Part 2

On the 24th of May 1592 the first army corps, under the command of Konishi Yukinaga, crossed unmolested to the peninsula; next day the castle of Fusan was carried by storm, which same fate befell, on the 27th, another and stronger fortress lying 3 miles inland and garrisoned by 20,000 picked soldiers. The invaders were irresistible. From the landing-place at Fusan to the gates of Seoul the distance is 267 miles. Konishi's corps covered that interval in 19 days, storming two forts, carrying two positions and fighting one pitched battle _en route_. On the 12th of June the Korean capital was in Japanese hands, and by the 16th four army corps had assembled there, while four others had effected a landing at Fusan. After a rest of 15 days the northward advance was resumed, and July 15th saw Phyong-yang in Japanese possession. The distance of 130 miles from Seoul to the Taidong had been traversed in 18 days, 10 having been occupied in forcing the passage of a river which, if held with moderate resolution and skill, should have stopped the Japanese altogether. At this point, however, the invasion suffered a check owing to a cause which in modern times has received much attention, though in Hideyoshi's days it had been little considered; the Japanese lost the command of the sea.

Fighting at Sea.

The Japanese idea of sea-fighting in those times was to use open boats propelled chiefly by oars. They closed as quickly as possible with the enemy, and then fell on with the trenchant swords which they used so skilfully. Now during the 15th century and part of the 16th the Chinese had been so harassed by Japanese piratical raids that their inventive genius, quickened by suffering, suggested a device for coping with these formidable adversaries. Once allow the Japanese swordsman to come to close quarters and he carried all before him. To keep him at a distance, then, was the great desideratum, and the Chinese compassed this in maritime warfare by completely covering their boats with roofs of solid timber, so that those within were protected against missiles, while loop-holes and ports enabled them to pour bullets and arrows on a foe. The Koreans learned this device from the Chinese and were the first to employ it in actual warfare. Their own history alleges that they improved upon the Chinese model by nailing sheet iron over the roofs and sides of the "turtle-shell" craft and studding the whole surface with _chevaux de frise_, but Japanese annals indicate that in the great majority of cases solid timber alone was used. It seems strange that the Japanese should have been without any clear perception of the immense fighting superiority possessed by such protected war-vessels over small open boats. But certainly they were either ignorant or indifferent. The fleet which they provided to hold the command of Korean waters did not include one vessel of any magnitude; it consisted simply of some hundreds of row-boats manned by 7000 men. Hideyoshi himself was perhaps not without misgivings. Six years previously he had endeavoured to obtain two war-galleons from the Portuguese, and had he succeeded, the history of the Far East might have been radically different. Evidently, however, he committed a blunder which his countrymen in modern times have conspicuously avoided; he drew the sword without having fully investigated his adversary's resources. Just about the time when the van of the Japanese army was entering Seoul, the Korean admiral, Yi Sun-sin, at the head of a fleet of 80 vessels, attacked the Japanese squadron which lay at anchor near the entrance to Fusan harbour, set 26 of the vessels on fire and dispersed the rest. Four other engagements ensued in rapid succession. The last and most important took place shortly after the Japanese troops had seized Phyong-yang. It resulted in the sinking of over 70 Japanese vessels, transports and fighting ships combined, which formed the main part of a flotilla carrying reinforcements by sea to the van of the invading army. This despatch of troops and supplies by water had been a leading feature of Hideyoshi's plan of campaign, and the destruction of the flotilla to which the duty was entrusted may be said to have sealed the fate of the war by isolating the army in Korea from its home base. It is true that Konishi Yukinaga, who commanded the first division, would have continued his northward march from Phyong-yang without delay. He argued that China was wholly unprepared, and that the best hope of ultimate victory lay in not giving her time to collect her forces. But the commander-in-chief, Ukida Hideiye, refused to endorse this plan. He took the view that since the Korean provinces were still offering desperate resistance, supplies could not be drawn from them, neither could the troops engaged in subjugating them be freed for service at the front. Therefore it was essential to await the consummation of the second phase of Hideyoshi's plan, namely, the despatch of reinforcements and munitions by water to Phyong-yang. The reader has seen how that second phase fared. The Japanese commander at Phyong-yang never received any accession of strength. His force suffered constant diminution from casualties, and the question of commissariat became daily more difficult. It is further plain to any reader of history--and Japanese historians themselves admit the fact--that no wise effort was made to conciliate the Korean people. They were treated so harshly that even the humble peasant took up arms, and thus the peninsula, instead of serving as a basis of supplies, had to be garrisoned perpetually by a strong army.

Chinese Intervention.

The Koreans, having suffered for their loyalty to China, naturally looked to her for succour. Again and again appeals were made to Peking, and at length a force of 5000 men, which had been mobilized in the Liaotung peninsula, crossed the Yalu and moved south to Phyong-yang, where the Japanese van had been lying idle for over two months. This was early in October 1592. Memorable as the first encounter between Japanese and Chinese, the incident also illustrated China's supreme confidence in her own ineffable superiority. The whole of the Korean forces had been driven northward throughout the entire length of the peninsula by the Japanese armies, yet Peking considered that 5000 Chinese "braves" would suffice to roll back this tide of invasion. Three thousand of the Chinese were killed and the remainder fled pell-mell across the Yalu. China now began to be seriously alarmed. She collected an army variously estimated at from 51,000 to 200,000 men, and marching it across Manchuria in the dead of winter, hurled it against Phyong-yang during the first week of February 1593. The Japanese garrison did not exceed 20,000, nearly one-half of its original number having been detached to hold a line of forts which guarded the communications with Seoul. Moreover, the Chinese, though their swords were much inferior to the Japanese weapon, possessed great superiority in artillery and cavalry, as well as in the fact that their troopers wore iron mail which defied the keenest blade. Thus, after a severe fight, the Japanese had to evacuate Phyong-yang and fall back upon Seoul. But this one victory alone stands to China's credit. In all subsequent encounters of any magnitude her army suffered heavy defeats, losing on one occasion some 10,000 men, on another 4000, and on a third 39,000. But the presence of her forces and the determined resistance offered by the Koreans effectually saved China from invasion. Indeed, after the evacuation of Seoul, on the 9th of May 1593, Hideyoshi abandoned all idea of carrying the war into Chinese territory, and devoted his attention to obtaining honourable terms of peace, the Japanese troops meanwhile holding a line of forts along the southern coast of Korea. He died before that end had been accomplished. Had he lived a few days longer, he would have learned of a crushing defeat inflicted on the Chinese forces (at Sö-chhön, October 30, 1598), when the Satsuma men under Shimazu Yoshihiro took 38,700 Chinese heads and sent the noses and ears to Japan, where they now lie buried under a tumulus (_mimizuka_, ear-mound) near the temple of Daibutsu in Kioto. Thereafter the statesmen to whom the regent on his death-bed had entrusted the duty of terminating the struggle and recalling the troops, intimated to the enemy that the evacuation of the peninsula might be obtained if a Korean prince repaired to Japan as envoy, and if some tiger-skins and _ginseng_ were sent to Kioto in token of amity. So ended one of the greatest over-sea campaigns recorded in history. It had lasted 6½ years, had seen 200,000 Japanese troops at one time on Korean soil, and had cost something like a quarter of a million lives.

Contrast between Foreign Relations in Medieval and Modern Times.

From the recall of the Korea expedition in 1598 to the resumption of intercourse with the Occident in modern times, Japan enjoyed uninterrupted peace with foreign nations. Thereafter she had to engage in four wars. It is a striking contrast. During the first eleven centuries of her historical existence she was involved in only one contest abroad; during the next half century she fought four times beyond the sea and was confronted by many complications. Whatever material or moral advantages her association with the West conferred on her, it did not bring peace.

The "Maria Luz" Complication.

The first menacing foreign complication with which the Japanese government of the Meiji era had to deal was connected with the traffic in Chinese labour, an abuse not yet wholly eradicated. In 1872, a Peruvian ship, the "Maria Luz," put into port at Yokohama, carrying 200 contract labourers. One of the unfortunate men succeeded in reaching the shore and made a piteous appeal to the Japanese authorities, who at once seized the vessel and released her freight of slaves, for they were little better. The Japanese had not always been so particular. In the days of early foreign intercourse, before England's attitude towards slavery had established a new code of ethics, Portuguese ships had been permitted to carry away from Hirado, as they did from Macao, cargoes of men and women, doomed to a life of enforced toil if they survived the horrors of the voyage. But modern Japan followed the tenets of modern morality in such matters. Of course the Peruvian government protested, and for a time relations were strained almost to the point of rupture; but it was finally agreed that the question should be submitted to the arbitration of the tsar, who decided in Japan's favour. Japan's attitude in this affair elicited applause, not merely from the point of view of humanity, but also because of the confidence she showed in Occidental justice.

The Sakhalin Complication.

Another complication which occupied the attention of the Tokyo government from the beginning of the Meiji era was in truth a legacy from the days of feudalism. In those days the island of Yezo, as well as Sakhalin on its north-west and the Kurile group on its north, could scarcely be said to be in effective Japanese occupation. It is true that the feudal chief of Matsumae (now Fuku-yama), the remains of whose castle may still be seen on the coast at the southern extremity of the island of Yezo, exercised nominal jurisdiction; but his functions did not greatly exceed the levying of taxes on the aboriginal inhabitants of Yezo, the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin. Thus from the beginning of the 18th century Russian fishermen began to settle in the Kuriles and Russian ships menaced Sakhalin. There can be no doubt that the first explorers of Sakhalin were Japanese. As early as 1620, some vassals of the feudal chief of Matsumae visited the place and passed a winter there. It was then supposed to be a peninsula forming part of the Asiatic mainland, but in 1806 a daring Japanese traveller, by name Mamiya Rinzo, made his way to Manchuria, voyaged up and down the Amur, and, crossing to Sakhalin, discovered that a narrow strait separated it from the mainland. There still prevails in the minds of many Occidentals a belief that the discovery of Sakhalin's insular character was reserved for Captain Nevelskoy, a Russian, who visited the place in 1849, but in Japan the fact had then been known for 43 years. Muravief, the great Russian empire-builder in East Asia, under whose orders Nevelskoy acted, quickly appreciated the necessity of acquiring Sakhalin, which commands the estuary of the Amur. After the conclusion of the treaty of Aigun (1857) he visited Japan with a squadron, and required that the strait of La Pérouse, which separates Sakhalin from Yezo, should be regarded as the frontier between Russia and Japan. This would have given the whole of Sakhalin to Russia. Japan refused, and Muravief immediately resorted to the policy he had already pursued with signal success in the Usuri region: he sent emigrants to settle in Sakhalin. Twice the shogunate attempted to frustrate this process of gradual absorption by proposing a division of the island along the 50th parallel of north latitude, and finally, in 1872, the Meiji government offered to purchase the Russian portion for 2,000,000 dollars (then equivalent to about £400,000). St Petersburg, having by that time discovered the comparative worthlessness of the island as a wealth-earning possession, showed some signs of acquiescence, and possibly an agreement might have been reached had not a leading Japanese statesman--afterwards Count Kuroda--opposed the bargain as disadvantageous to Japan. Finally St Petersburg's perseverance won the day. In 1875 Japan agreed to recognize Russia's title to the whole island on condition that Russia similarly recognized Japan's title to the Kuriles. It was a singular compact. Russia purchased a Japanese property and paid for it with a part of Japan's belongings. These details form a curious preface to the fact that Sakhalin was destined, 30 years later, to be the scene of a Japanese invasion, in the sequel of which it was divided along the 50th parallel as the shogun's administration had originally proposed.

Military Expedition to Formosa.

The first of Japan's four conflicts was an expedition to Formosa in 1874. Insignificant from a military point of view, this affair derives vicarious interest from its effect upon the relations between China and Japan, and upon the question of the ownership of the Riukiu islands. These islands, which lie at a little distance south of Japan, had for centuries been regarded as an apanage of the Satsuma fief. The language and customs of their inhabitants showed unmistakable traces of relationship to the Japanese, and the possibility of the islands being included among the dominions of China had probably never occurred to any Japanese statesman. When therefore, in 1873, the crew of a wrecked Riukiuan junk were barbarously treated by the inhabitants of northern Formosa, the Japanese government unhesitatingly assumed the responsibility of seeking redress for their outrage. Formosa being a part of the Chinese Empire, complaint was duly preferred in Peking. But the Chinese authorities showed such resolute indifference to Japan's representations that the latter finally took the law into her own hands, and sent a small force to punish the Formosan murderers, who, of course, were found quite unable to offer any serious resistance. The Chinese government, now recognizing the fact that its territories had been invaded, lodged a protest which, but for the intervention of the British minister in Peking, might have involved the two empires in war. The final terms of arrangement were that, in consideration of Japan withdrawing her troops from Formosa, China should indemnify her to the extent of the expenses of the expedition. In sending this expedition to Formosa the government sought to placate the Satsuma samurai, who were beginning to show much opposition to certain features of the administrative reforms just inaugurated, and who claimed special interest in the affairs of the Riukiu islands.

The Riukiu Complication.

Had Japan needed any confirmation of her belief that the Riukiu islands belonged to her, the incidents and settlement of the Formosan complication would have constituted conclusive evidence. Thus in 1876 she did not hesitate to extend her newly organized system of prefectural government to Riukiu, which thenceforth became the Okinawa prefecture, the former ruler of the islands being pensioned, according to the system followed in the case of the feudal chiefs in Japan proper. China at once entered an objection. She claimed that Riukiu had always been a tributary of her empire, and she was doubtless perfectly sincere in the contention. But China's interpretation of tribute did not seem reducible to a working theory. So long as her own advantage could be promoted, she regarded as a token of vassalage the presents periodically carried to her court from neighbouring states. So soon, however, as there arose any question of discharging a suzerain's duties, she classed these offerings as insignificant interchanges of neighbourly courtesy. It was true that Riukiu had followed the custom of despatching gift-bearing envoys to China from time to time, just as Japan herself had done, though with less regularity. But it was also true that Riukiu had been subdued by Satsuma without China stretching out a hand to help her; that for two centuries the islands had been included in the Satsuma fief, and that China, in the sequel to the Formosan affair, had made a practical acknowledgment of Japan's superior title to protect the islanders. Each empire positively asserted its claims; but whereas Japan put hers into practice, China confined herself to remonstrances. Things remained in that state until 1880, when General Grant, visiting the East, suggested the advisability of a compromise. A conference met in Peking, and the plenipotentiaries agreed that the islands should be divided, Japan taking the northern group, China the southern. But on the eve of signature the Chinese plenipotentiary drew back, pleading that he had no authority to conclude an agreement without previously referring it to certain other dignitaries. Japan, sensible that she had been flouted, retired from the discussion and retained the islands, China's share in them being reduced to a grievance.

The Korean Complication.

From the 16th century, when the Korean peninsula was overrun by Japanese troops, its rulers made a habit of sending a present-bearing embassy to Japan to felicitate the accession of each shogun. But after the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate, the Korean court desisted from this custom, declared a determination to have no further relations with a country embracing Western civilization, and refused even to receive a Japanese embassy. This conduct caused deep umbrage in Japan. Several prominent politicians cast their votes for war, and undoubtedly the sword would have been drawn had not the leading statesmen felt that a struggle with Korea, involving probably a rupture with China, must fatally check the progress of the administrative reforms then (1873) in their infancy. Two years later, however, the Koreans crowned their defiance by firing on the boats of a Japanese war-vessel engaged in the operation of coast-surveying. No choice now remained except to despatch an armed expedition against the truculent kingdom. But Japan did not want to fight. In this matter she showed herself an apt pupil of Occidental methods such as had been practised against herself in former years. She assembled an imposing force of war-ships and transports, but instead of proceeding to extremities, she employed the squadron--which was by no means so strong as it seemed--to intimidate Korea into signing a treaty of amity and commerce, and opening three ports to foreign trade (1876). That was the beginning of Korea's friendly relations with the outer world, and Japan naturally took credit for the fact that, thus early in her new career, she had become an instrument for extending the principle of universal intercourse opposed so strenuously by herself in the past.

War with China.