The court at Seoul had been too much paralyzed by the sudden invasion to think of or carry out any effective means of resistance. Konishi had sent letters from Fusan and Shang-chiu, but these, through official faithlessness and the accidents of war, had failed in their purpose. Konishi was too fast for them. When the news reached Seoul, of the fall of Chiun-chiu castle, the whole populace, from palace to hut, was seized with a panic which, in a few hours, emptied the city. The soldiers deserted their post, and the courtiers their king, while the people fled to the mountains. His Majesty resolved to go with his court into Liao Tung, but to send the royal princes into the northern provinces, that the people might realize the true state of affairs. So hurried were the preparations for flight, which began June 9th, that no food was provided for the journey. The only horses to be obtained were farm and pack animals, as the royal stables had been emptied by the runaway soldiers. The rain fell heavily, in perpendicular streams, soon turning the roads to mire, and drenching the women and children. The Corean dress, in wet weather, is cold and uncomfortable, and when soaked through, becomes extremely heavy, making a foot journey a severe tax on the strength. To add to the distress of the king, as the cortege passed, the people along the road clamored, with bitter tears, that they were being abandoned to the enemy. Tortured with hunger and fatigue, the wretched party floundered on.

Their first day’s journey was to Sunto, or Kai Seng, thirty miles distant. Darkness fell upon them long before they reached the Rin-yin River, a tributary of the Han, which joins it a few miles above Kang-wa Island. The city lay beyond it, and the crossing of the stream was done in the light of the conflagration kindled behind them. The king had ordered the torch to be applied to the barracks and fortifications which guarded the southern bank [105]of the river. Another motive for this incendiary act was to deprive their pursuers of ready materials to ferry themselves across the river. It was not until near midnight that the miserable fugitives, tortured with hunger and almost dead with fatigue, entered the city. Though feeling safe for the moment, since the Japanese pursuers could not cross the river without boats or rafts, most of the king’s household were doomed still to suffer the pangs of hunger. The soldiers had stolen the food provided for the party, and the king had a scant supper, while his household remained hungry until the next day, when some of the military gave them a little rice. The march was resumed on the following morning and kept up until Ping-an was reached. Here they halted to await the progress of events.

The king ordered his scattered forces to rally at the Rin-yin River, and, on its northern bank, to make a determined stand.

Kato and Konishi, remaining but a short time in the capital, united their divisions and pressed forward to the north. Reaching the Rin-yin River, they found the Corean junks drawn up on the opposite side in battle array. The Japanese, being without boats, could not cross, and waited vainly during several days for something to turn up. Finally they began a feigned retreat. This induced a portion of the Corean army to cross the river, when the Japanese turned upon them and cut them down with terrible slaughter. With the few rafts and boats used by the enemy, the Japanese matchlock men rapidly crossed the stream, shot down the sailors and the remaining soldiers in the junks, and thus secured the fleet by which the whole army crossed and began the march on Ping-an.

The rival Japanese commanders, Kato and Konishi, who had hitherto refrained from open quarrel, now found it impossible to remain longer together, and drew lots to decide their future fields of action in the two northern provinces. Ham-kiung fell to Kato, who immediately marched eastward with his division, taking the high road leading to Gensan. Konishi, to whom the province of Ping-an fell, pushed on to Ping-an City, arriving on the south bank of the river toward the end of July, or about three weeks after leaving Seoul. Here he went into camp, to await the reinforcements under Kuroda and Yoshitoshi. These soon afterward arrived, having traversed the four provinces bordering on the Yellow Sea.

The great need of the Japanese was floating material; next to this, their object was to discover the fords of the river. On [106]July 20th they made a demonstration against the fleet of junks along the front of the city, by sending out a few detachments of matchlock men on rafts. Though unsuccessful, the Corean king was so frightened that he fled with his suite to Ai-chiu. The garrison still remained alert and defiant.

Delay made the Japanese less vigilant. The Corean commanders, noticing this, planned to surprise their enemy by a night attack. Owing to bad management and delay, the various detachments did not assemble on the opposite side of the river until near daylight. Then forming, they charged furiously upon Konishi’s camp, and, taking his men by surprise, carried off hundreds of prisoners and horses, the cavalry suffering worse than the infantry. Kuroda’s division came gallantly to their support, and drove the Coreans back to the river. By this time it was broad daylight, and the cowardly boat-keepers, frightened at the rout of their countrymen, had pushed off into mid-stream. Hundreds of the Coreans were drowned, and the main body, left in the lurch, were obliged to cross by the fords. This move gave the Japanese the possession of the coveted secret. Flushed with victory, the entire army crossed over later on the same day and entered the city. Dispirited by their defeat, the garrison fled, after flinging their weapons into the castle moats and ditches of the city; but all the magazines of grain, dried fish, etc., were now in the hands of the invaders. Frois reports, from hearsay, that 80,000 Coreans made the attack on Konishi’s camp, 8,000 of whom were slain.

The news of the fall of Ping-an City utterly demoralized the Coreans, so that, horses being still numerous, the courtiers deserted the king, and the villagers everywhere looted the stores of food provided for the army. Many of the fugitives did not cease their flight until they had crossed the Yalu River, and found themselves on Chinese territory. These bore to the Governor of Liao Tung province, who had been an anxious observer of events, the news of the fall of Ping-an, and the irresistible character of the invasion. The main body of the Corean army went into camp at Sun-an, between An-ton and Sun-chon. In Japan, there was great rejoicing at the news received from the frontier, because, as Frois wrote, Konishi, “in twenty days, hath subdued so mighty a kingdom to the crown of Japan.” Taikō sent the brilliant young commander a two-edged sword and a horse—“pledges of the most peerless honor that can possibly be done to a man.”

The Japanese soldiers felt so elated over their victory that they [107]expected immediate orders to march into China. With this purpose in view, Konishi sent word to the fleet at Fusan to sail round the western coast, into Ta-tong River, in order to co-operate with the victorious forces at Ping-an. Had this junction taken place, it is probable China would have been invaded by Japanese armies, and a general war between these rival nations might have turned the current of Asiatic history. This, however, was not to be. Corean valor, with the aid of gunpowder and improved naval construction, prevented this, and kept three hundred miles of distance, in a mountainous country, between the Japanese and their base of supplies.

Oriental rhetoric might describe the situation in this wise: the eastern dragon of invasion flew across the sea in winged ships, and [108]speedily won the crystal of victory. But on land the dragon must go upon its belly. The Corean navy snatched the jewel from the very claws of the dragon, and left it writhing and hungry.

In cool western phrase, sinister, but significant, Konishi was soon afterward obliged to “make a change of base.” The brilliant success of the army seems to have impressed the Japanese naval men with the idea that there was nothing for them to do. On the contrary, the Chō-sen people set to work to improve the architecture of their vessels by having them double-decked. They also provided for the safety of their fighting men, by making heavy bulwarks, and rearing, along the upper deck, a line of strong planks, set edgewise, and bolted together. Behind these, archers discharged their missiles without danger, while from port-holes below they fired their rude, but effective, cannon. Appearing off the inlet, in which the Japanese fleet lay at anchor, they at first feigned retreat, and thus enticed their enemies into pursuit. When well out on the open sea, they turned upon their pursuers, and then their superior preparation and equipment were evident at once.

Lively fighting began, but this time the Coreans seemed invulnerable. They not only gained the advantage by the greater length of their lances and grappling-hooks, with which, using them like long forks, they pulled their enemies into the sea, but they sunk a number of the Japanese junks, either by their artillery or by ramming them with their prows. The remnant of the beaten fleet crept back to Fusan, and all hope of helping the army was given up. The moral effect of the victory upon the Corean people was to inspire them to sacrifice and resistance, and in many skirmishes they gained the advantage. They now awaited hopefully the approach of Chinese reinforcements.

To the Chinese it seemed incredible that the capture of the strongest castles, the capital, and the chief northern city, could be accomplished without the treasonable connivance of the Coreans. In order to satisfy his own mind, the Chinese mandarin sent a special agent into Corea to examine and report. The government at Peking were even more suspicious, but after some hesitation, they despatched, not without misgiving, a small body of Chinese soldiers to act as a body-guard to the Corean king. These braves crossed the frontier; but while on their way to Ping-an, heard of the fall of the city, and, facing about, marched back into Liao Tung. The king and the fragments of his court now sent courier [109]after courier with piteous appeals to Peking for aid, even offering to become the subjects of China in return for succor rendered. A force of 5,000 men was hastily recruited in Liao Tung, who marched rapidly into Corea. Early in August the Japanese pickets first descried the yellow silk banners of the Chinese host. These were inscribed with the two characters Tai-Ming (Great Brightness), the distinctive blazon of the Ming dynasty. For the first time, in eight centuries, the armies of the rival nations were to meet in pitched battle.

The Chinese seemed confident of success, and moved to the attack on Ping-an with neither wariness nor fear. Having invested the city, they began the assault on August 27th. The Japanese allowed them to enter the city and become entangled in its narrow lanes. They then attacked them from advantageous positions, which they had occupied previously, assailing them with showers of arrows, and charging them with their long lances. One body of the Ming soldiers attempted to scale the wall of a part of the fortifications, which seemed to have been neglected by the Japanese, when near the top, the whole face of the castle being covered with climbing men, the garrison, rushing from their hiding-places, tumbled over or speared their enemies, who fell down and into the mass of their comrades below. Those not killed by thrusts or the fall, were shot by the gunners on the ramparts, and the Chinese now received into their bosoms a shower of lead, against which their armor of hide and iron was of slight avail. In this fight the Ming commander was slain. The rout of the Chinese army was so complete, that the fugitives never ceased their retreat until safely over the border, and into China.

The government at Peking now began to understand the power of the enemy with whom they had to deal. An army of 40,000 men was raised to meet the invaders, and, in order to gain time, a man, named Chin Ikei, was sent, independently of the Coreans, to treat with Konishi and propose peace. Some years before the Japanese pirates had carried off a Chinaman to Japan, where he was kept captive for many years. Returning to China, he made the acquaintance of Chin Ikei, and gave him much information concerning the country and people of his captivity. Chin Ikei was evidently a mercenary adventurer, who could talk Japanese, and hoped for honors and promotion by acting as a go-between. He had no commission or any real authority. The Chinese seem to have used him only as a cat’s-paw. [110]

Arriving at the Corean camp, at Sun-an, early in October, and fully trusting the honor of the Japanese commander, Chin Ikei ventured, in spite of the warnings of the frightened Coreans, and to their intense admiration, within the Japanese lines, and had a conference with Konishi, Yoshitoshi, and Genshō. The Chinese agent agreed to proceed to Peking, and, returning to Ping-an after fifty days, to report the approval or disapproval of his government. To this Konishi agreed, and there was a truce. The conditions of peace, insisted on by Konishi, were that the Japanese ancient territory in the peninsula, namely, those portions covered by the old states of Shinra and Hiaksai, should be delivered over to Japan, to be held as vassal provinces. This demand virtually claimed all Corea south of the Ta-tong River, in right of ancient possession and recent conquest and occupation.

Arriving in Peking, Chin Ikei found the Chinese army nearly ready to march, and, as their government disowned his right to treat with the Japanese, nothing, except the time gained for the Chinese, resulted from the negotiations. Meanwhile Kato Kiyomasa, with his troops, had overran the whole extent of Ham-kiung, the longest and largest province of Corea, occupying also parts of Kang-wen. No great pitched battle in force was fought, but much hard fighting took place, and many castles were taken after bloody sieges. In one of these, the two royal princes, sent north by their father on his flight from Seoul, and many men of rank were captured. Among his prisoners, was “a young girl reputed to be the most beautiful in the whole kingdom.” In the pursuit of the fugitives the Japanese were often led into wild and lonely regions and into the depths of trackless mountains and forests, in which they met, not only human foes, but faced the tiger disturbed from his lair. They were often obliged to camp in places where these courageous beasts attacked the sentries or the sleeping soldiers. Kato himself slew a tiger with his lance, after a desperate struggle. After a hard campaign, the main body of the troops fixed their camp at Am-pen, near Gensan, but closer to the southern border of the province. Nabéshima’s camp was in Kang-wen, three days’ journey distant. From a point on the sea-coast near by, in fair weather, the island cone of Dagelet is visible. To the question of Kato, some Corean prisoners falsely answered that this was Fujiyama—the worshipped mountain of the home-land, and “the thing of beauty and a joy forever” to the Japanese people. Immediately the Japanese reverently uncovered their heads [111]and, kneeling on the strand, gazed long and lovingly with homesick hearts—a scene often portrayed in Japanese decorative art.

Thus the year 1592 drew near its close; the Japanese, necessarily inactive, and the spirit of patriotism among the Coreans rising. Collecting local volunteer troops and forming guerilla bands, they kept the Japanese camps, along the road from Fusan to Ping-an, constantly vigilant They ferreted out the spies who had kept the Japanese informed of what was going on, and promptly cut off their heads. Isolated from all communication, Konishi remained in ignorance of the immense Chinese army that was marching against him. The discovery, by the Japanese, of the existence of the regular Chinese troops in Corea, was wholly a matter of accident. According to Chinese report, the commander of the Ming army, Li-yu-son (Japanese, Ri Jo Shō), was a valiant hero fresh from mighty victories over the rising Manchiu tribes in the north. The march of his host of 60,000 men through Liao Tung in winter, especially over the mountain passes, was a severe one, and the horses are said to have sweated blood. Evidently the expectation of the leader was to drive out the invaders and annex the country to China. When the Corean mountains appeared, as they reached the Yalu River, the leader cried out, “There is the place which it depends on our valor to recover as our hereditary possessions.” On the sixth day, after crossing the frontier, he arrived at Sun-an. It was then near the last of January, 1592, and the New Year was close at hand. Word was sent to Konishi that Chin Ikei had arrived and was ready to reopen negotiations, with a favorable reply. Konishi promptly despatched a captain, with a guard of twenty men, to meet Chin Ikei and escort him within the lines. It being New Year’s Day, February 2, 1593, the guard sallied out amid the rejoicings of their comrades who, tired of desolate Chō-sen, longed for peace and home. The treacherous Chinamen received the Japanese with apparent cordiality, and feasted them until they were well drunk. Then the unsuspicious Japanese were set upon while their swords were undrawn in their scabbards. All were killed except two or three. According to another account, they fell into an ambuscade, and fought so bravely that only three were taken alive. From the survivors Konishi first learned of the presence of the Ming army. The pretext, afterward given by the lying Chinaman, was that the interpreters misunderstood each other, and began a quarrel. The gravity of the situation was now apparent. A Chinese army, of [112]whose numbers the Japanese were ignorant, menaced them in front, while all around them the natives were gathering in numbers and in courage to renew the struggle for their homes and country. The new army from China was evidently well equipped, disciplined, and supplied, while the Japanese forces were far in an enemy’s country, distant from their base of supplies, and with a desolate territory in the rear. Under this gloomy aspect of affairs, the faces of the soldiers wore a dispirited air.

Konishi’s alternative lay between the risk of a battle and retreat to Kai-seng. He was not long in resolving on the former course, for, in six days afterward, the Ming host, gay with gleaming arms, bright trappings, and dragon-bordered silk banners, appeared within sight of the city’s towers. Konishi anxiously watched their approach, having posted his little force to the best advantage. The city was defended on the west by a steep mountainous ridge, on the north by a hill, and on the south by a river. The Japanese occupying the rising ground to the north, which they had fortified by earthworks and palisades.

At break of day, on February 10th, the allies began a furious assault along the whole line. The Japanese at first drove back their besiegers with their musketry fire, but the Chinese, with their scaling ladders, reached the inside of the works, where their numbers told. When night fell on the second day of the siege, all the outworks were in their possession, and nearly two thousand of the Japanese lay dead. The citadel seemed now an easy prize to the Corean generals; but the Chinese commander, seeing that the Japanese were preparing to defend it to the last, and that his own men were exhausted, gave the order to return to camp, expecting to renew the attack next morning.

Konishi had despatched a courier to Otomo, the Japanese officer in command at Hozan, a small fortress in Whang-hai, to come to his aid. So far from obeying, the latter, frightened at the exaggerated reports of the numbers of the Chinese, evacuated his post and marched back to Seoul. Unable to obtain succor from the other garrisons, and having lost many men by battle and disease, while many more were disabled by wounds and sickness, Konishi gave orders to retreat. One of his bravest captains was put in command of the rear-guard, and the castle was silently deserted at midnight. In this masterly retreat, little was left behind but corpses. Crossing, upon the ice, the river, which was then frozen many feet in thickness, their foes were soon left behind. [113]Next day the allied army, surprised at seeing no enemy to meet them, entered the castle, finding neither man nor spoil of any kind. The Coreans wished to pursue their enemy, but the Chinese commander, not only forbade it, but glad of a pretext by which he could shift the blame on some other person, cashiered the Corean general for allowing the Japanese to escape so easily. Konishi, without stopping at Kai-seng, was thus enabled to reach Seoul, now the headquarters of all the invading forces. Fully expecting the early advance of the Chinese, the men were now set to work in fortifying the city.

In the flush of success, Li-yu-sung, the Ming commander, sent an envoy with a haughty summons of surrender to Kato and Nabéshima. To this Kato answered in a tone of defiance, guarded his noble prisoners more vigilantly, and with his own hand, in sight of the envoy, put the beautiful Corean girl to death, by transfixing her, with a spear, from waist to shoulder, while bound to a tree. He immediately sent reinforcements to the castle of Kié-chiu, then threatened by the enemy.

The Corean patriots, who organized small detachments of troops, began to attack or repel the invaders in several places, and even to lay siege to castles occupied by Japanese wherever they suspected the garrison was weak. The possession of a few firearms and even rude artillery made them very daring. They compelled the evacuation of one fortress held by Kato’s men by the following means. A Corean, named Richosun, says a Japanese author, invented bombs, or shin-ten-rai (literally, heaven-shaking thunder), containing poison. Going secretly to the foot of the castle, he discharged the bombs out of a cannon into the castle. As soon as they fell or touched anything they burst and emitted poisonous gas, and every one within reach fell dead. The first of these balls fell into the garden of the castle, and the Japanese soldiers did not know what it was. They gathered around to examine it, and while doing so, the powder in the ball exploded. The report shook heaven and earth. The ball was rent into a thousand pieces, which scattered like stars. Every man that was hit instantly fell, and thus more than thirty men were killed. Even those who were not struck fell down stunned, and the soldiers lost their courage. Many balls were afterward thrown in, which finally compelled the evacuation of the castle.

From the above account it seems that the Coreans actually invented bombs similar to the modern iron shells. They may have been fired from a heavy wooden cannon, a sort of howitzer, made [114]by boring out a section of tree trunk and hooping it along its whole length with stout bamboo. Such cannon are often used in Japan. They will shoot a ten or twenty pound rocket or case of fireworks many hundred feet in the air. The Corean most probably selected a spot so distant from the castle that a sortie for its capture could not be successfully made. Corean gunpowder is proverbially slow in burning, which accounts for the fact that the Japanese had time to gather round it. The bomb was most probably a thin shell of iron, loaded only with gunpowder, which, like the Chinese mixture, contains an excess of sulphur. The military customs of the Japanese required every man disabled by a wound to commit hara-kiri, so that the number of actual deaths must have been swelled by the suicides that followed wounds inflicted by the iron fragments. The Japanese were so completely demoralized that they evacuated the castle.

Two other castles at Kinzan and Kishiu, being beleagured by the patriots, Kato started to succor the slender garrisons. The Coreans, hearing this, redoubled their efforts to capture them before Kato should arrive. They had so far succeeded that the Japanese officer in the citadel, having lost nearly all his men, went into the keep, or fireproof storehouse, in the centre of the castle, and opened his bowels, preferring to die by his own hands rather than allow a Corean the satisfaction of killing him. Just at that moment the black rings of Kato’s banners appeared in sight. The Coreans, setting the castle on fire, and giving loud yells of defiance and victory, disappeared.

Kato and Nabéshima had received an urgent message from Seoul to come with their troops, and thus unite all the Japanese forces in a stand against the Chinese. Kato disliked exceedingly to obey this order because he knew it came from Konishi, but he finally set out to march across the country. Thorough discipline was maintained on the march, and the rivers were safely crossed. Cutting down trees, the soldiers, in companies of five or ten, holding on abreast of logs, forded or floated over the most impetuous torrents, while the cavalry kept the Coreans at bay. Though annoyed by attacks of guerilla parties on their flanks, the Japanese succeeded in reaching Seoul without serious loss.

By the retreat of the Japanese armies, and their concentration in Seoul, the four northern provinces, comprising half the kingdom, were virtually lost to them. At the fall of Ping-an the war found its pivot, for the Japanese never again retrieved their fortunes in Chō-sen. [115]