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RollingWave
03-07-2012, 10:02 PM
A continuation from that original thread, since we're only half way through really.

After the Ming and the Japanese began to negotiate, peace sort of lasted for the greater parts of nearly 5 year between 1593-1597, but the talk itself was almost doome to fail before it really got started, the two sides simply totally misunderstood each other's intention badly from the start.

The Ming had mostly thought that Hideyoshi was another remote tribal king that simply wanted recongnition, which would bolster his own credidentials at home. a lot of Kings want that to hold their own status as the tribal coalition leaders.

But Hideyoshi was obviously not like that, and he had thought the Ming was scared of his forces and wanted to negotiate a deal to give him at least half of Korea.

So it was obviously a negotiation that went no where, though due to the distances between the two sides and the stalling of both sides' envoy it dragged on for a long time , though by 1597 it finally broke down as the Ming send a "Crowning envoy" to Hideoyoshi and gave him some gifts and title. obviously that didn't go down well, so Hideyoshi immediately decided to renew the invasion on Korea.

The Ming court was also confused and furious and decided to execute their chief negotiator and throw some of the biggest peace talk backing officials in jail . but they were caught in a bad spot, they had only left a pretty small army (something in the 10-15k range) in Koera during most of this period, and reinforcement would take some time, espeically since they got the news significantly later than the Japanese did.

The Koreans have made significantly more prepartions during this 5 years, constructing / rebuilding many fortifications, but they had declined the Ming's purposal of setting up a permenant Ming garrison around Seoul, one that would include the Koreans giving the garrison a sizable farmland so it can be self sustained. obviously fear of their own soverignty was a factor here. Which also contributed to why the Ming presence in Seoul was so small at this point.

So in the summer of 1597, wars begin anew.

Conley
03-07-2012, 10:31 PM
Thanks RW, I have to go back and get caught up on the last post. I'll add it to this post if that's cool.

MMC
03-08-2012, 07:21 AM
Who was Sitting on the throne for the Mings RW?

RollingWave
03-08-2012, 09:10 AM
Ming Shen Zhong, he would be the longest ruling emperor of the Ming, and probably also the most controversial, he oversaw the last revival period of the Ming , but also later so one of it's worst collaspe period.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d5/Wanli-Emperor.JPG/220px-Wanli-Emperor.JPG

Here's the crown they found in his tomb, those thread? pure gold.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Golden_Crown_Replica_of_King_Wanli.jpg/150px-Golden_Crown_Replica_of_King_Wanli.jpg

MMC
03-08-2012, 10:16 AM
Thanks for that RW.....great pics too.

Mister D
03-08-2012, 10:37 AM
Wasn't the Ming Dynasty the last Chinese dynasty?

Edit: Nope. It was the Qing

RollingWave
03-08-2012, 11:19 AM
The Ming was followed by the Qing dynasty, which was founded by the Manchurian people in the North East, it did howeverly largely follow the Ming's system , so the Ming was the last Han people ruled dynasty, but wasn't the last imperial dynasty in China.

Mister D
03-08-2012, 11:21 AM
The Ming was followed by the Qing dynasty, which was founded by the Manchurian people in the North East, it did howeverly largely follow the Ming's system , so the Ming was the last Han people ruled dynasty, but wasn't the last imperial dynasty in China.

Ah, interesting. The Han are by far the largest ethnic group in China, right?

RollingWave
03-08-2012, 12:04 PM
yeah, though it's technically more of a cultural term than a ethnic term, ethnically speaking the difference between a Guangdong guy vs a Beijing guy is actually larger than between Beijing guy and Mongol guy.

Mister D
03-08-2012, 12:10 PM
Looking on the map it seems to me that you are referring to southern versus northern populations? It makes sense that northern Chinese would have traits similar to the Mongols.

RollingWave
03-08-2012, 12:43 PM
yeah that's what I mean, referring to that Han chinese is basically just a cultural term, no a true ethnic one. since in the history of China it gradually absorbed a lot of other ethnics into the culture, kinda like how western folks almost all loosely refer to any middle eastern / north africa muslims as Arabs, when in fact most of them simply share the same culture and not the same ethnicity.

Mister D
03-08-2012, 12:54 PM
yeah that's what I mean, referring to that Han chinese is basically just a cultural term, no a true ethnic one. since in the history of China it gradually absorbed a lot of other ethnics into the culture, kinda like how western folks almost all loosely refer to any middle eastern / north africa muslims as Arabs, when in fact most of them simply share the same culture and not the same ethnicity.

Understood. I knew there was greater amount of biodiversity in China than westerners tend to believe exists. Very interesting.

RollingWave
03-09-2012, 03:04 AM
So moving on with the topic.

The Japanese saw that it's greatest problem in the last war was logistics, thus it had made several plans to address that before the war started, one is that they had build a stiring of forts (still around today, they're called Wojo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_castles_in_Korea) stretching the south eastern coastlines of Korea and filled them with supplies beforehand, the other is that they set forth a plot to remove Yi Sun Shin from command of the Joseon Navy while building up their own.

The plot was fairly simple double agent plot, a Japanese had agreed to help spy on Japan for the Koreans (something they needed seeing how they didn't see the first attack comming) but in fact was feeding them wrong informations, most notablly he had gave a information that would have asked Yi Sun Sin to lead his navy into a big trap, Yi realized that the region was terriblly dangerous and didn't fall for it, but in turn this was flipped as him refusing order , and also further fueled by the silly court rivalries within the Korean court, the end result was that Yi was stripped of his title and even demoted to a common solider in humuliation, and the fleet was given to another command (the guy that had previously let his fleet get destroyed in the initial Japanese invasion at Pusan).

Suffice to say that this had disastor written all over it, and not surprisingly the admiral that replaced Yi decided to immediately seek out the Japanese main fleet and try to attack it, only to find that it was much much larger than their own, and lacking the tactical advantage that Yi had brought, the Korean fleet was in turn annihilated in August of 1597 at the outset of the second invasion. and the Admiral was killed in Action. Only about a dozen Korean vassal survived the battle. out of 169 ship.

The disastor at sea opened the floodgate for the Japanese on land as well, as they stormed into Jeolla province, where they were able to take the city of Namwan, which was guarded by 3000 Ming soliders and a few thousand more Koreans, the Ming general somehow managed to sally out of the city with a few men but was still executed later on for his failure in this battle.

At this point it look like doom and gloom again in Seoul (i've read the court records of that time, basically when the news of the fleet's annihilation arrived the entire court fell slient for a whole hour, and the King basically flipped and ask his official to speak up and no one did, such was the degree of doom), as the Korean court was basically packing it's bags and ready to run north again, even the Ming general there, which only less than 10 thousand men still on his hand, had advice them to retreat to PyongYang until reinforcement arrive.

But a repeat of the initial success of the Japanese in 92 was not to be, and soon the tide began to turn again.

RollingWave
03-12-2012, 02:55 AM
So in mid September of 1597, with the Joseon navy all but destroyed and the Japanese forces once again pushing towards Seoul, all looked lost, but then Yi Sun Sin would once again come to the rescue and forever seal his legend as an admiral.

Upon the annihilated of the Joseon fleet, Yi was hastily reinstated as the admiral o the fleet, however with only a dozen ship surviving the previous disastor, the odds looked so bad that one point the Korean court had wanted to simply disband the remaining fleet . But Yi refused and claimed that he can win with the small fleet, and was able to regather some of the surviving sailors, The Japanese meanwhile, was planning a large expedition to capitalize on their recent success, they will sail a combined fleet of some 300+ ships right across the western side of Korean and land close to Seoul, thus resupplying their advancing army and seal the fate of the Korean capital.

Yi was aware of the plans, and he set in motion his greatest battle, the battle of Myeongnyang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Myeongnyang)

The battle took place on the south western edge of Korea, right as the Japanese fleet was about to swing northward. Yi had found a perfect spot where the current was extremely favorable, and also the day's weather was foggy, and then he lured the Japanese fleet in by sending one of his ship as bait.

despite being outnumbered to the extreme, the plan worked, the Japanese were unfamiliar with the strong current in the region, combined with the foggy day and fire from the Joseon ships they quickly fell into chaos, as many ship simply sank from ramming into each other due to the strong current, and the few that did get out were hit by the Joseon ships. more than 1/3 of the Japanese fleet was either sank or had their ship badly damaged. they lost some 8000 men on the day, while the Joseon fleet under Yi had barely lost even a single man. it was an improbable victory in almost every way. And reversed the tide of the war almost instantly.

The Japanese army on land meanwhile, was advancing towards Seoul not knowing what had occured behind them, the Joseon court and many of the Ming generals had wanted to pull back towards PyongYang, but the highest Ming official in Joseon, the newly appointed minister of military of the Ming, Xin Jie, ordered his general to confront the approaching army.

The Ming only had less then 10 thousand men left, but most of them were elite cavalries. so they decided to try and hit the advancing Japanese army on the move and capitalize on their relative mobility advantage. So some 4000 cavalry setout from Seoul and tried to seek out the advancing Japanese army. they met near the modern day city of Cheonan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheonan) (roughtly 50 miles south of Seoul)

Essentially the Ming vanguard caught the Japanese advanced scouts around the area, outnumbering the small scouting party they were able to beat them back without much trouble, then the rest of the Japanese vanguard force, some 5000, arrived while the rest of the Ming army also caught up. a battle happened the next day where the Japanese was forced back but wasn't decisively defeated. At that point, the Ming detected that the rest of the Japanese forces, some 30k strong was approach, so they retreated from the area.

It wasn't a true decisive battle, but it had surprised the Japanese a bit and now gave them the impression that the Ming's remaining strength in Korea was still signficiant, while they were also ready to fight for Seoul, which made them considerablly more cautious in their advance, this combined with the news that their naval party was badly defeated, made the Japanese daiymos decided to withdrawl from the area and back towards Pusan, this would the last time Japanese forces get so close to Seoul for the rest of the war.

So just months after the second war begun it already saw some dramatic back and forth. the Japanese was forced back to the southern coastlines, though they had also devasted Jeolla province, the only province they really couldn't touch during the last war. so they were not completely without gains. meanwhile the Ming hastily try to reinforce Korea while the Koreans desperately try to rebuild their navy. The tide had turned but the Japanese was not going to go down without more fighting.

Conley
03-12-2012, 09:05 AM
Yi defeated a fleet of 300 ships with only about a dozen of his own? Very clever to use the unfamiliar waters against the Japanese. I'm also surprised the Koreans had the influence (after their initial battles with the Japanese) to be able to tell the Ming that they couldn't have a garrison, and convinced them to keep only about ten thousand troops there.

Mister D
03-12-2012, 07:43 PM
RW, I'm curious about armaments. Do you have a link to the types of weapons, tactics and so forth? I'm fairly familiar (for a white man, anyway) with the feudal Japanese military but I have no idea what Chinese and Korean armies might have looked like at this time.

RollingWave
03-13-2012, 03:30 AM
Yi defeated a fleet of 300 ships with only about a dozen of his own? Very clever to use the unfamiliar waters against the Japanese. I'm also surprised the Koreans had the influence (after their initial battles with the Japanese) to be able to tell the Ming that they couldn't have a garrison, and convinced them to keep only about ten thousand troops there.
I'd guess that it wasn't exactly a hugely popular purposal in the Ming court either, so if they had an excuse to spend less money then why not? The Ming had little to no interest in reality of annexing Korea.



RW, I'm curious about armaments. Do you have a link to the types of weapons, tactics and so forth? I'm fairly familiar (for a white man, anyway) with the feudal Japanese military but I have no idea what Chinese and Korean armies might have looked like at this time.

This is a complex issue....

On the Korean front is a bit simplier, tactic wise, they could be divised into 3 stages.

1.Standing army (this was the army that the Koreans had before the war, obviously it was soon annihilated): This army consisted mostly of professional warriors, usually fighting as heavy cavalry, with bows and sabers and other blunt weapons (like flails) their primary job was to fight the Jurchen Tribesmen in modern day Manchuria that often raided into Korea, so this was the most logical setup to have a small group of mobile and well armed men. the problem of course was that this was an army designed to fight small groups of mobile raiders or at best other cavalries like themself, but they faced something completely different in the Japanese. In the few battles they fought against them, they managed to do some damage to the Japanese army with a frontal charge but were simply too few and the Japnese too disciplined for that alone to work. and when they were defeated the rest of the army simply collapsed (they were emergency callups with little to no training anyway). An adept comparison would be something like 12th Century European Knights fighting 15th century Pike and Shot formations.

2.Righteous Army (this was what the various insurgents usually called themself): after the Japanese took care of the standing army they were mostly fighting against insurgents such as these, they were usually very lightly if at all armored, mostly they'll fight in a hit and run style, ambushing small parties of japanese on patrol of supplying missions. then simply disperse when a bigger party come. the fairly classic guerrila warfare mentality. occasionally they'll make a stand on very well defended fortress. They're often lead by Korean officals left behind enemy lines (including military onces) and occasionally they manage to deploy some gunpowder weapons like rocket arrows, light artilleries piece and sometimes looted Arquebus.

3.Naval: The Joseon fleet's sailor would usually be lightly if at all armored as well, which is fairly typical and logical of course, given that falling into the water with armour on is obviously a very very bad idea, usually only the leading officers would have armour. the weapons they use were things like tridents and hooks and spears. Though in general the Joseon fleet avoided boarding fights when possible, they usually had far more artillery pieces onboard than the Japanese, for the Japanese fleet only a small portion would have any artillery piece at all, and usually only maybe 10 on the largest of them at best, while the Joseon Panokeseon tend to have around 20+ piece on board each.

Also, the Panokseon was a ship designed for close shore operation, that was a big problem for the Japanese, who's larger vassals were made to be Ocean going onces which would be rather clumsy in close shore manuvering while their smaller onces that can manuver in close water were simply too small compare to the Panokseon.

So in short, Yi Sun Sin had a ship that both out manuvered and out gunned the Japanese fleet, and he knows his advantage and disadvantage well, which was why he basically kept scoring ridiculas victories. when the Japanese did win against another Admiral, it was because he had already previously exhausted his rowers befor the confrontation, and also didn't setup in a fashion to avoid close contact, so the end result was that he couldn't get away from the charging Japanese fleet and were caught up and slaughtered.

The Japanese didn't have nearly as many artillery piece, but had many more Arquebus onboard, so even gettnig within relatively close range would have already given the Japanese a considerable advantage.

a Japanese Atakebune usually their largest vassal type.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Atakebune2.jpg/250px-Atakebune2.jpg

a Panokseon
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/be/Panokseon.jpg/220px-Panokseon.jpg

RollingWave
03-13-2012, 03:48 AM
The Ming situation is far more complexed, but I'll post some picture here first and let you guys get some idea, first is the armour aspect, the late Ming was a transformational period for Armours, the Armours gradually went from a Lamellar type armour like this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Noel_2005_Pékin_tombeaux_Ming_voie_des_âmes_18.jpg/450px-Noel_2005_Pékin_tombeaux_Ming_voie_des_âmes_18.jpg

To eventually a full Brigadine armour like this one in the Qing period.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d4/The_Qianlong_Emperor_in_Ceremonial_Armour_on_Horse back.jpg/220px-The_Qianlong_Emperor_in_Ceremonial_Armour_on_Horse back.jpg

To give an idea, here's a drawing of the Ming emperor recieving his generals when they returned from Korea in 1593, this should give you some idea

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Ming_army2.JPG

MMC
03-13-2012, 06:34 AM
Any notable warriors running around during this time RW? Skilled Fighters and or experts?

Mister D
03-13-2012, 08:00 AM
Thanks, RW. That was a good overview.

RollingWave
03-13-2012, 12:05 PM
Any notable warriors running around during this time RW? Skilled Fighters and or experts?

On the Japanese side a lot of the famous generals and Daiymos were in Korea for this war, the most famous in terms of martial exploits was probably .

1.Kato Kiyomasa : the nephew of Hideyoshi and one of his most trusted general, he was one of the famed 7 spear of Shizugatake and probably the most active Japanese general for the whole war.

2.Shimazu Yoshihiro was one of the 3 brothers of the Shimazu clan, and the acting daiymo at that time, he was more prominent in the second war.

3.Tachibana Muneshige was a reknown warrior, called the greatest warrior or western Japan by Hideyoshi. he was the lead general that defeated the Ming's first attempt at Seoul in 93.


On the Korean side, aside from Yi Sun Sin obviously being super famous, the other two very famous general in the war was Kwon Yul who led most of the Korean war effort on land after the initial collapse and won a huge victory in 93 by defending a fortress, and probably also Gwak Jae-u who was probably one of the most famous organizer of the militias.

On the Ming front, the two most famous general was probably Li Ru Song, the leader of the first war, and Liu Ting, who particpated in both. Li was the son of the famous general Li Cheng Liang, he had just recently subdued another rebellion before heading strait for Korea, he's known to be a rather reckless general, always putting himself in the heat of danger, in the end he died against a Mongolian raid where he again led a small party to try and take on a far greater host.

Liu Ting's game would grow later on though at that point he was already pretty famous also, he's said to be an exceptional warrior, being able to wield extremely heavy glaives like a light staff even while riding on horsebacks. he specialized in fightin in the mountains of the Chinese South West. so he didn't do much in Korea, but after the war fought several successful campaigns in the south.

RollingWave
03-14-2012, 03:37 AM
Finishing off the story..

After the Immediate threat on Seoul was lifted, reinforcement from China was again comming back in, by late 1597 the Ming felt they had enough men on hand to take he offensive so they marched south and aimed for the city of Ulsan.

The Japanese had already begun building a series of fortification in Southern Korea even before the second war started, and only hasten the process after they fell back to South Eastern Korea, Ulsan was one of the key fortress they were building, and it was under even more construction to enlarge it's at this time. It was manned by Kato Kiyomasa, the most active Japanese Daiymo during this war. The Ming had reasoned that if they can take him out, morale would completely collaspe on the Japanese front and the war would be over.

The Ming actually caught the Japanese unprepared, quite a few of the Japanese were still working on the constructions when the Ming forces showed up and some were caught / killed before being able to flee back into the finished parts of the compound. Kato himself was away at Pusan at this point, but slipped back inside afterwards.

The Ming however, would find the fortress to be very difficult to assail, they made several attempt to take it by force but took heavy casaulty and were resigned to try and just siege and starve out the defenders. they had correctly guessed that because the fortress was still underconstruction, it wasn't exactly prepared for a siege, japanese record say that the defender's situation was quite desperate as they had lacked fresh water souce inside at that point.

However, the rest of the Japanese army had mounted a large relieve army to try and lift the siege, the Ming however obviously realized this would happen, had blocked out the nearby river crossings.

However this time luck and fortune was on the Japanese side, they slipped a small band by sea to the northern end by night, and the next day the day was very foggy, thus when they launched a surprise attack the Ming was caught by surprise and paniced, the garrison in Ulsan and the army stuck across the Taehwa river also took advantage of the moment and struck forth, the surprising situation caused the Ming army to fall into chaos as command structure fell apart (the leaders had tried to manuver his army to deal with the unexpected attacks, but in the fog and chaos this order went poorly and most of the army thoguht they were retreating.) and they routed back towards Seoul with considerable losses. though it should be noted that total death toll was roughly even on both side, the battle was still a very signifcant setback for the Ming .

This battle occured right around the turn of 1597 / 98 (siege begun in late December and was broken early January) for most of the next year the stalemate resumed, the Ming made a massive mobilziation, easily doubling their highest figure up to that point in Korea, hoping to make one last push to finish the war once and for all, meanwhile the Japanese were having debates on wether or not to continue to war, with the deterioting health of Hideyoshi back in Japan, most Daiymo had lost the stomic to fight and was now more worried about the possible aftermath of Hideyoshi's passing. during the middle of the year the Japanese had already pulled out a large portion of their army back to Japan. so by the later half of 98, for the first time in the war the Japanese was finally outnumbered by the Ming forces in Korea.

In September of 98, the Ming made a large 3 way offensive with the hope of annihilating the Japanese once and for all, striking 3 major Japanese garrisons (Ulsan , Sucheon and Sacheon ) all at once, the attack on Sucheon and Sacheon was particuarly focused, in Sucheon it was a combined land/sea strike with Yi Sun Sin and the Ming navy attacking from the sea (Sucheon was right beside the sea so it could still be resupplied even when sieged) while the Ming army under Liu Ting attacked from land, in Sacheon the Ming brought a large artillery contingent.

But this large campaign went poorly, at Sucheon the lack of cordination between the land and sea forces resulted in the failure to take the fortress, Yi and the Ming admirals had launched daring attacks on the harbor of the fort and most of the Japanese defenders scrambled to defend against it, but the army on land for some reason didn't follow the attack at the same time.

However the bigger disastor came at Sacheon, the Ming's artillery corp had succeded in bringing down much of the fort's defenses, including knocking down the gate, the Shimazu army stationed there (including their Daiymo) was already forced back to their last keep, but then the Ming's gunpowder cash blew up and caused a chain explosion in the Ming camp, which immediately send the Ming forces into chaos as now most of it was covered in fire and smoke, the Shimazu army took advantage of the moment and sallied forth, resulting in a devastating rout and the loss of almost all the artillery pieces and personal that they had brought.

So the grand final push didn't work, but at this point Hideyoshi had died in Japan. which signaled the end of the war as all the Daiymo's now are much more worried about the power struggle back home then the war in Korea, but with the sea largely controlled by the Joseon / Ming navy (especially the onces on the western portion) . How to get out in one piece in itself became a big question.

The day of the final retreat finally came in mid December of 1598, with all the Japanese in the western half of their holdings loading up on board and making a run to rally with the rest of their forces in Pusan, however Yi Sun Sin was not about to let them get away without one last fight. so the final epic showdown on sea occured on December 16 of 1598, the Allied forces had some 90 large vassals (mostly Joseon Panokeseon and a few Ming Junks) and was supported by some 50-60 small vassals, faced a combined fleet of some 500 Japanese vassals (most were small transports though). in pure terms of men involved, this was by far the largest sea battle of the war .

The Japanese forces were mostly of the Shimazu clan, they had held the most western fortress of Sacheon and it's surronding areas, they along with some of the other minor clan lords combined into a fleet of some 20k men and 500 ships of various size (most were small vassals).

Yi already knew the Japanese was comming, so the allied forces waited at the straits of Noryang, the Japanese had hoped that they could slip through under the cover of darkness (the battle was fought from around 2-6 am that day.), but end up running head on into a death trap.

The ensuing battle would be a slaughter of massive purportion, over half of the Japanese perished within the few hours of the battle. the Japanese at that point had no choice but to run thruogh the gauntlet of the allied fleet, the battle was fought all the way from the western end of the strait to the east. The Japanese, surprised and already tired, didn't stand much of a chance, but in dead of the night the fighting was chaotic and fierce.

When morning finally broke and the Japanese surviving ships finally made it across the strait, they had lost well over half of their numbers. only 200 out of the original 500 vassal was still in tact, the rest were either sunk or disabled. the Ally had actually sustained only light casualties only some 500 men out of their force of 16k or so had died, but amongst them was Yi Sun Sin, who was hit by a stray bullet in the last hour of fighting, the Ming second in command , Deng Zhi Long, an elderly general (he was 70 years old) was also killed during the fighting as his ship caught fire. So an epic victory for the allies, but also mark the tragic end of Korea's most legendary hero.

In the aftermath of the war, pretty much everyone lost, the Toyotomi regime quickly fell apart after the death of Hideyoshi (as he was succeeded by a minor) which eventually gave rise to the Tokugawa Shogunate (the one that would last till the whole black ship thing). most of the most active generals in the war fought had pretty poor ends, the Shimazu fief was reduced by the Tokugawas, Konishi Yukinaga (the general who fought at PyongYang, Sucheon, and was the chief negotiator) was executed shortly after in the battle of Sekigahara, Kato Kiyomasa had stood on the right side in that battle but his fiefdom was abolished not long after his death.

In China, the Ming's financial recovery in the earlier half of Sheng Zhong's reign was thrown away in the many wars during this period, the most expensive of which was it's fighting in Korea, and it also devastated the North Eastern military, which played a part in giving the rise to Nurhaci, the man who would eventually form the Qing dynasty. In 1619, 20 years after the end of this war, a huge Ming host over 160k strong was almost utterly annihilated by the Manchurians under Nurhaci, including several of the generals who fought in Korea that were still alive at that point such as Liu Ting and Li Ru Bai . this battle basically marked the end of the Ming's presence in Manchuria, and from that point foward it was fighting for it's live and would only hold on for several more decade.

Ironically, the Yi dynasty of Joseon, which had shown the least competence of the 3 sides during this war, kinda "won" in a sense, though Korea was utterly devastated in the war, countless folks perished in the war, most of the country was ravaged, many of it's treasures looted, and thousands of craftsman kidnapped back to Japan. but the regime survived, in fact, it survived all the way until 1910(!!) when ... also somewhat ironically, the Japanese finally put them out of their misery. (they had already in reality annexed Korea by 1897, but kept the Yi family as puppets until 1910). which marked one of the begining that would lead to WW2.

MMC
03-14-2012, 07:13 AM
Great narration RW and thanks for the Notable Warriors.

RollingWave
03-15-2012, 10:19 PM
Quick explaination of Chinese weaponary.

The Chinese obviously still also used a variety of cold weapons (Bow / Spear / Glaives / Saber / two handed swords similar to the Japanese No-Dachi). but they also used the widest variety of gunpowder weapon in this war.

Though they didn't use Arquebus in the same manner as the Japanese (they had some but never used them in large numbers) . they did use many light artillery piece and rocket arrows and hand cannons.

Rocket arrows espeically both the Korean and Chinese used in large numbers. while they're just in theory fire-cracker on arrows, a large barrage of them is very scary, the Koreans used them usually in Carts called Hwacha, while the Chinese tend to use hand held versions more.

some Picts and Youtubes.

Hwacha (mythbuster test)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQhSXA3AKh4

Chinese version
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff59/RollingWave/ka19.gif


Light Artillery

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff59/RollingWave/e78c6589eaaa53960e244405.jpg

Rapid fire artillery (Portugese design based, Japanese also know of this gun but didnt' adopt it widely)
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff59/RollingWave/12351445_2005052717581141311100.jpg


Tri Barrell hand cannon
http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff59/RollingWave/14829.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNXkUA0KFNY

RollingWave
08-16-2012, 03:22 AM
it should be noted that, the rocket arrow is sort of one of those forgotten weapons of the past, it was used quite widely, including in India, the British actually suffered a serious defeat against the much less developed Indian forces in 1780. where nearly 3000 Brits were killed in a devastating battle where rocket arrows rained down confusion on the British formation and let the Indian cavalries have time to close in for a slaughter.

The Brits had adopted the Rockets themself after the war and used it in the early 19th C, before the limits of the "arrow on tube" design became obvious (mostly because cannons became so much more powerful during that time). the rocket concept was mostly dropped until of course. WW2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pollilur

URF8
08-22-2012, 07:19 PM
RW,

To what extent, if any, did the exertions of the Imjin Wars weaken the Ming as they subsequently faced the Manchus?

RollingWave
08-22-2012, 08:29 PM
It's hard to say, because this was only one of the many wars fought during this period by the Ming, collectively called "The 3 wars of Wanli"(there were actually a few more border skrimishes all over though) this was the largest, but the other two were fought on Chinese soil.

This war, being far away, long lasting and also the only one that mobilized both land and sea forces, was obviously quite expensive, the tally is usually said that the 8 year extra cost was roughly the equivalent of 1 full year of the Ming budget.

Still, the Ming collapse was also a complicated matter. the most glaring reason was a huge famine in Northern China most likely brought on by the mini ice age. which cased most o the region to implode into rebellion. It does also expose more systematic issue with the Chinese dynasties in general, in that economically they relied on the South, but militarialy it relied on the north, the cast regional difference complicated things further as when the North implodes into rebellion it included many battle harden folks (who were already hardy from natural enviornments to begin with) . while the south that the Ming could still rely on simply weren't able to provide them with the military resource needed to deal with either the internal rebellion nor the Manchus.

I would generally say that the Imjin war was part of the mess, but probably not a devisive part, think of it this way. the Ming's huge defeat against the Manchu (which broke their dominance of Manchuria and had them mostly retreat back towards the Great Wall) came 2 decades after the Imjin war, yes a good number of leaders were the same as the Imjin war but 2 decades turns young men into old onces and any losses in the war should have easily been made up for by that time. while it's final collapse came half a century after the war. that's like saying today's problem in he US is due to Vietnam war..... which is obviously a rather large stretch.