Download PDF | The Mongol Invasions Of Japan 1274 And 1281 By Stephen Turnbull Illustrator Richard Hook, Osprey Publishing 2010.
97 Pages
INTRODUCTION
The vast Mongol Empire, established during the early part of the 13th century by Genghis Khan and then enlarged and consolidated by his descendants, is one of the greatest success stories in world military history. This book, however, is concerned with one of its few failures. Impressive though the Mongol conquests may have been when they were carried out from horseback across the sweeping land mass of Central Asia, these achievements were to be challenged robustly on the fringes of their great empire, and among these military reverses no expedition was to be so dramatically curtailed as the attempts by Genghis Khan’s grandson Khubilai Khan to conquer Japan. After an initial invasion in 1274 (which may have been intended solely as a brief reconnaissance in force), two massive Mongol armadas united for a serious attempt at conquest in 1281. Prevented from landing by the bravery of the samurai – the knights of Japan – the invaders became sitting targets for a devastating typhoon that destroyed their ambitions as thoroughly as it destroyed their ships.
So decisive was this intervention that the belief grew that the storm had been sent by the kami (gods) of Japan as an answer to prayer. It was therefore dubbed the kamikaze – the ‘divine wind’. In the centuries that followed the myth of the kamikaze grew to dominate the narrative of the Mongol invasions of Japan. The result was that the exploits of the human warriors whose actions had made its effects possible became overshadowed both by the knockout blow that the storm had provided and by an anachronistic belief that the samurai were displaying an unselfish and nationalistic consciousness in the face of a foreign enemy. This myth was to reach a climax during the final months of World War II, when the Japanese, faced with an invasion of their homeland by a foreign enemy for the first time since the Mongol invasions, turned in desperation to suicide attacks and adopted the name of ‘kamikaze’ for the pilots who were to carry them out.
JAPAN AND THE MONGOL EMPIRE
During the 13th century the main driving force in East Asia was provided by the nomadic tribes of the north who became united under the leadership of Genghis Khan, and over a period of half a century the Mongol Empire redrew the map of the Asiatic continent. It was, however, a process from which the island nation of Japan managed to stay aloof for more than 70 years, maintaining no official diplomatic relations with either China or Korea at this time. Japan may have had close economic and cultural ties with both countries through international trade, but her political stance was one of splendid isolation until the ruler of the Mongol Empire decided that this strategically located little country should either be persuaded or forced to enter international politics.
This move was instigated by Khubilai Khan (1215–94), who became the first emperor of the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty of China in 1271, an achievement that symbolized dramatically the transformation of the Mongols from their origins as nomadic dwellers in felt tents to the sedentary rulers of a civilized state. Thus it was that when, only three years later, Khubilai Khan first attempted to extend his hegemony to Japan, the military campaign he carried out was launched not from the grassy steppes of Central Asia but from the harbours and estuaries of southern Korea. The Mongol invasions of Japan, although masterminded by the heirs of an extensive land-based military power of which the Japanese knew very little and of whose military tactics the samurai had no prior experience, therefore brought into face-to-face conflict certain military forces that were uncomfortably familiar with each other.
The expeditions of 1274 and 1281 may therefore be seen as one further stage in the history of the relations between Japan, Korea and China. For centuries that relationship had swung between peace and war, and the Mongol invasion of Japan in 1274 was far from being the first seaborne raid to have been launched across the Straits of Tsushima, the area of sea that divides Japan from the nearest point on the Asiatic land mass. The difference was that most of the previous raids had been carried out in the opposite direction. This was the phenomenon of the wako, the Japanese pirates, whose depredations had flung into reverse a long-standing admiration for the Japanese that had been felt across East Asia, and for which the Mongol invasions could even be seen as revenge.
It had all once been so very different. When Buddhism arrived in Japan from China around the year 552 it came gift-wrapped in Chinese culture, and the enthusiasm exhibited over the following centuries by successive Japanese emperors went far beyond any interest in or commitment to a new religion. The glorious Tang dynasty in particular was to provide the inspiration for creating an ordered and well-governed Japan that would be a reflection of the Chinese and Buddhist world order, and no better symbol of this attitude was to be provided than the establishment of Japan’s first permanent capital city in 710 at Nara, a place laid out as a miniature version of the Tang capital of Chang’an. During the time of the Sui dynasty who had preceded the Tang, their first envoy to Japan had surmised that the people he met there were the descendants of ancient Chinese who had gone abroad in search of the islands of the immortals, a warm sentiment echoed in the official history of the Sui dynasty where the Japanese are described as ‘rather quiet… They seldom engage in banditry… By nature they are honest. They have a refined manner.’ It was a positive impression that was to be reinforced by the steady stream of Buddhist monks, students and ambassadors who made their way to the Tang court from Japan. Indeed, the personal bearing of the envoy Fujiwara Kiyokawa in front of the Emperor of China convinced his host that Japan was ‘a country of etiquette and gentlemen’, an expression to be repeated time and again.
Yet by 1266 that perception had changed. As his grip on China became more secure, Khubilai Khan sent two envoys to Japan with the message that the two countries should ‘establish friendly relations’. The implications behind that phrase and the threat of war included within the final paragraph of the letter will be discussed later. For now we merely note that the ambassadors’ journey took them via Korea, where a letter was presented to the Korean king requesting his help in guiding the envoys safely to a land whose ‘institutions and administration are praiseworthy’. The ambassadors, however, went no further, having been dissuaded from travelling by raging seas and the strong hint from the Koreans that a voyage to Japan might place their lives in danger from people who were ‘obdurate and tough, with no sense of propriety or order’. It was a very different perception.
A few more years were to pass before an envoy from the Great Khan was able to judge for himself how far the Japanese had fallen from the level of exemplary behaviour that had previously been assumed. In 1270 Zhao Liangbi travelled to Japan carrying a message in which Japan was praised in the accepted terms of ‘a country renowned for its knowledge of etiquette’, but it took no more than 12 months of residence for Zhao’s personal observations and conclusions to reverse that official perception. ‘I have lived in Japan for a year,’ wrote the learned envoy. ‘I have observed the people’s customs and found that the Japanese are cruel and bloodthirsty. They do not recognize the bond between father and son or the etiquette pertaining to relations between superiors and inferiors.
Part of the reason for Zhao Liangbi’s contempt for his hosts was their haughty refusal to respond to the official letter from the Great Khan offering friendly relations, but a further factor to have brought about this radical difference in perception was the reprehensible behaviour of the Japanese pirates against China’s neighbour. Korea had been chosen not only for its geographical convenience but because its ability to resist attacks from the sea was being consistently reduced by the need to combat other attacks that were being delivered overland. In view of what was to happen in 1274 it is particularly ironic to discover that these raids were in fact a series of Mongol invasions of Korea.
The first Mongol incursion into Korea involved no more than the pursuit by the Mongols across the Yalu River of fleeing Khitan troops who had been refused supplies by the Koreans and gone raiding in Korea instead. In 1231 the Mongols returned as invaders in their own right, and after a series of sieges in northern Korea the royal court of the ruling Goryeo dynasty took refuge on the island of Ganghwa. For the first time in the history of the Mongol conquests the Mongols were faced with a barrier of the sea. Lacking any means whereby that could cross this tiny stretch of water – and the strait was only one kilometre wide – their immediate aim of the surrender of the Goryeo monarch was frustrated. It was a strange portent of the problems that would face the Mongol army when the fight was to be taken to Japan.
After several further raids the Mongol army invaded Korea in 1254 for what was to prove the last time. Ganghwa Island still remained untaken, but in 1258 radical developments within Korean politics greatly helped the Mongol cause. Throughout all the previous invasions the resistance from Ganghwa had been controlled not by the Korean king but by a hardline, antiMongol faction. When its leader was assassinated in 1258 the king assumed personal control of the government and indicated his intention to negotiate a peace.
Hostages were sent to the Mongol court as proof of goodwill, but in an action called the ‘Rebellion of the Three Patrols’ a group of diehard Korean military officers deposed his successor and determined to keep fighting. Mongol troops were invited in by the Korean royal family to overthrow the rebels, which they did in 1270, and the insurgents fled to Jeju Island. In 1273 the Korean crown prince was married to Khubilai Khan’s daughter, and with this alliance the resistance from Jeju ceased.
Half of Jeju Island was given over to a grazing ground for Mongol horses in a process of pacification that was paralleled throughout mainland Korea. At first the Mongols appeared to be generous overlords, and it seemed that peace had finally come to the peninsula. But only one year was to pass before the Korean king was to be humiliated when he saw his country’s soldiers and naval resources commandeered by the Mongols for their most ambitious maritime project of all: the invasion of Japan.
THE MONGOL CONQUEST OF CHINA
Throughout the time when Korea was being subjected to the raids of Mongol horsemen, other Mongol commanders had been involved in a much largerscale operation to achieve the conquest of China, where past political developments had ensured that war would have to be launched against three ruling powers: the Xixia, the Jin and the Southern Song. The process by which Genghis Khan and his successors took over the whole of China and set up their own Yuan (Mongol) dynasty was the longest campaign of all the military actions involved in creating their spectacular empire. It began with Genghis Khan’s operation against the Xixia and was completed only 70 years later by Khubilai Khan. Almost all the other Mongol operations, from Syria to Poland and from Russia to Japan, were carried out to the backdrop of this long struggle for China. Within that period of time the Mongols fought on grasslands, in sub-tropical jungles, in deserts, across temperate farmlands, along rivers and on the sea, just to subdue that one enormous and complex country. The campaign also spanned an enormous conceptual gap from nomadism to imperialism, and was symbolized by the difference between the dwelling of the first Mongol leader, who lived in a portable felt tent, and that of his grandson, who owned the palace now known to the popular imagination as Xanadu.
The year 1232 saw the celebrated siege of Kaifeng by the Mongols under the famous general Subadai. This marked the end of the Jin dynasty. Looking northwards from behind their supposed barrier of the Yangtze River the Southern Song dynasty smirked as they contemplated the destruction of the northern upstarts who had once humiliated them, but, as an ambassador from the Jin reminded them, they now had an even worse neighbour to fear. The Mongols pressed forward the conquest of the Southern Song in a huge operation hindered only temporarily by the death of Mongke Khan in 1259. The effort was resumed by Khubilai Khan and was a colossal military undertaking that faced numerous obstacles. Hostilities began with raids on the Mongols by the Song between 1260 and 1262, and early in 1265 the first major battle erupted.
The two armies clashed in Sichuan province, where the Mongols not only won the battle but captured 146 Song ships. Over the past centuries the Song had developed a considerable naval capacity, and shipyards were established in Hangzhou and elsewhere. The first Song emperor had attached great importance to shipbuilding, and often made personal visits to the yards. Defence against pirate raids had provided the initial stimulus for this enthusiasm, but the Song fleet soon proved vital in combating the Jin. Khubilai Khan’s confiscation of the Song vessels showed that he appreciated that the Mongols now needed a navy, and the speed with which this was set in motion by the Mongols, a nation of horsemen unacquainted with the sea, was amazing. With the fall of Korea, another country with a considerable naval tradition, further maritime resources passed into Khubilai Khan’s hands, so a major overseas expedition could now be considered.
The next phase in the Mongol strategy resulted in one of the greatest sieges of Chinese history at Xiangyang. Here the Mongols besieged the Southern Song for five years in an operation during which much ingenuity was shown on both sides. When Xiangyang fell Khubilai wasted no time in sending his army against the Southern Song capital of Hangzhou. Bayan, one of the most gifted of all Mongol leaders, crossed the Yangtze in January 1275 and met the Song forces in a series of battles where the Mongol superiority in catapult artillery made a decisive difference. Bayan went on to bombard and take the Song stronghold of Yangzhou, breaking down temples, towers and halls with his fearsome counterweight trebuchets and using various types of exploding bombs. His army occupied one town after another, some surrendering as soon as the army came in sight, and finally Hangzhou fell, but it was a sea battle in 1279 that brought about the final eclipse of the Southern Song. The Mongols blockaded the Song fleet, which attempted to break out. In the fight which followed the Song imperial ship was one of the casualties, so an official took the child emperor in his arms and jumped into the sea, drowning them both. With this act the last remnants of the Song dynasty were eliminated. By this time of course, the first Mongol invasion of Japan had been carried out, so it is necessary to backtrack a little to discover why Japan had become an additional target while such a huge and important campaign was still in motion.
THE LAND OF GOLD
Khubilai Khan’s personal reasons for invading Japan in 1274 can never be known for certain, yet to one particular foreign observer of the scene the motivation was crystal clear. ‘People on the island of Zipangu’ wrote the Venetian merchant and traveller Marco Polo (1254–1324) ‘have measureless quantities of gold… The King’s palace is roofed with pure gold… and the floors are paved in gold two fingers’ thick’.
The fact that Japan produced gold was well known to the rulers of China. Gold was first discovered in Japan in 749, and in that year about 39kg of gold from Tohoku (north-eastern Japan) was presented to Nara to help gild the Great Buddha of the Todaiji Temple. Before long gold mined in Tohoku was being used to pay for the succession of visits to China that did so much to strengthen Japan’s reputation abroad. When a delegation 500 strong left for China in 804 the ambassador and his deputy were given about 13kg of gold between them to use for their living expenses. At the time of the Song dynasty Japan exported large quantities of gold to China, and in 1124 a golden temple hall, which has miraculously survived to this day, was constructed at the temple of Chusonji in Hiraizumi. All these factors contributed to the legend of Japan as a land of gold, a story that Marco Polo probably picked up from visiting Muslim merchants. This he relates in the account of his travels, together with the information that, ‘When tidings of its richness were brought to the Great Khan – that is the same Khubilai who now reigns – he declared his resolve to conquer the island.’
Other commentators took very different views of Khubilai Khan’s motivation, seeing it simply as part of the ‘manifest destiny’ of the Mongol emperor to control the entire known world, a point made by the king of Korea, who warned Japan that they were dealing with a man who had a ‘desire to be known throughout the world as one whose rule is all-embracing’. Some Japanese officials agreed with this statement, such as the Zen priest Togen Eian, who read the signs of the time and concluded in 1270 that the reason the Mongols wanted to conquer Japan was so that they could then use Japanese military skills in their future conquests, beginning with the Southern Song:
Because Japan’s military skills supersede those of all other nations, our bows and arrows [are wielded with] peerless skill, and our armour makes even the gods tremble… the Mongols choose to conquer Japan. Once Japan’s warriors are under their control they will be able to conquer China and India. The country of the Mongols would direct strategy, while Japan would fight in the field for victory. With the strength combined, no country could resist.
Yet could it have been the case that the Mongol invasions were instigated not from China but from Korea, where the pirates had made Japan into an enemy? It is an established fact that large numbers of Korean troops, sailors and ships took part in the Mongol expeditions, and it is usually assumed that they were acting under duress: having been defeated by the Mongols themselves the Koreans had little choice but to obey the commands of their new overlords. However, although there may have been some desire for revenge against the damage wrought by the wako, in the years immediately prior to the Mongol invasions the Korean government appears to have appreciated that there was a clear distinction between pirates and legitimate Japanese seafarers. Lawful Japanese ships continued to call in on Korea, and in 1263 a wrecked Japanese ship was repaired and sent home. On another occasion 30 Japanese castaways were rescued and escorted back to Japan by Koreans. Japanese pirate raids on Korea had also come to an end in 1265. With Mongol troops moving into southern Korea as the date for the invasion approached, it would have been suicidal for the wako to attempt further attacks. It is also on record that as late as 1278 Korean officials tried to dissuade the Mongol rulers from mounting a second invasion of Japan. This is unlikely to have been done out of any great love for its belligerent island neighbour, but it makes it very unlikely that the Koreans ever urged the Mongols into the course of action they took in 1274.
The key to understanding Khubilai Khan’s likely motivation lies in appreciating the point that at the time of the first Mongol invasion Japan’s cultural and economic contacts with China were almost entirely confined to the fading power of the Southern Song dynasty. Even though no official diplomatic channels existed, trade ships were exchanged and a further avenue of contact was maintained by Zen monks. As we will see later, the Japanese rulers at Kamakura were enthusiasts for Zen, and numbered Chinese Zen practitioners among their closest advisers. It was almost inevitable that any information received in Japan about the Mongols from Southern Song contacts would have been highly prejudiced against their northern neighbours, making a reasoned response by the Japanese to Mongol overtures much less likely, and this is indeed what happened when a series of requests, demands and even threats from the Great Khan went unanswered between 1266 and 1274.
This continuing Mongol diplomatic effort against Japan was facilitated by means of considerable pressure on the Korean court, whose officials became the Khan’s unwilling messengers. Routing it this way had two advantages for Khubilai Khan. First, it reinforced the control he had over Korea and prevented the Koreans from acting independently or with any real autonomy. Second, should Japan not be brought into the Mongol sphere of influence by these peaceful means, then a submissive Korea could further be used as the base for an invasion. A year after the incident noted above, when the Koreans dissuaded a Chinese envoy from visiting Japan, the Korean king was ordered to convey Khubilai Khan’s letter to its intended recipients. In 1268, while the Korean envoys were still in Japan, the Korean king was further ordered to provide soldiers and ships for the Mongols and three months worth of provisions. The Yuan Shi records the words of the order as:
In case, therefore, that we should plan a war against an intransigent country, it would be well for your country to send an army to help make war. It would be well for you to build one thousand fighting craft large enough to carry three or four thousand shi of rice.
Ten thousand troops were mobilized as a result and construction began on the requested 1,000 ships. All these were eventually to be used during the first invasion, but it is interesting to note that Japan was not specifically mentioned as the target at this stage. Khubilai Khan’s preoccupation was still with the Southern Song, and at the same time that the military requisition was sent to Korea he also dispatched men to investigate the islands off the south-western tip of Korea, not as a possible route for an invasion of Japan, but as a means of facilitating a blockade of the Southern Song from the sea, the only direction against them that was still open. As for Japan, Khubilai Khan knew of the existence of this island nation that traded with the Southern Song, and if Japan could be persuaded to break off relations this would greatly facilitate the Khan’s progress towards ruling the whole of China. Japan may have been a small country, almost not worth conquering, but in view of its relationship with Khubilai Khan’s deadliest enemies, it could not simply be ignored.
The famous letter from Khubilai Khan to Japan urging ‘friendly relations’ was received, discussed and ultimately dismissed by two separate bodies. The first was to be found in Kyoto in the shape of the court of the emperor of Japan, a monarch who existed more as a religious figurehead than a ruler. Since the time of the Gempei War of 1180–85, Japan had been ruled by a military dictatorship located in Kamakura, a city near modern-day Tokyo, although by 1268 power had long moved out of the hands of the Minamoto family, who had provided Japan’s first shogun, and was now under the control of the Hojo. Being unable to enjoy the title of shogun, the Hojo commanded the bakufu (a term for the shogunate that took its name from the field curtains used to conceal a commander’s headquarters on the battlefield) as the shikken or regency. Both bodies rejected the Khan’s letter, so the Korean envoys returned home empty handed, the first of several instances of diplomatic frustration that were to occur in the years leading up to the invasion. Early in 1269 a diplomatic mission of 70 Koreans and Mongols arrived on Tsushima and demanded Japan’s answer to the Khan’s letter. The imperial court wished to respond at this time but were overruled by Kamakura. The envoys returned to China with two kidnapped islanders, who were taken to the Mongol emperor’s palace, and as soon as they were sufficiently impressed by its splendour they were returned unharmed as witnesses to the Mongol power along with a new diplomatic mission. On this occasion a Japanese reply was drafted but never delivered, although it is unlikely that it would have made much difference to subsequent events even if it had reached the Great Khan, because the letter contained a lively rejection of the Mongol demands and a proud assertion that Japan lay under divine protection.
Towards the end of 1270 Khubilai Khan dispatched Zhao Liangbi on a final diplomatic mission to Japan. The Yuan Shi tells us that he declined the offer of an armed bodyguard of 3,000 men and took along only 24 scribes instead. Zhao’s efforts were long and weary. He was first forced to wait in Korea while a Korean mission made its own attempts to persuade the Japanese to comply with Khubilai Khan’s demands. On finally arriving in Japan in 1271 Zhao’s party were almost attacked, and the brave envoy was kept under arrest in a wooden hut for a day. He eventually arrived at Dazaifu, the regional seat of government for Kyushu. Refused permission to make a personal visit to the ‘king of Japan’ – an unfortunate turn of phrase that cannot have helped his efforts – Zhao was finally persuaded to hand the Khan’s letter over to the Japanese authorities in Dazaifu. When no reply was forthcoming Zhao returned home. Zhao eventually went back to Dazaifu and waited in vain for a response until 1273. He then returned to China for the last time, frustrated and angry, to meet Khubilai Khan, whom he urged not to invade Japan because ‘useful people should not be sacrificed to fill the limitless valleys [with their corpses]’. But it was already too late.
Meanwhile, the demand for troops and ships from Korea had led to the armed uprising known as the ‘Rebellion of the Three Patrols’, whose leaders requested aid from Japan. The delay in any Japanese response provided the opportunity for Khubilai Khan to crush the rebellion in 1271 and assert greater control over the Korean peninsula. The elimination of the rebels from Jeju Island and his marriage into the Korean royal family in 1273 then set the final stage for an invasion of Japan via Korea.
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