After receiving Yang Hao's order, Gwon Yul ordered Joseon army to launch
the feint attack. Joseon cavalry rode around Dosan Fortress and fired
warning shots with their guns constantly, forcing the Japanese to be
constantly on their toes, as well as baiting them to waste their shots.
While the feint attack was ongoing, Joseon army also launched a probing
attack on the gate of sannomaru of Dosan Fortress. Katō
Yosaemon, who was in charge of the defence of sannomaru,
deployed taketaba (たけたば or 竹束, lit. 'Bamboo bundle') and ordered his
arquebusiers to repel them. While the attack was unsuccessful, Joseon
troops managed to pile up firewood at the base
of sannomaru before retreating, hoping that they could
set fire to the fortress once heavy rain subside.
At around 4 pm, Yang Hao once again sent Kim Ung-seo and Japanese
defectors to Dosan Fortress to call for surrender, although this time they
were simply ignored. As the sky turned dark, Yang Hao, concerned that
Japanese troops may attempt another night raid, ordered Ming troops to
stand guard over the night, and even specifically ordered Joseon troops to
stand guard together with their Chinese counterparts. On top of that, Yang
Hao also sent Kim Ung-seo and his Japanese defectors to patrol the water
wells near Dosan Fortress and attempt to entice defection of Japanese
troops that came to collect water. Despite all these defensive
arrangements, Yang Hao was still paranoid about the lie about Katō
Kiyomasa's whereabouts, so he repeatedly summoned Korean captives for
questioning to ascertain that Katō Kiyomasa was really inside Dosan
Fortress. Afterwards, Yang Hao and Ma Gui returned to the main siege camp
at Hakseongsan to oversee the construction of semi-permanent thatched
shelters (up until now, entire Ming army including its highest-ranking
commanders simply camped in the wild).
Just as Yang Hao predicted, Katō Yosaemon and Kondō Shirō Goemon sallied
out of the fortress under the cover of night to launch a night raid on
Ming camps, although they quickly discovered that both Ming and Joseon
troops were on high alert and had to abort the plan. However, as they
were returning to Dosan Fortress, they preemptively burned away the
firewood.
Day 6: A turn for the worse
February 3, 1598 (25th year of Wanli reign, 12th month, 28th
day)
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Ming army launched an artillery barrage against Dosan Fortress
from across Hakseongsan (click to enlarge).
|
The heavy rain slowly subsided on the sixth day. According to some
Japanese sources, on this day some Ming troops moved their cannons to
Hakseongsan and launched an artillery barrage across the hill into Dosan
Fortress. Several Japanese troops were pulverised by cannon fire,
causing a panic to spread. Japanese troops attempted to run for cover,
but they were stopped by Katō Kiyomasa, who remained unfazed even
as some cannonballs landed near him. Katō Kiyomasa's calmness and
non-reaction misled Ming artillerymen into believing that their shots
missed the mark, so they adjusted their guns and launched the next salvo
with a higher trajectory, overshooting Dosan Fortress. It was at this
point that Katō Kiyomasa ordered his troops to act as if they were
getting shot at to further deceive the Chinese. As a result, Ming
artillerymen continued to fire their cannons using high trajectory,
missing most of their shots.
It should be noted that Chinese and Korean sources make no mention of
such artillery barrage taking place, as Ming army left its artillery
train behind (to its own detriment). If this artillery barrage actually
happened at all, it is likely that Ming artillerymen only employed a few
lightweight anti-personnel pieces such as
Fo Lang Ji (佛狼機)
for suppressive fire, rather than heavy artillery for wall-smashing
bombardment. Incidentally, some Korean sources do mention Japanese
troops shooting at Hakseongsan with "cannonballs as large as chicken
egg", presumably from an ō-deppō (大鉄砲) handheld matchlock cannon
and nearly hitting Yang Hao (he was equally unfazed), although no
specific date was given for this barrage. Perhaps Japanese barrage was a
counter-barrage in response to Ming bombardment, although the
possibility that these were unrelated incidents, or even propagandistic
embellishments that did not actually happen, cannot be ruled out.
Like the days before, Joseon troops launched an assault on Dosan
Fortress, and once again they were repelled by the Japanese. At around
11 am, yet another Japanese flotilla arrived at Ulsan and began sailing
closer to Dosan Fortress. Japanese troops inside the fortress soon
noticed something unusual about today's flotilla: instead of Katō
Kiyomasa's own banners, these ships were flying the
uma-jirushi (馬印, lit. 'Horse insignia') of Yamaguchi Munenaga
and Mōri Katsunobu.
This can only mean one thing—new Japanese
reinforcement was under way.
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Yamaguchi Munenaga and Mōri Katsunobu's flotilla sailing
from Seosaengpo Fortress to Ulsan Fortress (click to
enlarge).
|
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Ming troops at the river bank engaging Japanese flotilla (click to
enlarge).
|
As it turned out, before Katō Kiyomasa rush back to Dosan Fortress on
January 29, 1598 (Day 1), he sent out messengers to surrounding Japanese
commanders to call for aid. Japanese commanders at Yangsan and Busan,
being the closest to Seosaengpo, received the call on January 30, 1598
(Day 2) and dispatched their relief forces the soonest. Yamaguchi
Munenaga (from Yangsan) and Mōri Katsunobu (from Busan) arrived at
Seosaengpo on the evening of February 2, 1598 (Day 5), and sent out
their ships the next day. Since both of them had only just arrived, the
flotilla only scouted the area and briefly communicated with Japanese
troops trapped inside Dosan Fortress using flag signals before reporting
back to Seosaengpo. Nevertheless, signs of incoming help raised hopes
for Japanese troops inside Dosan Fortress. At around 6 pm, additional
relief forces led by Kuroda Nagamasa, Ankokuji Ekei, and Takenaka
Shigetoshi also arrived at Seosaengpo.
Meanwhile, Katō
Kiyomasa's messenger only just arrived at Suncheon Fortress (which was
farther away from Seosaengpo). Incidentally, construction of Suncheon
Fortress was completed on the same day, and Shimazu Yoshihiro (島津義弘)
with his son Shimazu Tadatsune (島津忠恒) were hosting a celebratory
feast with other Japanese commanders inside Suncheon Fortress when
they received the news about Ulsan under siege. Due to Xing Jie's
diversionary attack, Japanese commanders at Suncheon Fortress were
reluctant to send out their full force to relief the siege. Kakimi
Kazunao even specifically ordered Shimazu Yoshihiro to stay behind
to defend the fortress, and only went to Ulsan with his own troops.
Perhaps not wanting to lose reputation for not sending out
help, Shimazu Yoshihiro later wrote a letter to his
nephew Shimazu Toyohisa, asking him to go to Ulsan in his
stead. He also dispatched a few retainers and 50 arquebusiers to
reinforce Shimazu Toyohisa's 500 troops.
The rain finally stopped by nightfall, only to be replaced by
strong westerly winds. The freezing winds took a serious toll on Ming
troops, in particular Zhejiang infantry guarding the river banks. At
midnight, Katō Shigetsugu (加藤重次), Shōbayashi Hayato (庄林隼人) and
Kondō Shirou Goemon (近藤四郎右衛門), leading a contingent of 100
mounted samurai and 300 arquebusiers, sallied out of the eastern gate of
ninomaru of Dosan Fortress to harass Ming army. They
launched a few volleys of fire arrows and arquebus shots at Ming camps
at the east side of Dosan Fortress before turning back.
Day 7: Renewed attack
February 4, 1598 (25th year of Wanli reign, 12th month, 29th
day)
The strong wind that began to blow since last night persisted into the
seventh day of the siege. At dawn, Yang Hao ordered Ming army to gather
more firewood in preparation for another attack on Dosan Fortress, as he
felt the strong wind could be helpful in spreading the fire. At noon,
another 26-ship flotilla from Yeompo arrived at Ulsan and began
approaching Dosan Fortress, and once again Ming troops guarding the
river banks bombarded the flotilla with cannons. While both sides were
busy exchanging fire against each other, one samurai and a few of his
followers suddenly dashed out of Dosan Fortress to the river bank and
began shouting to the flotilla. Although he did not understand Japanese,
Yang Hao was alerted enough that he immediately dispatched Ming Right
Division to reinforce Wu Wei Zhong's Zhejiang infantry at the river
banks, as well as asking them to be extra vigilant. Ming army repelled
the flotilla at around 5 pm.
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Japanese flotilla sailing from Yeompo naval base to Ulsan
Fortress for the fourth time (click to enlarge).
|
At around 6 pm, Yang Hao ordered Ming army to get ready for the attack.
Ming troops silently approached Dosan Fortress under the cover of
twilight, carrying firewood and with their shields readied.
Unfortunately, they were spotted by Japanese sentries as they came near
the palisades of Dosan Fortress, and were forced to retreat after
suffering heavy casualties under fusillades of arquebus fire. By
nightfall, Ming and Joseon army launched a second attack with much
greater ferocity than before, ignoring casualties inflicted by Japanese
arquebusiers and moving closer to Dosan Fortress. Realising that they
may not be able to resist the assault with arquebus fire alone, Japanese
defenders were forced to bust out the ō-deppō to supplement their
firepower. The battle raged on until around 9.30 pm before Ming army
retreated.
After today's attack, Yang Hao appeared to have a
change of mind. He probably felt that trying to take the fortress by
force was no longer practical after days of consecutive failures, and
wanted to adjust his strategy to that of encirclement and
investment. To this end, Yang Hao ordered his troops to upgrade their tents into
semi-permanent thatched shelters, and urged Gwon Yul and Yi Deok-hyeong
to hasten the next delivery of supply. Ma Gui suggested Yang Hao to lift
the blockade of one side of Dosan Fortress, then ambush the Japanese as
they came out. However Yang Hao rejected his idea.
Late into
the night, a small Japanese ship sneaked back to Dosan Fortress,
presumably due to the shouting communication earlier in the day. About
30 Japanese troops came out of Dosan Fortress and attempted to board the
ship. However, they were immediately attacked by Ming troops laying in
ambush. After a brief skirmish, Wu Wei Zhong's Zhejiang infantry managed
to behead six Japanese troops, whereas Ming Right Division troops
beheaded one. The rest ran back into Dosan Fortress.
In the
meantime, Mōri Hidemoto finally arrived at Seosaengpo at around 4 pm.
Japanese commanders at Seosaengpo held a war council that night to
decide their next course of action—whether to send a relief force to
Dosan Fortress immediately, or wait for further Japanese reinforcement
to arrive before sending out help. They concluded that an advance party
would be dispatched the next day, but the majority of Japanese forces
should stay and wait for more reinforcement.
Day 8: Living hell
February 5, 1598 (25th year of Wanli reign, 12th month, 30th
day)
It was February 5, 1598, last day of the year on Lunisolar calendar,
and the eighth day of the siege. Dosan Fortress already ran out of
food and water, and days of exhaustion, starvation, dehydration, and
freezing winter turned the fortress into a living hell (in fact the
Japanese only managed to survive this long thanks to the heavy
downpour of the past few days alleviating some of their water shortage
problems). Japanese troops had slaughtered the last of their pack
animals for food, and resorted to munching paper and dirt on the wall
for subsistence, as well as drinking urine to sate their thirst. They
were so desperate that some sneaked out the fortress to scavenge for
leftover field ration on the frozen corpses of their fallen
comrades-in-arms, while others drank water from ditches full of dead
bodies and blood. Only the highest ranking Japanese commanders could
have some semblance of meal, but even them had to ration their food
into pinches of rice. To stave off the cold, samurai, ashigaru, and
levied labourers disregarded their social standing and bunched
together in groups of dozens of people each. Despite their best
effort, incidents like people unexpectedly drop dead due to the cold
or froze to death in their sleep were daily occurrence. In his diary,
Ōkōchi Hidemoto recorded that he was malnourished to the point of
becoming literal skin-and-bone, and that a friend of his, who he
described as a large and burly man, refused to take off his armour to
conceal his rapidly emaciating frame.
While Japanese troops were suffering inside their fortress, Chinese
troops besieging them hardly fared any better. Despite some Korean
sources claiming that Ming army was well-supplied, the reality of Korean
logistics mismanagement cannot be made more apparent by multiple reports
from Joseon officials actually present at the frontline. To sum it up,
Yi Yong-sun (이용순 or 李用淳), overseer of the entire supply operation,
ignored his duty and returned to Gyeongju for no reason, and many Joseon
quartermasters were not doing their jobs at all. Ming army ran
dangerously low on food, and the warhorses, which had not eaten anything
for nine straight days, were dying by the hundreds. In fact the
situation was so bad that Jang Un-ik and Yi Deok-hyeong, two of the
highest ranking Joseon officials, had to take the matter into their own
hands and do the jobs of their inferiors. Despite their best effort,
they only managed to secure stable food supply for the highest ranking
Ming commanders, Yang Hao and Ma Gui (as the Koreans were afraid to
anger them). Even Ming commanders had depleted their salt and sauce
provisions with no hope of resupply, and the rank and file were simply
left to their own devices. The death of more than a thousand warhorses
(and rapid weakening of the rest) had a disproportionate impact on
combat readiness of the predominantly-mounted Ming army, not to mention
the exhausted and starving Ming troops exposed to freezing temperature
for days. Joseon officials were painfully aware that given the sorry
condition of Ming army, the entire siege campaign would be thrown into
jeopardy the moment Japanese reinforcement show up. Unfortunately, they
were incapable of salvaging the situation.
|
Japanese advance party and flotilla from Seosaengpo went to
Ulsan (click to enlarge).
|
Leaving aside the suffering of both armies, by 7 am in the morning,
Japanese advance party from Seosaengpo had arrived at Ulsan by land and
set up a camp on a hill known as Songsan (송산 or 松山), some 12 km away
from Dosan Fortress. Meanwhile, another Japanese flotilla also arrived
at Ulsan. Unlike previous days, it did not attempt to break through the
encirclement, but waited patiently on the river.
Later in
the day, Katō Kiyomasa wrote a letter to Ming army, informing the
Chinese of his intention to negotiate for surrender. He requested
permission to let in a Buddhist monk on the Japanese flotilla to serve
as translator and draft the written agreement, on the pretense that no
one in Dosan Fortress spoke Chinese. On the Ming side, Yang Hao already
knew that taking Dosan Fortress by force would be difficult, and his
troops were in a terrible shape, so when he received news that the
Japanese were trying to sue for peace, he gladly accepted it and let the
Buddhist monk enter Dosan Fortress. After some back and forth
communication, both sides agreed to hold a peace talk in three days, in
which Katō Kiyomasa was required to personally attend. Little did
Yang Hao know, the flotilla was not Katō Kiyomasa's, but a scouting
flotilla sent by Mōri Hidemoto, Kuroda Nagamasa, Yamaguchi Munenaga and
Takenaka Shigetoshi. It had already made contact and coordinated with
Japanese troops inside Dosan Fortress using flag signals beforehand, so
when the "Buddhist monk" was allowed to enter the fortress, he brought
with him the news of the arrival of Japanese relief force, which boosted
the morale of Japanese troops tremendously. The flotilla returned to
Seosaengpo afterwards.
(It should be noted that Korean and Japanese sources strongly disagree
on which side initiated the negotiation. Many Japanese sources claim
that it was the Chinese that initiated the peace talk after being
repeatedly defeated, and the peace talk was initiated on Day 7 rather
than Day 8. However, it makes no logical sense that the Chinese would
sue for peace during the day and then immediately attack in the same
evening, so Japanese version of the event simply cannot be true. This
logical problem did not go unnoticed by Japanese historians either.
However, instead of acknowledging the mistake, later Japanese sources
such as Nihon Senshi simply alter the time of the Day 7 attack from
evening to morning to forcibly harmonise the discrepancy.)
By noon, additional reinforcement led by Nabeshima Naoshige and his son
Nabeshima Katsushige, as well as Hachisuka Iemasa, Ikoma
Kazumasa, Katō Yoshiaki, Wakisaka Yasuharu and Hayakawa
Nagamasa, also arrived at Seosaengpo.
Later in the night, Katō Kiyomasa dispatched two parties out of
Dosan Fortress to conduct a so-called "night raid" mission. Despite the
name, they were actually foragers desperately looking for food and
water. One of the parties, of about 30 men strong, headed straight to a
water well near the outskirt of Dosan Fortress to collect water.
Unfortunately, they ran into Korean commander Kim Ung-seo and a
contingent of defected Japanese troops under his command, who were
guarding the water well since Day 4. Kim Ung-seo immediately attacked
them, killing five and captured another five. Yang Hao was notified of
the incident and immediately ordered the captives to be brought to him
and interrogated. After witnessing the severely famished captives, and
learnt of the dire situation inside Dosan Fortress (according to the
captives, Dosan Fortress had completely run out of food and water, and
out of about 10,000 starving souls still alive, less than one thousand
were combat capable.), Yang Hao was finally able to put his mind at
ease, confident that the Japanese wouldn't be able to hold out for much
longer.
Day 9: An uneasy new year
February 6, 1598 (26th year of Wanli reign, 1st month, 1st
day)
Korea welcomed its Lunisolar New Year in tension and uneasiness.
Nevertheless, Joseon King Yi Yeon (이연 or 李昖, more commonly
known as King Seonjo) personally visited Xing Jie to give him a new year
greeting. Xing Jie gifted the king with two calligraphic scrolls to
congratulate him in advance on the victory of Imjin War, in return King
Yi Yeon wished him a prosperous new year and congratulated him in
advance on the victory at Ulsan. The two had a great time
together.
In stark contrast, Ryu Seong-ryong went to Ulsan at dawn to give Yang
Hao and Ma Gui his new year greeting only to be met with cold shoulder,
as no one at the frontline was in any mood of celebration. Yang Hao
urged him to return to Gyeongju as soon as possible to send in the next
delivery of supply, going so far as to declare that the supply problem
was so critical that even a single dan of rice should be
delivered to the frontline at the double.
The Japanese however were in even more sombre mood compared to the
Chinese and Koreans. Dosan Fortress was literally hanging by a thread,
with less than 6,000 Japanese troops alive and casualties mounting at an
alarming rate due to starvation and freezing temperature. Katō Kiyomasa
and Asano Yoshinaga wrote a joint distress letter to seven
Japaneses commanders, among them Kobayakawa Hideaki and Mōri
Hidemoto, to explain the dire situation inside the fortress. They stated
that if reinforcement didn't come soon, the entire garrison of Dosan
Fortress was prepared to fight to the last man. If the fortress fell,
they hoped that the recipients of the letter can at least bring the news
of their valiant last stand back to Japan.
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Zu Cheng Xun crossed Taehwa River (click to enlarge).
|
Later in the day, Ming mounted scouts detected Japanese presence at
Songsan. Since Japanese advance party was few in numbers, Yang Hao only
ordered Zu Cheng Xun (that guarded the northern bank of Jeontan) to
cross Taehwa River to join force with Wu Wei Zhong's detachment to
monitor Japanese activities from afar.
Meanwhile, Shimazu Toyohisa arrived at Eonyang and captured Eonyang
Fortress after defeating a small garrison there. At around 2 pm, Kakimi
Kazunao and Kumaga Naomori arrived at Seosaengpo. They were
followed by Chosokabe Motochika, Nakagawa Hidenari, Ikeda
Hideuji, Ikeda Hideo, Mōri Katsunobu, Mōri Katsunaga, Akizuki
Tanenaga, Takahashi Mototane, Itō Suketaka and Sagara
Yorifusa, who arrived in succession at around 4 pm. Later in the
evening, two retainers of Asano Yoshinaga and one retainer of Ōta
Kazuyoshi slipped out of Dosan Fortress and delivered the distress
letter to Seosaengpo, arriving by nightfall. Upon receiving the
letter, Japanese commanders at Seosaengpo held an emergency
meeting, and decided that they couldn't wait any longer—the relief force
would immediately depart the next day. Mōri Hidemoto also initiated
a joint letter, signed by Japanese commanders at Seosaengpo, to report
the current status of Dosan Fortress and Seosaengpo to Hideyoshi.
Day 10: Reinforcement
February 7, 1598 (26th year of Wanli reign, 1st month, 2nd
day)
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Japanese relief force marched to Ulsan while Japanese flotilla
sailed to Yeompo Naval Base (click to enlarge).
|
On February 7, 1598, the Japanese army that gathered
at Seosaengpo finally made its move. The massive relief force
departed for Dosan Fortress by both land and water route. On land,
Nabeshima Naoshige and Kuroda Nagamasa led the First Division and
departed first, with Hayakawa Nagamasa, Kakimi
Kazunao, Kumaga Naomori and Takenaka Shigetoshi acting
as ikusa metsuke (軍目付, senior military supervisor/army
superintendent). Katō Yoshiaki, Nakagawa Hidenari, Ikoma
Kazumasa, Wakisaka Yasuharu, Yamaguchi Munenaga, Ikeda
Hideo led the Second Division and departed after them, and Mōri
Hidemoto led the Third Division and departed last. On the
water, Chosokabe Motochika and Ikeda Hideuji set sail to Yeompo
to rendezvous with Katō Kiyomasa's fleet, with Katō Kiyomasa's
troops that remained at Seosaengpo hitching a ride on their ships.
Beside the main relief force from Seosaengpo, there were other
Japanese commanders that bypassed the Seosaengpo gathering and headed to
Dosan Fortress directly. Shimazu Toyohisa that arrived at Eonyang on Day
9, as well as Kikkawa Hiroie and Mōri Takamasa, who arrived on Day 11,
were some of the more notable examples. Tōdō Takatora (藤堂高虎), who
just completed the construction of Suncheon Fortress, dispatched
his adopted son Tōdō Takayoshi and subordinate Tōdō Yoshikatsu to relief
Ulsan. Matsuura Shigenobu, who also took part in the construction
of Suncheon Fortress, personally led his troops to Ulsan. Kurushima
Hikozaemon from the currently-leaderless Kurushima Michifusa
(来島通総)'s fleet (Kurushima Michifusa was killed in Battle of
Myeongnyang), as well as Kan Uemonpachi, son of naval commander Kan
Michinaga (菅達長), also brought a portion of their respective fleets to
support Ulsan.
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Bai Sai set up a second line of defence at Jeontan while Mao Guo
Qi moved to guard the river bank (click to enlarge). It should be
noted that Mao Guo Qi's movement is merely an educated guess, as
his exact whereabouts before today's order was unknown.
Nevertheless, given that Mao Guo Qi was part of Ming Left Division
and fought together with Li Ru Mei on Day 2, it's likely that he
stayed with Li Ru Mei.
|
As Japanese relief force gradually gathered at Songsan, the once-small
camp set up by the advance party now became filled with all sort of war
banners. Upon receiving scout report of this sudden increase in
activities, Yang Hao immediately realised that something was not right.
He ordered Bai Sai to lead a contingent of cavalry to reinforce Po Gui
at the northern bank of Jeontan and set up a second line of defence, as
well as sending Mao Guo Qi and his southern troops to reinforce Wu Wei
Zhong's Zhejiang infantry and guard the river bank around Dosan
Fortress.
In stark contrast to the quick reaction to Japanese activities at
Songsan, the massive increase of ships and activities at Yeompo somehow
went unnoticed by Lu Ji Zhong guarding the the river mouth only several
kilometres away from it. Perhaps this was due to carelessness, or
perhaps daily harassment of Japanese flotilla numbed his sense of
danger. In any case, Yang Hao remained oblivious to the danger and made
no arrangement to defend against Japanese reinforcement from the river,
and this grave mistake ultimately costed him the entire siege campaign.
Yang Hao was so furious over this negligence that he sacked Lu Ji Zhong
later.
Later that night, Katō Kiyomasa once again dispatched his retainer to
Songsan to plea for help.
Day 11: Day of reckoning
February 8, 1598 (26th year of Wanli reign, 1st month, 3rd
day)
February 8, 1598 was the day when the peace talk was due to take
place. Yang Hao dispatched a messenger to the outskirt of Dosan
Fortress and urged Katō Kiyomasa to come out and attend the
negotiation. The Chinese had no intention to actually negotiate with
the Japanese, however. The peace talk was but a ploy to lure out and
capture Katō Kiyomasa.
Nevertheless, Katō Kiyomasa refused to show up. Yang Hao's
messenger was greeted by Ōta Kazuyoshi from inside the fortress,
who gave an excuse that Katō Kiyomasa, along with other
high-ranking commanders inside the fortress, were gravely ill, so he
couldn't attend the negotiation personally, and no one was healthy
enough to act as his representative. And thus the peace talk fell
apart before it even started.
It should be noted that different Japanese sources give different
reasons on why Katō Kiyomasa went back on his word. Some sources claim
that a Japanese defector in the Ming army secretly leaked the ploy to
him, while other sources claim that he was stopped by Asano
Yoshinaga and his own subordinates at last minute. Regardless of the
actual reason, Katō Kiyomasa took a great gamble in doing so.
Dosan Fortress was literally on the brink of capitulation, so botching
the peace talk at this critical moment put the entire fortress at risk
of being massacred should Ming army successfully capture it later.
Fortunately for him, the gamble ultimately paid off. Help would arrive
on this very day.
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Japanese fleet sailed to Ulsan, cutting off Lu Ji Zhong in the
process (click to enlarge).
|
Early in the morning at around 4 am, Japanese ships that gathered at
Yeompo—now a full-fledged war fleet, began to set sail to Dosan
Fortress. Meanwhile, Joseon naval commander Yi Un-ryong, who stayed at
Gyeonju doing absolutely nothing over the entire duration of this siege
campaign, suddenly remembered he had a untouched fleet at his disposal,
and went to reconnoitre the river. What laid before his eyes was nothing
short of terrifying, as he witnessed hundreds of Japanese ships entering
Namgang River (남강 or 藍江, lit. 'Blue River', not to be confused with
another more famous
Nam River) from the sea and began sailing upstream, thronging the entire river
with hulls and masts. Shocked by the discovery, Yi Un-ryong wrote
an emergency report to Ryu Seong-ryong (who was at Gyeongju), and
then fled as far as he could. Not only Yi Un-ryong did not engage
the Japanese to delay their advance, nor retreat to Ulsan to prepare for
a defensive engagement under more favourable conditions (i.e. with Ming
support from land), he did not even bother to send a warning to Ming
army about the incoming Japanese fleet. His selfish and cowardly action,
along with Lu Ji Zhong's negligence, wasted away precious time that Ming
army could have use to prepare for a countermeasure. As a result, at
around 4 pm Japanese fleet arrived at Ulsan in force and blockaded
entire section of Taehwa River and Dongcheon River. By that time, Ming
army was powerless to stop them (Yang Hao was so embittered by the
incident that he later urged the Koreans to build more warships).
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Japanese relief force set up a new camp and began harassing Zu
Chen Xun and Wu Wei Zhong's detachment (click to enlarge).
|
Around the same time, the last of the Japanese relief
force, Kikkawa Hiroie and Mōri Takamasa, finally arrived at Ulsan.
With the relief force finally assembled, Japanese Second and Third
Division marched north and set up a new camp on a hill just south of the
southern bank of Jeontan, right before the camp of Zu Cheng Xun and Wu
Wei Zhong's detachment. Trapped between the new camp and Japanese fleet
occupying Taehwa River behind their back, both of them were cut off from
the rest of the Ming army. Worse yet, they were now being harassed by
multiple Japanese war parties, each numbering 50 to 60 troops, from the
new camp.
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First Division of the Japanese relief force attempted to cross
Taehwa River only to be beaten back by Li Ru Mei and Jie Sheng
(click to enlarge).
|
Seeing that Zu Cheng Xun and Wu Wei Zhong's detachment were pinned down,
Kuroda Nagamasa, Hachisuka Iemasa, Nabeshima Naoshige of the
First Division, along with Kikkawa Hiroie and Mōri Takamasa, decided to
march straight to Dosan Fortress. With support from Japanese fleet on
the river, they attempted to forcibly cross Taehwa River at a river bank
about 2 km west of Dosan Fortress. Unfortunately, their attempt was
quickly discovered by the Ming army. Li Ru Mei and Jie Sheng led a
contingent of cavalry, along with a number of Joseon troops, and
attacked them. After a fierce battle, First Division was beaten back to
the southern side of Taehwa River.
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Standoff at Taehwa River (click to enlarge).
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At this point, Taehwa River was filled to the brim with Japanese ships,
and the entire length of the southern river bank was bristle with
Japanese troops and banners. Yang Hao realised that his was quickly
running out of options. He could either call for a full retreat before
Japanese relief force cross the river en masse, or gamble
everything and attack Dosan Fortress one last time, hoping that the
defeat of Katō Kiyomasa could seriously damage the morale of the
Japanese, allowing Ming army to deal with them somehow. Yang Hao picked
the second option, and ordered Ming army to prepare torches for the
night attack. However, before Ming army launch its final assault, Yang
Hao had to make a few adjustments to Ming deployment. He tasked Ming
Right Division with maintaining the encirclement of Dosan Fortress as
well as preparing for the attack, and drew up the rest of the Ming army
into three defensive positions.
-
Bai Sai and Po Gui remained at Jeotan, keeping a look-out against
Japanese relief force in the new camp. Joseon commanders Yi
Si-eon and Seong Yun-mun and some Joseon troops were sent to assist
them.
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Li Ru Mei, Jie Sheng and some Joseon troops defended the river bank
between Dosan Fortress and Jeontan against potential landing of
Japanese fleet on Taehwa River, as well as potential river crossing
of Japanese troops from the other side.
-
Southern troops under Wu Wei Zhong and Mao Guo Qi were stationed
around the river confluence, guarding against both Japanese troops
at the southern bank of Taehwa River and Japanese fleet on Dongcheon
River.
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Final repositioning of Ming army before it launches its last
attack (click to enlarge).
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As for Zu Cheng Xun and Wu Wei Zhong's detachment at the southern bank
of Jeontan, they were more or less abandoned and left to their own
devices. Regrettably, since the only naval power on the coalition side
had fled, Ming army without any ships of its own would be hard-pressed
to mount a rescue operation across the river while being threatened from
at least three directions (i.e. Japanese defenders inside Dosan
Fortress, Japanese fleet on the river, as well as Japanese relief force
troops at the southern bank of Taehwa River). Ironically, as
dangerous as their position was, they were still somewhat better off
than Lu Ji Zhong, who was positioned farther away from the main army. Lu
Ji Zhong was trapped between Yeompo naval base, Japanese relief force at
Ulsan, not to mention Japanese fleet on Dongcheon River could cut off
his line of retreat at any moment. In fact, Ming army lost all contact
with Lu Ji Zhong after Japanese fleet blockaded the rivers, and no one
knew what happened to him for the remainder of the siege campaign.
While Ming army was busy preparing, Mōri Hidemoto dispatched two of
his retainers to sneak into Dosan Fortress (the fact that Katō
Kiyomasa and Mōri Hidemoto were able to sneak messengers in and
out of Dosan Fortress so easily shows the rapid weakening of Ming
troops due to lack of supply. Katō Kiyomasa had to ask for Chinese
permission to let in the "Buddhist monk" just a few days prior, but
now the encirclement had become extremely porous). The messengers
updated Katō Kiyomasa with the current status of the relief force
and its planned rescue operation in the coming days, encouraging the
defenders to hold out just a little longer.
Later that night, Shimazu Toyohisa left Eonyang and marched
towards Ulsan.
Day 12: Final Attack and Retreat
February 9, 1598 (26th year of Wanli reign, 1st month, 4th
day)
Ming army finished its preparation by midnight. Then, under the
leadership of Yang Hao, it launched one final attack on Dosan Fortress
with a ferocity second only to Day 3 assault. Ming artillerymen
relentlessly battered Dosan Fortress, setting the fortress alight, while
Ming troops set up siege ladders and attempted to climb over the wall.
Japanese defenders inside Dosan Fortress poured hails of arquebus and
ō-deppō rounds into Ming ranks, and cut down anyone that managed to
climb up. Unfortunately, days of starvation, camping in the wild under
heavy rain and freezing wind, and the death of hundreds of warhorses had
taken a heavy toll on the morale and combat readiness of Ming troops. In
stark contrast, Japanese troops were able to put everything on the line
and fought with crazed determination, knowing full well that help was
within reach. As a result, Ming army suffered heavy casualties without
making significant progress, and began to show signs of faltering and
fear. Realising the hesitation of his men, Yang Hao executed
several retreating troops for cowardice, and ordered the faltering
cavalry commander Li Hua Long to be tied up and paraded in front of the
army to maintain discipline. Ming army resumed attack with increased
ferocity. Many Ming captains led their men from the front during the
attack, often losing their lives or being seriously wounded in the
process. Among the fallen was Yang Wang Jin, a brigade commander from
Datong leading 1,000 cavalry, and the highest ranking Ming officer to
perish in the siege campaign.
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A flotilla of 90 Japanese ships on Taehwa River began to slowly
sail upstream (click to enlarge).
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While the battle raged on, a letter claiming that as many as sixteen
Japanese commanders from Gadeok Island, Angolpo, Jugdo, Busan,
and Yangsan had arrived at Ulsan with 60,000 troops was intercepted
by Ming Right Division, which reported it to Yang Hao and Ma Gui. At the
same time, Yang Hao also received report that a flotilla of about 90
Japanese ships split from the main fleet and was sailing upstream of
Taehwa River (i.e. sailing pass Jeontan), and could easily make
uncontested landing beyond the reach of Bai Sai and Po Gui and then
attack the rear of the Ming army from the west. Realising that Ming army
was under serious risk of being surrounded, Yang Hao had a brief
discussion with Ma Gui, and finally decided to call off the attack and
make a full retreat.
Shocked upon hearing the news about the retreat, Yi Deok-hyeong and a
number of Joseon officials rushed to Ming siege camp and passionately
tried to persuade Yang Hao against the idea. The Koreans even suggested
that Ming army should send a 10,000-strong detachment to occupy the
(what they considered) advantageous ground around Jeontan and the road
to Eonyang, and engage the Japanese in open battle. However, the foolish
suggestion failed to take into consideration that Japanese had total
naval supremacy, and could make landing at any point of the entire
length of Taehwa River and even Dongcheon River, so defending only the
west side of Dosan Fortress was completely pointless. Yi
Deok-hyeong also conveniently left out the fact that Joseon troops, who
were so unreliable that nearly one-half of the army deserted at the time
Ming army still had the upper hand, were now fleeing en masse in light of the worsening situation.
Unsurprisingly, Yang Hao and Ma Gui knew the unreliability of their ally
very well after fighting side-by-side with the Koreans for so long.
Given that Joseon army had abandoned the Ming army, they obviously had
no intention of being treated like cannon fodder by the Koreans. At
around 7 am in the morning, the order to cease attack and prepare for
retreat was formally issued. By 9 am, the order to retreat was also
issued, and Ming army began a full retreat. Ming infantry, as well as
wounded troops, were the first to leave the battlefield, crossing
Dongcheon River and heading east towards Gyeongju, whereas Ming
troops surrounding Dosan Fortress lifted the siege and retreated
northwards into the mountains. Cavalry commanders such as Bai Sai and Po
Gui at Jeontan, as well as Li Ru Mei and Jie Sheng at the river bank
west of Dosan Fortress, were ordered to act as rearguard and cover the
retreat for the rest of the army. Yang Hao also ordered Yang Deng Shan
to lead a contingent of cavalry to support Bai Sai and Po Gui at
Jeontan. By 3 pm, the majority of Ming army (with the exception of
rearguard and Yang Hao himself) had left, so Yang Hao ordered the
dismantling of the main siege camp on Hakseongsan and prepare for the
retreat of his own troops.
Ironically, the supply that Yang Hao had been repeatedly asking for was
finally delivered to the frontline earlier today, although at this point
the supply was nothing but extra burden for the retreating Ming troops
to carry back to where it came from. Since Ming army was unable to carry
all the supplies during the retreat, Yang Hao had to order the leftover
to be burned down to prevent them from falling into Japanese hands.
Despite this, Yang Hao still could not put his mind at ease. While
waiting for the rearguard cavalry to catch up with his troops, he
personally went to the stockpile area of the supply (at the foothill of
Hakseongsan) to make sure that everything was properly burnt down. Yang
Hao also ordered his own servants to seek out stragglers and cavalrymen
that lost their mounts, as well as scouring the battlefield to collect
discarded armours, weapons, and other materials to be burned. The
destruction of Ming war material was so complete, that the Japanese did
not even find trash inside the dismantled siege camp when they visited
the site days after, although this also caused further delays to Yang
Hao's own retreat. After making sure that nothing of value was left
behind, Yang Hao himself finally retreated at some time after 3 pm.
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Ming army lifted the siege and began to retreat. Ming cavalry were
recalled to perform rearguard action (click to enlarge).
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As for the Japanese, the defenders of Dosan Fortress quickly noticed
that Ming troops were retreating, and immediately dispatched messengers
to notify the Japanese relief force across Taehwa River. However, after
witnessing the discipline and prowess of Ming rearguard, Japanese relief
force deemed them too dangerous to attack, and thus chose a wait-an-see
approach, wasting away nearly half a day doing nothing. It wasn't until
they saw the smoke from the burning of war material, the evacuation of
the main siege camp on Hakseongsan, and even the rearguard at Jeontan
had begun to leave, that they finally decided to commence the rescue
operation. Even so, Kuroda Nagamasa and Hachisuka Iemasa of
the First Division were fearful of Ming army and hesitant to move,
further delaying the operation (unbeknownst to both of them, this act of
cowardice was witnessed and recorded by ikusa metsuke of the
First Division, and they would be severely punished by Hideyoshi because
of it).
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Ming troops stranded at the southern bank of Taehwa River attacked
into Japanese camp (click to enlarge).
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While the First Division was hesitating, Second and Third Division of
Japanese relief force inside the new camp suddenly came under attack
from Zu Cheng Xun and Wu Wei Zhong's detachment. Despite being stranded
and abandoned (Yang Hao did not even bother to inform them about the
retreat, and they were not aware that the rest of the Ming army had
left), they nevertheless stood their ground and even launched an attack
uphill. In spite of literally every odds against them, Ming
troops still fought the Second and Third Division troops led
by Mōri Hidemoto to a standstill. As such, the Second and
Third Division of the Japanese relief force were pinned down and unable
to cross the river.
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Japanese First Division crossed Taehwa River (click to enlarge).
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Meanwhile, Kikkawa Hiroie, who was positioned behind Kuroda
Nagamasa and Hachisuka Iemasa, finally had enough of their cowardice and
decided to cross the river on his own. He was reprimanded
by Ankokuji Ekei for stepping out of line and disobeying order, but
rebuked him by saying that a monk should not interfere with the matters
of a samurai (Ankokuji Ekei was a Buddhist monk) and crossed the river
anyway. Katō Kiyomasa witnessed the river crossing from Dosan
Fortress, and was so impressed by his bravery that he
thought Kikkawa Hiroie's original three flap uma-jirushi
banner was unbefitting of a samurai of such calibre. As a sign of
gratitude for being the first to save Dosan Fortress from
danger, Katō Kiyomasa gifted his own personal banner, a
silver-coloured nine flap uma-jirushi, to Kikkawa
Hiroie after the battle was over, of which Kikkawa Hiroie later added
another four flaps to the banner and changed its colour to red. On the
other hand, due to the little episode between the two, Ankokuji
Ekei would later deliberately withhold information of Kikkawa Hiroie's
bravery and exploits in his report to Hideyoshi and Mōri
Terumoto (毛利輝元).
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Replica of Kikkawa Hiroie's thirteen flap uma-jirushi
displayed at the entrance of Sengoku no Niwa Museum of History
(戦国の庭歴史館), Hiroshima, Japan.
|
With Kikkawa Hiroie taking the lead, the rest of the First Division
finally got their act together and crossed Taehwa River to attack Ming
rearguard. At the same time, Japanese fleet on Dongcheon River began to
made landing, whereas Japanese troops inside Dosan Fortress also opened
its gates and poured out to support the First Division. As most of the
Ming army had left, Ming rearguard realised that they could not resist
the landing of Japanese relief force while being threatened from three
sides, so they only briefly clashed with the Japanese before retreating
(Kikkawa Hiroie, who was the first to cross the river and engaged in
combat, only managed to kill six Ming troops). After repelling Ming
rearguard, Japanese First Division established a beachhead at the
northern bank of Taehwa River. Kikkawa Hiroie, being bold as ever,
raced ahead of the rest of the First Division and
recaptured Byeongyeongseong. His decisive action successfully cut
off Yang Hao's line of retreat to Gyeongju.
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Kikkawa Hiroie recaptured Byeongyeongseong, forcing Yang Hao to
change direction. Ming rearguard engaged and repelled Japanese
pursuers from Dongcheon River (click to enlarge).
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With his eastern line of retreat cut off, Yang Hao was forced to retreat
westwards to Eonyang. Seeing that Ming army was retreating, funateshū
(船手眾, naval troops) of Japanese fleet and Katō Kiyomasa's Seosaengpo
troops that were hitching a ride on their ships seized the opportunity
and disembarked at Dongcheon River with 200 to 300 arquebuses to
chase after Ming army. Unfortunately, they ran into Ming rearguard a
mere 300 m from the river bank. Bai Sai and Yang Deng Shan immediately
launched a cavalry countercharge, shooting dead several Japanese troops,
beheading eight more, and drove the rest back to their ships. In
addition, the First Division of the Japanese relief force was still in
the process of crossing Taehwa River and had not yet amassed enough
troops to begin the pursuit operation, whereas Second and Third Division
were pinned down in their camp thanks to the action of Zu Cheng Xun
and Wu Wei Zhong's detachment. As such, Yang Hao was able to retreat in
relative safety.
With the last of the Ming army retreating, Dosan Fortress was finally
spared from its doom. Japanese ships on the river began delivering food
and supply into the fortress, and many starving troops immediately
gorged themselves full the moment they saw food. Unfortunately, this
resulted in even more death due to
refeeding syndrome.
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Shimazu Toyohisa blocked Yang Hao's line of retreat, forcing him
to turn north (click to enlarge).
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Meanwhile, Shimazu Toyohisa, who came to Ulsan from Eonyang, joined
force with the Japanese troops that disembarked from the 90-ship
flotilla and blockaded the road, cutting off Yang Hao's line of retreat
once again and forcing him to turn north and take the long
mountain route to Gyeongju. While Ming army was switching route, Shimazu
Toyohisa personally rode ahead of his army and attacked alone, beheading
two Ming troops but was lightly injured in his left ear. However,
Shimazu Toyohisa's troops consisted of foot soldiers that could not keep
up with him, so he was unable to prevent Ming army from leaving.
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Wu Wei Zhong's detachment forcibly crossed Taehwa River under
heavy fire (click to enlarge).
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Zu Cheng Xun stormed through Japanese camp and sneaked to
Seosaengpo Fortress (click to enlarge).
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At the southern bank of Jeontan, the fierce battle in the new camp had
finally begun to shift in Japanese favour. It was an unwinnable
battle from the start, as Ming troops were starving, exhausted, and
outnumbered, not to mention they were attacking uphill against a
well-defended Japanese position held by fresh troops. As the situation
became untenable, Wu Wei Zhong's detachment decided to call off the
attack and retreat northwards, forcibly crossing Taehwa River under
heavy fire from Japanese ships on the river and pursuing Japanese troops
from the camp. As a result, Wu Wei Zhong's detachment suffered heavy
casualties, losing as many as 200 troops in battle and during retreat.
On the other hand, Zu Cheng Xun had a different idea. Instead of
retreating to the north, he gathered his retinue cavalry and
charged through the camp. In the ensuing fierce battle, Zu Cheng Xun's
own horse was shot out from under him, and many of his retinue cavalry
also lost their mounts. Nevertheless, they still managed to break out of
Japanese encirclement and escaped south. Still unsatisfied with the
outcome, Zu Cheng Xun and his troops sneaked to Seosaengpo Fortress
(now largely empty since most Japanese troops had left for Ulsan) later
that night and stole the signboard on its bridge before slipping back to
friendly territory.
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Japanese Second and Third Division crossed Taehwa River,
captured Hakseongsan, and rendezvoused with First Division
(click to enlarge).
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After the attack on Japanese camp was dealt with, Second and Third
Division of the Japanese relief force were finally able to cross Taehwa
River. They occupied a high ground near the northern bank of Jeontan,
but did not immediately chase after Ming army. Instead, Mōri Hidemoto
assigned his troops to guard the high ground, while Second Division
moved towards Dosan Fortress to capture the (now vacant)
Hakseongsan and rendezvous with First Division. In the mean time, First
Division also completed its river crossing.
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Final encounter behind the hill of Baegamsa Temple (click to
enlarge).
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With Dosan Fortress completely secured and large numbers of troops
congregating together, Kuroda Nagamasa finally gathered enough
courage to begin the mopping up and pursuit operation in the earnest.
Japanese relief force successfully killed a number of stragglers, and
was able to quickly close the distance with the retreating Ming army,
finally catching up with Yang Hao's troops behind the hill of Baegamsa
Temple (백암사 or 白奄寺, present day
Baeg-yangsa Temple), about 4.8 km away from Ulsan fortress complex. To shake off the
pursuers, Yang Hao once again ordered Ming rearguard cavalry to cover
the retreat. Li Ru Mei and Jie Sheng launched a cavalry charge against
the Japanese, killing a number of Japanese troops and drove the rest
away. However, after Ming rearguard cavalry returned to their formation,
Japanese relief force resumed its pursuit and began trailing the Ming
army from a safe distance for another 3 km. The tense stare-off was
finally broken when two mounted samurai carrying white banners rode
closer to the Ming army to probe its response. Both of them were
promptly beheaded by Ma Yun (麻雲) and Wang Guo (王果), Ma Gui's retinue
cavalry. Seeing that Ming army closely guarded its retreat,
Japanese relief force finally gave up and returned to Ulsan.
And that left us with Lu Ji Zhong. Due to the fact that he lost all
contact with the rest of the Ming army and no one knew what happened to
him, most Korean sources presume that his entire unit of 2,100 troops
was wiped up to the last man. However, it can be known from other
sources that Lu Ji Zhong was later sacked by Yang Hao, and the command
of his troops was transferred to his successor, Chen Chan (陳蠶), who
later had a merger with another 1,600 troops to make a 3,000-strong
combined regiment. In other words, despite suffering the heaviest
casualties among all Ming units, Lu Ji Zhong still managed to escape
with large portion (1,400 troops out of 2,100 total) of his unit intact.
Aftermath
Having rid of the pursuers at last, Yang Hao returned to Gyeongju
safely, although he only made a brief stop at Gyeongju before heading
to Andong. Meanwhile, Japanese relief force also returned from the
pursuit and encamped at Ulsan Eupseong (Ulsan walled town). Later that
night, commanders of the relief force went to Dosan Fortress to meet
the commanders of Dosan Fortress. Katō Kiyomasa, Asano Yoshinaga,
and Ōta Kazuyoshi then wrote a joint final report back to Japan,
detailing the entire siege and relief of Ulsan.
A day after the siege (February 11, 1598), Ryu Seong-ryong saw that
there were still many surplus supply meant for Ming army left in
Gyeongju, so he ordered Seong An-ui (성안의 or 成安義) to
distribute the supply among Joseon troops, under the pretense of
preventing the supply from falling into Japanese hands (he later
proclaimed that the Koreans did their utmost to keep the frontline
well-supplied, notwithstanding the fact that Ming troops starved at the
frontline while supplies continued to pile up in Gyeongju). In addition,
Ryu Seong-ryong and Gwon Yul managed to rally about 800 Joseon
stragglers returning from Ulsan and stationed them in Gyeongju to defend
against potential Japanese attack, but allowed the rest to return home.
On the Chinese side, despite the failure of the siege campaign, Ming
army still took up the defence of Korea. At the beginning of March, some
Ming commanders that returned from Ulsan (as well as additional
commanders that entered Korea after the siege) were reassigned to defend
various places in Korea: Li Fang Chun, Lu Ji Zhong, Li Hua Long, Lu De
Gong and Niu Bo Ying (牛伯英) were assigned to defend Andong; Ye Bang
Ron (葉邦榮) to Yonggung; Wu Wei Zhong to Chungju; Chen Yu Wen to
Suwon; Lan Fang Wei (藍芳威) to Jiksan; Li Ning (李寧) to Gongju;
Dong Zheng Yi, Chai Deng Ke (柴登科) and Qin De Gui (秦德貴) to Jeonju;
as well as Bai Sai to Anseong. The rest of the Ming army gradually
returned to Hanseong, as were Ma Gui and Yang Hao, who returned to
Hanseong on March 14 and March 22 respectively.
Analysis
From the onset, this blog post dispelled several prevailing myths about
Siege of Ulsan, as well as Imjin War in general, including but not
limited to:
-
"Ulsan Japanese Castle" was a single castle (it was actually a
massive multi-fortress complex, as were all other Waeseong in
Korea);
-
Ming army suffered heavy casualties due to undisciplined retreat,
leaving its troops vulnerable to Japanese pursuit (Ming army
actually retreated in good order and protected its rear remarkably
well, and only suffered relatively light casualties);
-
The disorganised retreat was caused by Yang Hao fleeing before his
army, causing the rest to break ranks (Yang Hao actually stayed
behind and was among the last to retreat);
-
Japanese fortification design and mastery of matchlock firearms
conferred them unique advantages against contemporary Chinese siege
tactics (on the contrary, Ming army quickly captured all but one
fortresses of the entire complex, and nearly captured the last
one).
That said, the strategic implication of Siege of Ulsan actually goes
well beyond debunking a few myths. However, in order to fully grasp the
impact and importance of this battle, one must look at the big picture
of the second invasion, both before and after the siege campaign.
As mentioned in the prelude, after the breaking down of peace talk in
1597, Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched the second invasion with
never-before-seen ferocity. Neither Joseon military nor righteous army
was able to put up any meaningful resistance against the Japanese
onslaught, and Joseon navy, the crown jewel of Joseon military might,
was virtually obliterated during Battle of Chilcheollyang. Even Jeolla
Province that survived the first invasion fell into Japanese hands.
Essentially, the war unfolded much like the first invasion, only this
time Joseon Kingdom was already devastated, its military in shambles,
and its naval dominance completely undermined.
To put things into perspective, in 1592 (before the first invasion),
Joseon army had 180,000 troops stationed around the vicinity of Hanseong
alone, and could muster as many as 400,000 conscripts using
Hosu-Boin system (호수보인 or 戶首保人, a system where one
soldier, known as Hosu, was supported by tax revenue from several common
folks, known as Boin) should the need arise. Even after Joseon army
suffered heavy losses during the first invasion, a census conducted in
early 1593 shows that the combined strength of Joseon army, Joseon navy,
and various
righteous army
groups of entire Korea still numbered 172,400, with Jeolla Proving
having 10,000 army troops and 15,000 naval troops, and Gyeongsang
Province having 35,000 troops stationed at Ulsan and Andong. However, by
mid-1597 (before the second invasion), Joseon military had deteriorated
to the point that there were only 1,500 troops left in Jeolla Left
Province, as well as 11,100 army troops and 5,000 naval troops in
Gyeongsang Province.
As if such terrible state wasn't bad enough, Japanese army once again
wreaked havoc across Korea during the second invasion, further degrading
the strength of Joseon military. By the time Ming army was preparing to
attack Ulsan, Gyeongsang Province could barely scrape together 3,000
troops to support the effort. Moreover, Jeolla Province fared even worse
than Gyeongsang Province. At the beginning of February 1598, Yi Kwang-ag
(이광악 or 李光岳), Army Commander of Jeolla Province, only had 500
troops under his command, most of them rabbles. Other Jeolla commanders
fared even worse, even better-off commanders barely had 70~200 men under
arms, and many could not muster even a single troop. Even the
once-numerous righteous army of Jeolla Province had been shattered into
fractured warbands numbering only 20~70 men per band.
The crisis was so dire that Hanseong once again came under grave
danger of being captured by the Japanese. Residents of Hanseong fled the
city en masse, almost hollowed out the capital, and even
Joseon King Yi Yeon was contemplating to send his princes and harem away
to safety. Although Hanseong was ultimately spared from this terrible
fate because Japanese invaders decided to halt the attack and
consolidate, the Koreans understood that the crisis was far from
averted: The Japanese held all the cards and could resume aggression at
any moment; both Joseon army and navy were ravaged and toothless, and
the prospect of evicting the invaders from Korean lands was looking
increasingly bleak.
As such, Ming intervention was the last, and in fact only, hope for
Korea. The fact that Ming Dynasty sent in reinforcement alone was
already greatly inspiring, and the news of Katō Kiyomasa's defeat
at the hands of Ming army during the early phase of Siege of Ulsan was
cause for celebration. Even after the failure of the siege campaign,
contemporary Koreans mostly expressed disappointment and regret that
Ming army wasn't able to finish off Katō Kiyomasa once and for all,
rather than seeing it as a debacle/complete failure.
As much as Siege of Ulsan motivated the Koreans, its impact on the
Japanese was even more profound. On October 19, 1597, two days after
Battle of Jiksan, Japanese commanders held a war council
at Jincheon. During the council, Ōta Kazuyoshi (one of the ikusa metsuke
of Japanese army) instructed the Japanese commanders to return to the
southern coasts of Korea in order to recuperate and wait for the winter
to pass. He also announced that the offensive should resume in the
coming spring (April 1598), where a well-rested Japanese army would
march straight to Hanseong. However, the Japanese did not expect a Ming
counteroffensive to come so early, before they were able to fully settle
down, much less preparing for the 1598 spring offensive. Although Ulsan
Fortress ultimately prevailed against Ming attack, it suffered severe
damage in the process, losing most of its facilities, stored food, war
materials, garrison troops, and more importantly, its function as a
forward base to support the offensive. Furthermore, the threat of
another Ming attack still loomed over the heads of Japanese commanders.
Fearing for the safety of their own fortresses, many Japanese commanders
in Korea petitioned Hideyoshi to abandon Ulsan and Suncheon Fortress in
order to narrow down the battlefront to a more manageable size, of
which Hideyoshi angrily declined. Not one to give up easily,
Japanese commanders petitioned Hideyoshi for the second time, this time
adding Yangsan Fortress into the list of fortresses to be
abandoned. Hideyoshi was understandably furious and harshly
criticised the cowardice of Japanese commanders, but even he realised
that the situation was untenable and eventually ordered the abandonment
of Yangsan Fortress and Gupo, and later pulled out one-half of Japanese
invasion force from Korea.
By this point, no one on the Japanese side was thinking about the 1598
spring offensive anymore. In fact, it was not until April 4, 1598 that
Hideyoshi brought up the resumption of the offensive again. In a
letter addressed to Tachibana Muneshige (立花宗茂), Hideyoshi
mentioned that he wanted to sent another army to Korea in 1599 to resume
the offensive, and ordered Japanese commanders in Korea to procure food,
gunpowder, and other war materials to support the operation. Another
letter written by Fukuhara Nagataka (福原長堯) et al.
to Shimazu Yoshihiro in June 29, 1598 reaffirmed the plan, and
named Fukushima Masanori (福島正則), Mashita Nagamori (増田長盛), and
Ishida Mitsunari (石田三成) as the commanders that would lead the 1599
offensive. Additionally, Ulsan was selected as the landing point for the
new invasion force.
Essentially, Japanese army's entire strategic plan for the second
invasion was derailed. Not only the planned 1598 spring offensive was
completely ruined, forcing Hideyoshi to delay the invasion for another
year, Japanese army was forced into defensive by an enemy one-third its
size (only 40,000 Ming troops had entered Korea at this point, while
Japanese troops in Korea numbered about 140,000), losing all the
initiative and momentum it built since the beginning of the second
invasion.
In July 1598, due to deteriorating health, Hideyoshi ordered Katō
Kiyomasa to restart the peace talk, only this time he dropped everything
in his list of demands (including the cession of Korean provinces,
sending a Joseon prince to Japan as hostage, yearly tribute, and
submission of Joseon Kingdom to Japan) and only asked for one thing: an
apology from the Koreans. Whether that apology was made by Joseon King
or some unnamed nobody mattered not to Hideyoshi, as long as he received
one, he would end the war. After spending seven years waging a fruitless
war, throwing away tens of thousands of lives as well as untold amount
of wealth in the process, Hideyoshi was now eager to end it. The demand
for apology was no more than a face-saving gesture to satisfy his ego,
as well as a last-ditch attempt to hold onto some kind of moral high
ground.
Thus it's fair to say that Siege of Ulsan was the single most important
battle of the second invasion, as well as its real turning point. Even
though Ming army retreated without accomplishing its objective, the
actions of Japanese commanders in Korea as well as Hideyoshi himself
after the siege campaign clearly show that they were rapidly losing
control of the situation. Moreover, all this while Ming army was able to
build up its strength in Korea unhindered, and by September 1598 as many
as 74,400 Ming troops and 24,000 horses had gathered in Korea. From then
on, Ming-Joseon coalition went from being constantly on the defensive
during the early phase of the second invasion to having secured defence
and capable of going on the offensive. In contrast, Japanese army was
forced from a dominant position in full control of the war into a
vulnerable position constantly preoccupied with reacting and responding
to the changing situation. All of these were directly or indirectly
caused by Siege of Ulsan.
Missed opportunity
It should be noted that neither the Chinese nor the Koreans were fully
aware of the instability and chaos on the Japanese side. Due to the
massive debacle that was the previous peace talk, which resulted in the
execution of chief negotiator Shen Wei Jing (沈惟敬), no one in the Ming
army dared to even entertain the idea of re-enter negotiation with the
Japanese anymore. As a result, Ming army continued to amass troops and
gather supply in Korea while purposely ignoring repeated attempts
from Katō Kiyomasa and Konishi Yukinaga to make peace.
Unfortunately, just when Ming army completed the mustering of troops and
Yang Hao was about to put his plan of a new offensive into motion, a
memorial to the throne
written by Ding Ying Tai (丁應泰) in July 1598 sparked a massive
internal feud in both the Ming court and the Ming army in Korea, to the
point that even Joseon court was dragged into the chaos. Ming army was
paralysed by the scandal, wasting away three whole months (July to
October) doing literally nothing. By the time the dust began to settle,
Yang Hao was already discharged in disgrace, Ding Ying Tai ascended to
power and began to lord over the rest of the Ming military leadership in
Korea, and Ming army was heavily disheartened and beset with confusions
and internal strives. As a result, it severely underperformed in the
three sieges that followed. For example, there was little to no
coordination between Ming army led by Liu Ting (劉鋌) and Ming navy led
by Chen Lin (陳璘) during
Siege of Suncheon (Liu Ting barely had any motivation to fight), whereas a
gunpowder accident during
Siege of Sacheon resulted in the most humiliating Ming defeat of Imjin War. The most
egregious one, however, was none other than
Second Siege of Ulsan. The second siege failed not because of any mistake on Ming army's
part, but because Ding Ying Tai forcibly ordered Ma Gui to cancel the
siege and return to Gyeongju "for inspection". In stark contrast, thanks
to the internal strife that paralysed Ming army, Japanese army managed
to weather through its worst period of instability and weakness, and
began to slowly regain footing. By the time a demoralised Ming army
relaunched its offensive in October 1598, Japanese army had sufficiently
stabilised and fought off the three sieges with remarkable competency.
In fact, the whole offensive could've ended up as a massive blunder if
not for
Battle of Noryang, of which the Ming-led coalition navy inflicted the single heaviest
casualties to Japanese navy since the beginning of Imjin War, thus
preserving the reputation of Ming military somewhat.
To summarise, Siege of Ulsan decisively tipped the balance of war in
favour of Ming-Joseon coalition, forever preventing the Japanese from
ever achieving their objectives. However, both Ming court and Ming army
were soon caught up in a massive internal feud, not only wasting away a
golden opportunity to take advantage of the favourable situation, but
also dragging out the war unnecessarily. Regrettably, despite committing
an ever-increasing number of troops and resources into the war, in the
end Ming army still fell short of achieving a complete victory.
Attributions and Special Thanks
While originally I planned to write this blog post based on my original
research, I quickly came to realise that neither my knowledge on this
topic, nor access to historical documents, nor my ability to understand
and interpret those documents to construct a comprehensive narrative are
up to the task. As such, the completion of this article would not be
possible without massive amount of inputs and guidance from
Mi Zhou Zhai
(米粥斋), an expert in the field, through an intermediate (who wishes
to remain anonymous). I also borrowed heavily from
《万历朝鲜战争全史》written by
Zhu Er Dan (朱尔旦), who also penned the
three-part
critique of Samuel Hawley's book
that I translated. For that, I owe them my utmost gratitude.
Great write up so far. Looking at the modern pic of Dosan Fortress on the raised hill it looks like a great place to build a fortification, being on high ground and overlooking the surrounding area. You mention the Chinese and Koreans rarely build 'castles' in the Japanese (and medieval European) style, ... I wonder why? Probably because of the 'feudal' nature of the Japanese and Middle Ages Europeans with their plethora of daimyo and barons constantly fighting each other in worthless feuds, while China and Korea were more state level actors perhaps ??
ReplyDeleteChinese and Koreans did build similar-sized fortresses, but those are generally of the "wall with buildings inside" kind (essentially a "shrunk down" walled city), without an obvious keep/tenshukaku. Chinese called these smaller fortresses Zhai (寨), Bao (堡) etc, and that's what they called Japanese castle too.
DeleteSuch a nice work im waiting for its continuation!
ReplyDeleteI want to ask a guestion, Im from Turkey and i really love Chinese-Korean-Japanese history. I want this passion to spread therefore im going to make a roleplay game of Imjin War with even Jianzhou Jurchens playable. I want units to be accurate and not as simple as "pikemen swordsmen archer cavalry". I want to add some egzotic units and weapons such as fire lances and rocket wagons. But i really lack the information, can you tell me some Late Ming Chinese units and weapons to me so i can make Ming Chinese army enjoyable?
Thank you!
Good day and welcome to my blog.
DeleteImjin War is a highly complex topic given the multiple sides (and sources) involved, so it's difficult to accurately reconstruct the exact equipment of the armies involved.
Jianzhou Jurchens did not participate in the war. Only Kato Kiyomasa briefly intruded into their territories and fought with them (it went badly form him).
Did Kato Kiyomasa's skirmish with the Jurchen go badly for the Japanese? I've read that his muskets made mince meat of Jurchen cavalry. Do we have any more details about this amazing encounter? What did the Japanese make of the Jurchen? did they even know who they were? what did they make of their tactics, what did the Jurchen think of the Japanese? It's been said Nurhaci offered to aid the Ming and Koreans in the Imjin War, but the Ming declined. Interesting if the Jurchen did intervene against the Japanese, how would they have faired against the might of the entire Japanese invasion force?
DeleteI will make every nation playable therefore everyone will have the freedom to declare war on whatever country they want thats what i meant :D
Delete@Der
DeleteThose are generally heavily exaggerated later period sources intended to glorify and justify Japanese invasion of China.
Basically, Kato Kiyomasa crossed Tumen River into Yanbian and attacked/destroyed several Jurchen settlements, which provoked the Jurchens to attack him. According to Korean source, his force suffered heavy casualties and returned to Korea.
According to "Kiyomasa Korai-jin Oboegaki", a primary source written by Shimokawa Heitayuu (Kato Kiyomasa's subordinate and participant of the battle), some 8,500 Japanese troops fought valiantly against "tens of millions" of Jurchens, they were surrounded, but saved by a timely "divine downpour" (rain version of Kamikaze basically) and retreated to Korea the next day.
The Jurchens then lay siege to Kilju (then under Kato Kiyomasa's control, but he was not present there). Kato requested Nabeshima Naoshige's aid to lift the siege.
The Japanese were aware of the Jurchens and described their settlements as "foreign" but noting much beyond that. They called the Jurchens they fought "Orankai (兀良哈)" which seems to be used loosely/derogatorily to refer to generic "barbarian".
DeleteIn Chinese context, that name usually refers to a specific Mongol subgroup (Uriangqais), which the Japanese certainly did not encounter. I am not entirely certain which Jurchen tribe was encountered by Kato Kiyomasa, as I am not familiar with early Jurchen/Manchu history, although I've read discussion that suggest that it was Warka Jurchens.
@Ali Emre Azgın
DeleteYes, I understand the draw of "what-if" scenario and exotic gadgets of war, although they are by definition not historically accurate.
I can only give you a broad and crude overview:
The majority of Ming troops that went to Korea were Northern Chinese border troops, most of them can be classified as multipurpose medium cavalry (armoured rider on unarmoured horse, armed primarily with bow and arrows + sabre, many also wielded some kind of polearm or matchlock/handgonne). Rocket was used fairly extensively by Ming cavalry.
Ming infantry were much more varied and generally came from Southern China and included everything in the usual roster (pikemen, swordsmen, archers, matchlockmen, artillerymen, also cavalry). Many of them were "double-armed" (usually one melee and one ranged primary weapon, i.e. pike + bow, polearm + rocket etc)
Fire lance was no longer used by Ming army except in naval battle and sometimes for siege (the so-called fire lance was actually a powerful one-use flamethrower, ranther than a weak peashooter attached to a spear). I am not aware of explicit record of Chinese use of rocket wagon during Imjin War, but given the amount of rocket they brought, they probably did.
Thank you!
Delete@ Ali Emre Azgin
ReplyDeleteMost the Ming troops sent to Korea during the Imjin War were northern border cavalry, and they wouldn't be that much different from the more iconic Mongol and Manchu cavalry of the same era. Their main weapons were bow and arrows, saber, and lance or polearm. Their armor would be brigandine, basically a long cotton coat riveted with squarish metal plates on the inside. The northern troops carried some firearms too, but mostly cannons, rockets, and outdated handgonnes like the iconic three-eyed gun, with few to no matchlocks. And presumably they would have used some war wagons too, both for offensive (especially as a platform for launching rockets) and defensive purposes, as well as for transporting equipment and supplies.
The southern Chinese troops, on the other hand, were a completely different matter. They were mostly infantry with very few cavalry. In terms of firearms, they were quick to adopt the matchlocks from the Portuguese merchants and the Japanese wokou, unlike their northern counterparts who chose to stick with the old-fashioned handgonnes. They would also have been equipped with some rockets and small anti-personnel cannons like the Folangji breech-loading swivel guns or the Hudun Pao hand mortars. Regarding to their ranged weapons, they were less proficient with bows than their northern counterparts, but they were better at using crossbows and javelins. Some of their crossbow bolts and javelins would have been poison-tipped. And in terms of their melee weapons, there was a strong anti-cavalry focus, so they would have been equipped with polearms like pikes, spears, Zhanmadao horse-chopping cleavers, and some Ming paintings (like Wokou Tujuan) even showed southern troops carrying strange-looking hook-shaped polearms called Xiezi Wei or Scorpion's Tail. And speaking of strange-looking polearms, one cannot ignore the Lang Xian wolf brush, another unique polearm coming from Southern China in the Ming period. It was basically a bamboo spear with its frontal branches still attached to block enemy's vision and to entangle / parry enemy's weapons. It proved to be very successful during the anti-Wokou campaigns of Qi Jiguang in the 1560's, and would ultimately spread to Korea. And last but not least, in terms of their defense, since metal armors would become rusty rather quickly under the humid conditions of Southern China, a lot of southern troops would wear non-metal armors made from mulberry paper, lacquered rawhide, and rattan, etc. And they were avid shield users too, with the most common shield types being the round rattan shield and the V-shaped Yanwei Pai or Swallow Tail Shield. With all that being said however, due to the great distance involved, I don't think the southern troops played any major role in the Imjin War, as only a small amount of them had been sent there.
And just as the admin said, fire lances were mostly used for naval battles and siege operations. The Ming fire lance or Pen Tong was essentially a large bamboo tube reinforced with hemp ropes and leather bands, and could spit out various types of projectiles including flame, poison smoke, ceramic / iron / lead pellets and shrapnel, and semi-solid burning discs that could attach onto enemy clothes.
Hope that my explication would help you make your game, cheers.
Now i know what i should put, thank you so much!
DeleteGreat explanation. But in your opinion, which side had the better armies? Chinese, Japanese or even the Koreans with the warrior monks and navy seamen.
DeleteThe Japanese had huge numbers (120k troops), the largest military force in the Imjin War and were battle hardened and led by ferocious samurai, but all their experience was gained in Japan fighting against other Japanese. They had matchlock arquebuses but no artillery. And their cavalry was nearly nonexistent. Their military leadership was primitive, with feudal lords leading their own private armies acting independently instead of a clear chain of command with a top Supreme Commander like the Allied Chinese/Koreans. And of course they had a horrible naval arm that failed to keep the Japanese adequately supplied and were soundly defeated by the Korean Navy.
The Koreans neglected their land forces, hence the easy victories by the Japanese on land. But Korean naval technology, strategy and tactics, home ground advantage and of course Adm. Yi's leadership was decisive in the Imjin War since the Japanese supply lines were devastated and the Japanese attempt to extend naval control to the western Korean coastlines failed. I would say the Koreans did as much as the Chinese in freeing Korea from the Japanese invaders. And the Korean Buddhist Warrior Monks were formidable fighters along with the Righteous Armies forming guerilla bands.
And the Chinese, contributing the smallest contingent (~50k troops) to the war but the most professional (as in professional military fighting for payment from the central government), with Li Ru Song in overall command of all Chinese and Korean forces coordinating with a clear chain of command, leading excellent battle hardened northern cavalry and experienced southern infantry. The Chinese were hampered by overstretched supply lines, inadequate supply due to Korean incompetence, inadequate numbers where they couldn't sustain heavy losses, and musketry inferior to the Japanese.
@Der
DeleteI think the three were at a roughly similar level of military development, and neither side has complete advantage over the other.
I disagree with the claim that Chinese musketry were inferior to Japanese. It's true that Northern Chinese troops were not proficient with matchlock muskets, but the Southern Chinese troops were quite good at using them. By the time of the Imjin War the Southern Chinese were already using them for at least several decades, and Ming firearm inventor Zhao Shizhen (from Zhejiang province) was able to improve upon existing matchlock designs and create new types that were more suitable for Chinese troops. The Southern Chinese had access to various matchlock designs through trade, including Japanese, Portuguese, Southeast Asian, Indian, and even Middle-Eastern / Ottoman.
The reason why during the Imjin War the Chinese troops didn't seem to use matchlocks was because most of the troops sent to Korea were northern border cavalry and they preferred to use old-fashioned handgonnes like the three-eyed gun. Only small groups of southern infantry were sent there and they only served a complementary role.
@Der @Unknown
DeleteStay tuned to find out.
@Der @Unknown
DeleteMy latest update should be a good reference for the comparison between Ming and Japanese army.
IMHO, while Japanese army was good at what it was supposed to do, it was "defective" in the sense that it didn't have much in the way of cavalry, artillery, and experience in fighting either of them (or fighting both at the same time). This put the Japanese army at a remarkably disadvantagous situation against Ming army (with cavalry and artillery up the wazoo) in both field battle and siege.
The Ming Infantry Southern China were originally staffed by Commanders who were trained and recruited during Gen Qi Jiguang days. Their experiences and training came useful in Imjin Waeran , because Northern Based Ming Army were mainly cavalary based. However by Wanli reign, corruption and influence peddlers were already rampant in Ming court. Since Gen Qi jiguang himself fell out of favour in the past due to the political intrigues, so such things usually also affected his followers and students in the military ranks. It was no surprise, the southern Ming troops were sent to Korea to deal with the Japanese, but politically their commanders were weakened by past associations with Gen Ji Qiguang. In the booknof Jingbirok , by Rye Seong Ryeong, he mentioned a Ming commander who " helped " to train Joseon soldiers , and that commander was from the Southern Ming infantry commander.
Delete@Unknown
DeleteIMO the negative effect of Qi Jiguang's fall from grace would be very limited, because surprisingly few Southern commanders were directly related to him. Qi himself was also "merely" sidelined and then fired instead of being pinned with some kind of grave crime, which was still a pretty shitty fate for him, but not the kind that will cause others to avoid association with him.
Among the Southern commanders, only Wu Weizhong directly worked under/with Qi Jiguang before, and actually led Southern troops from Zhejiang. However his troops were mostly fresh recruits.
Luo Shangzhi, another Soutern commander, was not directly related to Qi Jiguang, although he likely studied Qi's materials. He brought the only Southern troop veterans (about 600, possibly from Ji Garrison) to Korea, and I think it was him that trained the Koreans. At the time he was also a commander of Shenjiying (Firearm branch of Imperial guards) and unlikely to be affected by Qi Jiguang's fall.
Qi Jin was Qi Jiguang's nephew, but he commanded war cart troopers from Ji Garrison (i.e. Northern troops) and usually not counted among "Southern commanders".
Liu Ting was leading troops from Sichuan and not related to Qi Jiguang at all.
Qian Shizhen was another commander from South China (Shanghai), but he led the cavalry from Ji Garrison, so he was a "Northern commander".
Thanks everyone, you guys really helped me
ReplyDeleteWould it be fair to say the only Imjin War battle that the Southern Chinese units participated in majority numbers compared to Northern forces, would be the Battle of Noryang Strait? Chen Lin and his marines/navymen I'm assuming is mostly from Guangdong. I know it diverges from the main topic of Ulsan, but what kind of weaponry, equipment, and armor they would use?
ReplyDeleteYes, AFAIK that was the only battle which the Southern Chinese troops participated in numbers. Chen Lin was indeed from Guangdong, though I'm not so sure whether his marines were all from Guangdong. They could be from other places in Southern China like Zhejiang, Jiangxi, or Fujian.
DeleteThey would have used cannons like the Folangji breech-loading swivel gun, which was probably the dominant Ming navy gun in the 16th century and was mass-produced. And they also carried many other firearms like rocket arrows, muskets, hand grenades, fire lances, and cold weapons like javelins, crossbows, pikes, swords, etc.
In terms of armor they would most likely used lighter non-metal armors for naval operations, like paper armor or leather armor.
All in all, a total of 9,965 Joseon troops participated in the siege at some point, and among them 4,982 deserted.
ReplyDeleteThis retention rate is incredibly low, not sure if I heard of army behaving in such manner without dissipating completely, what are reasons which led to this poor morale of Korean army?
It's better to treat this as one combined army with a particularly weak contingent (i.e. the Koreans) rather than two allied armies working together but otherwise acting independently. Otherwise, most armies wouldn't survive half its troops deserting.
DeleteJoseon Dynasty was militarily very weak to begin with (as it was remarkably peaceful for the past centuries), and the carnage of the First Japanese invasion only made things worse. Korea had yet to recover from the invasion (and wouldn't for a long time to come), basically.
We can also consider the Joseon soldiers are on home territory. Just having that option available is a big factor in desertion. Especially if a battle is not going well, and on your side the main contingent is a foreign ally. It probably made more sense to not go all out in this battle.
DeleteWhat sources did you primarily use for this battle?
ReplyDeleteCurrently I am looking at Seonjo Sillok, but I mostly just referenced works from other more knowledgable people than me.
DeleteDid you use Kenneth Swope's work because some of this seems very familiar
Delete@Unknown
DeleteNo. From the onset you can see some serious errors in Kenneth's book, and some events unfold differently. For example, Kenneth lists Yang Dengshan, Po Gui and Bai Sai as the vanguard (it was Li Rumei, Yang Dengshan and Bai Sai) and they "met with a hail of fire arrow (wut? the primary ranged weapon of the Japanese was arquebus)". The dates are also off, and Kenneth also implies that Ma Gui reached the outer defence first before sending out the vanguard.
The way he describe the siege seems to reinforce the misconception that Ulsan was but ONE castle. This leads to many weird mistakes like Li Rumei's crack troops "attack on Ulsan proper" and draw out the defenders during the day of the siege, rather than on outlying Byeongyeongseong the night before.
He also wrote that Ming attacked the inner sanctum and the arrival of Kato Kiyomasa...on the fourth day? The heck? What a complete mess.
@春秋戰國
DeleteSwope also seems to mistakenly refer to Asano Yoshinaga as Asano "Nagayoshi" (he seems to have gotten the kanji mixed up as he writes his name as 淺野長吉).
Looking over the end notes he has for his section on the battle/siege (#79-89), he seems to refer to a mixture of sources, both primary and secondary, that might have distorted his account. Listing a few here in no particular order based on those and his abbreviations
-Li Guangtao, “Yang Hao Weishan zhi yi,”
-Li Guangtao, Chaoxian “Renchen Wohuo” shi liao
-Sin Kyöng, "Zaizao fanbang zhi [Chaejo pönbang chi]"
-Kuwata and Yamaoka, "Chôsen no eki"
-Kawaguchi, "Seikan iryaku"
-Gu, "Ming shi jishi benmo"
-Keinen's diary
-Taiko-ki (Hideyoshi's biography)
Yes his book does seem very muddled at times and a bit too pro ming as well. Do you know any good english language sources on this topic as I am currently in the process of learning Chinese
Delete@Bleb
DeleteIsn't Asano Nagayoshi another name for Asano Nagamasa?
Kenneth isn't entirely to blame for the mess. There were serious political struggles among the Chinese at the time (Yang Hao vs Ma Gui, the doves vs the hawks), and the doves would stop at nothing to stop the war, including exaggerate Ming casualties and rampant smearing and false accusations against frontline generals not on their side, leading to Yang Hao being disgraced after this battle.
Those documents also passed down and became "historical sources", they eventually crept in to say, Mingshi (History of Ming) among others, causing a lot of confusions and misconceptions.
@Unknown
The way Kenneth describe Siege of Ulsan gives me the impression that the Chinese were a bunch of headless chickens. Seriously, Ming army in his book wasn't able to prevent Kato Kiyomasa and his relief column of FIVE HUNDRED troops from forcing his way into the castle, with 55,000 men! And then he wrote that Chinese lost 4,000 troops during retreat and the Siege of Ulsan "clearly a debacle".
If THAT level of incompetence is still considered "too pro Ming", I wonder what people will think when they read the accurate account of the battle...
@春秋戰國
DeleteHonestly, my level of knowledge on the Imjin War is startlingly poor so I'm not really sure. I'm inclined to think this was an honest error on Swope's part since he later refers to "Asano Nagayoshi" as a "young samurai" fighting off Ming troops on the walls at Ulsan. Since Yoshinaga was born in 1576, he should've been 22 at the time of the battle, so that at least fits the bill. I could be totally wrong though!
With regards to the other issues--yeah, I can definitely see that being a problem. I think Swope (along with Hawley!) even ends up aligning Song Yingchang with the hawkish factions in the Ming court (page 151, 181, 182), which totally seems to be at odds with the Chinese netizen dude's critique of Hawley's book.
Swope does dedicate a lot of time to discussing Yang Hao's tragic 'fall guy' reputation though, and I think this extends into his next book ("The Military Collapse of China's Ming Dynasty, 1618-44") which, from what I read a few years ago seems to hold up a bit better than his Imjin War book, especially since he isn't dealing with so many conflicting narratives and sources in different languages.
IIRC, the Shogun-ki blog (which I linked in the comments of the first part of your translation of the critique of Hawley's book) were very critical of Swope's book and specifically attacked his usage of Japanese sources, relying far too heavily on "gunkimono (Japanese war tales)" compared to his Chinese and Korean sources. I suspect these might be the reason some of the Japanese perspectives in his accounts of the battles are so confusing (hell, maybe this is where the "hail of fire arrows" and descriptions like "Young samurai Asano Nagayoshi whirled his spear in an arc of death" came from).
http://www.theshogunshouse.com/2009/12/superior-title-inferior-book-kenneth.html
@Unknown
If the question was for me, I've got nothing. There's not really a lot on the Imjin War other than the 'big three' as far as I can tell, though maybe Nam-lin Hur's paper critiquing Swope and Hawley which I've linked in some other comment will probably be of use to anybody interested in western historiography thus far...
@Bleb
DeleteEven the Shogun-ki blog post is full of bias and errors and unsubstantiated claims, and the article sounds very defensive as if the author is offended (to me at least). Better to take it with a grain of salt.
@春秋戰國
DeleteOh yeah, the critique on that site does seem just a bit salty so I'm definitely taking a grain (or more) with me as I consider its claims. They followed up that review with the Hawley interview shortly after, and as we both know they end up getting really giddy about bashing Swope for his unprofessional behaviour. Supposedly, he posted a negative Amazon review anonymously--based on the quotes they use in the interview, I guess it's this "Top critical review" for the first edition of Hawley's book.
https://www.amazon.com/Imjin-War-Sixteenth-Century-Invasion-Attempt/product-reviews/8995442425/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewpnt_rgt?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&filterByStar=critical&pageNumber=1
https://i.imgur.com/ZCb0Xiw.png
And if that really was Swope under an alias ("K-Pop Fan" is pretty hilarious 13 years down the line tbh) then that's pretty damn petty. But I really have no idea--I already feel a bit bad for digging up old internet skeletons littering their polemical battlefield.
Anyway I don't really want to derail the comments section here any further. Keep up the great work with updating the post!
OH, and a somewhat brief question: I noticed that one of the random facts/trivia you posted on the site mentions a punitive expedition against Japan that the Ming court had planned but never came to fruition due to a rebellion in Guangxi and the end of the Imjin War itself--when exactly was this planned and how was it situated within the wider context of how the war was going for the Ming? You write that the Ming seriously considered a full retreat from Korea after losing at Jiksan--was this counter-invasion planned in the middle of the three Ming offensives, or after Ulsan, which the Chinese critic you translated believes was the real turning point of the war?
@Bleb
DeleteThere were a few failed proposals before, but the successful one (proposed some time after Chilcheollyang) was accepted and put into motion around February 1598, nearing the end (or right after) the Siege of Ulsan.
I read the part of about Jurchen cavalry being employed at this battle with the Japanese. Fascinating. So the Jurchen did fight the Japanese outside of Kato Kiyomasa's invasion of Manchuria? Amazing. And with iron whips? how did those work? I wonder what the Japanese thought about the Jurchen cavalry? and why were they working for the Ming, aren't they enemies? I wonder what the Jurchen thought about the Japanese ??
ReplyDeleteMy bad, Ma Gui's cavalry should be Mongols, not Jurchen, I've corrected my blog post.
DeleteIron whip is basically a sword-shaped mace/heavy duty iron truncheon. Very good at bashing armour and caving skull.
Ming army in the north employed quite a lot of Mongols (and other ethnics). There were a lot of mingling between people of different cultures at the border after all.
Interesting. I wonder what the Japanese and the Koreans thought about the Mongols and vice versa? Did the Mongols still have their reputation they gained from Genghis and Kublai Khan? What did the Mongols think of Japanese fighting prowess, and vice versa?
DeleteThanks for the interesting post.
@Der
DeleteNot sure about the Japanese, but the Koreans were pretty disturbed. No records on what the Mongols thought about them though, as far as I am aware.
Half a century before described events Mongols still could reach outskirts of Beijing.
DeleteNothing close to what they did in 13th century, but nothing to laugh at either.
According to the Korean official records, the Ming Mongol Cavalry ripped the Japanese army apart on the open field...
Deletehttp://sillok.history.go.kr/popup/print.do?id=kna_13806007_002&gubun=chn
臣曾從(道山)〔島山〕 之戰得見, 麻貴所率㺚子二百餘名, 皆持環鞭, 亂打如雨疾雷, 不及掩耳, 銃筒亦不暇放。 賊兵之走, 亦如我國人之走, 以此見之, 銃筒於馬戰, 亦末耳。
Translation: From what I saw during the battle of Tosan, Ma Gui led 200 Mongols armed with chain whip, their speedy blow was like a storm, struck like thunder, (the Japanese) didn't have a chance to fire any shot. The Japanese soldiers were running away in the same fashion as our soldiers were running away in the past (from the Japanese army)...
@SY
DeleteThe "環鞭" should translate to hard whip/iron truncheon, not the flexible "chain whip". In any case, Ma Gui's 200 Mongol's cavalry were probably his handpicked Jia Ding and armed in the Chinese fashion (Mongols rarely use truncheon). They shouldn't be equated with average Mongol horsemen of the period.
So ring whip is not a flail but Tie bian?
Deleteinteresting
Do you have any record additional record for 環鞭 is being refered as truncheon ?
@ssd
DeleteYes. The chain whip type is usually called Jiu Jie Bian (九節鞭) or "Nine-segmented whip". Huan Bian 環鞭 literally translates to "ring whip", the "ring" probably refers to the many buldges on Tie Bian. In modern Chinese martial arts, Jiu Huan Bian (九環鞭) or nine-ringed whip is a short stick-based martial arts.
Although a later source, Muyetobotongji also attest that Ming soldiers made frequent use of Tie Bian/Tie Jian.
Personally I think it is a type of "two-section staff" (Lian Jia), the word "ring" has the literal meaning of ring as in the section that connects the staff together. There is no "ring" in Tie Bian, it would be strange if they call the bulges as "ring". Also, since you mentioned Muyetobotongji, there is reference to the use of "two-section staff" on horseback by heavy cavalry, they use a shorter version, and the book named it as "whip", and it describes the difference of "chains" between the cavalry version and the infantry version. As for the "frequent use of Tie Bian/Tie Jian" that you mentioned, I didn't find such record in Muyetobotongji. Maybe you can indicate the section number where it gives such reference?
Delete@SY
DeleteI remember the source also mentions Ming cavalry shooting their Tie Bian on horseback (i.e. Lei Huo Bian, the Tie Bian-handgonne hybrid), but oddly I wasn't able to relocate the text again. Maybe I confused the source or deceived by unreliable third-party sources.
The buldges on Tie Bian do look like rings when they are worn on finger. Besides, Koreans also call sabre "Hwando (環刀)" even though Korean sabre has no visible ring.Thirdly, Ming cavalry also wasn't known for using flail-type weapon, as far as I can tell.
"Hwando (環刀)" in Korean terms referred to ring on the sheath of the sword/saber
Deletehttps://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=1155429&cid=40942&categoryId=32432
So I don't think the same thing could be applied to Tie Bian because Tie Bian usually does not have a sheath and the Chinese style of carrying sword/saber is different from the Korean Hwando, you can look at the picture on this website for the Korean "ring" style
https://www.pinterest.co.kr/pin/465559680207212815/?nic_v2=1a4wkXD6V
So I think that the word "ring" in 環鞭 refers to a different thing than the the same word in 環刀.
As for the Ming cavalry, they used various types of weapons, including the "whip staff" (Bian Gun) or "Iron Chain Staff" as recorded by the Mao Yuanyi who wrote that the Chinese soldiers were good at it. The volume 4 of Muyedobotongji described it in detail. Later in the same text, the Korean author used 鞭 ("whip") to describe this weapon.
@SY
Delete鞭棍/Bian Gun usually refers to a short staff in Chinese context, and a related Bian Gun Chong is a six-shot double-headed handgonne version of that.
Mao Yuanyi's iron flail description was copied from Song Dynasty Wujing Zongyao (called, and the context was that Han foot soldiers used it better than nomadic cavalry. Chinese soldiers generally used flail behind fortification (either walls or wagon fort).
In any case, I re-read the equipment list for the preparation of the first phase of Imjin War. One entry lists equal number of Tie Bian and flail (both were 1,500).
So is it cavalry man's weapon?
Delete@ssd
DeleteAfter reading through Muyetobotongji and find no such quote, I believe I've been deceived by unreliable articles.
The listing is basically an inventory checklist, so we don't know who was going to use what weapon. But given that the equipment was brought by Northern Army, I wouldn't rule out cavalry use.
I know it's off the topic but is there any mention of staff or wooden club weapon in the list?
DeleteIIRC in Silok they mention ming cavarly army use staff weapon (not sure it was gun or bang) so I wonder if this staff would be Da bang or Jia dao gun
and another question
did southern army ever use tie bian?
@ssd
DeleteI have not find wooden staff in the list so far (it's an excerpt), I will need to find the complete book to give you a definite answer.
Gun/Ban are basically the same thing (different regions of China used to call it by different names), and yes it was used by cavalry.
Yes, Tie Bian was used universally in entire China.
Thanks
DeleteHere is a record from silik that I referenced
○丙申/提督接伴使張雲翼啓曰: "卽刻自稷山戰所回來唐兵說稱: ‘天安、稷山之間, 不意倭賊先鋒, 皆着白衣, 遍野而來, 唐兵等初謂稱朝鮮人, 不爲進逼。 俄而倭先放砲, 唐兵一時跑馬廝殺, 交戰良久, 倭人中箭被棍死者, 幾至五六百, 斬級三十餘顆, 解副摠、楊叅政, 各手斬二級。 而倭賊登山擧白旗, 天安大軍, 卽刻雲集, 衆寡不敵, 各自退守。 解摠兵等四將, 去夜發稷山前來, 唐兵亦多死者云。’ 且提督卽刻發放各營, 使之盡數出陣江邊, 仍爲野營云, 且發令旗, 使擺遊擊, 抄領精兵二千五百, 迎擊於水原之路云。 敢啓。" 傳曰: "知道。"
@SSD
Delete“棍死” should mean "bludgeon to death", rather than referring to specific weapon.
"Seven thousand Jurchens could resist a hundred thousand Japanese."
ReplyDelete— Li Ru Mei's impression of the capabilities of Japanese army.
surely this is exaggeration??
Of course. Li Ru Mei was boasting to the (King of) Koreans.
DeleteHaving said that, Li Ru Mei certainly did pretty well against the Japanese, all things considered.
DeleteFrankly it's surprising to me Li Ru Mei and the Ming did so well against the Japanese. The Ming military was overstretched and outnumbered. Whereas the Japanese had the numbers, made up of battle hardened samurai and disciplined Ashigaru led by the best generals of the Sengoku Jidai, with the best muskets in the world made in large numbers.
Delete@Der
DeleteFor the most part cavalry still had a clear edge over infantry, so this isn't surprising.
@Der
DeleteJapanese army in Korea severely lacked in both cavalry and artillery department, which was inexusable during this era, as both cavalry and field cannons played huge role in defeating enemy army.
@Dmitry
DeleteThere were very few good pastures to raise war horses in feudal Japan. Only in some area of Kanto region did they have adequate pasture land. In fact, the Ming also suffered the lack of war horses during the early reign of Hongwu and Yongle emperors, but the Ming had a centralized government, huge resources and border trade system to address the issue.
@Der
DeleteThey did poorly on open field battle because the matchlock was not a "quick firing" weapon, and they didn't develop efficient pike and shot tactics similar to the Spanish tercio, their tactical formations look like medieval (organized around noble knights) rather than early modern. But they performed really well in defending stronghold and castles, where the discipline and skill in matchlock were in full effect.
This is a very interesting article, hats off to your desire to shed some light on this largelly unknown conflict to the Western audience, but I can't understand one thing: how could Japanese forces constantly get surprised by Ming and Joseon army despite possessing numerical advantage and maintaining long defensive castle chain? Although they lacked cavalry and heavy artillery, it seems strange for them to essentially lose all head to head engagements against the Chinese.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteWell, in the case of Ulsan the Japanese were caught off guard (my personal speculation is that they miscalculated how fast a cavalry army could march), but this wasn't always the case. A few Righteous Army contingents actually attacked Ulsan several days before Ming army arrive, and the Japanese army made short work of them.
Both Byeokjegwan (see my other blog post) and Jiksan were Japanese victories as well. Japanese army performed poorly despite huge numerical advantage, but a victory is a victory, regardless of how poor their performance was - it's the outcome that matters.
I did read your Byokjegwan post, it was superb and even made me write a short story about - I had a blast with it so thank you once again.
DeleteSaying "losing" is somewhat a bold statement on my part, I agree, but still it's somewhat strange for Japanese to generally pull back before Ming advance. Was it really because of severe lack of cavalry so they had troubles attacking themselves?
I have trouble replying comment atm, will get back to you later.
DeleteYes, it is strange the Japanese didn't do better with numerical superiority, battle hardened, etc, etc.
DeleteI can only speculate, but I think it comes down to more than just equipment and numbers. The Japanese for centuries fought only other Japanese in clan based warefare. Before the Imjin War, the last time the Japanese fought outsiders were the Mongols in the 13th century and before that was the Baekche Restoration War in the 7th century against the Tang! The Japanese being an insular island nation simply were not exposed to outside military techniques and developments. Japan is like the Galapagos Islands, isolated from the rest of the world for so long they developed their own ways of warfare. These uniquely Japanese ways of warfare were simply not up to par against the Ming, ... despite being the latter stages of decline, the Ming was still a military power than fought Mongols/Jurchens in the North, tribal peoples in Burma/Yunnan, Wako pirates on the eastern coast and even internal rebellions in China itself. The Chinese were obsessed with logistics so supply officials and bureaucrats were just as important as soldiers while the Japanese didn't seem to realize they needed Korean cooperation to maintain supply lines back to Japan. I guess the difference between the Ming and the Japanese is the difference between soldiers and warriors ... fighting as a profession and fighting because of ones social class?? In the Early Modern Period the soldier slowly displaced the warrior, technical skills outclassed bravery. We saw the same thing with the Ottoman victories against the feudal armies of Europe, like the Battle of Mohacs where professional Janissaries mowed down the brave Hungarian knights.
Indeed, for some time Ottoman military was above anything European kingdoms could field.
DeleteNote: I'm not downplaying East Asian military engagements and neither am I defending the Japanese, it's just my general observation.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, Ōkōchi Hidemoto (大河内秀元), witness and survivor of the siege, recorded that Japanese army suffered a mind-boggling 18,360 casualties on the first day alone.
I'm no specialist on the Imjin War, but this seems to be extremely and unlikely high number. It's easily the biggest number of casualties of any side suffered throughout the entirety of the war, and the one which was delivered on relatively small territory during relatively short amount of time. Few battles of this era can match this amount of casualties inflicted in a single day. Plust, that would mean the entirety of Japanese army would collapse and flee, as that number is like the entirety of garrison plus large chunk of the relief force. I have a feeling this is exaggeration. What do you personally think of this number?
I am glad you ask that question, because there are more information that I would like to convey, but can't fit into the blog post (the blog post is already super bloated, and it's only day 2).
DeleteNow, to make one thing clear - Japanese army had around 20,000 troops garrisoned in Ulsan fortress complex, so losing 18,360 won't wipe them out completely.
Secondly, regardless of our feelings toward that number, Ōkōchi Hidemoto's diary is still the only primary Japanese source from a first-hand witness (that contains casualty figure). We can't simply dismiss a witness account just because we "feel" it doesn't sounds right.
Nevertheless, Ōkōchi Hidemoto actually recorded three Japanese casualty figures: Japanese casualties on the first day (i.e. night raid/field battle), Japanese troops that starved/freezed to death for the entire duration of the siege, as well as casualties among Japanese relief force.
Conspicuously, he did not record Japanese casualties on the second day (i.e. Ming assault on Ulsan fortress complex). Some theorise that the 18,360 figure was the combined casualties for the first and second day, rather than for the first day only. Personally I find this theory plausible.
The problem here is that even first-hand witnessess can and often do exaggerate their losses and hardships. For example, French mercenary officer on Polish service during the siege of Glughiv in 1663 Antoine de Garmon wrote down that one of the Polish assaults on the city costed them more than 4,000 killed and "innumerous number" of wounded, which isn't reflected on any other primary sources (including those on the opposing side) and doesn't match up with recorded losses of the Polish army. We also know that Ottoman chronicles describing their army in 1596 to be 150,000 strong also exaggerated their forces, even though it would make more sense to do so with the enemy.
DeleteI know I stand on shaky ground and apologize for my probable stubborness on this matter, yet I have a feeling Okochi could exeggerate. Are there any army lists and field reports which could indicate fluctuation of personnel in Japanese armies? Surely this big loss of life would somehow reflect that.
Although if there are no other primary sources which discuss that, I suppose I can't back my claims with anything and it simply touches on the subject of faith.
Indeed it is possible (in fact, quite likely) that Ōkōchi Hidemoto exaggerated in some ways, although we don't have other numbers to make comparison and thus the extend of his exaggeration can't be known.
DeleteWe can be fairly certain that Japanese army suffered very serious and possibly catastrophic loss during the first day (or first two days), considering that Ming army was able to rapidly capture so many fortresses with minimal loss during the second day.
When do you think you'll be done?
ReplyDeleteNo idea, the siege lasted for twelve days, and I am only on day 2.
DeleteWould you ever consider doing a post on the Tumu crisis? I can hardly believe 20,000 mongol horsemen destroyed an army of 500,000 Chinese troops no matter how badly trained they were
ReplyDeleteI have other plan at the moment. I've been writing losing battles for a while now, so I want to write a winning one.
DeleteI haven't done much research on Tumu Crisis, and one can't write about Tumu Crisis without discussing the subsequent Siege of Beijing (1449) anyway.
Now I'm curious, what winning battle are you working on?
DeleteA post-Imjin War battle against the Mongols.
DeleteWhat is the battle called?
DeleteI thought most of the mongolian conflicts stopped after the whole Altan Khan thing in the 1580s when the Ming finally agreed to trade
DeleteBattles of Huangzhong. Altan Khan already died by that point.
DeleteDo you have the characters for HuangZhong I've never heard of this battle and am curious
DeleteHuangZhong is a name of a place (Huangzhong district). The battle is relatively unheard of, and currently I am having a very hard time translating all those Mongol names.
DeleteA minor correction, the battles actually happened concurrently with Imjin War.
Concurrently with the Imjin War? wow! the Ming did have a lot on their plate. Did the Ming leadership consider Korea a minor affair and the Japanese a minor threat compared with the Mongols and Jurchen??
DeleteHow many troops were involved if this battle is unheard of?
Delete@ Unknown
DeleteThe war involved tens of thousands of troops on multiple sides (Tibetans were involved on the side of Ming).
@Der
Japan wasn't a minor threat, but Mongols and Jurchens were still more concerning.
What sources are you using for this mongolian battle?
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for posting this. I actually used to live in Ulsan a few years ago as an English teacher and was lucky enough to visit the remains of the fortress. I always got the impression that this was a tourist site the local people weren't entirely comfortable with (which is understandable considering later history). I'll be interested to read your conclusions as I remember the site information played up the siege as a strategic victory and a humiliation of the Japanese forces. On the other hand, the Japanese accounts I've seen tend to play it as a successful strategic withdrawal after the Ming forces wrecked themselves trying to take the walls.
ReplyDelete@anon
DeleteHello and welcome to my blog. Since it'll be a while before I complete this, I will spoiler you a bit about the conclusion: The battle was a Japanese victory, as Ming army wasn't able to capture Dosan Fortress. However, the Japanese talking point about "Ming forces wrecked themselves" was patently untrue, as Ming only suffered miniscule casualties for the siege.
On the other hand, Japanes army suffered massive casualties due to the siege, and it completely derailed their plan of next phase invasion. Many commanders petitioned Hideyoshi to abandon some fortresses in order to shrink down the battlefront to a more managable size, and Hideyoshi tried to restart negotiation with drastically reduced terms. Japanese situation was actually extremely chaotic and unstable, but this golden opportunity was promptly wasted by Ming Dynasty due to serious internal political struggle (which persisted until the end of the war). By the time the next three sieges (Ulsan 2nd, Suncheon, Sacheon) were launched, Japanese had restabilised their footholds whereas Ming army had become rife with internal feuds and politicking.
-and it completely derailed their plan of next phase invasion.
DeleteWhat is "their plan of next phase invasion"?
Hideyoshi was planning a third invasion in 1599.
DeleteYes, "next phase" refers to that 1599 invasion.
DeleteWhen is next update?
ReplyDeleteI am tied down by IRL stuffs, but hopefully I can write something today or tomorrow.
DeleteThe siege starts to look really intriguing, any chance on update?
ReplyDeleteI need to squeeze out more time...
Delete站主你覺得朱爾旦的"萬曆朝鮮戰爭全史"這書如何? 我聽說評價好像很不錯,但價錢有點貴。
ReplyDelete應該很不錯。我有個友人有買,正在託他想辦法幫我多買一份。
Delete如果能入手我大概會把這本書當作以後寫萬曆朝鮮戰爭的主要參考資料。
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems really strange for entire army to start starving and losing horses en masse after just a week of fighting.
ReplyDeleteIMO there are multiple reasons:
DeleteMing army was running out of food before reaching Ulsan, so it had starved for more than one week. On top of shortage of supply, distribution of supply was also a problem.
It was also winter (in fact, January was the coldest month in Korea), with temperature often dropping below freezing point. This likely limited the availablilty of forage.
Also for that entire week both sides were engaging in battle almost constantly. When they were not fighting they were busy collecting firewood for the next attack/guarding the river/fixing damaged parts of the fortress. Exhaustion alone would probably do a number on both men and horses.
I should also add that generally speaking, human can only suvive for around five to eight days without food and water, but can live much longer (up to 40+ days) with access to water. So it's not surprising that Japense troops were droping like flies inside Dosan Fortress in a siege that lasted only twelve days.
DeleteOn the other hand, Ming army actually starved for longer (food ran out before the army even reached Ulsan), but still had access to water, so it came out of the siege with comparatively miniscule casualties.
As for the horse, reminder that horse are trickle eaters that have to constantly nibble on something to keep their digestive system in good condition, and may develop potentially life-threatening complications if not properly fed for as short as 10+ hours. Even by itself, going without food for nine days WILL kill the horses en masse.
Hey, do you have that one quote that's something like how the Japanese arquebuses can deafen you, but the Ming cannons can shake the earth? It's also from the Imjin war
ReplyDelete"倭銃之聲,雖四面俱發,而聲聲各聞,天兵之炮,如山崩地裂,山原震盪,不可言狀"
DeleteThank you!
DeleteWhat is that quote from and what's the context of it? Seems like perfect one-liner for a hollywood imjin war action movie hahaha
Delete@Fyre
DeleteIt's from Seonjo Sillok, and from a series of Q&A between Korean King and Yi Deok-hyeong & Yi Won-ik about current situation of the conflict, various aspects of China, Japan, and Korean military, logistics etc.
@C
ReplyDeleteSorry I mistakenly deleted your comment.
Accurate telling of the event requires careful reading of multiple sources from all three sides as well as modern archaeological researchs, have a firm grasp on Ulsan's geography, and see through lies and exaggeration in the sources.
To be honest it is beyond my ability to do research of this scale. I just ask around and translate the work of others.
Latter parts of the battle make me imagine it looking frighteningly similar to this picture (with Ming in the front).
ReplyDeletehttps://i.redd.it/out3msngcqb01.jpg
LMAO. The last good part has yet to come. The retreat is one of the highlights of Siege of Ulsan for me actually (other than the first two days) as it really shows the competence of the Ming army.
DeleteIt would be very interesting if you write about other battles of the imjin war
ReplyDeleteEventually.
DeleteCongratulations on finishing this article, this was a massive undertaking! I know all of the English-language books seem to completely muddle this siege up big time, but it's really impressive how detailed this reconstruction is. Kudos to whoever had to go through all the hard work of sifting through all the bullshit/embellishments and figuring out the most likely progression of events...
ReplyDeleteI guess just out of curiosity, you mentioned to me in a past comment that Japanese scholarship on the Imjin War was by far the most developed--did any of that factor into the formation of this article? Did any of the sources (if there were any secondary ones!) you referred to and the people you asked, draw upon modern Japanese historiography on the Imjin War and this battle in particular? If so, did Japanese historians reach similar conclusions? Do they share the view that Ulsan was the real turning point of the war, or do their opinions diverge in any significant ways?
Thank you.
DeleteThe person I consulted (I will add attribution to him in this blog post on a later date) does mention that Japanese historians over the years do gradually shift from taking Japanese sources at face value (i.e. Ming army suffered tens of thousands of casualties during retreat), to referring both Korean and Japanese sources, but still lean on Japanese side (i.e. claiming that the Koreans downplayed the casualties), to siding with the more trustworthy Korean sources, using the works of Tokutomi Sohō (1863-1957), Kinzō Watanabe (1874-1965) and Manji Kitajima (1935-2018) as example.
He does not mention on how Japanese historians view the significance of this battle though. This battle became the turning point not only because Ming army dealt a heavy blow to Kato Kiyomasa, but because other factors that happened on the Ming-Joseon side as well (Hopefully I can elaborate on it later).
I found your anecdote about "defected Japanese" troops joining the Ming/Korean forces to attack their former compatriots. I'm interested to know why they would defect? and why would they join in the fight against the Japanese, being Japanese themselves, why would they turn traitor?
ReplyDeleteDefection could happen for any number of reasons: mistreatment by own side, escaping punishment, infighting, bribery, forced at sword point, stragglers trying to survive by any means necessary, etc.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI already described as such in the prelude ("achieved all initial objectives" and "consolidate"). Yes, Japanese building the fortress network to prepare for the next invasion was the original plan.
DeleteHowever, the strategy fall apart because of Siege of Ulsan.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteWait for my analysis update.
DeleteIt did though, the situation after the siege became so unstable for the Japanese that multiple prominent daimyos petitioned Hideyoshi to abandon some of the fortresses they just built to shirnk down the defensive network, and Hideyoshi himself even tried to restart the peace talk.
The original plan, as decided by the Japanese war council held in Jincheon in 1597, was to restart the invasion after the winter, in the spring of 1598. Siege of Ulsan caused that plan to fall apart, so the invasion had to be pushed back for another year (1599).
In other words, the 1599 invasion plan itself was the direct result of derailment caused by siege of Ulsan.
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ReplyDeleteI like your professional articles. I don't want to comment. I want to be a quiet follower. Please delete this comment. sorry.
DeleteJincheon war council was also recorded by Ōkōchi Hidemoto. I think there were three war councils being held by Japanese commanders around that time (before and soon after Jiksan): Jeonju, Jincheon, and Jeongeup.
DeleteThe planned 1599 Invasion would be headed by Fukushima Masanori, Mashita Nagamori, and Ishida Mitsunari.
Really enjoying this post (was going to write "enjoyed" but you're still adding more apparently!). The different and partisan nature of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean perspectives are really interesting. I'm curious if you have any rule of thumbs for deciding on how you come to your conclusions about what actually happened. Say, if the Japanese and Chinese sources agree but the Korean source tells something very different, err on the side of the former two. Not saying I think you actually do this but just giving an example for illustration.
ReplyDeleteIt's rarely that simple, sometimes different people looked at the same event and report it in seemingly contradicting manner, even though they are both telling the truth. Sometimes different historians looked at the same source and come out with wildly different interpretations etc. So, except in the case where the record blatantly defiles logic, there really isn't a "rule of thumb".
DeleteVery often seemingly minor details like "where is this site located" or "when does this thing happen" can drastically alter the narrative/reconstruction of the event, more so than number crunching. To be honest I wrote half the blog post before realising that, f*ck, the Japanese flotilla actually came from the east, not the west. That's the reason I keep trying to redo the maps.
A VERY significant portion of the blog post also contains information/details/sources that are beyond my capabilities to access/analyse, so I have to rely on consulting with people more knowledgeable than me, or translating their writings. I will credit them after I am done.
Your mention of the southern troops leaving their northern buddies(?) out to dry on the second day is interesting to me--were these Zhejiang infantry or some of the Tusi contingents (Wolf troops et al?)? I'm curious because the 'popular' English narrative of the Ming military in the Imjin War (you see this in Turnbull, Swope, and Hawley!) was that the Northern troops were overconfident assholes who kinda didn't know what they were getting into, and the Southern troops were hyper-comptent but also humane and gentlemanly, with "Southern" tending to just describe the Zhejiang troops even though not that many marched all the way to Korea in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI'm guessing this is mainly because of all the Korean accounts being very favourable to the Zhejiang infantry (not to mention our various Joseon sources really not liking Li Rusong or his buddies, and describing northern Chinese troops as wearing no armour, Qian Shizhen's diary that alludes to the rivalry between southern and northern troops, and also Swope mentioning that Li Rusong spoke highly of Qi Jiguang's tactics when facing the Japanese), and while we probably have little reason to doubt the good impression they left on the Koreans, this incident seems to be an apparently rare case where 'Southern' troops were behaving rather selfishly and compromising the siege. I get the sense from reading your post here and the others you've translated from the Chinese netizen, that one of the myths you're also trying to dispel is that the Northern Chinese contingents weren't in fact utterly clueless and hilariously overconfident in fighting the Japanese, but were fairly competent and held their own despite all of the problems they faced in both invasions.
Just how bad was the north/south rivalry, especially at this phase of the war, and how did these troops compare in terms of discipline and fuckups (though my impression is that the worst of it seemed to be due to factionalism in the Ming court and the dove/hawk struggle)? Your post also debunks the often-mentioned messy retreat of the Ming thanks to Yang Hao, but there's also the gunpowder accident at Sacheon, though I guess any army would be in complete disarray after something as disastrous as that...
Zhejiang infantry refers to Chinese troops from Zhejiang, which was/is a Han-majority region (and part of the core region of China or "China proper"), and famously the place where Qi Jiguang recruited the anti-wokou troops. Soldiers from Zhejiang were typically modelled after Qi Jiguang troops/tactics. They were not under the Tusi system.
DeleteYes, all things considered, Northern troops performed better than their Southern counterpart. They were still kinda assholish though, especially the Mongol troops. (As a side note, I recently learnt of the Japanese description of Chinese cavalry during Siege of Ulsan. Apparently Han troops wore red uniform with white armours, while Mongols wore black).
While Northern and Southern Chinese troops generally didn't like each other, they could still tolerate each other's presence, and work together if needed be. Most of the bickering were actually about who should take credit and reward for battlefield achievement(s).
Using Siege of Ulsan as example, the primary factionalism problem within Ming army was actually between Yang Hao and Ma Gui, two highest-ranking commanders of the army. Li Ru Mei was close to Yang Hao, while Bai Sai and Yang Deng Shan were Ma Gui's men. That's why those three were dispatched ahead of the army on Day 1 (to prevent one side from hoarding all the credit).
Then again, Ma Gui planned the entire Day 1 night raid, so he thought he (or his subordinates) should take credit for the victory. However, Yang Hao thought that Li Ru Mei should take credit, since he was the vanguard, basically defeated the entire Japanese garrison at Byeongyeongseong (note that Byeongyeongseong was not a small garrison, it actually rivalled Ulsan Fortress in area size) with only 300 cavalry, and scored the most kill. This caused a lot of troubles between the two, and was the reason why Ma Gui forcibly ordered Li Ru Mei to retreat on Day 2.
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DeleteDang, thanks for the detailed reply!
DeleteI think I might have been a bit too vague with my wording regarding the Zhejiang troops! I was just wondering if our sources ever identify the southern troops (that abandoned the northern Chinese attacking the eastern gate) in question--if they were the Zhejiang infantry, or the less disciplined Tusi troops that were deployed in greater numbers during the second invasion.
I actually recall Swope describing Ming troops assaulting Ulsan as "apparently making good targets with their red armor and white helms." (p. 257) His footnotes indicate he gleaned this information from the Taiko-ki (Hideyoshi's biography), sections of the 'Chosen Seibatsuki', and 'Chosen no Eki' for his Japanese sources, though he also refers to a bunch of Chinese sources as well. I don't he ever mentions the Mongol retinues at all in his account of the battle though.
@Bleb
DeleteThe feud between Yang Hao and Ma Gui also caused Ma Gui to kept his mouth shut and simply let Yang Hao do his thing out of anger for the duration of the siege (hence Ma Gui is largely left out of the picture after Day 2).
The only prominent Southern commander in the Left Division at the time was Mao Guo Qi, a Zhejiangnese, so the “Southern troops" were definitely Zhejiang infantry.
Chen Yin was also a Southern commander in the Left Division, but he was busy attacking Dosan Fortress from another direction. He was not born in Zhejiang, but his troops were Zhejiang infantry as well.
Another Southern commander was Wu Wei Zhong, who was probably the most senior Southern commanders (a long-time former Qi Jiguang's subordinate). He was in Middle Division though.
Swope probably got it from the same source, but somehow come out with different translation.
@Bleb
DeleteWhere did you hear that Tusi troops or Wolf Troops were deployed in greater numbers in the second invasion? Most southern troops sent to Korea were Zhejiang troops and not from other southern regions due to the greater distances involved. I'm aware that Liu Ting might have commanded some Tusi troops, but I don't think there were other Tusi troops involved. Overall their participation was very trivial and insignificant.
I don't have an exact source though I do recall GMM mentioning in a comment on the Langbing article that more of them were potentially sent to Korea than the Zhejiang troops.
DeleteHe also mentions that other Tusi like the Tu Bing had participated in the Imjin War... but I'm not really sure of the numbers! My Imjin War knowledge sucks since I don't really have access to any primary sources, and even if I did I suck too much to be able to read any of 'em!
@Bleb
DeleteIt's impossible that more Lang Bing were sent to Korea than Zhejiang troops, for two reasons. First is the greater distances involved. I think many people fail to grasp the size and diversity of Southern China. Lang Bing originated from Guangxi, which is more than 1,000 to 2,000 km further away from Korea than Zhejiang, and that's a huge distance to travel in ancient times. Secondly, Lang Bing were usually led by their tribal chieftains, or if not by a general from that region. Yet I don't recall any Tusi chiefs participated in the Imjin War, and the only generals that might have led Lang Bing or Tusi troops were Chen Lin from Guangdong and Liu Ting from Sichuan, yet they only participated at the last moment and didn't really see that much action.
Hence, I don't think there were more Lang Bing sent to Korea than Zhejiang troops, due to the distance involved, and due to not having their chiefs with them.
@Bleb
DeleteNote that Qian Shizhen himself was leading troops from Ji Garrison (i.e. Northern troops).
@Unknown
As far as I can tell, Chen Lin had at least 4,600 Wolf troops under him, that should already outnumber all Southern troops during the first invasion (3,000 under Wu Wei Zhong and 600 under Luo Shang Zhi, ).
But we're talking about the second invasion here, not the first invasion. In the second invasion there should be more Zhejiang troops. And also the only major battle that Chen Lin participated was the Battle of Noryang, hence they didn't really see that much action. The battles on land were still mostly fought by northern troops and Zhejiang troops.
Delete@Unknown
DeleteYou'ere right. I double checked mobilisation records that I could find. There were indeed more Zhejiang troops in Korea than Guangdong troops.
A logistics report written by Yang Hao on May 4, 1598 gives a good overview of Ming strength in Korea (at the time). From the report, we can know the status of Southern troops:
Eastern Route
3,900 Southern troops under Wu Wei Zhong (place of origin not specified but presumably Zhejiang)
4,000 Southern troops under Chen Yin & Ye Si Zhong (place of origin not specified)
Middle Route
1,600 Zhejiang troops under Ye Bang Ron
2,900 Zhejiang troops and 1,000 Miyun troops under Mao Guo Qi.
4,000 Zhejiang troops (yet to arrive)
Western Route
12,000 Sichuan troops under Liu Ting (yet to arrive)
3,300 Zhejiang troops under Lan Fang Qi
1,500 Nangan troops (yet to arrive)
Naval route
Fujian: 2,180 (1,000 yet to arrive)
Wusong: 2,000
Guangdong: 8,000 under Chen Lin and Zhang Liang Xiang (3,000 yet to arrive)
Zhejiang: 6,400 (3,100 yet to arrive)
Langshan: 1,500 (yet to arrive)
Jiangbei: 3,000 (yet to arrive)
Slight mistake, it was Lan Fang Wei, not Lan Fang Qi.
DeleteAlso, although Lan Fang Wei followed Liu Ting to Korea, he participated in Siege of Sacheon instead of Suncheon
I might be wrong, but I'm under the impression that only troops from Guangxi were the real Lang Bing. Granted I know that some troops from Guangdong were called Lang Bing as well, but I don't think all Guangdong troops were called Lang Bing.
ReplyDeleteLang Bing were generally but not exclusively from Guangxi. In 《再造藩邦志》, about 4,600~4,950 Guangdong Regiment troops under Zhang Ru Wen (張汝文), a subordinate of Chen Lin, were explicitly referred to as Lang Tu Bing.
DeleteWu Guang also had another 5,500 Lang Tu Bing from Guangdong.
That's still a meager number compared to Zhejiang troops, and also I don't think Guangdong troops were the same as Guangxi Lang Bing despite both can be referred to as such. The original Lang Bing were from Guangxi. And not to mention that they only participated in the last naval battle of the Imjin War which was the Battle of Noryang, and didn't really see much action elsewhere. Koreans had a much deeper impression of Zhejiang troops and of northern troops than of Lang Bing.
Delete@Unknown
DeleteWhile Guangdong troops may or may not be Lang Bing, those under Zhang Ru Wen and Wu Guang were explicitly called by that name ("Lang Tu Bing"), so they definitely count.
(Otherwise classification of troops origin will become very weird. For example, Wu Weizhong's troops came from Ji Garrison, a Northern Garrison, but they were still treated as "Southern troops". There's also the issue of whether troops on Zhejiang fleet should count as typical "Zhejiang infantry", since they had few in common).
There are however significant confusions regarding Chen Lin and Battle of Noryang.
DeleteWhile Chen Lin was the overall commander of Ming navy for the battle, he personally brought very little troops to Korea (as few as 500, possibly fewer). The majority of the Ming ships that fought in Noryang were under Ji Jin, which came from Wusong (majority), Langshan, Zhejiang and Jiangbei.
Wu Guang didn't seem to participate in Battle of Noryang. Lang Bing were land troops after all.
If there were around 10,000 Lang Tu Bing sent to Korea as you claimed (which is not a small number considering that the total troops sent there during the Second Invasion were around 75,000), then the Koreans (and the Japanese) should have left an impression of them, since Lang Tu Bing were fairly easily distinguishable from northern troops and Zhejiang troops by their appearance, their armor, their weapons, and their fighting styles. Yet we found no such mentions from neither the Koreans nor the Japanese. That's the reason why I don't really believe your numbers regarding to Lang Tu Bing.
DeleteAnd Lang Tu Bing were mostly from the southernmost part of China, which is very far from Korea. That would put severe logistic strains on the Ming if they choose to recruit troops from that area. Just for reference in 1555 the Ming indeed recruited Lang Bing from Guangxi to fight the Wokou in Zhejiang, and it took them a few months just to get to Zhejiang.
@Unknown
Delete《再造藩邦志》 is itself a Korean source, and both the numbers of Lang Tu Bing and the names of their commanders came from that source, so Lang Tu Bing did leave an impression on the Koreans. Doubting that number based on the lack of impression also amount to argument from silence fallacy.
The Koreans had higher opnion on Zhejiang troops even at the expense of Northern troops, despite Northern troops outnumbering Southern troops pretty substantially and fought in nearly all land battles of Imjin War. I'd assume other troops got the same treatment by them. Also, what little Japanese impressions had on Ming infantry (that I know) seem to describe Northern infantry.
The total troops sent to Korea was nearly 100,000.
Eight months passed between Siege of Ulsan and Four Route Offensive, so there was plenty of time.
Now, this isn't to say you can't raise doubt about the numbers, it's just that "lack of Korean impression" and "distance of Guangdong to Korea" are extremely flimsy reasons to discredit the numbers I pulled directly from historical source. You need to do better.
DeleteA more likely possibility is that Korean sources sometimes double-counted Ming troops or treat a detachment that split from its parent unit as additional troops, due to lack of understanding of Ming military structure/hierarchy. This applies to all kinds of Ming units and not just Lang Bing, however.
Whether it applies to THIS case, I still need to double check.
It's not flimsy, cause we do have actual evidence about Ming employing Lang Tu Bing to fight Wokou, they departed from Guangxi and it took them a few months to arrive in Zhejiang. Korea is at least more than two times away from Guangxi than Zhejiang, so it would at least take them anywhere between half a year to a year to arrive in Korea. That's very impractical from a logistic POV. I've heard that when the Imjin War broke out even the Siam kingdom (Thailand) asked if they could send an army to Korea to fight the Japanese, however their offer was refused by the Ming. So if the Ming really had the logistics to move a substantial amount of troops from the Far South to the Far North, then why would they refuse the Siamese?
DeleteDoubting is what improves our understanding of the issues in the world, be them historical issues or others. It's what makes science moves forward. The records were written by ordinary people like you and me, not by gods or saints, and people make mistakes. So the records aren't doubtless, especially not when concerning numbers since Confucians (most of the records regarding ancient China and Korea were written by Confucian scholars) didn't put a high value on maths, science, technology, and commerce.
And based on your description of Lang Bing about their ability to fight in small groups or squads, their ferocity, and certain of their armors and weapons (like poison crossbow and javelins for instance), if there were really that many of them who participated in the war, then Koreans and Japanese should have a much deeper impression of them, not just a very slight mention. Yet most of Korean and Japanese records were describing Zhejiang troops or Northern troops. This tells me that either they didn't really get a chance to fight due to arriving too late, or very few of them were sent there.
Delete@Unknown
DeleteThe reasons you gave are flimsy because it is based on speculation, assumptions and hearsay.
The Guangxi to Zhejiang case, even if true, may be caused by many other factors such as delays, time spend on recruitment/training/equipping, or simply because the troops were indisciplined and went to do other things. Those factors may not come into play during the time of Imjin War. Also, just because the troops came from Guangdong doesn't mean the supply also had to come from Guangdong. Supply came from the most convenient/available Chinese territory or contributed by the Koreans, regardless of troop origin.
Not to mention it doesn't take anywhere that near long to move from Guangdong to Korea. Chen Lin himself was from Guangdong, and Wu Guang fought in Siege of Suncheon with his Guangdong troops. Regardless of how you feel about Korean records, we know for a fact that Guangdong troops could, and DID, make it to Korea in time.
Siam case is even more simple: Ming Dynasty eventually refused because of political reasons, not logistics.
"Confucians didn't put a high value on maths, science, technology, and commerce."
Wrong and has no relavance to the topic we are discussing. You don't need calculus and abstract numbers to calculate head count. Yes, the writters were not saints but ordinary people like you and me, which means they had at least basic level of competency in math, like you and me.
Again, not saying that you can't cast doubt on the numbers, but the reasons you give so far are too flimsy to challenge/dismiss it. (you can also read my discussion with Dmitry about Japanese casualties on Day 1 as well).
I've repeatedly said that I am currently double-checking to see if the record holds up. One day I might even find something concrete enough to dismiss it, but it won't be the reasons in this comment chain.
“then Koreans and Japanese should have a much deeper impression of them, not just a very slight mention. ”
DeleteI should remind you that this is a repeat of argument from silence fallacy.
Also, a number of Zhejiang commanders and teachers stayed in Korea and helped to teach them their ways/rebuild Joseon army during the negotiation phase, which may explain deeper Korean understanding/impression of Zhejiang troops.
Speaking of Korean accounts, isn't there that comment on the Langbing article that links to a picture of uh, literal werewolves, or monkeys, embedded in the Ming army? You suspected there that it might have been referring to Liu Ting's 'weird circus legion'
Deletehttp://pds21.egloos.com/pds/201412/21/34/a0053134_5495d8c01f486.jpg
If it's legit, it definitely seems to be the case that even some of the more 'exotic' Ming troops brought over there left a big impression on the Koreans, even if they ended up being rather fantastical. Or straight out of a furry convention.
So what you're suggesting is that when the Chinese were fighting the Wokou a mere few decades before the Imjin War, everything was terrible no organization no logistics and it took several months to travel from Guangxi to Zhejiang. And yet when the Imjin War started everything was fine the logistics was perfect. Is that what you're suggesting? Yet this contradicts with what you've written in your blog post. If Chinese logistics during the war was perfect and it can transport large quantities of troops from faraway places like Guangxi and Guangdong to Korea, then why Ming troops were starving and why they depended on Korean logistics?
DeleteAnd the points that I raised are valid points, just because you cannot refute them doesn't make them flimsy.
@Bleb
DeleteFirst of all, Lang Bing weren't dressed like monkeys or wolves. The word "Lang" originally was written like "俍" with a human radical on the left rather than a dog radical, and it was an ethnonym which referred to the ancestors of the Zhuang and Dong peoples. It's only later that it got confused or mixed up with "狼" the character for wolf. I don't deny that the Lang Bing might have worn some exotic forms of armor like rattan or lacquered leather, but they definitely didn't dress like animals.
Secondly, based on the description of Lang Bing (like their ability to fight in highly coordinative small squads, their proficiency with crossbows, and their ferocity), you'd expect that they would leave a much deeper impression to Koreans and Japanese. Yet the Koreans and Japanese records were all describing Zhejiang troops and Northern troops, there were barely any record whatsoever for Lang Bing. If it was indeed the case that a large quantity of them were sent to Korea, then why there's so little mention of them in both Chinese and Korean/Japanese records?
@Unknown
DeleteI think this is getting a bit heated, so I hope I didn't come across as offensive or something. All I was doing was pointing out that the painting/picture in question is peculiar with the artist's choice to depict auxiliaries or more exotic Ming troops as so savage that they apparently looked "beast-like". I'm only drawing attention to this because it seems to indicate that these troops DID leave quite an impression on the Koreans, regardless of how ridiculous or fantastical these impressions ended up being.
@Unknown
DeleteYour problem is that you simply ASSUME that Guangdong-Zhejiang marsh to be the upper limit of how fast these troops could move, which is a baseless assumption. There could be many other factors that cause these troops to move slower or faster.
And then you simply take that assumption and apply it to Korea to calculate the time required to march from Guangdong to Korea, which is what makes your point extremely flimsy (i.e. your speculation is built upon baseless assumption, which itself come from an "example" that you did not even elaborate).
i.e. assumption, speculation and argument from silence (lack of impression part as per previous comment), as I've been pointing out. It is far too weak to use a speculation like this to challenge something clearly written in historical source.
Also, the fact that Wu Guan and his Guangdong troops were fighting in Korea already soundly refuted your entire point. Their mere presense demonstrates that it was physically possible to march large group of people from Guangdong to Korea fast enough to participate in Imjin War.
As for your last comment:
No, I do not "suggest" any of that so don't put words in my mouth. Those are some examples of factor that may slow down the troops, but I do not affirm any of them as definitely true or in play (note that I used the word "may", both in this comment and my previous one). You failed to elaborate on this Guangdong-Zhejiang march, so example is all I could give.
Historical sources weren't written by gods but by ordinary people, anyone can challenge or doubt what was written. Yes, I acknowledge that the points that I raised are mostly assumptions, but they're logical assumptions nonetheless.
DeleteThe point is how many Guangdong troops were present in Korea and when did they arrive? I don't doubt that a few of them can arrive in Korea, but the point is their number were very few compared to Northern troops and Zhejiang troops. And Guangxi and Guangdong are different, I don't think you can mix the two up. Although they're both quite faraway from Korea.
The 1555 battle that I mentioned was when commander Zhang Jing recruited a hereditary Tusi chief from Guangxi named Mrs. Wa and her Lang Bing troops to fight the Wokou in Zhejiang. You can look it up if you don't believe me. It took them a long time to get to Zhejiang.
@Unknown
DeleteI think we are simply going in circles here.
- Historical sources weren't written by gods and can be challenged.
Yes, no disagreement.
- Lang Bing were fewer than Northern troops & Zhejiang troops.
Fewer yes (as per my comment in the previous chain), but still a significant number given the Korean record.
- Assumptions to challenge Korean records
There are simply too many unknowns in your assumption to make it a viable challenge. To name but a few:
*We don't know whether Guangxi troops were marching at full speed to Zhejiang or not.
*We don't know how applicable the above example is to Guangdong troops to Korea, given that they were decades apart, taking different route and marching to different location, as well as numerous other factors to consider.
*The assumption that the number recorded by Koreans was too much is completely arbitrary. What makes (for example) 1,000 troops plausible, but 5,000 troops too much? What about 2,500? or 3,000? or 75,00? There is literally no standard to judge which number is too high. In other words, your doubt to that number amounts to "because I say so".
Also, I take it the 1555 battle you refer to is the famous Battle of Wangjiangjing?
I don't have many info on that battle. However, based on what I know, Lady Wa departed Tianzhou (Guangxi) on January 4th, 1555 (12th day of the last month of Jiajing 33th), and arrived at Jinshan (Zhejiang) on April 3rd. That's about 3 months. However, She fought in Shengdun (Pingwangzhen in modern China) beforehand, and stayed in Suzhou for about one month before going to Jinshan. Upon arrival, she waited for another month before fighting the famous Wangjiangjing battle.
@Bleb
ReplyDeleteEverything suggests that Northern troops and Zhejiang troops formed the majority of the Chinese troops that participated in the Imjin War, whereas troops from faraway places like Guangdong or Sichuan were either too few or didn't really participate in most battles due to logistic issues. This can be supported by Japanese and Koreans sources as well. Japanese paintings (I forgot the name) showed Chinese troops to be mostly cavalry.
I can't believe I forget to address this comment for so long.
DeleteActually, that's not exactly accurate. The majority of Ming soldiers that went to Korea were indeed Northern troops, but among the Southern infantry, surprisingly few came from Zhejiang.
For the first invasion, we have two notable Southern commanders: Wu Weizhong and Luo Shangzhi, the former led 900 Ji Garrison infantry and 2,100 Zhejiang infantry, the later led 600 Ji Garrison infantry. So, overall 2,100 Zhejiang infantry, or 3,600 if you count Ji Garrison infantry as “Zhejiang”.
For comparison, Liu Ting alone brought 5,000 Sichuanese infantry to Korea during the first invasion. He alone put Zhejiang infantry in the minority.
For the Second Invasion, there were indeed more Zhejiang troops. From what I gather, Chen Yin had 4,000, Wu Weizhong had 3,900, Mao Guoqi had 3,900, Ye Bangrong had 4,000, (counting maximum numbers). There's another commander Lan Fangwei with ~4,800 Zhejiang troops, but his troops were cavalry (we know this from Siege of Sacheon). Another commander Zhang Bang also led 4,000~6,000 Zhejiang troops, but he supposedly arrive late and only entered Korea in 1599, after the war was over.
Put together, there were around ~15,800 Zhejiang infantry in Korea throughout the Second Invasion, or 20,600 if you count cavalry. This does put them at a slight majority among Southern troops, although still fall short of being over 50% of all infantry (number of troops from Sichuan and Guangdong were about equal to them).
I wouldn't call Zhejiang infantry "participated in most battles" either. For the first invasion, they fought in Siege of Pyongyang and Battle of Angang (and somehow suffered more loses than even Battle of Byeokjegwan), for the second invasion, they fought in First Siege of Ulsan, and Siege of Sacheon (worst Ming defeat during Imjin War). Not terribly good showing for the handful of battles they participated.
It's also wrong to call troops from Sichuan and Guangdong “didn't really participate”, as they DID fought in major battle such as Siege of Suncheon. It wasn't due to logistic issues either, since that issue affected everyone, not just limited tot them.
The reasons they didn't fought more were, ironically, largely caused by Zhejiang troops: Chen Yin kickstarted the Ding Yingtai debacle, causing entire Ming army to be beset in chaos and confusion, devastating its morale. The disastrous defeat at Sacheon caused two other routes to retreat. After those defeats, Ming army secretly enter ceasefire talks with the Japanese, allowing them to return to Japan. This was, again, initiated by Mao Guoqi, another Zhejiang commander.
Hi, sorry this comment is slightly unrelated to your original post but would it be possible if you could direct me to some books that describe these battles?; (车岘之战、万福寺之战、乡校后峰之战、南原南村之战、求礼之战、潺水驿之战)
ReplyDeleteI saw these battles mentioned in an Imjin War article describing numerous other Ming and Japanese land battles. However, it only briefly named these and when I search up their individual names I can get no further detailed information on these battles. Thank you so much.
https://www.sohu.com/a/462881027_100145375
This was the original article I found it from.
Good day ANON. I can't give you to the exact quote, but I can point you the source that records these battles: Nanjung japnok《亂中雜錄/난중잡록》. You can read about (some of) them here:
Deletehttp://www.davincimap.co.kr/davBase/Source/davSource.jsp?Job=Body&SourID=SOUR002247&Lang=%ED%95%9C%EB%AC%B8&Page=3
Not much to be said about them, as these are skirmishes that happened between Battle of Jiksan and Siege of Ulsan, as Ming/Joseon forces pursued after Japanese forces that were in the process of retreating to southern coasts of Korea to build their fortresses.
Thank you so much! Do you think it's possible Japanese sources would record these engagements as well? Given that they are skirmishes I'm worried that Japanese sources would brush over these engagements in favor of more significant land battles.
DeleteIndeed you are unlikely to find them in Japanese sources unless someone significant took part in it. Had it not been Jo Gyeong-nam, (author of Nanjung Japnok), we might not even find them in Korean source. Jo Gyeong-nam was a Righeous Army leader that was active in Namwon, the skirmishes were mostly from that area.
DeleteThere are other skirmishes around the same time/same region recorded in other sources though (Sillok recorded a few, and one skirmish was recorded in a Japanese source).
I got the impression that Ming generals and Ming fans think very highly of Konishi Yukinaga. They took special precautions against him during Ulsan, mistook Kuroda Nagamasa to be him and blamed him for the failure to take Ulsan even though he was nowhere to be seen.
ReplyDeleteMore or less. Konishi Yukinaga was pretty competent and pragmatic, and overall can be considered some of the better-performing commanders on the Japan side. Losing Pyongyang wasn't purely his fault too, he bore the brunt of the then-unfamiliar Ming army alone while other Japanese commanders, like Otomo Yoshimune, abandoned him and fled.
Delete