Authors: Samuel Hawley
The Koreans accordingly approached So Yoshitoshi with a proposal: they would send a goodwill mission to Japan to congratulate Hideyoshi on his unification of the country, but first Japan had to bring to justice a group of renegade Koreans who had aided Japanese pirates in raids along the nation’s southern coast the previous year, killing a general and carrying off a number of prisoners. These outlaws were now hiding somewhere in western
Japan, and the Choson court wanted them repatriated for punishment. Yoshitoshi, who by this time surely knew that the Koreans would never agree to send a tribute mission to Kyoto as Hideyoshi wanted, readily agreed. A goodwill mission would have to do. Yanagawa Shigenobu was sent back to Japan to take care of the matter and soon reappeared with ten of the wanted men bound in ropes, together with many of the Koreans who had been taken prisoner. The renegades were questioned before King Sonjo in Seoul’s Hall of Humane Government, then were decapitated outside the city’s West Gate.
The Koreans were satisfied. As a sign that cordial relations between the two countries could now begin, So Yoshitoshi was at last granted an audience with King Sonjo, where gifts were exchanged and all the niceties observed. Yoshitoshi received a fine horse, and in turn pre
sented the king with a peacock and some arquebuses. Although the Koreans had long been acquainted with gunpowder and cannon, these were the first lightweight muskets they had ever seen. They found them to resemble dog legs.
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After a prolonged period of waiting on the weather and debating over who would be sent, the Koreans finally dispatched their promised goodwill mission to Japan in April of 1590, the first Korean mission to Kyoto in nearly one hundred fifty years. It was led by Ambassador Hwang Yun-gil, Vice-Ambassador Kim Song-il, and Recording Secretary Ho Song, an unavoidable choice mirroring the factionalism that had split the government in two. Ambassador Hwang, a soft-spoken and conciliatory man, was a member of the then-ascendant Western faction, while the mercurial Kim and secretary Ho were from the Eastern camp. Kim in particular resented Hwang’s presence, and considered him much too timid to deal with the militaristic Japanese. Between them they would find little to agree about.
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The mission was accompanied south from
Seoul and across the strait to Kyushu by So Yoshitoshi, Yanagawa Shigenobu, and the monk Genso; there would be no question this time of the Koreans not knowing the way. It was not a happy party on that long and arduous trip. During a stop on Tsushima en route to Kyushu, So Yoshitoshi invited the Koreans to a banquet in a temple, then promptly insulted them by entering the grounds in a sedan chair rather than alighting outside the gate and walking in.
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Ambassador Hwang, the West man, was pre
pared to overlook this breech in decorum. Vice-Ambassador Kim, the East man, was not. “Tsushima is our vassal state,” he stormed. “We came here on the imperial command of our majesty. How dare you insult us like this. I refuse to attend this banquet.” Yoshitoshi apologized, blaming the sedan chair bearers for the oversight, and had the men killed and their heads presented before the Koreans. The Japanese treated Kim and his colleagues with more care after that but were not entirely able to avoid the slights and faux pas that Kim above all would continue to find so offensive in the coming months, leaving him with an entirely unfavorable opinion of the Japanese and their ways.
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The Korean embassy arrived in
Kyoto in August of 1590 after four months on the road. They found it to be an urban center of considerable size, the political, commercial, and religious hub of the nation, with a population in the vicinity of 150,000.
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It must have had some
thing of the appearance of a construction site, though, for Hideyoshi was in the process of rebuilding, expanding, and glorifying the capital—and in turn himself. The work then under way would in fact so transform the face of the city over the next several years that, in the words of Hideyoshi biographer Mary Elizabeth Berry, “the Kyoto we know today is Hideyoshi’s town.”
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At its center was Hideyoshi’s recently completed residence, the Jurakudai, a sprawling complex of moats surrounding walls encircling residential compounds and whitewashed castle keeps that had taken a hundred thousand laborers two years to build. It was as much pleasure palace as fortress stronghold, with pine-tree-lined promenades, decorative stone gardens, and a delicate pavilion atop the central keep for tea parties, moon gazing, and poetry composing. Elsewhere in the city ground was being broken, stones laid, and plans drawn up for myriad other projects, all funded by Hideyoshi’s largess. Nanzenji temple was being refurbished. Work was under way or would soon begin on the Tofukuji, the Shokokuji, the Kenninji, the Toji, and the Honganji. Shrines were being constructed. A new bridge was being erected across the
Kamo River. A stone and earthen wall was in the works that by the end of the following year would encircle the entire city.
Just a bit to the east of the city a truly major project was under way: the Hokoji. This structure, impressive in its own right, was intended to house a stupendous Daibutsu, an image of the Buddha forty-eight meters high that Hideyoshi had ordered cast from all the swords and metal weapons then being collected throughout the country in fulfillment of his sword edict of the previous year, a measure designed to demilitarize the nation’s peasantry. It was an act, said Hideyoshi, “by which the farmers will be saved in this life, needless to say, and in the life to come.” The project, however, had more to do with inspiring awe than saving souls, for Hideyoshi was no great Buddhist. His Hokoji would be the biggest building ever constructed in
Japan. His Daibutsu would be the biggest cast image of the Buddha ever made, larger even than the Daibutsu in Nara, which had taken twenty-seven years to complete. And he would do it all in just five years.
The Korean mission was quartered in the Daitokuji, a large Buddhist temple complex in the northern end of the city. And then they waited. The summer heat gave way to monsoon rains and then to the coolness of fall, and still they waited, for Hideyoshi was not in town. He was away to the northeast at Odawara, presiding over the siege that was grinding down Hojo Ujimasa, the embattled daimyo of
Honshu’s central Kanto region. The taiko eventually returned to Kyoto in October, with the Kanto his and Hojo dead, but still the Koreans were kept waiting. Hideyoshi apparently wanted to receive them in an audience where he would preside alongside the emperor, presumably to overawe them with his power, but Emperor Go-Yozei rejected his petition to do so. It was not until December that the Korean mission was at last invited to appear before Hideyoshi at his gilded residence, the Jurakudai.
When foreign ambassadors visited
Seoul, it was customary for the Choson king to host a costly banquet where a succession of succulent dishes soon had the tables groaning under the weight of food. Meat, fish, fruit, wine, and delicacies of every description—nothing was spared when the Koreans entertained honored guests.
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Hideyoshi’s reception of the Korean ambassadors was decidedly different. Ambassador Hwang, Vice-Ambassador Kim, and their entourage arrived at the Jurakudai by sedan chair and were allowed to proceed into the palace without alighting—a suitable sign of respect and a good start to the proceedings. They were then led into a reception hall where they laid eyes on Hideyoshi for the first time. He was seated at the head of the hall, clad in a black robe and gauze hat. He looked “short and common looking,” with the dark skin of a peasant, but “his eyeballs gleamed and a ray of light shone upon people.” Finally, after four months of waiting, the Koreans were able to deliver their letter, addressed from the “King of Korea” to the “King of Japan,” congratu
lating Hideyoshi on his successful unification of Japan, and expressing a desire “to cultivate friendly relations with your nation.”
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With this diplomatic task out of the way, a banquet would now have been appropriate as per the Korean and Chinese view of protocol. There were no tables of food in evidence, however, nor any other sign that a feast was about to begin. The Koreans and the Japanese in attendance were simply seated in rows before Hideyoshi, and a plate of glutinous rice cakes passed round. Then came a bowl of rice wine from which everyone took a sip. And that was all.
As the Koreans sat there in bemused silence, Hideyoshi suddenly rose and left the hall. No one moved. After a time he reappeared, now wearing everyday clothes and carrying a baby, presumably his son Tsurumatsu, his first and only child, born the previous year. He strolled around the hall, cooing to the child as if no one else was there, then stepped over to the musicians and ordered music to be played.
Next the baby peed on his clothes. This set Hideyoshi to laughing, calling for an attendant to come and take his dripping heir off his hands. With a wet stain running down the front of his robe, he then left the hall again as the Japanese all bowed their heads to the tatami mats, and this time he did not reappear. The audience was over.
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It was probably not Hideyoshi’s intention to be rude to the Koreans. He understood and appreciated display better than anyone: display of power and wealth and generosity. Had he chosen to do so, he could have laid on a feast that would have left Hwang and Kim thoroughly content. His decision not to do so was more likely intended to demon
strate the absolute nature of his power. The emperor might be required to host a banquet on certain occasions or preside over ceremonies when the heavens dictated. But Hideyoshi was not. He hosted banquets when he
chose
to do so, not when they were required or expected. Today he favored something simple, then a walk with his son and a bit of music. He was Hideyoshi. He was above conventions. It was his place to chose.
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The Korean mission, still in the company of So Yoshitoshi and the monk Genso, left Kyoto almost immediately after this and traveled south to the port of Sakai, near Osaka, to await Hideyoshi’s reply to the letter they had delivered from King Sonjo. Their mission on the whole must be deemed a failure. To begin with, they had done little to gather intelligence that would be useful to the government in
Seoul—above all, of Hideyoshi’s true intentions, and of the military strength he had at his command. The mission instead became caught up in recording everything that was “wrong” with Japan, and all the ways in which it diverged from the Chinese-oriented model of correct political and social order.
Their assessment of Hideyoshi—or more particularly Vice-Ambassador Kim’s assessment, for his would hold sway—was perhaps the mission’s greatest failure. They did not fully appreciate the power he possessed, and in turn the danger he posed. They focused instead on his lack of decorum, taking this to mean that he was contemptible and uncivilized, an unworthy recipient of a goodwill mission from the Dragon Throne in
Seoul. In fact, Vice-Ambassador Kim chaffed under the very obligation of having to appear before him at all. Hideyoshi was not an emperor. Japan already had one of those, a false emperor by the name of Go-Yozei. (To the Koreans there was of course only one “true” emperor, the Ming emperor of China.) Hideyoshi was not a king either, although the letter from Seoul honored him with this undeserved title. The only title he claimed for himself was kampaku, or regent, up to the end of 1591, and taiko, or retired regent, thereafter, making him little more than a senior court official, an advisor to the throne. For a mission from the Choson court to appear before him was therefore not only inappropriate, it was humiliating.
A second shortcoming of the Korean mission was that it was unable to impress upon Hideyoshi and his inner circle exactly where
Korea stood—namely that it was prepared to welcome Japan into its Chinese-centered world as a fellow tributary state but that it never for a moment entertained the thought of submitting to Hideyoshi or Japan. In fairness, it would have been difficult if not impossible for Hwang and Kim and their compatriots to convey such a message. In addition to the communication difficulties they faced—much of their “talk” with their Japanese hosts would have been conducted in writing using Chinese characters—they were allowed no direct contact with Hideyoshi himself, and anything they conveyed to his underlings probably never made it back to his ear for the simple reason that it was unhealthy to tell Hideyoshi what he did not want to hear. He had commanded that the Koreans send a tribute mission to him and submit. So Yoshitoshi subsequently appeared with a mission in tow, Hideyoshi drew his own conclusions, and no one around him dared tell him the truth.
Hideyoshi therefore never understood that the party of Koreans that came to
Kyoto was merely a goodwill mission. To him it was a tribute mission, a sign that the Koreans had acceded to his demand for submission and that his conquest of Asia was proceeding as planned. He was in fact so pleased with the “tribute mission” that he bestowed a court promotion on So Yoshitoshi, the man who had brought the Koreans to heel, together with the honor of using the family name Hashiba, the name Hideyoshi himself had used for a time back in the early 1580s.
With so much misunderstanding in the air, it was not surprising that the reply from Hideyoshi to King Sonjo that was eventually handed to the Koreans at
Sakai proved highly unsatisfactory. After reiterating his greatness, Hideyoshi thanked King Sonjo for sending a “tribute mission” and “surrendering to the Japanese court” and now ordered him to prepare to join Hideyoshi in his conquest of China. The Korean envoys protested vigorously, and eventually the Japanese relented by removing the reference to Korea’s “surrendering to the Japanese court.” But everything else remained.
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