History of Korea (0) pre-historic influences

History of Korea (1) Gojoseon [around 1000 BC ~ 108 BC]

History of Korea (2) Three Kingdoms (Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla) and Unified Silla [around 100 BC ~ 935]

History of Korea (3) Goryeo, Korea's medieval kingdom [918 - 1392]

History of Korea (4) Joseon, the predecessor of modern Korea(s): neo-Confucian orthodoxy and the origin of the hermit kingdom [1392 - 1910]

• Part 1: What is neo-Confucianism?
  • Women's oppression in Joseon era
• Part 2: Early prosperity and the cycles of literati purges (15~16th century)

Phase 3. Japan and Qing Invasions [the early 17th century]

10. Japan invades - the Imjin War (1592-1598) link

Then finally the unified Japan invaded, led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi (a well-known name to most Koreans). Japan first asked for "a free passage for Japanese troops en route to China," Joseon refused, and Japan soon invaded.

• For the reasons mentioned above, Japan had a stronger and larger market economy, soldiers with a lot more military experience, and muskets imported from the Portuguese.
• As I look back, what's kind of sobering is that Joseon Korea did not have a well-trained army and a cadre of military generals. Many war heroes were outsiders and underdogs. Deeply entrenched in Confucian orthodoxy and dependency on Ming China, Joseon did not care to maintain a functioning military. There was no way Joseon Korea could win the war alone.

Arriving at the Southeastern port city of Busan in May 1592, the Japanese army took the entire Southeastern province in a week, and the king of Joseon fled from Seoul in 2 weeks from the invasion. In 2 weeks from that, Japan took control of Seoul and the Northern city Pyongyang.

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However, the war went into a stalemate because of the three factors:

(a) Ming China's help (Wanli Emperor). China sent a small army in August, and a large one in the following year

• Keeping it short because this part is not so much discussed in Korea...

(b) Admiral Yi Sun-sin's 23 unexpected naval victories and control of the Southern sea. Having no prior naval experience, Yi Sun-sin (a secondary naval commander back then in a Southwestern province of Korea) won unexpected victories at sea with ridiculously few resources and support. He remained undefeated until his death. His victories at sea significantly disrupted the supply lines of Japan.

• In the beginning of the war, he found himself in a situation where all the other commanders were killed or fleeing, and many coastal villages were pillaged and abandoned. His soldiers began to flee too, but he arrested and beheaded the escapees, and displayed their heads for discipline. By July, his fleet was comprised of 24 warships, 15 small warships, and 46 fishing boats.
• Japan was paying all their attention to the Northern front, and the Japanese navy in the Southern sea was just sailing along the coastline, busying themselves with looting and raping
  • Yi exchanged fires with some unexpecting Japanese ships in small battles, and identified their strengths and weaknesses. For example, the Korean warships were speedier and had a long artillery range, but the Japanese ships were big, carried many soldiers, and the soldiers had strength in on-board combats with their guns and battlefield experiences. Realizing that, Yi built the famous turtle ships with a roof covered in iron spikes (to prevent enemies' boarding)
  • He typically used a tactic of luring the Japanese fleet with a small, speedy Korean ship, and encircling the fleet with the Korean warships with long artillery ranges. He also later mastered the use of the sea currents, straits and knowledge of the sea
  • Battle of Hansan Island: using a strait, "crane wing formation" and turtle ships, he destroyed 59 Japanese ships and captured 12, while not losing a single Korean ship. After this and another battle, Yi was promoted to the Naval Commander of the Three Provinces
• However, the hero was not properly acknowledged and welcomed by the king of Joseon. Framed by a double agent's plot, he was beaten and tortured by the order of his king almost to death. He was replaced by incompetent Won Gyun and was demoted to the rank of an infantry soldier
  • In a disastrous battle led by Won Gyun, the Korean fleet of 150 warships that Yi had been carefully building were destroyed; only 13 warships survived
• After the disaster, the king and court officials hurriedly pardoned and reinstated Yi as the Naval Commander. While recovering from the torture by the king, Yi led another legendary battle with his 13 surviving ships defeating the Japanese fleet of 333 ships, destroying 31 of them, without losing a single Korean ship. (Battle of Myeongnyang)
• Sadly, the hero died in the last naval battle in this war, in which Korea won an absolute victory and destroyed half of a large Japanese fleet of 500 ships. He was fatally shot while commanding on the deck. He famously uttered to his son and his nephew:
  • "Do not announce my death" because the war was at its height. For the remainder of the battle, his nephew wore his armor and continued to beat the war drum

** A lot of details of his life and his thought processes are described in his meticulous war diary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjung_ilgi)

** Nakan-eupseong is one of the coastal villages that might preserve the appearance of the coastal villages at the time of this war.

** Yi Sun-shin is also known for his battlefield use of folk traditions. Take a look at how he used Ganggangsullae (ancient circle dance of women) and Kites in battles

** Now, a big statue of Yi Sun-sin is standing in a central plaza of Seoul, Gwanghwamun plaza

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(c) Guerilla warfare

• Grand Master Seosan and Grand Master Samyeong are two famous Buddhist monks who led guerrilla wars against the Japanese force. They left a lot of folklore about their divine power to change the weather, etc. After the war, Samyeong was sent to Japan as an envoy, and rescued thousands of Koreans who had been taken prisoner.
• Gwon Yul and Gwak Jae-woo are two famous general/guerilla leaders from the scholarly class. Gwon Yul is known for his Battle of Haengju, where he defeated 30,000 Japanese soldiers with his 2,800 Korean troops
• Nongae was a gisaeng (courtesan), who killed a Japanese general by falling off a cliff with him (uhh... in a kind of Squid Game way in retrospect)

** I later heard that Japan was puzzled about why the peasants and defeated villages in Korea still resisted so much, because the Japanese peasants would just submit to a new ruler. But to ethnic Koreans, Japan was a completely foreign land and culture after 1,000 years of separation (plus Koreans had dismissed them as "dwarfs" "savages" "pirates" for a long time). Koreans also viewed the Japanese samurai-style atrocities as barbaric and horrendous. This all contributed to anti-Japan patriotism

The Japanese ultimately ended the war in 1598 after the death of the shogun, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and returned to Japan.

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[the legacy of the war]

• Devastation of the economy - famine, epidemics, and poverty combined with the Little Ice Age in the 17th century
• Atrocities: the Japanese violence was so gory and brutal, Koreans viewed them as "monsters" and "ghosts." A famous story is that the Japanese sliced the noses of killed soldiers and civilians as war trophies, and were rewarded based on the nose-count. This story is true, and there's still a monument called Ear Mound in Japan that enshrines the severed noses of 38,000 Koreans and 30,000 Chinese. The original name was Nose Mound, but it would later be changed to Ear Mound, because the Japanese thought that Nose Mound sounded too horrible
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jinju_(1593) all the soldiers and civilians (tens of thousands) were killed in the southeastern coastal city of Jinju
• In the midst of the massacres and plunders, the Japanese kept Korean ceramic artisans alive and took them to Japan. It is said that the ceramic technology was "stolen" - but according to some records, some artisans would not want to return to Joseon Korea because artisans and craftsmen were better treated in Japan (which had a thriving market economy) vs. Korea (Confucian orthodox)
• Crops of the Americas
  • In terms of the material culture, something very interesting happened -- during the war, chili peppers and tobacco were introduced to the Korean peninsula (via Japan via the Portuguese) even though Koreans had no idea about the origin of the crops. Some ethnic Koreans were captured and sold as slaves by the Portuguese merchants, far and away
    • the spicy kimchi as we know now evolved after this point. Before the chili peppers, kimchi was white and not spicy
  • Tobacco was quickly popularized after the war. Interestingly, "smoking tiger" became a common motif in Korean folk traditions. (link for a folk painting) A Korean equivalent of "long, long time ago" is "In a time when tigers used to smoke"
• Ming China's fall
  • I heard that this war partially accelerated the decline of the Ming Empire, which would soon conquered by the Manchu (Jurchen)-led Qing

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11. Manchu Qing rises; a pragmatic king of Joseon gets dethroned by a conservative neo-Confucian faction

• While the king Seonjo was hiding from the war, one of his sons, Gwanghae, stayed during the war, set up a branch court, and fought battles. He succeeded his father as the next king. He led quite nice domestic reforms to reconstruct the economy after the devastation. For example
  • Redistributed land to people
  • Daedong law - collecting taxes only in rice. This would make it easier for people to pay taxes
  • Hopae ID - made people to carry an ID called hopae so that the state can track its (taxable) population again (after many villages were abandoned and emptied)
  • Compiling a medical book (led by a royal chief physician)
• Despite this, he was largely unsupported by many politicians, scholars, and aristocrats because he was not the first-born son and he was born from a concubine.
  • Writing this, at this point I feel personally irritated lol. Why weren't all these fundies killed by Japan
• He lost support for two reasons (1) Gwanghae had a young half-brother born from a legitimate queen. It is commonly thought that Gwanghae didn't want to kill him, but the faction that supported him did. The young boy was eventually sent into exile and executed
  • It seems that The mother of the killed young boy firmly believed that the king actively persecuted her son... her court maiden wrote an extensive diary about this event. It was written in the Korean script, which was widely used among women and commoners at this point
• (2) The Imjin war accelerated the decline of Ming China (Han Chinese), and Manchu Qing Empire was rising in power. Gwanghae was a practical ruler, and he tried to maintain friendly relationships with the Manchus. This upset Ming and the dogmatic Confucian scholars in Korea.
  • Gwanghae was still forced to send a troop to Manchuria to help the Ming dynasty. Joseon lost 2/3 of their troop in this doomed military operation
• Ultimately, a "ultra-conservative" political faction that opposed to him made a coup, and dethroned the king
  • He's often considered a victim of the crazy faction fighting that was worsening since the Phase 2.

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12. Qing Invasion (The Byeongja war): the King of Joseon surrenders and gives nine bows to the Manchu Emperor

• Joseon politics was a mess. After the coup, a new king Injo was enthroned, but one of the coup members was dissatisfied with his reward, made another coup, and occupied Seoul. The economy was still devastated and an external threat (Manchu) was growing, but the aristocrats were only obsessed with court infighting.
• The ultra-conservative faction that took power abandoned pragmatism, and antagonized Manchu ("because they're barbarians")
  • Manchu was a new name for Jurchen, a nomadic group in Manchuria (right north of the Korean peninsula) that had long interacted with Koreans. Koreans always had despised them as barbarians
  • But Manchus didn't hate Joseon Korea. They even shared a holy mountain
• However, the conservative Joseon nobles eventually upset the rising Manchu empire. Qing eventually invaded Korea (it was before Qing conquered the entire China), and drove the fleeing king of Joseon into Namhan Mountain Fortress. Qing brought 100,000 soldiers - while Joseon could mobilize only a few thousands from its devastated economy
  • there's a novel titled Namhan Mountain Fortress which was popular in Korea
• In a siege, running out of food and supplies, the king of Joseon finally surrendered, and ceremoniously bowed to the Qing Emperor nine times. Joseon became Qing's vassal state, and the first and second sons of the Joseon king would be sent to China as captives

** A general Im Gyeongeop beheaded one of the Manchu generals, and later went to China to help restore the Ming Empire

• many people of Joseon thought that it was virtuous to be loyal to Ming, the legitimate preserver of Confucianism. Im is still enshrined in some shamanic shrines in Korea

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To be continued!