The Imjin War (89 page)

[675]
Ukita’s proclamation is reproduced in Cho Chung-hwa,
Paro chapun
, 145.

[676]
These and other “nose receipts” are reproduced, together with Korean translations, in Cho Chung-hwa,
Dashi ssunun
, 116-125.

[677]
Sonjo sillok
, vol. 22, 93-96 (18/8/Sonjo 30; Sept. 28, 1597).

[678]
Ibid, vol. 22, 104 (24/8/Sonjo 30; Oct. 4, 1597).

[679]
Yu Song-nyong, 215;
Sonjo sujong sillok
, vol. 4, 128 (9/Sonjo 30; Oct.-Nov. 1597); Sin Kyong, “Chaejobonbangji,” in
Saryoro bonun
, 241.

[680]
Han Chi-yun, “Haedong yoksa,” in
Saryoro bonun
, 227.

[681]
Sonjo sujong sillok
, vol. 4, 128 (9/Sonjo 30; Oct.-Nov. 1597).

[682]
Yi Hyong-sok, vol. 2, 1021-1022. Other sources, including Elisonas, “Trinity,” 287, name Kato Kiyomasa’s contingent as being the Japanese force involved in the Battle of Chiksan.

[683]
Sonjo sillok
, vol. 22, 131 and 133 (8-9/9/Sonjo 30; Oct. 18-19, 1597);
Sonjo sujong sillok
, vol. 4, 128 (9/Sonjo 30; Oct.-Nov. 1597); Cho Kyong-nam, “Nanjung chapnok,” in
Saryoro bonun
, 242-243; Turnbull,
Samurai Invasion
, 199-200.

Chapter 26: “Seek death and you will live; seek life and you will die”

[684]
Diary entries for 4-13/8/Chongyu (Sept. 14-23, 1597), Yi Sun-sin,
Nanjung ilgi
, 296-301.

[685]
Diary entries for 13, 17, 25/8/Chongyu (Sept. 23 and 27 and Oct. 5, 1597), ibid., 301, 302, and 304-305.

[686]
“T’ai Kung’s Six Secret Teachings,” in Sawyer, 65-66.

[687]
Diary entry for 12/8/Chongyu (Sept. 22, 1597), Yi Sun-sin,
Nanjung ilgi
, 300.

[688]
Diary entries for 19/8/Chongyu and 2/9/Chongyu (Sept. 29 and Oct. 12, 1597), ibid., 303 and 307.

[689]
Yi Sun-sin does not clearly state in his war diary the size of his fleet on the eve of the Battle of Myongryang. The most authoritative source on this is Yi’s report to Ming Commander in Chief Ma Gui, which was subsequently relayed to Seoul: “I joined with Kim Ok-chu and others and collected thirteen warships and thirty-two
chotam-son
[smaller scouting boats] and blocked the sea route in Haenam [southwestern Korea].”
Sonjo sillok
, vol. 23, 27 (10/11/Sonjo 30; Dec. 18, 1597).

[690]
Yi Pun, 226.

[691]
Diary entry for 28/8/Chongyu (Oct. 8, 1597), Yi Sun-sin,
Nanjung ilgi
, 305-306.

[692]
Diary entry for 7 and 10/9/Chongyu (Oct. 17 and 20, 1597), ibid., 307 and 310.

[693]
Diary entry for 7/9/Chongyu (Oct. 17, 1597), ibid., 307-308.

[694]
Park Yune-hee, 211.

[695]
Diary entry for 15/9/Chongyu (Oct. 25, 1597), Yi Sun-sin,
Nanjung ilgi
, 311.

[696]
“Wu Tzu,” in Sawyer, 215.

[697]
Joseph Needham and Robin Yates,
Science and Civilizaion in China,
vol. 5, part 4,
Military Technology: Missiles and Sieges
(Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 1994), 42-43. The authors make the interesting point that “Whereas in the West expectation of death could lead to a loss of drive, in East Asia the same situation often led to just the opposite, a feeling of fury.”

[698]
“Wu Tzu,” in Sawyer, 220.

[699]
Yi Pun, 228.

[700]
Japanese accounts agree that Kurushima Michifusa was killed this day in the Battle of Myongryang, but assert that the body cut up by Yi Sun-sin was not his, but rather that of a
ronin
(masterless samurai) named Hata Shinji (Park Yune-hee, 213).

[701]
Diary entry of 16/9/Chongyu (Oct. 26, 1597), Yi Sun-sin,
Nanjung ilgi
, 312-315; Yi Pun, 227-229;
Sonjo sillok
, vol. 23, 27 (10/11/Sonjo 30; Dec. 18, 1597);
Sonjo sujong sillok
, vol. 4, 128 (9/Sonjo 30; Oct.-Nov. 1597); Park Yune-hee, 211-213; Jho Sung-do, 196-201.

[702]
Cho Chung-hwa states that no historical evidence exists to support this story of the chain, but that many people nevertheless still firmly believe it (
Paro chapun
, 150-151).

[703]
Kim Tae-chun, “Yi Sun-sin’s Fame in Japan,”
Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
47 (June 1978): 94.

[704]
Ibid., 95; Park Yune-hee, 18.

[705]
Diary entry for 14/10/Chongyu (Nov. 22, 1597), Yi Sun-sin,
Nanjung ilgi
, 322.

[706]
Yi Pun, 231.

[707]
“Wei Liao-tzu,” in Sawyer, 258. (
Wei Liao-tzu
, “The Book of Master Wei Liao,” was written in the latter half of the fourth century B.C.)

Chapter 27: Starvation and Death in a “Buddha-less World”

[708]
Report of an interrogation of a soldier from Mori’s contingent, captured on November 3, in
Sonjo sillok
, vol. 22, 198 (2/10/Sonjo 30; Nov. 10, 1597); report of an interrogation of a Japanese officer serving under Kato Kiyomasa, in
Sonjo sillok
, vol. 22, 207-208 (3/10/Sonjo 30; Nov. 11, 1597). According to the latter report, Kato and Konishi had initially intended to take Seoul, but Hideyoshi forbade it. He ordered them instead to march through the southern part of Korea in the ninth month, killing everyone along the way, then return south to their coastal fortresses in the tenth month.

[709]
These “nose receipts” are reproduced in Cho Chung-hwa,
Dashi ssunun
, 116-119 and 125-131.

[710]
Elison, “Keinen,” 33.

[711]
Elisonas, “Trinity,” 293.

[712]
In the city of Fukuoka today there is a subway station called Tojinmachi, “Chinaman Town,” a reference to a prison camp located here during the latter part of the war. Few if any Chinese prisoners were ever kept here. The apparent misnomer stems from the fact that the Japanese tended to lump Koreans together with Chinese as
tojin
, “Chinamen.”

[713]
Etsuko Hae-jin Kang, 108.

[714]
Jon Carter Covell and Alan Covell,
Korean Impact on Japanese Culture. Japan’s Hidden History
(Elizabeth, N.J.: Hollym, 1984), 106-109.

[715]
Peter Lee,
The Record of the Black Dragon Year
(Seoul: Institute of Korean Culture, Korea University, 2000), 38-40. No In’s account of his experiences is titled
Kumgye ilgi
(Diary of Kumgye). “Kumgye” was No’s pen name.

[716]
Ibid., 41-42. Chong Hui-duk wrote of his captivity in
Wolbong haesang nok
(Record of Wolbong’s Sea Voyage). “Wolbong” was Chong’s pen name.

[717]
See for example Kim Ha-tai, “The Transmission of Neo-Confucianism to Japan by Kang Hang, a Prisoner of War,”
Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society
37 (1961): 83-103.

[718]
Lee,
Black Dragon Year
, 40-41 and 53-54; Estuko Hae-jin Kang, 111-125.

[719]
Francesco Carletti,
My Voyage Around the World
, trans. Herbert Weinstock (New York: Pantheon, 1964), 115. Weinstock’s translation, which refers to the Korean simply as Antonio, is based on a manuscript copy of Carletti’s account that Italian scholars now believe is “closer to the lost original than the 1701 [published] edition or the later versions derived from it” (xiv). The 1701 and 1878 editions refer to the Korean as Antonio Corea (Francesco Carletti,
Ragionamenti di Francesco Carletti
[Firenze: Nella Stamperia di Giuseppe Manni, 1701], Second Account, 40; Francesco Carletti,
Viaggi di Francesco Carletti da lui raccontati in dodici ragionamenti
[Firenze: G. Barbera, 1878], 198).

[720]
“I ‘Korea chipsongchon’ hu-e Antonio-si moguk pangmun,”
Pusan maeil shinmun
, Nov. 30, 1992.

[721]
Cho Chung-hwa,
Dashi ssunun
, 197. A second piece of evidence sometimes cited of Korean Imjin War captives in Europe is a charcoal drawing by the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) depicting a young man clad in distinctive Korean garb from the mid-Choson dynasty. It currently hangs in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, above the title “Korean Man.” It has been suggested that the man in the drawing may even be Antonio Corea himself, who could have conceivably crossed paths with Rubens during the artist’s eight-year stay in Italy from 1600 to 1608. This is unlikely, as Rubens is believed to have done the drawing in Antwerp in 1617. A more plausible explanation is that the man in the drawing is not Korean at all, but rather a Jesuit missionary, or perhaps one of Rubens’ assistants, modeling the costume of a foreign land in which the Society of Jesus had hopes of proselytizing. This interpretation is supported by the following facts. First, the outfit worn by the man in the drawing appears to be a
chollik
, a long coat worn by yangban noblemen during the Choson dynasty—definitely not a garment for the lower classes who comprised the vast majority of Imjin War captives. (In any case the garment would have long since worn out by 1617.) Second, the Jesuits are known to have taken examples back to Europe of the native garb of those countries where they worked or hoped to work. In 1617 Rubens made a drawing of the priest Nicolas Trigault clad in one such costume, a Chinese robe and what appears to be a Korean hat (“Portrait of Nicolas Trigault S.J. in Chinese Costume,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The artist drew his “Korean Man” at roughly the same time, possibly using an outfit provided by Trigault, as a study for an Asian figure in his later painting “The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier” (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

[722]
Also known as Asano Nagayoshi.

[723]
Keinen,
Chosen nichinichi ki
, in Turnbull,
Samurai Invasion
, 205.

[724]
Ibid., 206-207; Keinen, “Chosen nichinichi ki,” in
Saryoro bonun
, 254; Griffis,
Corea
, 137. Keinen notes that the abandonment of Japanese peasants was a violation of Hideyoshi’s order that no laborers should be left behind in Korea.

[725]
Yang Jae-suk,
Imjin waeran
, 351; Griffis,
Corea
, 137.

[726]
Elisonas, “Trinity,” 292.

[727]
According to Cho Chung-hwa,
Dashi ssunun
, 121-122, this name change was made by the government-sponsored scholar Hayashi Rasan (1583-1657) in the early years of the Tokugawa era.

[728]
Berry, 233.

[729]
Toyotomi Hideyoshi to Chunagon-sama (Hideyori), 20/(4~8)/Keicho 3 (sometime between May and Sept., 1598), in Boscaro,
Letters
, 73.

[730]
Sonjo sillok
, vol. 22, 261 (21/10/Sonjo 30; Nov. 29, 1597).

[731]
Ibid
.
, vol. 23, 52 (4/12/Sonjo 30; Jan. 10, 1598).

[732]
Yi Hyong-sok, vol. 2,1043.

[733]
Sonjo sujong sillok
, vol. 4, 130 (11/Sonjo 30; Dec. 1597).

[734]
Elison, “Keinen,” 35.

[735]
Matsui monogatari
and
Kiyomasa Korai no jin oboegaki
, in Turnbull,
Samurai Invasion
, 213.

[736]
Elison, “Keinen,” 35-36.

[737]
Sonjo sillok
, vol. 23, 116-117 (3/1/Sonjo 31; Feb. 8, 1598).

[738]
Okochi Hidemoto, “Chosen ki,” in
Saryoro bonun
, 260-261.