The Imjin War (34 page)

That, anyway, was the hope.

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While King Sonjo and his government in exile clutched at the promise of salvation from
China, events were unfolding in southern waters that would have a much more immediate impact on Hideyoshi’s plans. Indeed, if the Japanese could be said to have been dealt with like a “swarm of ants and wasps” at any time during the Imjin War, it would be now, at the hands of naval commander Yi Sun-sin.

Following its drubbing by Yi in August, the Japanese navy under the command of Wakizaka Yasuharu, Kuki Yoshitaka, Kato Yoshiaki, and Todo Takatora, retreated to its
Pusan stronghold and did not venture west again. Hideyoshi in fact issued orders to his naval commanders not to challenge the Koreans and to cease trying to open a sea route into the Yellow Sea. They were to restrict their activities to rebuilding their strength, defending their positions at Pusan and on Koje Island, and ferrying men and supplies across the strait from Nagoya.

At his base at Yosu, Cholla Left Naval Commander Yi Sun-sin had spent the month following his return from the extraordinarily successful Hansan-do and Angolpo campaign training his men and strengthening his fleet. A number of ships that had been hastily put into production upon the outbreak of the war four months earlier were just now being completed, swelling the combined strength of the Korean navy to a respectable 166 ships, 74 of them large battleships. With this tremen
dous increase in the size of his fleet, Yi Sun-sin began to consider seriously a plan that he and Won Kyun had dreamed up back in June “for washing away the national disgrace”: a direct attack upon Pusan. Yi had discarded the scheme then as dangerous and even foolhardy. Now, flushed with the success of the previous months and possessing a navy that had tripled in size, it seemed like the right thing to do.

The operation began on September 29, when Yi Sun-sin and Cholla Right Navy Commander Yi Ok-ki led their ships east from Yosu. Kyongsang Right Navy Commander Won Kyun’s small flotilla joined the group the following day, and together they continued on in the direction of
Pusan. They reached the estuary of the Naktong River, a few kilometers west of the city, on October 4. Here a scouting craft brought word that some five hundred enemy vessels lay at anchor in Pusan harbor. The number was not unexpected, but it must nevertheless have sent a chill down the spines of even the most steely nerved of the Koreans. They had already proven themselves the most dangerous and the most confident warriors in the service of King Sonjo. They had met and defeated more than fifty enemy ships at Okpo, twenty-one ships at Tangpo, twenty-six at Tanghangpo, seventy-three off Hansan Island, and forty-two at Angolpo. They had unleashed a degree of blood-and-thunder destruction that had forced the Japanese to fall back all the way to Pusan and had left them unwilling to venture out again. But could the Koreans really take on an armada of five hundred ships? Could they challenge almost the entire bulk of the Japanese navy, concentrated in one place, at one time?

The answer came on October 5. The combined Korean fleet fought a strong east wind around the headland between the
Naktong River and Pusan, pitching and rolling heavily through the rough seas. In the waters off Pusan harbor they encountered several small groups of Japanese vessels, each of which they burned and destroyed, 24 ships in all. Then they proceeded into Pusan harbor itself, toward what Yi Sun-sin estimated to be 470 enemy ships, anchored close to shore in three sprawling masses. As the Koreans approached, they could see the crews of these ships jumping overboard and joining their comrades in the fortifications on the heights above the shore.

The fight that followed was a replay of the Battle of Sachon, but on a huge scale. The Koreans sculled their warships as close to shore as they dared, splintering the hulls of the unmanned Japanese ships with their cannons and setting them ablaze with fire arrows. The Japanese fought back from behind their fortifications on the heights above, unleashing a barrage of musket fire and a rain of arrows, and occasional stone cannonballs, “as big as rice bowls,” fired from Korean cannons that had been captured at
Pusan and Tongnae.
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But, as usual, they were unable to inflict any serious damage upon the heavy Korean warships and the warriors ensconced within. They pockmarked the thick planking with lead balls; they festooned the hulls and roofs with arrows until they bristled like porcupines. But they could not stop the Koreans, nor save their own fleet.

Yi Sun-sin and his combined fleet destroyed 130 Japanese ships in Pusan harbor that day. They would have claimed more, but the light was nearly gone. Yi thus ordered his captains to withdraw to the open sea to pass the night. According to his subsequent dispatch to the throne, Yi initially intended to return to Pusan the following day to destroy more of the enemy fleet, but discarded this plan after realizing that to deprive the Japanese of all their vessels would leave them trapped in Korea with no avenue of retreat. “[S]o I changed my operational plan to repair and re-supply our ships before returning to annihilate the enemy when he is driven to sea by a major counter-offensive on land.” It was an idea that Yi would mention frequently in the months and years to come: a coordinated, two-stage push against the Japanese that would ensure their complete annihilation, first a land attack to drive them south and back onto their ships, then a sea assault to finish them off when they were out in open water. “With this idea in mind,” Yi concluded, “I disbanded the combined fleet and returned to my headquarters on the second of ninth moon [October 6].”
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The Korean navy’s attack on
Pusan had been astonishingly successful. It had destroyed fully a quarter of the Japanese fleet at a cost of just five men killed, twenty-five wounded, and no ships lost. It had also extinguished any lingering hopes the Japanese may have had of somehow gaining access to the Yellow Sea and ferrying reinforcements to their comrades in Pyongyang. From this point onward the prospect of amassing an army in the north large enough to march on Beijing was well and truly dead.

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Despite the Wanli emperor’s edict promising “experienced troops one hundred thousand strong,” China was in no position in the fall of 1592 to dispatch a sizable army to Korea, nor did it possess anywhere near the wherewithal to launch a counter-invasion of the Japanese home islands. In October it received an offer of substantial military assistance from Nurhaci, chieftain of the united Jurchen tribes—later known as the Manchus—on China’s northeastern border, an offer that, had it been accepted, might have changed the course of the war.
Beijing, however, politely declined. Although Nurhaci had recently entered into tributary relations with China, he was seen as a serious and rising threat and acceptance of his offer to send his cavalry south into Korea tantamount to an invitation for him to further expand his power.
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No, if
China wanted to save Korea, it would have to send troops of its own. There was not a great deal it could do, however, until the Ordos Campaign against the Mongols was settled. This would not occur until October with the fall of the city of Ningxia, where the rebels had taken refuge. After that, troops would have to be shifted all the way from the Mongolian border in the northwest to Korea in the east, a journey of more than two thousand kilometers. All this would take many weeks if not months. Beijing thus started looking for ways to buy some time.

It was at this time that a tall, bearded stranger named Shen Weijing presented himself at
Beijing with an offer to help. Shen was evidently some sort of adventurer who had been attracted to the capital from Jiaxing on the central coast, near present-day Shanghai, by the emperor’s edict offering ten thousand taels of silver and noble rank to anyone who could restore peace in Korea. He was a complete unknown in government circles and was regarded by some as rather unsavory. But he had a persuasive way about him, and apparently knew a great deal about Japan through his friendship with a man who had lived in those faraway islands for several years, the captive of wako pirates. He could even speak some Japanese. He therefore seemed just the man to engage the Japanese in time-consuming but ultimately meaningless negotiations. Shen was thus granted the military title of commander and dispatched east to see what he could arrange with Konishi Yukinaga in Pyongyang.
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Shen Weijing reached the town of Uiji on Korea’s northern border in September, and in an audience with King Sonjo announced that seven hundred thousand Ming troops would soon be on the way. Sonjo, who evidently recognized hyperbole when he heard it, said that even six or seven thousand soldiers might be able to stop the Japanese if they were sent immediately to Korea. If Beijing delayed much longer, however, even a much larger army would have a difficult time in driving the enemy back.

“Your’s is a genteel country,” replied Shen smoothly, “so you do not understand the ways of war. These things cannot be rushed. The Liaodong army has just completed a campaign elsewhere in the empire, and its strength is depleted. We need to build this force up before we send it here.” When Sonjo continued to press for immediate aid, Shen tried a different tack. “The relief army needs to consider three things,” he said, “the portents of heaven, the lay of the land, and the people. These were not considered prior to the first battle of
Pyongyang, and that is why we lost.”

The meeting ended with Shen presenting King Sonjo with a supply of silver coins, a gift from the emperor in
Beijing. He offered to have the coins weighed to show that none had been pilfered en route. The king declined, indicating that he trusted the Ming envoy. But he did not. The day after this meeting, Sonjo is reported to have said, “It is hard to believe what Commander Shen says.” This mistrust of Shen would remain with Sonjo and his ministers until the end of the war.
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From Uiju, Shen Weijing proceeded south to the headquarters of the Korean army at Sunan, a short distance north of
Pyongyang. From here he sent a letter on into the city asking for a meeting with the Japanese commander. A parley was arranged for October 4. Shen left the Korean camp and proceeded to Pyongyang with just three aides and no military escort, displaying a degree of courage that impressed both the Koreans and the Japanese. “Not even a Japanese,” Konishi Yukinaga would later compliment Shen, “could have borne himself more courageously in the midst of armed enemies.”
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Upon arriving at the occupied city, Shen sat down in a cordial atmosphere with Konishi,
Tsushima daimyo So Yoshitoshi, and the monk Genso, who could read and write Chinese. The Japanese took the same approach they had tried with the Koreans during their prewar negotiations, a request for seemingly small concessions that might serve as the thin edge of the wedge leading to eventual domination. All Japan wanted, wrote Genso, was friendly relations with China and Korea. They had attempted to establish a cordial connection with the Koreans and had gone to great trouble to send embassies to Seoul over the previous few years to achieve this end. But the Koreans had unreasonably refused to reciprocate these well-intentioned gestures and send embassies of their own to Japan. Hence the present invasion had come about. Similarly, Genso went on to explain, all Hideyoshi really wanted from China was friendly relations, honest trade, and an exchange of embassies, something Beijing would undoubtedly have granted before now had the Koreans not stubbornly stood in the way.

All this talk of friendly relations was completely disingenuous coming from the leaders of an army that had just slashed its way 650 kilometers up the
Korean Peninsula, slaughtering thousands along the way. But it nevertheless struck a receptive cord with Shen. As he had explained to officials in Beijing prior to his departure, negotiations with the Japanese should be conducted with an understanding that what they really wanted was trade. Shen had previously come to this conclusion because what he knew of Japan came from a man who had been captured by Japanese wako pirates, for whom trade
was
the overriding concern. The evidence confronting Shen now of course told a very different story. From what the Koreans told him, and from what he could see with his own eyes, the Japanese were clearly intent on conquest, not on establishing trade relations. This uncomfortable fact, however, left no room for negotiation, and if there was one thing Shen wanted it was to return to Beijing with a settlement in hand—any sort of settlement, something to take him one step closer to the riches and noble title that the Wanli emperor had promised. So he readily accepted the benign intentions that the Japanese fed him and responded with assurances that he would encourage the Chinese government to extend a friendly hand. A fifty-day armistice was signed to give Shen time to bring this about. During this period he would convey the Japanese position back to his superiors in Beijing and return with a high-ranking envoy, plus hostages as a sign of goodwill. Then they would all sit down again in Seoul and draw up a lasting peace.
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The signing of the fifty-day armistice, which they had been allowed no say in, left the Koreans feeling angry and somewhat betrayed—particularly when work units of Japanese soldiers began filing out of Pyongyang to harvest crops in the neighboring fields, confident they would not be attacked. Some of the Korean commanders complained that they did not have enough provisions to keep their men idle for fifty days and that if they were going to attack they should to do so at once. But an attack now was out of the question. As untrustworthy as Shen Weijing seemed, the fact remained that he was an envoy of the imperial Ming court. The terms of the truce he had negotiated therefore had to be respected.
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