The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China

548 Pages·2014·3.57 MB·English

by  Samuel Hawley

THE IMJIN WAR
Japan’s Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer
China

by

SAMUEL HAWLEY
THE IMJIN WAR:
JAPAN’S SIXTEENTH-CENTURY INVASION OF KOREA AND ATTEMPT TO CONQUER CHINA
Second Edition

Copyright © 2014 by Samuel Hawley Published by Conquistador Press, 2014
ISBN (for eBook edition): 978-0-9920786-4-5
ISBN: (for print edition): 978-0-9920786-2-1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the author.

The first edition of THE IMJIN WAR was published in 2005 by the Royal Asiatic Society, Korea Branch,
Seoul and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, with a second printing in
2008.
Conquistador Press
www.conquistadorpress.com

Visit the author at:
www.samuelhawley.com
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CONTENTS

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
INTRODUCTION
A NOTE ON DATES

:
PART 1 THE THREE KINGDOMS
:
CHAPTER 1 Japan: From Civil War to World Power
:
CHAPTER 2 China: The Ming Dynasty in Decline
:
CHAPTER 3 A Son Called Sute: “Thrown Away”
:
CHAPTER 4 Korea: Highway to the Prize

:
PART 2 PRELUDE TO WAR
:
CHAPTER 5 “By fast ships I have dispatched orders to Korea...”
:
CHAPTER 6 Preparations for War
:
CHAPTER 7 The Final Days

:
PART 3 IMJIN
:
CHAPTER 8 North to Seoul
:
CHAPTER 9 Hideyoshi Jubilant
:
CHAPTER 10 The Korean Navy Strikes Back
:
CHAPTER 11 On to Pyongyang
:
CHAPTER 12 The Battle for the Yellow Sea
:
CHAPTER 13 “To me the Japanese robber army will be but a swarm of ants and wasps”
:
CHAPTER 14 A Castle at Fushimi
:
CHAPTER 15 Suppression and Resistance
:
CHAPTER 16 Saving History

:
PART 4 STALEMATE
:
CHAPTER 17 The Retreat from Pyongyang to the “River of Hell”
:
CHAPTER 18 Seoul Retaken
:
CHAPTER 19 Negotiations at Nagoya, Slaughter at Chinju
:
CHAPTER 20 Factions, Feuds, and Forgeries
:
CHAPTER 21 Meanwhile, in Manila…
:
CHAPTER 22 “You, Hideyoshi, are hereby instructed...to cheerfully obey our imperial commands!”
:
CHAPTER 23 The Arrest and Imprisonment of Yi Sun-sin

:
PART 5 THE SECOND INVASION
:
CHAPTER 24 “Water, Thunder, and Great Disaster”
:
CHAPTER 25 The Japanese Advance Inland
:
CHAPTER 26 “Seek death and you will live; seek life and you will die”
:
CHAPTER 27 Starvation and Death in a “Buddha-less World”
:
CHAPTER 28 “Even Osaka Castle is only a dream”
:
CHAPTER 29 The Last Act

:
PART 6 AFTERMATH
:
CHAPTER 30 What Came Next

BIBLIOGRAPHY
MAPS AND TABLES

FIGURE 1: Hideyoshi’s Japan
FIGURE 2: East Asia in the Sixteenth Century
FIGURE 3: Korea, 1592
FIGURE4: Japanese Invasion Forces, May 1592
FIGURE 5: The First Invasion, 1592-93
FIGURE 6: Korea’s Southern Coast
FIGURE 7: The Kyongsang Coast
FIGURE 8: Japanese Invasion Forces, September 1597
FIGURE 9: The Second Invasion, 1597-98
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

It will soon be ten years since The Imjin War was co-published in October 2005
by the Royal Asiatic Society in Korea and the Institute of East Asian Studies at
UC Berkeley. My foremost thanks then, and now, is to Kim Kyong-mee for the
many hours she spent with me, twice a week over the course of two years,
translating the various Korean-language sources that were used in the
preparation of this book. I would also like to renew my thanks to Kim Young-
duk and Bae Sue-ja, respectively the president and general manager of the
RASKB at the time The Imjin War was originally published; to IEAS managing
editor Joanne Sandstrom for her copyediting skills; and to the So-ae Memorial
Foundation and Poongsan Corporation, without whose support this book would
never have been published in the first place.
The Imjin War book received virtually no marketing when it was first
released and distribution was confined to just a few sources. Normally such lack
of publicity and availability would doom a book to wither and die, unknown and
unsold. But for some reason The Imjin War didn’t wither. Readers found it, word
got around and the initial print run of 2,000 copies eventually sold out. In 2008 a
second printing was made.
As an older and wiser author today, more aware of the harsh realities of the
book business, I look back on this modest success with a measure of wonder.
When I set out to find a publisher in 2003, after four years of solitary research
and writing, I contacted a number of literary agents and publishing houses,
pitching it as a popular history for general readers, and I sat back expecting to
receive at least a few favorable replies. Fifty-seven rejection letters followed,
each assuring me that a book on a presumably obscure sixteen-century war in
Korea wouldn’t sell. To all the people who bought The Imjin War anyway when
it finally came out, despite this conventional wisdom that they weren’t supposed
to; to everyone who devoted the hours required to read through its many pages;
to everyone who has said or written kind things about it over the years and
encouraged me to write more—to all these people I would like to say: Thank
you.
This new edition of The Imjin War is largely identical to the original version.
The main difference is that I have eliminated the center section of pictures,
replaced the Acknowledgements with this new Preface and designed a new
cover. Everything else, including the text, is the same. I remain very proud of
this book. It was a labor of love that required more time and drive and energy
than I could ever muster again, and so I have decided to let it stand as I