For the pictures of camps, fleets, the details of armory and commissariat, and all the pomp and circumstance that make up the bright side of Japanese war preparations in 1591 and 1592, we are indebted, not only to the Japanese writers, but to those eye witnesses and excellent “war correspondents,” the Portuguese missionaries then in Kiushiu, and especially to Friar Louis Frois. He tells us of the amplitude, vigor, and brilliancy of Taikō’s measures for invasion, and adds that the expenses therefor greatly burdened the “ethniques” or daimiōs who had to pay the cost. Those feudatories, whose domain bordered the sea, had to furnish a mighty fleet of junks, while to man them, the quota of every hundred houses of the fishing population was ten sailors.

The land and naval forces assembled at Nagoya, in Hizen, now called Karatsu, and famous for being the chief place for the manufacture of Hizen porcelain. Here a superb castle was built, while huge inns or resting-places were erected all along the road from Kiōto. The armies gathered here during the war numbered 500,000 men; of whom 150,000 formed the army of invasion, 60,000 the first reserve, while 100,000 were set apart as Taikō’s body-guard; the remainder were sailors, servants, camp followers, etc.

Beside the old veterans were new levies of young soldiers, and a corps of matchlock men, who afterward did good execution among the Coreans. The possession of this new and terrible weapon gave the invaders a mighty advantage over their enemies. Though firearms had been known and manufactured in Japan for a half century, this was the first time they were used against foreign enemies, or on a large scale. Taikō also endeavored to hire or buy from the Portuguese two ships of war, so as to use their artillery; but in this he failed, and the troops were despatched in native-built vessels. These made a gallant display as they crowded together by hundreds. At the signal, given by the firing of cannon, [96]the immense fleet hoisted sail and, under a fresh breeze, bore away to the west.

Their swelling sails, made of long sections of canvass laced together, vertically, at their edges, from stem to boom (thus differing from the Chinese, which are laced horizontally), were inscribed with immense crests and the heraldic devices of feudalism, many feet in diameter. Near the top were cross-wise bands or stripes of black. The junks of Satsuma could be distinguished by the white cross in a circle; those of Higo by the broad-banded ring. On one were two crossed arrow-feathers, on others the chess-board, the “cash” coin and palm-leaves, the butterfly, the cloisonné symbol, the sun, the fan, etc. Innumerable banners, gay with armorial designs or inscribed with Buddhist texts, hung on their staves or fluttered gaily as flags and streamers from the mastheads. Stuck into the back of many of the distinguished veterans, or officers, were the sashi-mono, or bannerets. Kato Kiyomasa, being a strict Buddhist, had for the distinctive blazon of his back-pennant, and on the banners of his division, the prayer and legend of his sect, the Nichirenites, “Namu miyo ho rengé kiō” (Glory to the Holy Lotus, or Glory to the salvation-bringing book of the Holy Law of Buddha). On the forward deck were ranged heavy shields of timber for the protection of the archers. These, at close quarters, were to be let down and used as boarding planks, when the sword, pike, and grappling-hook came into play. Huge tassels, dangling from the prows like the manes of horses, tossed up and down as the ships rode over the waves. Each junk had a huge eye painted at the prow, to look out and find the path in the sea. With the squadron followed hundreds of junks, laden with salt meat, rice-wine, dried fish, and rice and beans, which formed the staple of the invaders’ commissariat for man and horse. Transport junks, with cargoes of flints, arrows, ball, powder, wax candles, ship and camp stores, “not forgetting a single thing,” sailed soon after, as well as the craft containing horses for the cavalry.

Taikō did not go to Corea himself, being dissuaded by his aged mother. The court also wished no weaker hand than his to hold the reins of government while the army was on foreign shores. The men to whom he entrusted the leadership of the expedition, were Konishi Yukinaga and Kato Kiyomasa. To the former, he presented a fine war horse, telling him to “gallop over the bearded savages” with it, while to the latter he gave a battle-flag. Konishi was an impetuous young man, only twenty-three years [97]of age. He was a favorite of Taikō, and sprung like the latter from the common people, being the son of a medicine dealer. His crest or banner was a huge, stuffed, white paper bag, such as druggists in Japan use as a shop sign. In this he followed the example of his august chief, who, despising the brocade banners of the imperial generals, stuck a gourd on a pole for his colors. For every victory he added another gourd, until his immense cluster contained as many proofs of victory as there are bamboo sticks in an umbrella. The “gourd-banner” became the emblem of infallible victory. Konishi also imitated his master in his tactics—impetuous attack and close following up of victory.

Konishi was a Christian, an ardent convert to the faith of the Jesuit fathers, by whom he had been baptized in 1584. In their writings, they call him “Don Austin”—a contraction of Augustine. Other Christian lords or daimiōs, who personally led their troops in the field with Konishi, were Arima, Omura, Amakusa, Bungo, and Tsushima. The personal name of the latter, a former envoy to Corea, of whom we have read before, was Yoshitoshi. He was the son-in-law of Konishi. Kuroda, as Mr. Ernest Satow has shown, is the “Kondera” of the Jesuit writers.

Kato Kiyomasa was a noble, whose castle seat was at Kumamoto in Higo. From his youth he had been trained to war, and had a reputation for fierce bravery. It is said that Kato suggested to Taikō the plan of invading Corea. His crest was a broad-banded circle, and his favorite weapon was a long lance with but one cross-blade instead of two. Kato is the “Toronosqui” of the Jesuit fathers, who never weary of loading his memory with obloquy. This “vir ter execrandus” was a fierce Buddhist and a bitter foe to Christianity. A large number of fresh autographic writings had been made by the bonzes in the monasteries expressly for Kato’s division. The silk pennon, said to have been inscribed by Nichiren himself and worn by Kato during the invasion, is now in Tōkiō, owned by Katsu Awa, and is six centuries old.

With such elements at work between the two commanders, bitterness of religious rivalry, personal emulation, the desire to earn glory each for himself alone, the contempt of an old veteran for a young aspirant, harmony and unity of plan were not to be looked for. Nevertheless, the personal qualities of each general were such as to inspire his own troops with the highest enthusiasm, and the army sailed away fully confident of victory. [98]

What were the objects of Taikō in making this war? Evidently his original thought was to invade and humble China. Then followed the determination to conquer Chō-sen. Ambition may have led him to rival Ojin Tennō, who, in his mother’s womb, made the conquest of Shinra, and, as the deified Hachiman, became the Japanese god of war. Lastly, the Jesuit fathers saw in this expedition a plot to kill off the Christian leaders in a foreign land, and thus extirpate Christianity in Japan. To ship the Christians off to a foreign soil to die of wounds or disease, was easier than to massacre them. They make Taikō a David, and his best generals Uriahs—though Coligny, slain twenty years before, might have served for a more modern illustration.

Certain it is that it was during the absence of the Christian leaders that the severest persecutions at home took place. It is probable, also, that his jealousy of the success and consequent popularity of the Christian generals created irresolution in Taikō’s mind, leading him to neglect the proper support of the expedition and thus to bring about a gigantic failure.

Finally, we must mention the theory of a Japanese friend, Mr. Egi Takato, who held that Taikō, having whole armies of unemployed warriors, all jealous of each other, was compelled, in order to ensure peace in Japan, to find employment for their swords. His idea was to send them on this distant “frontier service,” and give them such a taste of home-sickness that peaceful life in Japan would be a desideratum ever afterward.

The Coreans, by their own acknowledgment, were poorly prepared for a war with the finest soldiers in Asia, as the Japanese of the sixteenth century certainly were. Nor had they any leader of ability to direct their efforts. Their king, Sien-jo, the fifteenth of the house of Ni, who had already reigned twenty-six years, was a man of no personal importance, addicted entirely to his own pleasures, a drunkard, and a debauchee. Though the royal proclamation was speedily issued, calling on the people to fortify their cities, to rebuild the dilapidated castles, and to dig out the moats, long since choked by mud and vegetation, the people responded so slowly, that few of the fortresses were found in order when their enemies laid siege to them. Weapons were plentiful, but there were no firearms, save those presented as curiosities by the Taikō to the king. There was little or no military organization, except on paper, while the naval defences were in a sad plight. However, they began to enroll and drill, to lay up stores [100]of fish and grain for the army, to build ships, to repair their walls, and even to manufacture rude firearms.

Yet even the most despondent of the Coreans never dreamed that the Japanese, on their first arrival, would sweep everything before them like a whirlwind, and enter the capital within eighteen days after their landing at Fusan. One of the first castles garrisoned and provisioned was that of Tong-nai, near Fusan. On the morning of May 25, 1592, the sentinels on the coast descried the Japanese fleet of eight hundred ships, containing the division of Konishi. Before night the invaders had disembarked, captured Fusan, and laid siege to Tong-nai Castle, which at once surrendered. So sudden was the attack that the governor of the district, then in the city, was unable to escape. Konishi, writing a letter to the king, gave it into the hands of the governor, and made him swear to deliver it safely, promising him unconditional liberty if he did so. The governor agreed, and at once set out for Seoul; but on reaching it he simply said he had escaped, and made no mention of the letter. His perjury was not to remain undetected, as later events proved. Without an hour’s delay Konishi’s division, leaving Tong-nai, marched up the Nak-tong valley to Shang-chiu.

Kato’s division, delayed by a storm, arrived next day. Landing immediately, he saw with chagrin the pennons of his rival flying from the ramparts of Tong-nai. Angry at being left behind by “the boy,” he took the more northerly of the two routes to the capital. The two rival armies were now straining every nerve on a race to Seoul, each eager to destroy all enemies on the march, and reach the royal palace first. Kuroda and other generals led expeditions into the southern provinces of Chulla and Chung-chong. These provinces being subdued, and the castles garrisoned, they were to make their way to the capital.

The Coreans proved themselves especially good bowmen, but inexpert at other weapons, their swords being of iron only, short, clumsy, and easily bent. Their spears, or rather pikes, were shorter than the Japanese, with heavy blades, from the base of which hung tassels. The iron heads were hollow at the base, forming a socket, in which the staff fitted. The Japanese spearheads, on the contrary, were riveted down and into the wood, which was iron-banded for further security, making a weapon less likely to get out of order, while the blades were steel-edged. The Corean cavalry had heavy, three-pronged spears, which were extremely [101]formidable to look at, but being so heavy as to be unwieldly at close quarters, they did little execution. Many of their suits of armor were handsomely inlaid, made of iron and leather, but less flexible and more vulnerable than those of the Japanese, which were of interlaced silk and steel on a background of tough buckskin, with sleeves of chain mail. The foot soldiers on either side were incased in a combination of iron chain and plate armor, [102]but the Coreans had no glaves, or cross-blades on their pikes, and thus were nearly helpless against their enemy’s cavalry. The Japanese were smooth-shaven, and wore stout helmets, with ear-guards and visors, but the Coreans, with open helmets, without visors, and whiskered faces, were dubbed “hairy barbarians.” They were beginning to learn the use of powder, which, however, was so badly mixed as to be exasperatingly slow in burning. Their very few firearms were of the rudest and most cumbrous sort. They used on their ramparts a kind of wooden cannon, made of bamboo-hooped timber, from which they shot heavy wooden darts, three feet long, pointed with sharp-bladed, Y-shaped iron heads. The range of these clumsy missiles was very short. The Japanese, on the contrary, had at several sieges pieces of light brass ordnance, with which they quickly cleared the walls of the castles, and then scaled them with long and light ladders, made of bamboo, and easily borne by men on a run. The Japanese were not only better equipped, but their tactics were superior. Their firearms frightened the Corean horses, and the long spears and halberds of their cavalry were used with fearful effect while pursuing the fugitives, who were pierced or pulled off their steeds, or sabred in droves. Few bodies of native troops faced the invaders in the field, while fire-arrows, gunpowder, and ladders quickly reduced the castles. Not a few of the Corean officers were killed inside their fortresses by the long range fire of the sharp-shooters in the matchlock corps.

The greater share of glory fell to Konishi, the younger man. Taking the southern route, he reached the castle of Shang-chiu, in the northwestern part of Kiung-sang, and captured it. Leaving a garrison, he pushed on to Chiun-chiu. This fortress of Chiun-chiu is situated in the northeastern part of Chung-chong province, and on the most northerly of the two roads, over which Kato was then marching. It was at that time considered to be the strongest castle in the peninsula. On it rested the fate of the capital. It lay near one of the branches of the Han River, which flows past Seoul. At this point the two high roads to the capital, on which the two rivals were moving, converged so as to nearly touch. Chiun-chiu castle lay properly on Kato’s route, but Konishi, being in the advance, invested it with his forces and, after a few days’ siege, captured the great stronghold. The loss of the Coreans thus far in the three fortresses seized by Konishi, as reported by Friar Frois, was 5,000 men, 3,000 of whom fell at Chiun-chiu; while the [103]Japanese had lost but 100 killed and 400 wounded. After such a victory, “Konishi determined to conquer all Corea by himself.”

Kato and his army, arriving a few days after the victory, again saw themselves outstripped. Konishi’s pennons floated from every tower, and the booty was already disposed of. The goal of both armies was now “the Miaco of the kingly city of Coray.” Straining every nerve, Kato pressed forward so rapidly that the two divisions of the Japanese army entered Seoul by different gates on the same day. No resistance was offered, as the king, court, and army had evacuated the city three days before. The brilliant pageant of the Japanese army, in magnificent array of gay silk and glittering armor, was lost on the empty streets of deserted Seoul.

When Taikō heard of the success of his lieutenants in Corea, especially of Konishi’s exploits, he was filled with joy, and cried out, “Now my own son seems risen from the dead.” [104]