Authors: Samuel Hawley
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Although the antiwar faction in
Beijing was now on the offensive, it was still a long way from overturning China’s policy of prosecuting the war. Nothing therefore was preventing those Ming units previously dispatched to Korea from continuing on their way to reinforce the troops already near the front. These units had been diverted north into Liaodong Province while en route to Korea in April to help quell a rebellion that had unexpectedly arisen on the Manchurian frontier. By June order had been restored in Liaodong, and the Korea-bound troops were released and ordered to proceed to Seoul.
It was therefore not until July of 1598, many months after setting out from his base in western China, that “Big Sword” Liu Ting arrived in Seoul with the twenty thousand soldiers under his command, mainly troops from the province of Sichuan and tribal fighters from the regions bor
dering Burma and Thailand. This was Liu’s second visit to Korea. He had served in the kingdom for two years during the first half of the war, impressing the Koreans with his upright and gentlemanly conduct, his ability to discipline his men, and his staunch refusal to accept any gift—a wise precaution considering that he had already been denied promotion twice during his career after being censored for taking bribes.
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Liu’s relations with the Koreans would not be quite so cordial upon his return to
Seoul. The general himself was undoubtedly feeling a good deal of strain, for with the increasing strength of the antiwar faction in Beijing he could ill afford to make even the slightest mistake or suffer anything that could be perceived as defeat. The Koreans on their side were feeling some understandable resentment toward the Chinese in the wake of the Ding Yingtai attack and the realization that elements in Beijing questioned the loyalty of their kingdom. It was thus perhaps inevitable that friction should arise between “Big Sword” Liu and his Korean hosts.
Shortly after arriving in Seoul Liu submitted a request to the Korean government that Crown Prince Kwanghae and a number of top gov
ernment ministers accompany him south to the front. The Koreans made no reply. That made Liu angry. Why, he wanted to know, don’t representatives from the Korean government come and consult with me so that we can make plans for winning this war? This brought out a reluctant band of officials led by Yi Dok-hyong, now Minister of the Right. Liu explained that the outcome of the coming offensive would hinge on the availability of supplies. His army obviously needed food to fight; without it they would be useless. If he proceeded south on his own, the local people and officials would be reluctant to provide him with the supplies he needed. If the crown prince and top ministers accompanied him, on the other hand, and took on the task of requisitioning supplies, the respect that the locals felt for them would ensure that Liu’s troops were adequately provided for.
Yi Dok-hyong and his colleagues hemmed and hawed. Yes, they conceded, food was indeed short in the south, and so we need to put a great deal of effort into obtaining it. But the crown prince’s health is not good, so it would be imprudent to send him. Nor would it be wise to send the top ministers, for that would remove the head from the gov
ernment and bring affairs to a standstill in Seoul.
Liu erupted. “In any other country,” he roared, “the king himself would go to the front! But you Koreans, you won’t even send your crown prince!”
The Koreans refused to budge on the matter and eventually Liu calmed down. “Here is the situation,” he said at last. “If you give me enough supplies, I can do my job. If you don’t, I cannot. I presently have 20,000 men with me here. Add to this the troops already in the south and the total is 25,000. Even if we forget about their food requirements for next month, if the Korean government can come up with enough supplies to keep my men going for just three months, from September through November, we can succeed. That is all I ask.”
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Liu was evidently unsatisfied with the assurances he received, for in a meeting with King Sonjo five days later he reiterated his demand that the crown prince and officials accompany him south. Sonjo politely declined. Liu said that the crown prince could come alone, without any of the ministers. Sonjo again declined. Liu then said that having even just one of the three top government ministers along would do. Sonjo seemed more amenable to this idea, so Liu went on to consider the options. Prime Minister Yu Song-nyong, he said, is the head of the government, so he should remain in
Seoul. Nor can Minister of the Left Yi Won-ik be spared, for he is responsible for liaison with Xing Jie at “Army Gate.” Minister of the Right Yi Dok-hyong, on the other hand, is responsible for liaison with Yang Hao’s office, and Yang has now been dismissed. So surely Dok-hyong can be spared.
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In the present climate of tension the Koreans were feeling less inclined to concede to every Ming demand. Liu’s almost rude asser
tiveness left them in an even less obliging mood. His forceful request was nevertheless neither unreasonable nor unexpected. Since early in the war top government ministers had frequently accompanied Ming armies for the specific purpose of arranging supplies. Prime Minister Yu Song-nyong himself had served in this capacity on numerous occasions, most recently accompanying Yang Hao’s army south in January of 1598 in their failed attempt to dislodge the Japanese at Tosan. So while Sonjo would say no more to Liu’s request than he would “think about it,” the Korean government ultimately had little choice but to agree. When “Big Sword” Liu Ting set out for the south in early August, Minister of the Right Yi Dok-hyong went with him.
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Admiral Chen Lin arrived on
Korea’s south coast on August 17 to join forces with Supreme Naval Commander Yi Sun-sin at Yi’s base on the island of Kogum-do. Both Yi and his superiors in Seoul were apprehensive about how effective this joining of forces would be, for the Koreans had developed a generally unfavorable impression of Chen’s character and ability. From their initial encounters with the man the Korean government found him to be arrogant, temperamental, and overly quick to punish. General Liu Ting additionally informed them that Chen appeared to have little grasp of strategy and as such was not much of a leader. “When I talked to the admiral earlier,” Liu said, “he only boasted about capturing a handful of Japanese pirates, and tried to talk it up into a big victory.”
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There was thus concern in
Seoul that Chen’s presence in the south, far from helping the Korean cause, might actually prove a hindrance, particularly if the admiral tried to assert his authority over the more capable Yi Sun-sin.
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The Korean naval commander, having been forewarned by
Seoul to treat Chen Lin with care, prepared a banquet to honor the Ming fleet’s arrival, then led his ships out to meet Chen at sea and conduct him personally into port. This respectful hospitality went over well with Chen. By the end of the evening he and his men were stuffed with food and happily drunk, and cordial feelings reigned between the two camps.
Two days later a report was received that more than a hundred Japanese vessels were probing west along the coast and nearing
Kogum Island. The Ming admiral and Yi Sun-sin immediately set out together at the head of their respective fleets. The report was quickly proved false; only two enemy ships were sighted, both of which managed to get away unscathed. Yi and Chen spent one night in the area then returned to base, leaving behind a squadron of Korean ships under Song Yo-chong plus thirty Ming vessels to ambush any Japanese craft that might later appear.
The hundred-ship Japanese fleet never did materialize. A hand
ful of ships did stumble into the area a few days later, however, possibly searching the coast for food and booty. In the skirmish that followed, the Koreans under Song did all the fighting, capturing or destroying every Japanese vessel and taking numerous heads. The Ming forces assigned to aid them just looked on, unable to enter the fray, they said, because of “unfavorable winds.” When Chen Lin heard of this—he was drinking wine with Yi Sun-sin at the time in the new Council Hall that Yi had built—he was so embarrassed by the poor showing of his men that he smashed his cup to the floor and flew into a rage. Yi moved quickly to calm him. Since you have come so far to help us, he said, it would only be fitting that any victories achieved by us should be considered as your own. Yi then promised to hand over to Chen forty of the seventy heads that had been taken in the skirmish so that he could present them to Beijing as evidence of his valor. Another five heads went to one of Chen’s subcommanders, who sent a servant by later with a demand for a share for himself.
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In his official report to Seoul Yi Sun-sin did as he promised and credited Chen and his Ming forces with taking forty-five enemy heads. But he also sent a second, unofficial report detailing the truth of what had transpired, namely that the Koreans had done the fighting while the Chinese hogged the glory. King Sonjo was pleased. The affair confirmed the low character of the Ming admiral and in turn the moral fiber of Yi Sun-sin, who was willing to sacrifice his own battle honors for the greater good of the nation. The affair nevertheless very nearly led to disaster when rumors of the two conflicting reports began circulating throughout the south—one can imagine how Yi’s proud men would have repeated the tale—and came to the attention of a Chinese official touring the area. Upon arriving back in Seoul, the official demanded to see Yi’s dispatch so that he could report on the matter to Beijing. The Koreans, realizing that to hand over a copy of Yi’s second, true report would cause trouble for Chen Lin, sent only Yi’s first, fabricated account, and the matter was eventually dropped.
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Toyotomi Hideyoshi, now on his deathbed in
Fushimi Castle, continued to be plagued with worry for his son Hideyori right up to the end. Two weeks before his death he sent the following letter to the Five Regents (
go-tairo
), the five senior daimyo responsible for safeguarding Toyotomi rule, literally begging them this time to look out for his heir:
To: [Tokugawa] Ieyasu
Chikuzen [Maeda Toshiie]
[Mori] Terumoto
[Uesugi] Kagekatsu
[Ukita] Hideie
Until Hideyori reaches adulthood, I am asking for the help of the people whose names are listed in this document. This is the only request I want to make.
I repeat: concerning the business of Hideyori, I am begging and beg
ging you five. The details have been conveyed to the five men [the “Five Commissioners” who ranked just below the “Five Regents” to whom this letter was addressed]. I am loath to part. I end here.
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As they did every time Hideyoshi requested it, his senior daimyo pledged their loyalty to Hideyori and the house of Toyotomi. But still Hideyoshi could not rest in peace, for he knew from personal experience the nature of ambitious men. Sixteen years before, in 1582, he had himself sworn loyally to serve the heir of his own master Oda Nobunaga, only to renege on his word and seize power for himself. Did Hideyoshi now feel any guilt? Or was he more likely aware simply of the futility of it all, the futility of extracting oaths from men who in the end would pursue their own interests regardless of what they had sworn? As he had betrayed the heir of Nobunaga, what would prevent Tokugawa, Maeda, and the other daimyo from betraying Hideyori after Hideyoshi was gone?
As he lay on his deathbed, reflecting on his life and the prospects of his son, Hideyoshi summoned the energy to compose a traditional poem of farewell:
I am as
The dew which falls,
The dew which disappears.
Even Osaka Castle
Is only a dream.
[778]
After one of the most remarkable rises to power the world had ever seen, from peasant boy in Nakamura village to lord of Japan and would-be conqueror of Asia, all was now about to disappear—like dew at the first touch of the sun.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi died on September 18, 1598. He was approxi
mately sixty-two years old. One of his final commands was for the war in Korea to be brought to a close, and for all his men to return home.
Yang Hao, the dismissed supreme commander of Chinese forces in Korea, left Seoul on August 12, 1598, for the long journey back to Beijing to face the charges leveled against him by antiwar hatchet man Ding Yingtai. A visibly moved King Sonjo saw him off at Hongje, a reception area just outside the city walls on the main road to the north. A gathering of elderly government officials was also present to express the nation’s sorrow. They shed bitter tears as Yang seated himself in his sedan chair, then repeatedly blocked the road in the traditional manner to show their reluctance to see him go.
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The man sent to replace Yang was Wan Shide. Previously Wan had served as governor of
Tianjin, a temporary post the Ming government had created in 1597 for the purpose of overseeing coastal defense and the shipment of supplies to the expeditionary forces in Korea. He would not arrive in Seoul until the end of the year, and consequently would not be on hand for the coming campaign.
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At
Fushimi Castle in Kyoto the demise of Toyotomi Hideyoshi on September 18 was being kept a secret. The Five Regents Hideyoshi had appointed to protect his son Hideyori’s interests, foremost among them Tokugawa Ieyasu and Maeda Toshiie, together with the Five Commissioners responsible for the day-to-day running of the government,
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continued to issue reports for a week or more stating that the taiko was still alive. Keeping the death of a ruler secret for a time like this is not unusual in a totalitarian state. When so much power is concentrated in the hands of one man, the death of that man is invariably regarded by those around him as a time of instability and danger, and a common reaction is to keep the death secret until the transition of power is com
plete. General fears of instability probably lay in part behind the desire of the Five Regents and the Five Commissioners to withhold the news that the taiko had died. But there was more. Hideyoshi had reportedly given his consent to end the war in Korea and bring the troops home just days before his death. Tokugawa Ieyasu and his colleagues were eager to see this done. For them the second invasion had been an ill-advised adventure that was costing too much. The timing, however, was problematic. If news of Hideyoshi’s death arrived in Korea together with orders calling off the war and withdrawing the troops, the daimyo commanders in the field might suspect that the instructions came from Tokugawa and company, and did not actually reflect the dying wishes of the taiko. After having already invested so much blood in the campaign, some of them might then feel honor bound to ignore the withdrawal order and carry on the fight.
Withholding news of the taiko’s passing was an obvious way around this snag. On September 25 the Five Commissioners wrote to Nabeshima Naoshige in
Korea with the good news that “the Taiko is at length recovering from his illness.” He was now sending two emissaries to inspect the situation at the front and deliver his instructions, and to consult with Nabeshima and his fellow commanders on the best way to end the war. Similar reassurances regarding Hideyoshi’s health were sent to Shimazu Yoshihiro at his fortress at Sachon, together with the information that “some time ago he issued instructions for peace,” the details of which were being conveyed to Korea in the hands of two emissaries, Tokunaga Toshimasa and Miyagi Toyomori. Hideyoshi’s own seal was applied to one of these letters addressed to Shimazu—obviously by someone else, for the taiko had been dead for a week.
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The instructions that Tokunaga and Miyagi carried to
Pusan left no doubt that the Five Regents and Five Commissioners in Kyoto were anxious to bring the war to a quick and certain end. The daimyo commanders were ordered to negotiate a face-saving withdrawal with the Chinese and the Koreans as had been attempted back in 1593, but this time on cut-rate terms. There would be no demand for a daughter from the Ming emperor, for open trade with China, for the ceding to Japan of the southern half of Korea. The Japanese were now willing to abandon all their fortresses in Korea if the Koreans would hand over just one of their princes as a hostage. If the Koreans refused even this, then the Japanese would settle for some rice, honey, and tiger and leopard skins.
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As things turned out, they would not get even this.
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On September 18, seven months after the retreat from Tosan and the very day Hideyoshi died, a new allied army of Ming and Korean troops set out again to attack the Japanese in the south. As in the previous campaign the force was divided into three columns. This time, however, it would not converge on just one point in the Japanese chain of forts. The plan was to fan out and attack the chain at three separate points.
General Ma Gui, the highest-ranking Ming field commander and the second-highest-ranking Ming representative in Korea after “Army Gate” Xing Jie, headed southeast to attack Kato Kiyomasa’s Tosan fortress just outside Ulsan. Ma had been with Yang Hao during the first unsuccessful attempt to break this stronghold on the easternmost end of the Japanese fortress chain. Now he was tasked with completing the job. He had with him a combined force of 29,500 men: 24,000 Ming troops, both cavalry and foot soldiers, reinforced by 5,500 Koreans under General Kim Ung-so. Recently arrived general Dong Yiyuan made for Shimazu Yoshihiro’s fortress at Sachon at roughly the center of the chain. He had a total of 26,800 Ming troops under his command, plus 2,300 Koreans led by Kyongsang Right Army Commander Chong Ki-ryong, making for a combined force of 29,100 men. Heading for Konishi Yukinaga’s fortress at Sunchon on the western end of the chain, finally, was General “Big Sword” Liu Ting. Liu commanded an army of 26,000 Ming troops, the bulk of them cavalry units and contingents of ethnic fighters from Burma and other exotic locales along the periphery of the Middle Kingdom. He took only about half this army south with him, however, some 13,600 men; perhaps he felt that supplies would not be adequate to feed his entire force. The general would be joined in the south by 10,000 Koreans under Commander in Chief Kwon Yul, giving him a combined field army of 23,600 men.
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As the summer of 1598 drew to a close, 68,400 Chinese and Korean troops were thus converging on the Japanese perimeter, as 30,000 reserve troops waited to the rear in
Seoul. Nor was this all. After months of delay, Ming naval forces under Chen Lin had at last arrived to reinforce the Korean fleet under Yi Sun-sin. Chen reached Yi’s base on the island of Kogum-do in August with 5,000 men aboard a handful of serviceable battleships and a host of smaller craft, adding significant manpower to the 16,000 troops that had by this time flocked to Yi’s command.
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Still more weight was added with the arrival of a Zhejiang squadron under Deng Zilong, an old Ming veteran who, like Chen, had commanded troops and fought battles all across the empire, from the Burmese border in the southwest to Fujian Province on the coast facing Taiwan. Also like Chen, Deng was just returning to service from a prolonged period in official disfavor: he had been criticized and dis
missed for some perceived misstep he had taken in the border war with Burma in 1592, and had been forced to remain in retirement for the next six years.
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The total allied force gathering to strike the Japanese from both land and sea therefore totaled nearly 100,000 men.
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Ding Yingtai, the antiwar Ming official who had caused such an uproar with his recent attack on Yang Hao and the war effort in
Korea, was now making his way back to Seoul to widen his investigation. He evidently felt himself in some danger while passing through Liaoyang, an army town on the Chinese frontier filled with Yang supporters, for he remained indoors during his stopover and was wary of what he ate in case it might be poisoned.
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By the time he reached northern
Korea, however, Ding’s confidence was high—so much so that word preceded him to Seoul that he had added “Army Gate” Xing Jie, the highest-ranking Ming official in Korea, to his list of guilty parties.
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When Ding arrived outside the walls of
Seoul on October 3, King Sonjo was not there to greet him. It was customary for the king to come out of the city to welcome all Ming officials, even ones of Ding’s low rank, so his failure to do so was an obvious snub. Sonjo saved his welcome instead for Xu Guanlan, the official sent by the prowar faction in Beijing to conduct an investigation of his own. The display was more to underscore the king’s loathing for Ding than to demonstrate any special respect for Xu. Throughout the coming months the Koreans would remain suspicious of him and uncomfortable with his presence, for it soon became evident that Xu was concerned only with facts and numbers and had no regard for the bigger issues involved. Most important, he did not seem to appreciate the need to clear King Sonjo and his ministers of Ding’s outrageous charge that they had lied to Beijing about the scope of the Japanese threat to involve China in the war.
The first thing Ding and Xu set out to do upon their arrival was to determine the true extent of Yang Hao’s losses at Tosan. Both men gathered detailed reports from Korean officials and from the command
ers who had been on the scene, then conducted head counts of Ming troops to find out how many men were missing. From this information Xu Guanlan drafted a report concluding that casualties at Tosan had been in the neighborhood of two thousand. Ding Yingtai was not satisfied with this figure and continued to dig. He had various individuals arrested and interrogated, including the female companion of one of Yang Hao’s close friends; the homes of officials and officers were ransacked in search of damning evidence; army clerks were rounded up and beaten en masse on charges of falsifying the casualty numbers. It was Ding’s contention that ten thousand men had been lost at Tosan, and he was determined to prove it.
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His investigation into the Battle of Tosan and the conduct of Yang Hao was of course only the starting point in Ding Yingtai’s antiwar campaign. He had already gone on to accuse Grand Secretaries Zhang Wei and Shen Yiguan, “Army Gate” Xing Jie, and numerous other pro-war Ming officials of a variety of misdeeds. Everyone working for the war effort was in fact under Ding’s close scrutiny and vulnerable to a career-destroying charge. But even this was not enough. It was not enough merely to weed out the bad elements within the Ming govern
ment who were supporting the war at such a heavy cost in men and wealth. Ding wanted to get to the root of the problem. He wanted to expose the culprits responsible for dragging China into the whole debacle back in 1592.
The answer Ding came up with was that the Koreans were to blame. He laid bare what he regarded as their perfidy in a report entitled “Plot of the Tributary Buffer to Wickedly Make Common Cause with the Outlaws.” He submitted the document just days after his arrival in
Seoul—a fact that would seem to indicate he had come to Korea with his “findings” already in hand. The Koreans, Ding charged, were not the innocent victims of unprovoked aggression that they had tried to paint themselves as. On the contrary, they had actually invited the Japanese to invade their country in 1592 as a prelude to a move against China, for they hoped that in the ensuing Sino-Japanese struggle they would be able to seize for themselves fertile land north of the Yalu River presently under Ming control. King Sonjo, his government, and indeed his entire nation were thus guilty of disloyalty to the Celestial Throne, a charge amounting to nothing less than treason.
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Ding Yingtai had no real evidence to support these claims. The charge that the Koreans wished to seize Chinese territory north of the Yalu was based on the fact that, more than a thousand years before, the ancient Korean
kingdom of Koguryo had regarded that land as part of its territory. If the kings of Koguryo considered it their land, Ding evidently reasoned, the kings of Choson Korea must necessarily want to reclaim it. As for the charge that the Koreans had invited Hideyoshi to invade the mainland, Ding cited as proof the long history of “good relations” that had existed between Korea and Japan as recorded in the history books, in particular the various political missions that had been exchanged, the trade that had taken place, and the Japanese trading colonies that the Koreans previously allowed to exist along the southeast coast. “This proves,” Ding concluded, “that the story that the Japanese were in fact invited here is not just empty talk!”
And there was more. “The current king of
Korea, Yi —,” Ding continued, referring to King Sonjo, “is a tyrant to his subjects and wallows in debauchery. He impudently lured the Japanese to invade our empire and scoff at Heaven’s Court, and has formed a gang with Yang Hao to deceive the Son of Heaven.” Sonjo and his government also dated their documents using Japanese year titles in big characters while consigning the proper Chinese year title to small print underneath. This was completely untrue, but Ding nevertheless cited it as an example of how the Koreans “esteem Japan while keeping China in the distance.” Ding additionally claimed—again falsely—that the honorific titles used by the Koreans to refer to their king indicated that they regarded him as an equal to the emperor in Beijing. This showed that their claims of having served China loyally and obediently for two hundred years really didn’t amount to much. “If your Majesty were to rebuke Korea with regard to these matters,” Ding sneered, “what words will King Sonjo and his ministers use to explain themselves?”
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