In the meantime the piteous appeals of the Koreans to China had produced some effect. A small army of five thousand men, which was raised in the adjoining province of Laotung, was sent to their aid. This insufficient force rashly undertook to attack the Japanese in Pingshang. But they [pg 216] led the invaders into the town, and then so thoroughly routed them that the escaped remnants made their way back to Laotung. This experience led the Chinese officials to see that if they wished to help the Koreans at all they must despatch a stronger force. This they set to work at once to do. They endeavored to gain some time by pretending to enter upon negotiations for an armistice. During the autumn months of a.d. 1592 the Japanese troops were almost idle. And they were very much taken by surprise when near the end of the year the Chinese army, forty thousand strong, besides Koreans, made its appearance on the scene. The Japanese commander had no time to call for help, and before he realized the imminency of the danger Pingshang was attacked. Being far outnumbered Konishi deemed it prudent to make his escape from the beleaguered town, and to save his army by a retreat, which was a painful and inglorious one.
The other division of the Japanese army under Katō, who had occupied the west coast, found its position untenable with a superior Chinese army threatening it. It also was compelled to retreat towards the south. But the veteran army of Katō was not content to yield all that it had gained without a struggle. A bloody engagement followed near Pachiung, in which the Chinese and Korean army suffered a significant defeat. The Chinese army then retired to Pingshang, and Katō was not in a condition to follow it over the impassable winter roads and with deficient supplies. The Japanese troops had suffered an experience such as never befell [pg 217] them under the redoubtable leadership of Hideyoshi. And the Chinese had had enough of the terrible two-handed swords which the Japanese soldier could wield so effectively.[182]
The chief obstacle to peace was the mutual distrust with which each of the three parties regarded the others. Korea hated the Japanese with a perfect and justifiable hatred; she also feared and despised the pompous and pretentious pride of China. But in the negotiations which ensued the country which had suffered most had least to say. It remained for the two greater powers to come to some agreement which should be satisfactory to them; and whether Korea were satisfied or not was of secondary moment.
The Japanese envoy proceeded to Peking and is said to have negotiated peace on these conditions: That the emperor of China should grant to Hideyoshi the honor of investiture, that the Japanese troops should all leave Korea, and that Japan should engage never to invade Korea again. There was some jangling about the withdrawal of the Japanese soldiers but at last this matter was arranged.
An embassy was sent by the Chinese government to Japan to carry out the ceremony of investiture. They arrived in the autumn of the year a.d. 1596. Taikō Sama made elaborate preparations for their reception. Some fears were felt as to how Taikō Sama would regard this proposition of investiture when he came to understand it. The Buddhist priest, who was to translate the Chinese document [pg 218] into Japanese[183] for the benefit of Taikō Sama, was urged to make some modification in the wording to conciliate his ambition. But he was too honest to depart from the true rendering. He read to Taikō Sama and the assembled court a letter from the Chinese emperor granting him investiture as king of Japan, and announced having sent by the ambassadors the robe and the golden seal pertaining to the office.
Taikō Sama listened with amazement,[184] as he for the first time realized that the Emperor of China by this document had undertaken to invest him as king of Japan instead of (“Ming emperor”). He was in an uncontrollable rage. He tore off the robe which he had put on. He snatched the document from the reader and tore it into shreds, exclaiming: “Since I have the whole of this country in my grasp, did I wish to become its emperor I could do so without the consent of the barbarians.” He was with difficulty restrained from taking the life of the Japanese ambassador who had negotiated the treaty. He sent word to the Chinese envoys who had brought the robe and seal to begone back to their country and to tell their emperor that he would send troops to slaughter them like cattle. Both Korea and China knew that a new invasion would [pg 219] surely result from this disappointment. Katō and Konishi the Japanese generals in the previous campaign and who had gone home during the interval were ordered back to take command of the old troops and of fresh recruits which were to be sent. They busied themselves with repairing the fortifications which had been left in possession of the Japanese garrisons.
The disgraced and frightened Chinese ambassadors made their way back to Peking. They were ashamed to present themselves without showing something in return for the gifts they had carried to Taikō Sama. They purchased some velvets and scarlet cloth, which they represented as the presents which had been sent. They pretended that Taikō Sama was much pleased with the investiture, and that his invasion of Korea was due to the fact that the Korean government had interfered to prevent the free and kindly intercourse between China and Japan. The cloth and velvet, however, were at once recognized as European productions and not derived from Japan. So the ambassadors were charged with deceit and at last confessed.
The Japanese army was reinforced, it is said, with 130,000 fresh troops. Supplies, however, were difficult to obtain, and the movements were much hindered. A small Chinese army of 5,000 men arrived at the end of the year a.d. 1597 to aid the Koreans. An attack on the Japanese ships at Fusan was made by the Korean navy, but it was without difficulty repelled and most of the attacking ships destroyed. After some material advantages, which, however, [pg 220] were not decisive, the Japanese troops were forced to return to Fusan for the winter. The principal engagement was at Yöl-san, a strong position, accessible both by sea and land. It was garrisoned by troops of Katō's division, who were brave and determined. The army composed of Chinese and Koreans, under the Chinese commander-in-chief Hsing-chieh, laid siege to this fortress, and succeeded in cutting off all its communications. But Kuroda and Hachisuka came to Katō's assistance, and compelled the Chinese general to raise the siege and retreat to Söul, the Korean capital. It was in one of the battles fought during the summer of a.d. 1598, that 38,700 heads of Chinese and Korean soldiers are said to have been taken. The heads were buried in a mound after the ears and noses had been cut off. These grewsome relics of savage warfare were pickled in tubs and sent home to Kyōto, where they were deposited in a mound in the grounds of the temple of Daibutsu, and over them a monument erected which is marked mimi-zuka or ear-mound. There the mound and monument can be seen to this day.[185]
The death of Taikō Sama occurred on the day equivalent to the 18th of September, a.d. 1598, and on his death-bed he seems to have been troubled with the thought of the veteran warriors who were uselessly wearing out their lives in Korea. In his last moments he opened his eyes and exclaimed earnestly: “Let not the spirits of the hundred thousand troops I have sent to Korea become disembodied [pg 221] in a foreign land.”[186] Ieyasu, on whom devolved the military responsibility after the Taikō's death, and who had never sympathized with his wishes and aims regarding Korea, did not delay the complete withdrawal of the troops which still remained in Korea.
Thus ended a chapter in the history of Japan, on which her best friends can look back with neither pride nor satisfaction. This war was begun without any sufficient provocation, and its results did nothing to advance the glory of Japan or its soldiers. The great soldier who planned it and pushed it on with relentless energy gained nothing from it except vexation. Much of the time during which the war lasted he sat in his temporary palace at Nagoya in Hizen, waiting eagerly for news from his armies. Instead of tidings of victories and triumphs and rich conquests, he was obliged too often to hear of the dissensions of his generals, the starving and miseries of his soldiers, and the curses and hatred of a ruined and unhappy country. All that he had to show for his expenditure of men and money were several saké tubs of pickled ears and noses with which to form a mound in the temple of Daibutsu, and the recollection of an investiture by the emperor of China, which could only bring to him pain and humiliation.