THE RETREAT FROM SEOUL.
The allies, after looking well to their commissariat, began their march
on Seoul, about the middle of February, with forces which the Japanese
believed to number two hundred thousand men. The light cavalry formed
the advance guard. The main body, after floundering through the muddy
roads, arrived, on February 26th, about forty miles northwest of Seoul.
In the first skirmish, which took place near the town shortly
afterward, the allies drove back the Japanese advance detachment with
heavy loss. Li-yo-sun, the commander-in-chief, now ordered the army to
move against the capital.
In the council of war, held by the Japanese generals, Ishida, who, like
Konishi, was a Christian in faith, advised the evacuation of Seoul.
This, of course, provoked Kato, who rose and angrily said: “It is a
shame for us to give up the capital before we have seen even a single
banner of the Ming army. The Coreans and our people at home will call
us cowards, and say we were afraid of the Chinamen.” Hot words then
passed between the rival generals, but Otani and others made peace
between them. All concluded that, in order to guard against treason,
the Coreans in the capital must be removed. Thereupon, large portions
of the city were set on fire, and houses, gates, bridges, public and
private buildings, were soon a level waste of ashes. The people, old
and young, of both sexes, sick and well, were driven out at the point
of the lance. To the stern necessities of war were added the needless
carnage of massacre, and hundreds of harmless natives were cruelly
murdered. Only a few lusty men, to be used as laborers and
burden-bearers, were spared.
Years after, the memory of this frightful and inhuman slaughter,
burdening the conscience of many a Japanese soldier, drove him a
penitent suppliant into the monasteries. There, exiled from the world,
with shaven head and priestly robe, he spent his days in fasting,
vigils, and prayers for pardon, seeking to obtain Nirvana with the
Eternal Buddha.
Meanwhile the work of fortification went on. The advance guard of the
Chinese host were now within a few miles of the city, and daily
skirmishes took place. The younger Japanese officers clamored to lead
the van against the Chinese, but Kobayékawa, an elderly general, was
allowed to arrange the order of battle, and the Japanese army marched
out from the capital to the attack in three divisions, Kobayékawa
leading the third, or main body of ten thousand men, the others having
only three thousand each. In the battle that ensued the Japanese were
at first unable to hold their ground against the overwhelming forces of
their enemies. The Chinese and Coreans drove back their first and
second divisions with heavy loss. Then, thinking victory certain, they
began a pursuit with both foot soldiers and cavalry, which led them
into disorder and exhausted their strength. When well wearied,
Kobayékawa, having waited till they were too far distant from their
camp to receive reinforcements, led his division in a charge against
the allies. The battle then became a hand-to-hand fight on a gigantic
scale. The Chinese were armed mainly with swords, which were short,
heavy, and double-edged. The allies had a large number of cavalry
engaged, but the ground being miry from the heavy rains, they were
unable to form or to charge with effect. Their advantage in other
respects was more than counterbalanced by the length of the Japanese
swords, the strength of their armor, and their veteran valor and
coolness. Even the foot soldiers wielded swords having blades usually
two, but sometimes three and four, feet long.
The Japanese have ever prided themselves upon the length, slenderness,
temper, and keen edge of their blades, and look with unmeasured
contempt upon the short and clumsy weapons of the continental Asiatics.
They proudly call their native land “The country ruled by a slender
sword.” Marvellous in wonder and voluminousness are their legends,
literature, and exact history concerning ken (two-edged, short
falchion), and katana (two-handed and single-edged sabre). In this
battle it was the sword alone that decided the issue, though firearms
lent their deadly aid. The long, cross-bladed spears of their foot
soldiers were also highly effective, first, in warding off the sabre
strokes of the Chinese cavalry, and then unhorsing them, either by
thrust or grapple. One general of high rank was pulled off his steed
and killed.
The Japanese leaders were in their best spirits, as well as in their
finest equipments. One was especially noticeable by his gilded helmet
that flashed and towered conspicuously. It was probably that of Kato,
whose head-gear was usually of incredible height and dazzling splendor.
After a long struggle and frightful slaughter, the allies were beaten
back in confusion. Ten thousand Chinese and Coreans, according to
Japanese accounts, were slaughtered on this bloodiest day and severest
pitched battle of the first invasion.
The Chinese suffered heavily in officers, and their first taste of war
in the field with such veterans as the soldiers of Taikō was
discouraging in the extreme. Li-yo-sun drew off his forces and soon
after retired to Sunto. Not knowing that Kato had got into Seoul, and
fearing an attack from the rear, on Ping-an, he drew off his main body
to that city, leaving a garrison at Sunto. Tired, disgusted, and
scared, the redoubtable Chinaman, like “the beaten soldier that fears
the top of the tall grass,” sent a lying report to Peking, exaggerating
the numbers of the Japanese, and asking for release from command, on
the usual Oriental plea of poor health. As for the Japanese, they had
lost so heavily in killed, that they were unable to follow up the
victory, if victory it may be called. A small force, however, pressed
forward and occupied Kai-jo, while the main body prepared to pass a
miserable winter in the desolate capital.
The Corean stronghold of An-am was also assaulted. This castle was
built on a precipitous steep, having but one gate and flank capable of
access, and that being a narrow, almost perpendicular, cutting through
the rocks. The attacking force entered the gloomy valley shut in from
light by the luxuriant forest, which darkened the path even in the
daytime. At the tops, and on the ledges of the rocks beetling over the
entrance-way, the Corean archers took up advantageous positions, while
others of the garrison, with huge masses of rock and timber piled near
the ledge, stood ready to hurl these upon the invaders.
Awaiting in silence the approach of their enemies, they soon saw the
Japanese fan-standards and paper-strip banners approach, when these
were directly beneath them, every bow twanged, and a shower of arrows
rained upon the invaders, while volleys of stones fell into their
ranks, crushing heads and helmets together. The besiegers were
compelled to draw off and arrange a new attack; but in the night the
garrison withdrew. Next day the Japanese entered, garrisoned the
castle, and decorated it with their streamers.
The long-continued abandonment of the soil, owing to the war and the
presence of three large armies, bore their natural fruits, and turned
fertile Corea into a land of starvation. Famine began its ravages of
death on friend and foe alike. The peasants petitioned their government
for food, but none was to be had. Thousands of the poor people died of
starvation. The fathers suffered in camp, while the dead mothers lay
unburied in the houses, and the children, tortured with hunger, cried
for food. One day a captain in the Chinese army found, by the roadside,
an emaciated infant vainly seeking for nourishment from the cold and
rigid breast of its dead mother. Touched with compassion, the warrior
took the child and reared him to manhood under his own care.
Some rice was distributed to the wretched people from the government
store-houses in certain places, but still the groans and cries of the
starving filled the air. Pestilence entered the Japanese camp, and
thousands of the home-sick soldiers died ingloriously. The long winter
rains made the living despondent and gloomy enough to commit hara-kiri,
while the state of the roads and the dashing courage of the guerillas,
who pushed their raids to the very gates of the camps, made foraging an
unpopular duty among the men. In such discomfort, winter wore away, and
tardy spring approached. In this state of affairs the Japanese were
willing to listen, and the allies ready to offer, terms of peace. A
Corean soldier, named Rijunchin, by permission of his superior officer,
had penetrated into Seoul to visit the two captive princes. On his
return to the camp, he stated that the Japanese generals were very
homesick and heartily tired of the war. At the same time, a letter was
received from Konishi, stating his readiness to receive terms of peace.
Chin Ikei was again chosen to negotiate. Reaching the Japanese lines at
Kai-jo, he held an interview with Konishi, and the following points of
agreement were made:
1. Peace between the three countries.
2. Japan to remain in possession of the three southern provinces of
Chō-sen.
3. Corea to send tribute to Japan as heretofore.
4. Hidéyoshi to be recognized as King of Corea. The three other
articles drawn up were not made public, but the acknowledgment of Taikō
as the equal of the Emperor of China was evidently one of them. The
Japanese, on their part, were to return the two captive princes,
withdraw all their armies to Fusan, and evacuate the country when the
stipulations were carried out.
Both parties were weary of the war. The Ming commander had requested to
be relieved of his command and to return to China, while the three old
gentlemen, who were military advisers in the Japanese camp, yearning
for the pleasures of Kiōto, wrote to Taikō, asking leave to come home,
telling him the object of his ambition was on the eve of attainment,
and that he was to receive investiture from the Chinese emperor, and
recognition as an equal.
Scholarship and literature were not at a very high premium at that time
among the Japanese military men. The martial virtues and
accomplishments occupied the time and thoughts of the warriors to the
exclusion of book learning and skill at words. The sword for the
soldier, and the pen for the priest, was the rule. The bluff warrior in
armor looked with contempt, not unmingled with awe, upon the
shaven-pated man of ink and brush. One of the bonzes from the monastery
was usually of necessity attached to the service of each commander. It
was by reason of the ignorance, as well as the vanity, of the
illiterate Japanese generals that such a mistake, in supposing that
Taikō was to be recognized as equal to the Emperor of China, was
rendered possible. The wily Chin Ikei, who drove a lucrative trade as
negotiator, hoodwinked Konishi, who would not have been thus outwitted
if he had had a bonze present to inspect the writing. Being a
Christian, however, he was on bad terms with the bonzes.
In both camps there were those who bitterly opposed any peace short of
that which the sword decided. The Corean generals chafed at the time
wasted in parley, and wished to march on the Japanese at once, whose
ranks they knew were decimated with sickness, and their spirit and
discipline relaxed under the idea of speedy return home. An epidemic
had also broken out among their horses, probably owing to scant
provender. Thus crippled and demoralized, victory would certainly
follow a well-planned attack in force. Within the camp of the invaders
Achilles and Agamemnon were as far as ever from harmony. Kato sullenly
refused to entertain the idea of peace, partly because Konishi proposed
it, but mainly because, if the two princes were given up, his
achievements would be brought to naught, and all the glory of the war
would redound to his rival. Only after the earnest representation by
his friends of the empty granaries, and the danger of impending
starvation, the great sickness among the troops, and the fearful loss
of horses, was he induced to agree with the other commanders that Seoul
should be evacuated.
Meanwhile, the allies were advancing toward the capital.
On May 22, 1593, the Japanese, with due precautions, evacuated the
city, and the vanguard of the Chinese army entered on the same day. The
retreat of the Japanese was effected in good order, and, to guard
against treachery, they bivouacked in the open air, avoiding sleeping
in the houses or villages, and rigidly kept up the vigilance of their
sentinels and the discipline of the divisions. In this way the various
detachments of the army safely reached Fusan, Tong-nai, Kinka, and
other places near the coast. Here, after fortifying their camps, they
rested for a space from the alarms of war, almost within sight of their
native land. The allies later on marched southward and went into camp a
few leagues to the northward. Since crossing the Yalu River, the
Chinese had lost by the sword and disease twenty thousand men.