfn Yi Sun-sin also served as an inspiration for Imperial Japanese admirals during the 19th and 20th centuries, as they often stressed the importance of studying and utilizing his battle tactics to further strengthen their own navy.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

In China, the war was used politically to inspire nationalistic resistance against Japanese imperialism during the 20th century.Template:Sfn In Chinese academia, historians list the war as one of the Wanli Emperor's "Three Great Punitive Campaigns".Template:Sfn Contemporary Chinese historians often use the campaigns as an example of the friendship that China and Korea shared.Template:Citation needed

In Korea, the war is a historic foundation of Korean nationalism and, as in China, inspired and politically used to instigate nationalistic resistance against Japanese imperialism during the 20th century. Korea gained several national heroes during the conflict, including Yi Sun-sin and Chen Lin (founder of the Gwangdong Jin clan).Template:Sfn Modern anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea can be traced as far back as the Japanese invasions in 1592, although the principal cause is rooted in more recent events, particularly the hardships suffered by Koreans during the Japanese rule of Korea from 1910 through 1945. The widespread guerilla warfare fought by various righteous armies, which spearheaded the Korean civilian resistance against the Japanese invasion, had a significant impact on the common Korean populace's conceptions of nationhood and identity. The invasions and subsequent efforts by the local gentry to rally the commoners had a critical impact on perceptions of national identity in Korea, as the gentry were recorded to have sent many letters and declarations against the Japanese invaders and called upon shared Korean history, culture and beliefs to unite the Korean people.Template:Sfn

International awareness

Despite great interest in the war in East Asia,Template:Sfn the Japanese invasions of Korea are not widely studied in the West. Many history textbooks contain only a few lines regarding the war.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Examples of English-language works dedicated to the conflict include Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War 1592–98 by Stephen TurnbullTemplate:Sfn and The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China by Samuel Hawley.Template:Sfn In addition, both James Murdoch and George Sansom covered the topic in some detail in their general historical surveys of Japan, A History of Japan (1903)<ref>Chapter 12: The Korean War</ref> and A History of Japan 1334–1615 (1961),Template:Sfn respectively.

See also

• Timeline of the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98)
• List of battles during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98)
• List of naval battles during the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98)
• Naval history of Korea
• Japanese castles in Korea
• Empresa de China

References

• Note: All websites are listed here independently from the References section.

Bibliography

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Primary sources

• Li, Guang-tao (Template:Zhi), The research of the Imjin Japanese crisis of Korea (Template:Zhi), Central research academy (Template:Zhi) TTSearch 5.1.1(16) Template:Webarchive.
• The annals of King Seonjo (Template:Zhi)
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• Template:Zhi
• Qian Shizheng, The records of the eastern expedition (Template:Zhi)
• Song Yingchang, The letter collections of the restoration management. (Template:Zhi)
• Han, Woo-keun. The History of Korea. Trans. Kyung-shik Lee. Ed. Grafton K. Mintz. Seoul: Eul-Yoo, 1970.
• Lee, Ki-baik. A New History of Korea. Trans. Edward W. Wagner and Edward J. Schultz. Seoul: Ilchokak, 1984.
• Nahm, Andrew C. Introduction to Korean History and Culture. Seoul: Hollym, 1993.
• Sansome, George. A History of Japan. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1961.
• Yi, Sun-sin. Nanjung ilgi: War Diary of Admiral Yi Sun-sin. Trans. Tae-hung Ha. Ed. Pow-key Sohn. Seoul: Yonsei UP, 1977.

External links

• Toyotomi Hideyoshi's Korean Invasions: the Bunroku Campaign (1592–93)
• Template:Usurped (in Korean)
• The Imjin Waeran (in Korean)
• Jinju National Museum is dedicated to this topic. Information in English and Korean.
• The Imjinwaeran (in English)