The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Ecumene (Part III)
The Imjin War (1592-98)
Besides China, Japan had built the largest military in the world at that time, invading Korea with 158,800 troops with another 250,000 men as a reserve force in Japan.[i] A military coalition of 60,000 Koreans and 100,000 Chinese soldiers fought the Japanese military on Korean soil.[ii] The war itself was conducted into two phases: the first was from 1592 until 1596 that was followed by an unsuccessful peace negotiation between Japan and China in 1596-97; the second was Japan invading Korea again with its eventual withdrawal after Hideyoshi’s death in 1598.[iii]
Hideyoshi’s invasion of Korea marked Japan’s outright challenge to the Chinese ecumene, as he wrote to his generals: “It is not Ming China alone that is destined to be subjugated by us, but India, the Philippines, and many islands in the South Sea will share a like fate. We are now occupying the most conspicuous and enviable position in the world.”[iv] Wanting to replace the Sino-centric world with a Japanese-centric one, Hideyoshi understood that there could not be two spiritual and pragmatic ecumene. Thus, in his attempt to establish hegemony, Japan sought to supplant China as both the spiritual and pragmatic ecumene.
In a 1593 document to the states of the Ming Empire, Hideyoshi reinforced his view of Japan as a spiritual ecumene: “Japan is a divine nation. Our divinity is the Heavenly Emperor. The Heaven Emperor is our divinity. There is no absolutely difference between them.”[v] Hideyoshi asserted that Japan is superior of all nations, even writing to the ruler of India that “The imperial commands of the Japanese emperor may soon be transmitted to all corners of the world.”[vi] Because Japan, like China and Korea, experienced the world in cosmological form, the spiritual ecumene must correspond to the pragmatic ecumene in order for it to make sense. That is, the spiritual representative of all of humankind must also have an analogue in the pragmatic existence of empire. What makes the Imjin War an interesting case is that we have the first time in East Asia China’s ecumene challenged both spiritually and pragmatically by another nation.
When Korea refused to pay homage to the Japanese emperor and rejected Japan’s request to let passage of the Japanese military thorough its land to attack Ming China, Japan invaded Korea and quickly conquered the country.[vii] Once the Ming rulers cleared Korea of collusion with the Japanese, they decided to join the war, although they had forces committed elsewhere in Ningxia against the Mongols.[viii] After a defeat by the Japanese, the Ming decided to collect more intelligence about the Japanese and offered a truce, with the Japanese to withdraw from Korea and to resume their tributary relationship with China. The rejection of the offer led the Korean-Chinese forces to drove the Japanese out of the northern Korean peninsula. The result was a stalemate with China and Japan agreeing to an armistice in spite of Korea’s desire to continue fighting.
In mid-1593, Chinese negotiators arrived in Japan to negotiate a peace. Hideyoshi requested the following: 1) the daughter of the Chinese emperor is to be a consort of the Japanese emperor; 2) the resumption of Japanese’s trading relations with China; 3) the state ministers of Japan and China to exchange statements of friendship; 4) Japan’s annexation of the four provinces of Korea south of Seoul is to remain its territory; 5) high-ranking Korean hostages are to be sent to Japan; 6) the return of Korean captive royal princes to Korea; and 7) Korea’s proclamation never to oppose Japan again.[ix]
As Lee notes, these demands reflect Hideyoshi’s domestic practices to establish an internal hierarchy centered around him.[x] In his exchange with China, Hideyoshi envisioned a new hierarchical order with Japan at its top and the adoption of tributary practices based on Japanese domestic practices, as just the Chinese had done with its own tributary system. Thus, the practices, rituals, and values of Japan were now to be exported in its empire so that pragmatic ecumene would reflect its spiritual aspirations.
Hideyoshi’s demands clearly reflected the difference perceptions that both the Chinese and Japanese rulers had: China expected Japan to return to its traditional role as a tributary state and withdraw from Korea, whereas Japan demanded to be seen if not a superior than at least as an equal to China. Granted the title, “king of Japan,” was not the reward Hideyoshi expected because he had saw Japan as representative of all of humankind. A return to the status quo was not only pragmatically possible but also not spiritually feasible for Hideyoshi. Likewise, the Chinese emperor could not accept Japan as either a superior or equal because Ming China was seen as both the spiritual and pragmatic ecumene of the world.
Both Japanese and Chinese diplomats understood that the Chinese emperor would not accept Hideyoshi’s terms, so they instead forge a letter from Hideyoshi to make it acceptable to China. In the forged letter, Japan is “a child of the Heavenly court of China” and Korea was to be blamed for not letting Japan pass thorough their land to pay tribute to the Chinese emperor.[xi] Japan only wanted the investiture, “the king of Japan,” and would return the Korean lands and not even ask for trading privileges.
When the Japanese envoy arrived in China with this forged letter, the emperor agreed that Japan would withdraw from Korea, not demand trade with China, and proclaim never to invade Korea again.[xii] The Ming assumed that the best reward Japan would want is to return to the tributary system of China. Based on this forged letter, a peace agreement was concluded.
When the Chinese officials arrive to Japan to confer Hideyoshi the title “king of Japan,” he noted that none of seven conditions had been met and exclaimed: “Why would I want to be king of Japan? . . . I’ve already taken Japan in my grasp. If I wanted to be king then I would be king. What is this investing me like a bearded caitfiff?”[xiii] This led to the second Japanese invasion of Korea in 1597 with an additional Japanese army of 141,500 men to the existing 78,600 in Korea.[xiv]
Just as in the first invasion, a series of battles between Korean-Chinese and Japanese forces were fought on the peninsula until a military stalemate resulted in the south. It was only the death of Hideyoshi in 1598 that concluded the war, with the Japanese Council of Five Elders issuing orders for a withdrawal of all forces from Korea.[xv] Hideyoshi’s death itself was kept secret to preserve the morale of the army. Thus, Japan’s first attempt to establish an ecumene in East Asia had failed.
[i] Hawley, The Imjin War, xii; Yoshi Kunno, Japanese Expansion on the Asiatic Continent Volume I (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1967), 321.
[ii] Kang, Diplomacy and Ideology in Japanese-Korean Relations, 107.
[iii] For more about the Imjin War, see Hawley, The Imjin War and James B. Lewis, ed., The East Asian War, 1592-1598: International Relations, Violence, and Memory (New York: Routledge, 2017).
[iv] Cited in Kunno, Japanese Expansion, 325.
[v] Kuno, Japanese Expansion, 329.
[vi] Ibid., 313.
[vii] Hawley, The Imjin War, 131-262.
[viii] Ibid., 254-56.
[ix] Ibid., 365; also see Kuno, Japanese Expansion, 328-29.
[x] Lee, China’s Hegemony, 112-13; also see 113-23.
[xi] Cited in Lee, China’s Hegemony, 110-11.
[xii] Ibid.
[xiii] Ibid.
[xiv] Hawley, The Imjin War, 439-560.
[xv] Ibid., 531-60.