I rarely write about Imjin War topic. Truth be told I don't recall ever written anything about it in this blog, as various sources and analyses usually contradict each other, making the prospect of doing an through overview on the subject difficult. I also lack academic expertise, time, and resource to do independent research on my own.
That being said, I am well aware of the scarcity of English-language resources on this subject. To make matters worse, most English resources do not make use of many Chinese primary sources, thus painting an incomplete and often biased picture on the war.
Luckily, there has been growing interest in Imjin War from China as well, especially among the Mainland Chinese netizens. I often find their studies on Imjin War highly comprehensive and informative, as what they lacked in professional academic training they more than made up with access to vastly greater range of primary and secondary sources, mastery of all the languages used in these sources (namely Chinese and Japanese, as most ancient Korean documents were also written in Chinese), better understanding of the cultural quirks and norms of the period (being Chinese and all), deeper focus, and attention to details, as the following reconstruction of Battle of Byeokjegwan will show.
Before I start though, I should reiterate that this article is NOT written by me — I merely translated it to English (with some heavy formatting on my part) for wider audience. The original Chinese articles can be found here and here.
『吾兵雖云乘勝,實遠來疲罷。倭奴集各道之兵与王京,且有以虎視石之戒,正未可輕敵也。』
"Although our troops appear to be on high morale (following the victory at Pyongyang), in reality they are already weary from the long march. The Japanese are recalling their troops from various provinces to the Capital, so we should heed to the wisdom of 'assigning a tiger to keep watch on a stone', and not to underestimate them."
Prelude
When Ming army finally reached Imjin River, they had marched for more than one thousand li (576 km) away from their homeland at Liao Dong (遼東, present-day Liaoning). At the same time, Japanese army had gathered more than 50,000 troops in Hanseong (한성 or 漢城, present-day Seoul), nearly twice the number of Ming troops, and Katō Kiyomasa (加藤清正) still had several thousand troops stationed at Hamgyong Province on top of this, threatening Ming flanks at Hwanghae Province and Pyongan Province. If Ming army was able to quickly recapture Hanseong, then they could cut off Katō Kiyomasa from the rest of the Japanese army completely. Otherwise, they might had to consider retreating to Pyongyang to avoid the risk of being attacked from two directions.When Pyongyang was liberated, many Japanese prisoners of war boasted that Japanese had as many as 100,000 troops stationed in Hanseong. Nevertheless, Korean gentries, ever so eager to see their homeland liberated, kept on nagging the Ming army to attack immediately despite their knowledge of heavy Japanese presence at Hanseong. Even Ryu Seong-ryong (류성룡 or 柳成龍), Chief State Councillor of Joseon Kingdom, personally went to Imjin River to oversee the construction of pontoon bridge to facilitate the transportation of Ming equipment and cannons, despite the fact that such lowly work was beneath the dignity of his noble status. He also reported to the Ming that there were, at most, only 10,000 Japanese troops currently stationed in Hanseong, in stark contrast to the testimonials of Japanese prisoners. If Ryu Seong-ryong's report was true and Japanese only had 10,000 troops, then Ming could easily retake Hanseong with currently available troops. However if the testimonials of Japanese prisoners were accurate, then Ming army must consider retreating to Pyongyang and wait for reinforcement. As Ming army was still eager to fight after a string of victories, and there was no concrete intelligence on the enemy, Li Ru Song (李如松), commander-in-chief of Ming expeditionary force, decided to personally go to Imjin River to gather information. As a precaution, he ordered Gao Ce (高策) and Liang Xin (梁心) to rebuild the defence of Pyongyang with 3,000 men.
Li Ru Song arrived at Paju on 26 February 1593. He sent out a 3,000-strong scouting force to gather information about terrain and defence of Hanseong, but the scouting force encountered a forward sentry force under Ukita Hideie (宇喜多秀家) during the mission. The news of Ming arrival at the outskirt of Hanseong prompted the Japanese defenders to immediately mobilise their troops and prepare for war.
Early in the morning on 27 February 1593, Ming scouting force crossed Haeeumlyong hill, some 21.5 km away from Hanseong, and arrived at Byeokjegwan under the thick morning fog. A small skirmish broke out between Ming and Japanese scouts at around 2 am in the morning, although both sides quickly disengaged. Caught wind of the skirmish, Tachibana Muneshige marched his force out of the west gate and arrived at Yeoseoghyeon at around 6 am.
And thus began the Battle of Byeokjegwan.
The Battlefield
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The original author used 'Haedong chido (해동지도 or 海東地圖)', an ancient Korean map, to reconstruct the battlefield. Unfortunately, I cannot find a high-resolution image of his map, so I replaced his image with a different edition of the same map. The complete image can be viewed here. |
Goyang can be found in a valley north-northwest of Byeokjegwan. At the time, it was but an unwalled town littered with various government buildings, houses and grain stores. At the east side of Byeokjegwan, there is a col in the Manggaeghyeon ridge. The road to Hanseong passed through the col from the north, headed southeast, crossed the stream from Hongbogsan (홍복산 or 洪福山), and split into two at two lone hills near Yeoseoghyeon hill. One of the split roads branched out before the lone hills and headed south. The other road passed between the lone hills, split into two again at Sinwonjeom (신원점 or 新院店), the area between the lone hills and Yeoseoghyeon, then headed south as well. All three routes passed through Yeoseoghyeon hill at different points, but all led to Hanseong.
A small plain, about 3.5 km to 4 km from east to west and 0.8 km to 1.8 km from north to south, lies between the south of Yeoseoghyeon hill and Changneung Royal Tomb. Cha Da Shou (查大受) scouted the area before Battle of Byeokjegwan took place, so the plain was already familiar to Ming army.
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The battlefield reconstructed with Google Maps. The original author created these maps with Chinese labelling, but I recreated his maps in English. |
Belligerents
Ming
Division | Commander | Strength |
Ming Scouting Force | Vanguard Cha Da Shou (查大受) Go Eon-baek (고언백 or 高彥伯) |
590 Kuandian Cavalry 100+ Korean Cavalry |
Sun Shou Lian (孫守廉) Zu Cheng Xun (祖承訓) Li Ning (李寧) |
702 Shenyang Cavalry 700 Haizhou Cavalry 1,189 Liaodong Garrison Regular Corp Cavalry |
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TOTAL: 3,281+
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Reinforcement (Leader: Li Ru Song) |
Li Ru Song (李如松) Li Ru Bai (李如柏) Zhang Shi Jue (張世爵) |
1,000 Retinue Cavalry |
Yang Yuan (楊元) | 1,000 Ming Cavalry | |
TOTAL: 2,000
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It was clear from the start that Ming army only intended to mount an armed reconnaissance mission to Hanseong. Ming scouting force that arrived first was headed by Sun Shou Lian (孫守廉), Zu Cheng Xun (祖承訓) and Li Ning (李寧). Cha Da Shou served as the vanguard of the scouting force, with Korean commander Go Eon-baek (고언백 or 高彥伯) as his co-leader and local guide. Most of the troops of Ming scouting force were elites.
Ming reinforcement was headed by Li Ru Song himself, with Li Ru Bai (李如柏), Yang Yuan (楊元) and Zhang Shi Jue (張世爵) among others accompanying him. Li Ru Song later split his force into two and raced ahead of Yang Yuan.
While it is commonly believed that Li Ru Song did not bring any Southern troops to this battle due to bitter animosity between Northern and Southern Chinese troops, the reality was that a reconnaissance mission in unknown territory demanded specially selected and experienced troops. As most of the Southern troops were fresh recruits, they were simply not up to the task. After all, Hanseong was 39.27 km away from Paju. It would be very unreasonable to expect foot-slogging fresh recruits to march for nearly 80 km in a single day (a round trip), let alone keeping up with elite cavalry on such a dangerous mission.
Furthermore, as Koreans were incapable of providing adequate logistics support to Ming army, they wanted to force Ming army to advance south and end the war as quickly as possible. To this end, they decided to spread out what supply they could gather along the Ming army's march route. The decision proved disastrous, as Ming army was effectively prevented from concentrating its troops in one place for fear of exhausting local supply too quickly. In fact, Li Ru Song was forced to leave half his army behind when he crossed Imjin River for this very reason (Translator's Note: In other words, Li Ru Song was unable to muster a larger force for this battle even if he had wanted to).
Japanese
Division | Subdivision | Commander | Strength |
First Division (Leader: Kobayakawa Hidekane) |
1st Subdivision (Leader: Tachibana Muneshige) |
Vanguard Ono Shigeyuki (小野鎮幸) Mitabi Shigehisa (米多比鎮久) |
700+ |
Middleguard Totoki Tsurehisa (十時連久) Uchida Munetsugu (内田統続) |
500+, mostly cavalry |
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Rearguard Tachibana Muneshige (立花宗茂) Takahashi Munemasu (高橋統増) |
1,800+ Infantry 212 Cavalry |
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2nd Subdivision (Leader: Kobayakawa Hidekane) |
Left Vanguard Awaya Kagekatsu (粟屋景雄) |
3,000 |
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Right Vanguard Inoue Kagesada (井上景貞) |
3,000 |
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Kobayakawa Takakage (小早川隆景) |
2,000 | ||
3rd Subdivision | Kobayakawa Hidekane (小早川秀包) Suetsugu Motoyasu (末次元康) Tsukushi Hirokado (筑紫広門) |
5,000 | |
4th Subdivision | Kikkawa Hiroie (吉川広家) | 4,000 | |
TOTAL: 20,212+ | |||
Second Division (Leader: Ukita Hideie) |
1st Subdivision | Kuroda Nagamasa (黒田長政) | 5,000 |
2nd Subdivision | Ishida Mitsunari (石田三成) Mashita Nagamori (増田長盛) Ōtani Yoshitsugu (大谷吉継) |
5,000 | |
3rd Subdivision | Katō Mitsuyasu (加藤光泰) Maeno Nagayasu (前野長康) |
3,000 | |
4th Subdivision | Ukita Hideie (宇喜多秀家)
Togawa Tatsuyasu (戸川達安) |
8,000 | |
TOTAL: 21,000 | |||
Hanseong Defence Force (Leader: Konishi Yukinaga) |
- | Konishi Yukinaga (小西行長) Otomo Yoshimune (大友義統) |
10,000 |
TOTAL: 10,000 |
Japanese army divided its main force of 41,000 into two divisions. Tachibana Muneshige, renowned among his peers for his bravery (it was said that three thousand of his troops could go toe to toe with ten thousand troops of his peers), was chosen as the vanguard. At the time, he stationed his men at the west gate of Hanseong.
An additional 10,000-strong force led by Konishi Yukinaga and Otomo Yoshimune stayed behind to defend Hanseong.
The Battle
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Initial deployment. |
At around 7 am, Ming cavalry made its move and engaged Totoki Tsurehisa's force. As soon as both sides made contact, Totoki Tsurehisa mustered his cavalry and charged Ming cavalry. Ming cavalry did not meet his charge head on, but withdrew towards Manggaeghyeon almost immediately. As shown on the following battle maps, Totoki Tsurehisa's force moved northwest in pursuit of Ming cavalry into a bowl-shaped area near Manggaeghyeon col, which exposed his entire right flank to the Ming's left wing.
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Cha Da Shou and Go Eon-baek made contact with Totoki Tsurehisa. |
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Cha Da Shou and Go Eon-baek retreated towards Manggaeghyeon. |
Suffering heavy casualties due to being attacked from two directions, Totoki Tsurehisa retreated towards Ono Shigeyuki's force. Tachibana Muneshige's main force of 2,000 men proceeded to move out from Sinwonjeom's left hill to engage the Ming's right wing, and both armies engaged in intense combat. Unfortunately, Tachibana Muneshige's main force only had 212 cavalry, while Ming scouting force consisted of mounted troops in its entirely. As the battle was fought on flat terrain, Tachibana Muneshige's force was greatly disadvantaged and suffered heavy losses as well, forcing him to retreat back to the lone hills of Sinwonjeom. By utilising the narrow hill pass to his advantage, Tachibana Muneshige mustered some 200 arquebuses to slow down the relentless Ming assault.
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Totoki Tsurehisa's force was attacked from several directions. |
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Totoki Tsurehisa's force suffered heavy casualties and retreated. |
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Ming scouting force engaged Tachibana Muneshige's main force. |
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Tachibana Muneshige retreated into the lone hills. |
At the same time, Li Ru Song's force had arrived at Haeeumlyong. He met some retreating Go Eon-baek's officers en route, and was informed of the arrival of Japanese reinforcement. Li Ru Song decided to immediately rush ahead to Byeokjegwan with only half his men. In the hurry, Li Ru Song accidentally fell from his horse and injured himself, but he immediately switched horse and continued his march.
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Kobayakawa Takakage arrived at the scene. |
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Both sides entered a standoff. Li Ru Song arrived at the scene. |
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Li Ru Song's plan. |
Thus, both sides acted under serious miscalculation due to inadequate intelligence. Ming force seriously underestimated Japanese strength, which led to them launching a foolhardy attack against Japanese force despite being under unfavourable terrain and seriously outnumbered. On the other hand, Japanese force clearly overestimated Ming strength. This led to a major overreaction and mobilisation of nearly all of its available troops. With all that said, battlefield advantage was clearly with the Japanese, as they now enjoyed overwhelming numerical superiority and occupied favourable terrain close to their home base.
When Li Ru Song decided to make his move towards western route, Ming force was already seriously outnumbered. Discounting Tachibana Muneshige's force that suffered heavy losses, Japanese still had about 17,000 troops present. In fact, Awaya Kagekatsu and Inoue Kagesada alone brought more troops (6,000 men) than the entire Ming force. In contrast, Ming scouting force was weary after several hours of intense combat, and only received 1,000 fresh reinforcement from Li Ru Song.
The battle renewed. Li Ru Song personally led his elite retinue cavalry, consisted of his most trusted retainers and bodyguards, and attacked Awaya Kagekatsu's 3,000-strong force that was deployed along the western side of Yeoseoghyeon. Li Ru Song's retinue cavalry blasted at Awaya Kagekatsu's force with Shen Ji Jian (神機箭) rockets, which prompted Awaya Kagekatsu to order his arquebusiers to the front to return fire. However, Li Ru Song's retinue cavalry swiftly charged into close combat. Unable to resist the cavalry charge, Awaya Kagekatsu retreated into Yeoseoghyeon hill.
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Li Ru Song attacked Awaya Kagekatsu. |
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Li Ru Song was attacked from two directions. At the same time, Kobayakawa Hidekane, Suetsugu Motoyasu and Tsukushi Hirokado attacked Ming scouting force. |
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Awaya Kagekatsu and Inoue Kagesada marched north to encircle Ming forces. Yang Yuan arrived at the scene. |
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Ming forces retreated to Paju. |
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The original author criticised this battle map for its inaccuracies and factual errors. For completeness sake, I also included it in my translated version. |
Translator's Remark
It should be noted that many samurai changed their names several times throughout their lives due to various reasons such as adoption into a different clan, switching allegiance, marriage, and so on. For the purpose of this article, I choose to use the most recognisable names for these samurai, rather than period-accurate names.A good example of this frequent name change is best illustrated by famous samurai Tachibana Muneshige (立花宗茂), who changed his name fourteen times throughout his life (once posthumously). In fact, the name Tachibana Muneshige, although most recognisable, was only adopted during his old age. Additionally, while it might not be immediately apparent, Takahashi Munemasu (高橋統増) was actually Tachibana Muneshige's younger brother by blood. Later in his life he also changed his name to Tachibana Naotsugu (立花直次).
Other blog posts in my translated Battle of Byeokjegwan series:
The Battle of Byeokjegwan — Part 1
Thank you for mentioning me! It is an honor!
ReplyDeleteAnd this is a nice article, thank you for using your time to translate it! I'm looking forward to see the next one!
I haven't been fully committed to study the Imjin war yet, but I have to agree with the current quality of the English literature on this topic; the three major works are always flawed and biased ( Turnbull has been a Samurai fanboy before being weaboo was a thing, Hawley work seems to be the best of the trio but still biased towards Korean and Kennet Swope latest book on the subject is terribly biased in favor of the Ming, doing the opposite work of Turbull - aka relying only on Chinese sources. I guess that if you manage to read all of them you might get a good idea!) while the Japanese sources are locked behind an academic Japanese that few people could read (I'm not among those).
Anyway, back to the battle; I find it interesting that Totoki Tsurehisa fell right into Ming "tactical retreat" since he has been fighting the Shimazu for ages which used a similar technique frequently! He must have think " Oh no, here we are again".
It is also interesting to see how many cavalry the Japanese deployed, and even the fact that they utilized it (as far as I have understand) to "charge" against the retreating Ming troops.
Btw, how many casualties the Ming suffered? I've read mixed sources telling different stories. Or this is a part you are going to explain in the next article?
On the topic of Hawley, Turnbull and Swope, here's a historum discussion on the matter. An interesting read:
Deletehttp://historum.com/history-book-reviews/87691-about-hawley-swope-books-imjin-war.html
Yes, casualties will be discussed in my next translated article.
Also, IMHO, despite totally losing on a strategical level since it was flawed from the beginning ( Hideyoshi thought that Koreans farmers would have worked the land as usual, just as their Japanese counterpart did after being conquered by another Daimyo) and don't fully commit his resources into a solid navy (which should haven't been a problem since in the first invasion theY had conquered almost the entire peninsula quickly and at the beginning of the second one almost the entire Korean navy was destroyed) I think that on a tactical level Japan prove to be a major east asian power in the late 16th century.
ReplyDeleteA country in a tiny- resource poor island which didn't have a national army until the 1590s challenged the first military power (let's be honest, Ming China was the first military power with its available troops, up to date gunpowder technology and a solid navy) of its time and its allies, and proved to be an actual strong and committed enemy ( or did the Ming think the other way around? Might be wrong here)
For the scope of this battle, Kobayakawa Takakage demonstrated solid grasp on the tactical situation as well as what was possibly split-second decision. Tachibana Muneshige too, despite initial heavy losses, managed to stay in the fight throughout the battle.
DeleteI don't think this skirmish battle could by any means prove that the japanese were stronger than the Ming. The Ming had been provided with false information of the japanese strength by the Koreans from the beginning and was seriously outnumbered by the japanese, yet still managed to defeat the initial japanese charges from Totoki Tsurehisa and Tachibana Muneshige, and Li Rusong still managed to retreat despite being surrounded. If anything, this battle proves that Ming was the superior force. Had they been on equal numbers, the result would probably be disaster for the japanese side. The stereotype of Chinese quantity over quality definitely does not work here.
Delete@The Xanian
DeleteStay tuned for part two analysis.
@The Xanian this is true; a single battle doesn't mean a lot.
DeleteBut I think that we have to be careful when jumping in this kind of debate like "Ming troops were stronger than Samurai" because they can quickly turn into toxic discussion, which I think none of us want to have.
I think that 春秋戰國 had choose a good and professional article to describe the situation without leaning too much in one faction even if his blog is all about Ming military.
What I can say about the battle itself is that despite being outnumbered, the Ming had almost exclusively mounted elite troops, and they were able to play their cards at their best:
The skirmishes against Totoki and Tachibana saw in both cases the Ming having the upper hand in terms of troops number; in fact Totoki charged into a trap, when he only had 500 troops more or less and faced all the Ming troops. While Tachibana with 2000 troops faced again the Ming cavarly scouting troops (3000+ soldiers) in a flat terrain.
Li Rusong was able to disengage surely thanks to its military skill but also because he had exclusively mounted troops, which allowed him to avoid being encircled in time. This is my rough analysis based on the information shared in this article but I'm sure that the next part will be much more detailed since 春秋戰國 is actually a skilled writer! I can't wait for it!
What kinds of arms and armor would the Ming and Japanese troops be using in this battle?
ReplyDeleteRyu Seong-ryong described Ming cavalry as "completely without armour and equipment, and fought empty-handed", but mentioned the use of archery and rocketry in this battle elsewhere. However given his bad relationship with Li Ru Song, his description is highly suspect.
DeleteI don't believe his account, cause this contradicts sharply with contemporary descriptions and depictions of Ming cavalry. On Wokou Tujuan (Wako Zukan) we can see that even Southern Ming cavalry are armored, let alone the Northern Ming border cavalry that participated in the war.
DeleteJapanes sources mentioned several Ming equipment: tihyaa (手火矢), most likely refers to Three-eye Gun, and 500 Teppou (matchlock?) by Ming reinforcement.
DeleteAnother reconstruction, also created by China's netizen, differs from this article on several details:
ReplyDelete1)The early battle was fought entirely between Chan Da Shou's 690+ men and Totoki Tsurehisa's force (no flanking etc).
2)The rest of Ming scouting force arrived at the scene during the standoff (apparently) , and did not attack until Li Ru Song's 1,000 men also arrived. They fought together with Li Ru Song (so 4,000 men attacked Awaya Kagekatsu).
3)Li Ru Song split from Yang Yuan before he met Go Eon-baek's officer, not after.
4)Ming scouting force had no artillery whatsoever, only rockets.
5)Apparently, Inoue Kagesada attacked the 300+ men that stayed behind with Li Ru Song to cover the retreat of other Ming troops, not his entire retinue (So no flanking either).
(Note: he almost succeeded in "ikkiuchi"/personally killed Li Ru Song, according to some sources)
6)Discarding of supply was caused by hurried retreat of Ming force, not to blockade.
It should be noted that the reliability of Amano Genuemon Chōsen Ikusa Monogatari, Togawaki and the Japanese mobilisation figures given in Nihon Senshi has been called into question (i.e. they are likely unreliable).
DeleteAlso, apparently there were several Ming "Great General Cannon" captured during this battle and survived to this day (in Japan), so Ming cavalry probably brought artillery with them.
To elaborate on the problematic numbers given by Nihon Senshi: It doesn't distinguish between combatant and non-combatant, and disregard all casualties that happened before the battle. In other words, the book basically assumes that all Japanese participants had their entire army intact (zero casualty) until that point.
DeleteFor a more specific example, Tachibana Muneshige and his younger brother actually commanded 1,400 soldiers and 1,600 non-combatants at the beginning of the war. So not only he couldn't possibly bring 3,000 troops for that battle, the actual number should be less than 1,400.