The East Asian War, 1592-1598: International Relations, Violence and Memory

419 Pages·2014·9.661 MB·English

by  James B. Lewis

The East Asian War, 1592–1598
A s East Asia regains its historical position as a world centre, information on
the history of regional relations becomes ever more critical. Astonishingly,
Northeast Asia enjoyed fi ve centuries of international peace from 1400 to
1894, broken only by one major international war – the invasion of Korea in
the 1590s by Japan’s ruler Hideyoshi. This war involved Koreans, Japanese,
Chinese, Southeast Asians, and Europeans; it saw the largest overseas landing
in world history up to that time and devastated Korea. It also highlighted the
nature of the strategic balance in the region, presenting China’s Ming dynasty
with a serious threat that perhaps foreshadowed the dynasty’s subsequent
overthrow by the Manchus, played a major part in the establishment of the
Tokugawa regime with its policy of peace and controlled access to seventeenth-
and eighteenth-century Japan, and demonstrated the importance for regional
stability of the subtle relationship of Korea to both China and Japan. This
book presents a comprehensive analysis of the war and its aftermath in all its
aspects – military, political, social, economic, and cultural. As such it deepens
understanding of East Asian international relations and provides important
insights into the strategic concerns that continue to operate in the region at
present.
James B. Lewis is the University Lecturer in Korean History at the University
of Oxford, UK.
Asian States and Empires
Edited by Peter Lorge , Vanderbilt University
T he importance of Asia will continue to grow in the twenty-fi rst century,
but remarkably little is available in English on the history of the polities that
constitute this critical area. Most current work on Asia is hindered by the
extremely limited state of knowledge of the Asian past in general and the history
of Asian states and empires in particular. A sian States and Empires is a book
series that will provide detailed accounts of the history of states and empires
across Asia from earliest times to the present. It aims to explain and describe
the formation, maintenance and collapse of Asian states and empires, and the
means by which this was accomplished, making available the history of more
than half the world’s population at a level of detail comparable to the history
of Western polities. In so doing, it will demonstrate that Asian peoples and
civilizations had their own histories apart from the West and provide the basis
for understanding contemporary Asia in terms of its actual histories, rather
than broad generalizations informed by Western categories of knowledge.
1. The Third Chinese Revolutionary 6. Rethinking the Decline of
Civil War, 1945–49 China’s Qing Dynasty
An analysis of Communist Imperial activism and
strategy and leadership borderland management at the
Christopher R. Lew turn of the nineteenth century
Daniel McMahon
2. China’s Southern Tang Dynasty,
937–976 7. Civil–Military Relations in
Johannes L. Kurz Chinese History
From Ancient China to the
3. War, Culture and Society in Early Communist takeover
Modern South Asia, 1740–1849 Edited by Kai Filipiak
Kaushik Roy
8. Chinese and Indian Warfare –
4. The Military Collapse of China’s From the Classical Age to 1870
Ming Dynasty, 1618–44 Edited by Kaushik Roy and
Kenneth M. Swope Peter Lorge
5. China’s Second Capital – Nanjing 9. The East Asian War, 1592–1598
under the Ming, 1368–1644 International relations, violence,
Jun Fang and memory
Edited by James B. Lewis
The East Asian War, 1592–1598
International relations, violence, and
memory
Edited by James B. Lewis
First published 2015
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2015 selection and editorial material, James B. Lewis; individual chapters, the
contributors
The right of James B. Lewis to be identifi ed as author of the editorial material,
and of the individual authors as authors of their contributions, has been asserted
by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
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trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalog record for this book has been requested.
ISBN: 978-1-138-78663-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-76720-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Out of House Publishing
Contents
List of illustrations viii
List of contributors ix
Acknowledgments xi
Maps xii
Introduction 1
PART I
International and domestic background 9
1 Japanese–Korean and Japanese–Chinese relations in the
sixteenth century 11
SAEKI KŌ JI
2 Korea’s pre-war domestic situation and relations with Japan 22
HAN MOON JONG
3 Violence, trade, and impostors in Korean–Japanese relations,
1510–1609 42
KENNETH R. ROBINSON
PART II
War 71
4 The Imjin Waeran: contrasting the fi rst and the second
invasions of Korea 73
KITAJIMA MANJI
5 Hideyoshi’s view of Chos ŏ n Korea and Japan–Ming
negotiations 93
SAJIMA AKIKO
vi Contents
6 Post-war domain source material on Hideyoshi’s invasion of
Korea: the wartime memoirs of Shimazu soldiers 108
MURAI SHŌ SUKE
7 The role of the Chos ŏ n navy and major naval battles during
the Imjin Waeran 120
YI MIN’UNG
8 Righteous army activity in the Imjin War 141
NUKII MASAYUKI
9 Ming grand strategy and the intervention in Korea 163
KENNETH M. SWOPE
10 Wanli China versus Hideyoshi’s Japan: rethinking China’s
involvement in the Imjin Waeran 197
HARRIET T. ZURNDORFER
11 The celestial warriors: Ming military aid and abuse during the
Korean War, 1592–8 236
NAM-LIN HUR
12 International relations and the Imjin War 256
JAMES B. LEWIS
PART III
Impact and memory 2 75
13 “The inestimable benevolence of saving a country on the brink
of ruin”: Chos ŏ n–Ming and Chos ŏ n–Later Jin relations in
the seventeenth century 277
HAN MYUNG-GI
14 Chos ŏ n Korea and Ming China after the Imjin Waeran:
state rituals in the Later Chos ŏ n period 294
KUWANO EIJI
15 War and cultural exchange 323
HA WOO BONG
16 The Imjin Waeran in Korean and Japanese literature 340
CHOI GWAN
Contents vii
17 Fashioning womanly Confucian virtue: the virtuous woman in
post-war literary discourse 357
MICHAEL J. PETTID
Conclusion 378
Glossary and index 380
Illustrations
Maps
1 East Asia c .1592 xii
2 First invasion xiii
3 Naval war xiv
4 Guerrilla war xv
5 Second invasion xvi
Tables
2.1 Korean and Japanese embassies 27
2.2 Embassies from the king of Japan to Chos ŏ n (1510–92) 29
4.1 Province, production level, and daikan assignments 77
7.1 Sea battles of 1592 124
Figures
17.1 Maiden Ch’oe 362
17.2 Two wives 363
17.3 K ŭ nshim 364
Contributors
Choi Gwan ( 崔 官 ), Professor of Japanese Studies, Korea University, South
Korea.
Ha Woo Bong ( 河宇鳳 ), Professor of History, Ch ŏ nbuk National University
South Korea.
Han Moon Jong( 韓文鍾 ), Associate Professor of History, Ch ŏ nbuk National
University South Korea.
Han Myung-gi ( (cid:18354)(cid:11483)(cid:8326) ), Professor of History, Department of History,
Myongji University, South Korea.
Nam-lin Hur , P rofessor of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia,
Canada.
Kitajima Manji ( 北島万次 ), P rofessor of International Studies, Faculty of
International Studies, Kyō ritsu Women’s University, Japan.
Kuwano Eiji ( 桑野栄治 ), Professor of History, Department of Intercultural
Studies, Kurume University, Japan.
James B. Lewis , U niversity Lecturer in Korean History, University of
Oxford.
Murai Sh ō suke ( 村井章介 ), P rofessor of Japanese History, Graduate School
of Humanities and Sociology, Faculty of Letters, University of Tō ky ō ,
Japan.
Nukii Masayuki ( 貫井正之) , L ecturer, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies
and Nihon Fukushi University, Japan.
Michael J. Pettid , P rofessor of Premodern Korean Studies, Binghamton
University (SUNY), USA.
Kenneth R. Robinson , R esearch Fellow, Institute of Asian Cultural Studies,
International Christian University, Japan.
Saeki K ō ji( 佐伯弘次 ), P rofessor of Japanese History, Department of History,
Ky ū sh ū University, Japan.