The allies, after looking well to their commissariat, began their march on Seoul, about the middle of February, with forces which the Japanese believed to number two hundred thousand men. The light cavalry formed the advance guard. The main body, after floundering through the muddy roads, arrived, on February 26th, about forty miles northwest of Seoul.
In the first skirmish, which took place near the town shortly afterward, the allies drove back the Japanese advance detachment with heavy loss. Li-yo-sun, the commander-in-chief, now ordered the army to move against the capital.
In the council of war, held by the Japanese generals, Ishida, who, like Konishi, was a Christian in faith, advised the evacuation of Seoul. This, of course, provoked Kato, who rose and angrily said: “It is a shame for us to give up the capital before we have seen even a single banner of the Ming army. The Coreans and our people at home will call us cowards, and say we were afraid of the Chinamen.” Hot words then passed between the rival generals, but Otani and others made peace between them. All concluded that, in order to guard against treason, the Coreans in the capital must be removed. Thereupon, large portions of the city were set on fire, and houses, gates, bridges, public and private buildings, were soon a level waste of ashes. The people, old and young, of both sexes, sick and well, were driven out at the point of the lance. To the stern necessities of war were added the needless carnage of massacre, and hundreds of harmless natives were cruelly murdered. Only a few lusty men, to be used as laborers and burden-bearers, were spared.
Years after, the memory of this frightful and inhuman slaughter, burdening the conscience of many a Japanese soldier, drove him a penitent suppliant into the monasteries. There, exiled from the world, with shaven head and priestly robe, he spent his days [116]in fasting, vigils, and prayers for pardon, seeking to obtain Nirvana with the Eternal Buddha.
Meanwhile the work of fortification went on. The advance guard of the Chinese host were now within a few miles of the city, and daily skirmishes took place. The younger Japanese officers clamored to lead the van against the Chinese, but Kobayékawa, an elderly general, was allowed to arrange the order of battle, and the Japanese army marched out from the capital to the attack in three divisions, Kobayékawa leading the third, or main body of ten thousand men, the others having only three thousand each. In the battle that ensued the Japanese were at first unable to hold their ground against the overwhelming forces of their enemies. The Chinese and Coreans drove back their first and second divisions with heavy loss. Then, thinking victory certain, they began a pursuit with both foot soldiers and cavalry, which led them into disorder and exhausted their strength. When well wearied, Kobayékawa, having waited till they were too far distant from their camp to receive reinforcements, led his division in a charge against the allies. The battle then became a hand-to-hand fight on a gigantic scale. The Chinese were armed mainly with swords, which were short, heavy, and double-edged. The allies had a large number of cavalry engaged, but the ground being miry from the heavy rains, they were unable to form or to charge with effect. Their advantage in other respects was more than counterbalanced by the length of the Japanese swords, the strength of their armor, and their veteran valor and coolness. Even the foot soldiers wielded swords having blades usually two, but sometimes three and four, feet long.
The Japanese have ever prided themselves upon the length, slenderness, temper, and keen edge of their blades, and look with unmeasured contempt upon the short and clumsy weapons of the continental Asiatics. They proudly call their native land “The country ruled by a slender sword.” Marvellous in wonder and voluminousness are their legends, literature, and exact history concerning ken (two-edged, short falchion), and katana (two-handed and single-edged sabre). In this battle it was the sword alone that decided the issue, though firearms lent their deadly aid. The long, cross-bladed spears of their foot soldiers were also highly effective, first, in warding off the sabre strokes of the Chinese cavalry, and then unhorsing them, either by thrust or grapple. One general of high rank was pulled off his steed and killed.
The Japanese leaders were in their best spirits, as well as in [117]their finest equipments. One was especially noticeable by his gilded helmet that flashed and towered conspicuously. It was probably that of Kato, whose head-gear was usually of incredible height and dazzling splendor.
After a long struggle and frightful slaughter, the allies were beaten back in confusion. Ten thousand Chinese and Coreans, according to Japanese accounts, were slaughtered on this bloodiest day and severest pitched battle of the first invasion.
The Chinese suffered heavily in officers, and their first taste of war in the field with such veterans as the soldiers of Taikō was discouraging in the extreme. Li-yo-sun drew off his forces and soon after retired to Sunto. Not knowing that Kato had got into Seoul, and fearing an attack from the rear, on Ping-an, he drew off his main body to that city, leaving a garrison at Sunto. Tired, disgusted, and scared, the redoubtable Chinaman, like “the beaten soldier that fears the top of the tall grass,” sent a lying report to Peking, exaggerating the numbers of the Japanese, and asking for release from command, on the usual Oriental plea of poor health. As for the Japanese, they had lost so heavily in killed, that they were unable to follow up the victory, if victory it may be called. A small force, however, pressed forward and occupied Kai-jo, while the main body prepared to pass a miserable winter in the desolate capital.
The Corean stronghold of An-am was also assaulted. This castle was built on a precipitous steep, having but one gate and flank capable of access, and that being a narrow, almost perpendicular, cutting through the rocks. The attacking force entered the gloomy valley shut in from light by the luxuriant forest, which darkened the path even in the daytime. At the tops, and on the ledges of the rocks beetling over the entrance-way, the Corean archers took up advantageous positions, while others of the garrison, with huge masses of rock and timber piled near the ledge, stood ready to hurl these upon the invaders.
Awaiting in silence the approach of their enemies, they soon saw the Japanese fan-standards and paper-strip banners approach, when these were directly beneath them, every bow twanged, and a shower of arrows rained upon the invaders, while volleys of stones fell into their ranks, crushing heads and helmets together. The besiegers were compelled to draw off and arrange a new attack; but in the night the garrison withdrew. Next day the Japanese entered, garrisoned the castle, and decorated it with their streamers. [118]
The long-continued abandonment of the soil, owing to the war and the presence of three large armies, bore their natural fruits, and turned fertile Corea into a land of starvation. Famine began its ravages of death on friend and foe alike. The peasants petitioned their government for food, but none was to be had. Thousands of the poor people died of starvation. The fathers suffered in camp, while the dead mothers lay unburied in the houses, and the children, tortured with hunger, cried for food. One day a captain in the Chinese army found, by the roadside, an emaciated infant vainly seeking for nourishment from the cold and rigid breast of its dead mother. Touched with compassion, the warrior took the child and reared him to manhood under his own care.
Some rice was distributed to the wretched people from the government store-houses in certain places, but still the groans and cries of the starving filled the air. Pestilence entered the Japanese camp, and thousands of the home-sick soldiers died ingloriously. The long winter rains made the living despondent and gloomy enough to commit hara-kiri, while the state of the roads and the dashing courage of the guerillas, who pushed their raids to the very gates of the camps, made foraging an unpopular duty among the men. In such discomfort, winter wore away, and tardy spring approached. In this state of affairs the Japanese were willing to listen, and the allies ready to offer, terms of peace. A Corean soldier, named Rijunchin, by permission of his superior officer, had penetrated into Seoul to visit the two captive princes. On his return to the camp, he stated that the Japanese generals were very homesick and heartily tired of the war. At the same time, a letter was received from Konishi, stating his readiness to receive terms of peace. Chin Ikei was again chosen to negotiate. Reaching the Japanese lines at Kai-jo, he held an interview with Konishi, and the following points of agreement were made:
1. Peace between the three countries.
2. Japan to remain in possession of the three southern provinces of Chō-sen.
3. Corea to send tribute to Japan as heretofore.
4. Hidéyoshi to be recognized as King of Corea. The three other articles drawn up were not made public, but the acknowledgment of Taikō as the equal of the Emperor of China was evidently one of them. The Japanese, on their part, were to return the two captive princes, withdraw all their armies to Fusan, and evacuate the country when the stipulations were carried out. [119]
Both parties were weary of the war. The Ming commander had requested to be relieved of his command and to return to China, while the three old gentlemen, who were military advisers in the Japanese camp, yearning for the pleasures of Kiōto, wrote to Taikō, asking leave to come home, telling him the object of his ambition was on the eve of attainment, and that he was to receive investiture from the Chinese emperor, and recognition as an equal.
Scholarship and literature were not at a very high premium at that time among the Japanese military men. The martial virtues and accomplishments occupied the time and thoughts of the warriors to the exclusion of book learning and skill at words. The sword for the soldier, and the pen for the priest, was the rule. The bluff warrior in armor looked with contempt, not unmingled with awe, upon the shaven-pated man of ink and brush. One of the bonzes from the monastery was usually of necessity attached to the service of each commander. It was by reason of the ignorance, as well as the vanity, of the illiterate Japanese generals that such a mistake, in supposing that Taikō was to be recognized as equal to the Emperor of China, was rendered possible. The wily Chin Ikei, who drove a lucrative trade as negotiator, hoodwinked Konishi, who would not have been thus outwitted if he had had a bonze present to inspect the writing. Being a Christian, however, he was on bad terms with the bonzes.
In both camps there were those who bitterly opposed any peace short of that which the sword decided. The Corean generals chafed at the time wasted in parley, and wished to march on the Japanese at once, whose ranks they knew were decimated with sickness, and their spirit and discipline relaxed under the idea of speedy return home. An epidemic had also broken out among their horses, probably owing to scant provender. Thus crippled and demoralized, victory would certainly follow a well-planned attack in force. Within the camp of the invaders Achilles and Agamemnon were as far as ever from harmony. Kato sullenly refused to entertain the idea of peace, partly because Konishi proposed it, but mainly because, if the two princes were given up, his achievements would be brought to naught, and all the glory of the war would redound to his rival. Only after the earnest representation by his friends of the empty granaries, and the danger of impending starvation, the great sickness among the troops, and the fearful loss of horses, was he induced [120]to agree with the other commanders that Seoul should be evacuated.
Meanwhile, the allies were advancing toward the capital.
On May 22, 1593, the Japanese, with due precautions, evacuated the city, and the vanguard of the Chinese army entered on the same day. The retreat of the Japanese was effected in good order, and, to guard against treachery, they bivouacked in the open air, avoiding sleeping in the houses or villages, and rigidly kept up the vigilance of their sentinels and the discipline of the divisions. In this way the various detachments of the army safely reached Fusan, Tong-nai, Kinka, and other places near the coast. Here, after fortifying their camps, they rested for a space from the alarms of war, almost within sight of their native land. The allies later on marched southward and went into camp a few leagues to the northward. Since crossing the Yalu River, the Chinese had lost by the sword and disease twenty thousand men. [121]