[Timo Nieminen]

The basics: The Japanese invaded Korea in 1592, as the first stage of a planned invasion of China (and, in theory, India). The Japanese swept aside initial Korean opposition, and rapidly advanced to Seoul and captured it. Some Japanese force reached the Yalu River. The Chinese intervened to help the Koreans. The Japanese were pushed back, and peace talks went on for some years. The Japanese launched a major offensive when unhappy with the peace talks. This was defeated, and the Japanese withdrew. There is plenty of information at the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasio...1592–1598)

This war is interesting because it shows the various East Asian powers of the time in action, with there different military traditions, systems, and arms. It's one of the few time we can see end-of-Sengoku period Japanese armies in action outside Japan (another being the conquest of Okinawa).

A lot of writing about the war is partisan, with Japanese claims that the Japanese won, and only left because Hideyoshi died, and Korean claims that the victory was due almost entirely to Yi Sun Shin (leading the Korean navy) and Korean guerrillas. Accusations of partisan writing have been directed at all three major English-language books on the war. These are:

Stephen Turnbull, Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War 1592 -1598. Turnbull has been criticised for being very pro-Japanese, and for depending too much on Japanese sources. However, Turnbull also used Korean sources, and uses largely the same language to describe Korean heroics as Japanese heroics, Korean victories as Japanese victories. Turnbull is not anti-Korean. Perhaps anti-Chinese? It's much harder to get to the Chinese side of the war - the Korean and the Japanese wrote their own heroic accounts of the war, and popular fiction based on the war (e.g., Record of the Black Dragon Year / Imjin Nok), the Chinese histories of the late Ming were written in the early Qing, and the writers did not make much of late Ming Chinese success or heroism. There is a wealth of detail on battles in Turnbull - this is the book for a detailed tactical/operational picture of the war.

Kenneth Swope, A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598. Swope has been criticised for being pro-Chinese. Swope mostly mostly the Chinese intervention, using mainly Chinese sources. Swope deals with logistics and strategy, not the small detail of battles and tactics. Swope discusses the technologies used by the Chinese and Japanese forces in Kenneth M. Swope, “Crouching Tigers, Secret Weapons: Military Technology Employed during the Sino-Japanese-Korean War, 1592-1598,” Journal of Military History 69, No. 1 (Jan., 2005), pp. 11-41.

Swope and Turbull, together, provide a good coverage of the war.

The third main book is Samuel Hawley, The Imjin War: Japan's Sixteenth-Century Invasion of Korea and Attempt to Conquer China. This is the pro-Korean acount. I haven't read it, so won't comment further.

There is also Turnbull's Osprey Campaign book, The Samurai Invasion of Korea 1592-98. Said to be much inferior to his book above. I haven't read it.

Arms and armour

The Japanese army can be characterised as a musket army (or spear-and-musket). Approximately 25% of the Japanese force was gunners. The Japanese army was well-equipped, and well experienced. And large. One motivation for the war was to keep them busy outside Japan.

The Korean army can be characterised as an archery army. The bow was the key weapon, the high-status weapon. 2/3 or the Korean military examination was archery (the non-archery components were equestrian: mounted spear and polo). Training, readiness, and equipment were poor. Fortresses were poorly maintained. There was little experience.

The Chinese army was very varied. The first force sent were local force, from just across the border. They performed very poorly. The main expeditionary force was experienced, and very artillery-heavy.

Japanese muskets were among the best in the world at the time. As a result of the war, the Ming decided to improve their muskets, and tested various imported designs (their conclusion: Ottoman muskets were best, but the Japanese ones were very good, too). The Koreans immediately adopted the Japanese-style musket, and used as many as available throughout the rest of the war. Musketry was added to the military exams in 1593. In the 1620s, when Korea sent forces to help China against the Manchus, these were 80% musketeers.

Korean sources blame some of the early defeats on the superiority of Japanese swords (sharper and longer). The real problem appears to be poor leadership and poor training, and consequent poor morale. Korean forces did defeat Japanese forces in hand-to-hand fighting later in the war (naval and land), with similar equipment as at the start. See Turnbull for many examples.

Korean "turtle ships" are sometimes given much credit for the naval victories. However, there were few of them, and most of the fighting (and damage) was done by more conventional warships, such as the panokseon. Archery, musketry, and light artillery were all important in naval fighting.

Most of the artillery was light artillery. Chinese and Japanese fortresses were artillery proof, and artillery was used in sieges and battles in an anti-personnel role rather than to bring down walls. It isn't easy to bring down 15 metre thick rammed earth walls with cannon! Still, the Chinese and Korean artillery was much heavier and more plentiful than the Japanese.

Now, let me comment on what was becoming a long off-topic digression in a discussion on Chinese shields. From there,

[William P]

well i was gonna suggest starting a thread on the imjin war to seperate from the topic of that of rattan shield use but you beat me to it.

with regard to cannon, i think we're in agreement that the japanese did occasionlly use cannon but it was so sparse in its use (according to turnbull anyway)

the cannons i mentioned were breech loading swivel guns apparently
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breech-loading_swivel_gun you can see the examples.

especially compared to chinese and korean cannons which came in all shapes and sizes for all sorts of uses.
the wiki article shows an unusual korean weapon called the cannon arrow, which was a wooden shaft with an iron head shot out of cannons, this being, btw, not just an ancient weapon but part of the korean arsenal during the imjin war.
and then of course theres the famous rocket-arrow cart aka hwacha.

however your note about japanese castle being cannon proof was something turnbull failed to mention in his book on the samurai.. this might go some way to explain why they weren't used nearly as often and the japanese maybe relying on traction trebuchets flinging ovoid 'thunder crash bombs' aka gunpowder bombs which were more or less oversized fireworks without all the colour and such, or simply large rocks
whichj would have been more important in their ability to lob shots over walls and hit towers and troops
but thats guesswork on my part.


i might bring over some key quotes on the korean leadership talking about the korean letters etc regarding defeats.
just to help complete the picture

[Yu-Hsing Chen]

An old one, but let me point out that the Chinese side of the story were NOT poorly recorded as I have read into much of it myself, it included very detailed first hand account as things developed such as the compilation of letters written by the chief administrator in charge of the war operation in the first war (Song Ying Chang) along with biography accounts of generals that participated in the war, and of course the formal history (which while it was formally complied in the Qing dynasty, all the sources were based on Ming era records.)

It is actually the Japanese sources that is the most difficult , since it was spread out among the different families, many of whom died out shortly after in the aftermath of the battle of Sekigihara (for example, Konishi Yukinaga who was probably the single most active japanese daiymo in the entire war, he and his family were wiped out less than a *2* years after the war ended. ) Guys like Turnbull, full time historians , might be able to access these record, but the public can not, however, most of the Korean and Chinese archive are readily available in any major library of those country, in fact, the single most comprehensive Korean source that everyone quotes most of their work from .. aka the Annuls of Senjo is ONLINE in BOTH KOREAN AND CHINESE as records of the dynasty was written in both. anyone with high school comprehension of those language can access them easily.)

I've read all 3 account, and Hawley's was probably the most overall objective work, which is ironic since he is also the only guy who has no background in history what so ever.

The war (especially the first one) can really be summed up more or less as a hilarious logistic disaster due to epic misjudgement on Japan's part and an understandable but horrendous lie on the Korean part. suffice to say, the simple story was this, Japan's invasion plans counted on them being able to secure that year's harvest in Korea to sustain their operation, however, this assumed that Korean peasants cooperated, which really didn't happen. so what happened was that almost 80% or more of the harvest in all of Korea that year failed as peasants fled their fields all across the country.

However, the Korean court did not tell this to the Ming , and the Ming also did a poor job of information gathering, and simply assumed that they would be supported by the local Koreans when they arrive (which was also what the court told them.) only to find that it was the other way around, a ton of refugees were begging or out right attacking their baggage trains for food.

So the disaster of 1593 was that all 3 sides were starving , with the only source of food being the slow and tiny flow from China, and of course Jeolla province which didn't fall, (but was completely cut off from the Korean court and thus also the Ming military.)

It was an interesting war as equipment used by the sides were wildly different and a lot of characters that would effect their country's history in a much longer run were involved. but the war it self was really a ugly dragfest and most of the time and effort on all front were simply spent on trying to secure logistics.