China’s reply to the Japanese.... the Chinese army.... the Chinese commander interviews the King.... march on P’yung-yang.... Chinese treachery.... the new year.... Chinese help not all a blessing.... P’yung-yang invested.... the Chinese force an entrance.... Japanese driven to bay.... how they escape.... they retreat.... they mass at Seoul.... Chinese stop at Song-do.... Koreans bridge the Im-jin.... Chinese retire to P’yung-yang.... Korean victory in the north.... great victory at Hang-ju.... the Japanese sue for peace.... conference on the Han.... Japanese evacuate Seoul.... the terrible condition of the city.... Chinese enter Seoul.... they prevent pursuit.... Japanese desecrate a royal tomb.... Chinese accused of bad faith.... Japanese line of camps.... Chinese reinforced.... the great battle of Chin-ju.... a loyal dancing-girl.... admiral Yi still active.... Chinese troops retire.

We must now return to the north and witness the final struggle which was to begin the Japanese retreat from the whole north. It was not till long after the fifty days had expired that Gen. Sim Yu-gyung returned from Nanking. The Japanese had sent time and again, asking why he did not make his appearance, but now on the sixth day of the twelfth moon he entered the city of P’yung-yang, making no excuses for his tardiness but delivering his message as follows: “I have seen the Emperor and he says that if you wish to become vassals of China you must first give up all the territory taken from Korea. You must also give up the two princes whom you have captured. If you do not see fit to comply with these demands the Emperor will send a million men and destroy you.” He then gave to each of the Japanese leaders an ornament for the hat, from the Emperor. This was a trick to discover how large the Japanese force might be. It was determined that there must be about 20,000 Japanese troops in the city. What reply the Japanese gave to the Emperor’s demands is not told, but that it was a negative one seems sure from what followed.

The Chinese army of counter-invasion lay just beyond the Ya-lu River. It was an enormous host and, as armies went in those days, it was a thoroughly efficient one. In connection with this army was an official who held the rank of “Military Adviser,” by the name of Song Eung-ch’ang. The office carried no active power in the field but it seems to have been a sort of check upon the commander-in-chief, for the duties of the office were to keep the Emperor informed of what was going on at the seat of war. The actual General-in-chief was Yi Yu-song. Under him were three generals, of the right, left and center respectively. The General of the Left was Yang Wun and under him were Generals Wang Yu-jung, Yi Yu-ma, Yi Yo-o, Yang So, Sa Ta-suTa-su, Son Su-ryum, Yi Ryung and Kal Pong-ha. The General of the Center was Yi Yu-bak and under him were Generals Im Cha-yang, Yi Pang-jin, Ko Ch’ak, ChÖn Su-jong, Ch’uk Keum, Chu Hong-mo, Pang Si-whi, Ko Seung and Wang Mun. The General of the Right was Chang Se-jak and under him were Generals Cho Seung-hun, O Yu-ch’ung, Wang P’il-juk, Cho Chi-mok, Chang Eung-ch’ung, Nak Sang-ji, Chin Pang-ch’ul, Kok Su and Yang Sim. The rear guard was under the command of Gen. Pang Si-ch’an and the engineering corps was commanded by Generals Yu Whang-sang and Wun Whang. The main army was composed of 43,000 troops, while in the rear was a reserve force of 8,000. This army crossed the Ya-lu on the twenty-fifth of the twelfth moon, the dead of winter. It is said that when on the march this army stretched along the road a thousand li (three hundred miles and more) and that the sound of their drums was continuous along the whole line.

General-in-chief Yi Yu-song, dressed in crimson robes and riding in a crimson chair, arrived in Eui-ju and immediately sought an interview with the king. The latter said, “I have governed this country badly. The Emperor has been put to a great deal of trouble on my account and all these good men have come a long, cold road to fight for us. Though I lay open my vitals with a sword I cannot repay you all for this kindness.” Gen. Yi smiled and said, “The Emperor’s might reaches to the heavens. For the sake of Your Majesty’s happiness we have been sent, and all your enemies will soon be put to flight.” To this the king rejoined, “Our nation’s life hangs by a thread, and the result lies with you.” Gen. Yi raised his two hands in salute and answered, “I am come at the Emperor’s orders and life or death are all one to me. When I started out my father said to me, ‘Fight valiantly for Korea and return victorious,’ and so how can I do less than my best?” The Koreans say that this man’s father was a native of Eun-san in the province of P’yung-an, Korea, but that for some offence he had fled to China and together with many of his relatives was enjoying high position under the Emperor.

Gen. Yi started for P’yung-yang with his whole army, 80,000 bags of rice and 20,000 pounds of powder. His troops were not provided with muskets but they had small cannon. The Japanese on the other hand had muskets but no cannon. Upon the arrival of the Chinese at An-ju they were met by the Prime Minister, Yu Sung-nyung, who laid before Gen. Yi a map showing the roads leading to P’yung-yang. Gen. Yi took red ink and indicated on the map the various routes by which he intended to lead his forces to that city. Calling Gen. Sa Ta-su he sent him forward to deceive the Japanese by saying that a few Chinese had come to effect a peaceful solution of the difficulty. The Japanese were pleased at this and sent twenty of their people to meet, as they supposed, Sim Yu-gyung at Su-an. Gen. Sa feasted them there but meanwhile had the place surrounded and in the midst of the banquet the Japanese were treacherously assaulted and cut down, only three escaping. From these the Japanese learned of the hostile intentions of the Chinese and were greatly disturbed, but being forewarned they put themselves in readiness for an assault.

And so the old year died—the terrible Im-jin year which witnessed the indescribable horrors of the ruthless invasion which swept it from end to end; which saw, too, the gradual awakening of the dormant military spirit of the people, until at its close the wave of invasion had not only broken and spent itself but had left the remnant of the invaders cut off from their home land by one of the greatest naval geniuses of his own or any other age, surrounded on all sides and hemmed in by forces which though perhaps unable to cope with them in the open field in a pitched battle could yet harrassharrass and cut them off on every side. It must be clearly borne in mind that the Chinese did not raise a hand to help Korea until the invasion virtually collapsed. The Koreans without the aid of China could probably have starved the Japanese out of P‘yung-yang and driven them southward, cutting them off on the left and right till they would have been glad to take ship for home. In a sense the Chinese counter-invasion was an extremely unfortunate thing for Korea, for the dormant energies of the people were just rousing themselves to action. Armies were being levied, every day saw the Japanese forces melting away and there was a magnificent opportunity for Korea to turn upon her devastators and drive them headlong into the sea. It would have given a tremendous impulse to patriotism and national self-respect, and it might have been a stepping-stone to a strong national life; but the coming of the Chinese soldiery immediately threw everything into Chinese hands and they reaped all the benefits of the situation. Even the Koreans themselves did not realize how they were playing into the hands of China. The Japanese in P‘yung-yang were weary and sick, and at heart glad of any excuse for retreating if it could be done without too great a loss of dignity. It was at just this moment that the Koreans put the game, already won, into the hands of China to reap all the credit and all the prizes of success. The Koreans leaned back upon China and relapsed into their old self-complacent “fool’s paradise.”

With the beginning of the new year Gen Yi moved southward toward P‘yung-yang as far as Suk-ch‘un where he intended to halt for the night, as the winter days were short, but hearing of the massacre at Sun-an and wishing to give as little time for preparation as possible, pushed on by night, and in the morning planted his banners before the ancient city of P‘yung-yang. The city was forthwith surrounded. The Japanese could be seen covering the slope of the hill within the wall with their blue and white flags, and soon they opened fire on the besiegers. At the same moment they rushed to the walls and manned them. The Chinese Generals of the Left, Center and Right were stationed with their respective forces before the three gates Ch’il-sung, Ham-gu and Po-t’ong. The General-in-chief Yi, with a banner in one hand and a drum-stick in the other, rode swiftly from one division to another encouraging the men. His forces could hardly be held in check, they were so eager, in spite of their long, cold night march, to rush at the wall and scale it. They were not long kept from their desire, for at eight o’clock word was given for the whole assaulting force to advance to the wall. The cannon thundered, the fire-arrows flashed throughthrough the air, the very ground fairly trembled with the noise of battle and the tramp of eager feet. One of the fire-arrows alighted in the quarters of the Japanese general-in-chief and it was soon in flames, which rapidly spread to all the surrounding buildings. The Japanese guarded the walls with the greatest gallantry, and with spear and arrow, hot water and stones they made it quite impossible for the Chinese to effect an entrance. The wall bristled with weapons, so that in the words of a native chronicler it was “a hedge-hog’s back.” So it happened that the Chinese forces fell back from the fierce defense of the Japanese. Many of them contemplated a general retreat and started to leave the field, but Gen. Yi, who was always found where most needed, saw the defection of his men and, pursuing them, struck off the heads of a few as an example to the rest. Then he turned and cried, “Fifty ounces of silver to the first man to set foot upon the battlements of P’yung-yang.” This was doubtless a more powerful appeal than he could have made had he called upon their patriotism or love of glory. Immediately the tide of battle turned. A Chinese captain, Nak Sang-ji, a man well along in years and whose proportions were so ample that the Korean chronicler says of him that he weighed a thousand pounds, led on a company of men and by a mighty effort succeeded in reaching the top of the wall. He held his ground there while others could scale the wall at his back, and so an entrance was effected. The Japanese began to desert the wall, and soon the Chinese entered by the Po-t’ong and Ch’il-sung gates, while Korean allies entered by the Ham-gu Gate. By this time the Japanese had entirely left the wall and had massed themselves as best they could in various parts of the city, determined to make a desperate stand. The Chinese infantry and cavalry both swarmed in on every side and all Japanese stragglers were cut off, while the fight throughout the city became general. Before the Japanese could firmly establish themselves upon the hill and in other defensible parts of the town they lost two captains, 2,285 men, and 45,002 weapons of various kinds, besides 1,051 Koreans whom they had held as captives.

Many of the Japanese had taken refuge in various government buildings which they had barricaded as best they could. The Chinese went to work systematically to burn these down, and in the few hours remaining before the fall of night nearly half of the entire Japanese force succumbed to the weapons of Chinese. One instance will suffice to illustrate the method of procedure. Many of the Japanese had taken refuge in a large building on the wall, well up on the side of the mountain and looking directly down upon the waters of the river. Gen. Yi had it surrounded with piles of wood, the timbers of houses and hewn logs, and these were set on fire. The entrapped Japanese then had the choice of roasting to death or leaping down upon the ice of the river. Hundreds chose the latter alternative, but the ice was not strong enough to stand the tremendous strain and they were all engulfed in the river and carried under the ice below. As for those that remained, it is said that the smell of burning flesh could be discerned a quarter of a mile away.

Gen. Konishi had taken refuge with a large body of troops in a building called the Yun-gwang-jung, very near the Ta-dong Gate which opens directly upon the water front. Night had fallen and the fight had lulled for a time. What took place at this time may be open to some doubt. The Korean account says that the Chinese commander sent a message to Konishi demanding the surrender of his whole force and that Konishi replied, “Our remaining force is small and we wish to evacuate the city and retreat if we may be allowed to leave quietly.” It is affirmed that Gen. Yi consented to this and left the Ta-dong Gate unguarded, and in the dead of night the Japanese troops passed swiftly out and crossed the river. On the face of it this statement is hardly credible, but judging from future events the Koreans believe that Gen. Yi received a large bribe from the Japanese as the price of this act of leniency. It is true that future events justified the Koreans in suspecting some such thing, but as the Japanese were immediately beside the Ta-dong Gate and, under cover of night, might easily have forced their way out, especially as the Chinese were exhausted by their long forced march and the fight about the city, we may well believe that the Japanese did not need to appeal either to the pity or the avarice of the Chinese in order to effect their escape. It may be, too, that Gen. Yi did not wish to be hampered with so many prisoners of war and was rather glad than otherwise to let them get away. Of course the Koreans who had suffered so terribly at the hands of the Japanese would have been glad to see every one of them massacred, and their anger at seeing them escape may have led them to impute wrong motives to Gen. Yi. Subsequent events, however, gave some color to these suspicious, as we shall see.

This retreat from P’yung-yang in the dead of winter was like Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, on a small scale. The Japanese were without provisions or proper clothing. Many of them threw aside their arms and luggage and, turning from the main road, begged their way from house to house. When at last they reached the city of Seoul and found food and safety they were in a savage humor. Most of the Koreans who had fled from the capital had now returned, and on them these half-famished and wholly disappointed Japanese wreaked their vengeance. They seized hundreds of the unoffending people and put them to the sword. Scores of them were taken outside the South Gate and slaughtered like oxen.

Gen. Kato, who had led an expedition eastwards into Ham-gyung Province, hearing of the evacuation of P’yung-yang, immediately put his troops in motion and hastened down to Seoul, burning and ravaging as he came. And in a short time all the remnants of the Japanese army were congregated in the capital.

The Japanese retreat from P’yung-yang was not without its casualties. A Korean general, Ko On-bak, met a body of the Japanese, probably a part of the retreating army, at P’a-ju, seventy li out of Seoul, and punished them severely, taking as it is said, seventy heads; not a great achievement when we remember that the Japanese were practically unarmed.

But by this time the Chinese Gen. Yi was on his way south from P’yung-yang, rather tardily as the Koreans thought, but hearing of this engagement of Gen. Ko, he quickened his pace. Coming to He-on Pass, some seventy li out from Seoul, his horse slipped, throwing him heavily on his face. He was severely though not dangerously hurt. At that moment a company of Japanese was sighted on the mountain side and Gen. Yi ordered instant pursuit. The Japanese, probably a foraging party from Seoul, closed with them and as the Chinese were on a marshy piece of land, where they sank to their knees in the mud, and had no other weapons with them but their swords, the Japanese inflicted severe punishment on them, killing eighty of their number. Gen. Yi was so weak from loss of blood that he did not dare to prolong the fight. So he called a retreat and the next day went into camp at Tong-p’a, a hundred li from Seoul. From that point he immediately despatched a letter to the Emperor saying: “There are 20,000 Japanese firmly intrenched in Seoul and with my present force I dare not attack them. I am also ill and cannot fight. I would be glad if you would send someone to relieve me of the command.” Then he retreated fifty li further, to Song-do, in spite of the earnest entreaties of the Koreans. The Korean General Yi Pin said, “You came to render aid to our country. Why is it that you now retreat?” whereupon one of the general’s staff promptly kicked him out of the house.

Gen. Yi ordered Gen. Sa Ta-su to go and guard the ferry at the Im-jin river which was now partly frozen but impassable for boats and ordered the Koreans to go to work building a bridge for the transport of the Chinese army. Here was a piece of work that might have daunted a better engineer than the average Korean general. But the way the Koreans went about it and the brilliant success they achieved show what the Korean was capable of when really in earnest. And it shows as well how thoroughly they were determined to see chastisement inflicted upon the Japanese. A swift broad river partly frozen, no possibility of driving piles nor of erecting any supports from the bed of the river itself. It must be a suspension bridge or none at all. On either side of the river heavy timbers were planted firmly in the ground some twenty feet apart. Behind these horizontally were laid heavy logs. Then between these supports on either bank were stretched fifteen heavy strands of the tough fibrous vine called chik by the Koreans. It is the pueraria thunbergiana. Of course these sagged in mid-stream so that they swept the water. To remedy this, stout levers were inserted between the strands and twisted until the cables swung clear of the water by many feet. The foundation having thus been laid, willow branches were spread thickly upon the cables and finally a heavy layer of earth was added and the whole was packed down tight by the treading of many feet. And so was completed the first suspension bridge which history records. We see that during this war the Koreans had originated three important things, namely the iron-clad, the mortar and bomb, and now the suspension bridge. And on this bridge the whole Chinese army crossed in safety.

But Gen. Yi was tired of the war and was extremely anxious to get back to China. So when he heard that KatoKato was crossing the peninsula he said, “He may come to P’yung-yang and in that case I must hasten back to that place and hold it against him.” So he started back toward that city, leaving Gen Wang P’il-juk in charge of the forces that were advancing on Seoul.

At this point mention must be made of the victories of Gen. ChÖng Mun-bu in Ham-gyung Province. In three successive fights he had defeated a large, though not the main, body of Japanese and seems to have entirely cut it off from forming a junction with Gen. Kato as he retreated toward Seoul with his dwindling though still formidable army. After the departure of the Japanese, Gen. ChÖng went to the far north, even to the far Tu-man River and inflicted severe punishment on all those who had aided the Japanese or had sided with them in the betrayal of the two princes. This done, he pacified the disturbed province as much as he could and then disbanded the militia and sent them to their homes.

Kwun Ryul, the governor of Chul-la, of whom we have heard before, took 4000 men and marched on Seoul, not by the main road but by way of Yang-ch’un. Crossing the Han at that point he went into camp at Hang-ju and surrounded it with a paling of heavy logs. The Japanese in Seoul ridiculed it but sent a strong body of troops to attack it. A long fierce fight ensued and the result was doubtful. At last the Japanese succeeded in setting fire to the wooden paling and had it not been for the most strenuous efforts on the part of the Koreans they would have been burned out. But they succeeded in quenching the flames. When their arrows were gone their outlook was again apparently hopeless, but in the very nick of time Admiral Yi Pin of Chul-la Province came up the river by boat with 20,000 arrows and as the camp was immediately on the river bank the Koreans were saved, and soon the Japanese were driven back. KwunKwun Ryul took the bodies of the Japanese who had fallen, cut them in pieces and impaled the fragments on the top of the stockade. The next day the Chinese general Sa Ta-su arrived and, seeing these trophies of victory, praised Gen. Kwun highly and sent him to P’a-ju to guard against any possible northward movement of the Japanese. At the same time small companies were sent in all directions to cut off foraging expeditions of the enemy. In this way the Japanese in Seoul were cut off from all supply of fuel. The Japanese general who had suffered defeat at Hang-ju thirsted for revenge, and he led many a fierce sally from Seoul, but always with great loss.

In the third month confidence was so far restored in the north that the king began to think of returning toward the capital. The first stage of this journey was as far as Yong-yu. At this same time the Japanese sent a letter to the Korean general Yu Sung-nyong saying that they wished to conclude a treaty of peace. Gen. Yu as in duty bound sent this message on to the Chinese Gen. Yi in P’yung-yang. He in turn despatched Sim Yu-gyung, who had before acted as an emissary of peace between the Japanese and the Emperor, to take charge of the negotiations and with instructions more or less definite. When this commissioner arrived in the vicinity of Seoul a meeting took place between him and the two Japanese leaders, Konishi and Kato, in mid-stream off the village of Yong-san. Gen Sim opened the conference by saying, “If you had listened to my advice in P’yung-yang you would have saved yourselves all this trouble. The Chinese, 40,000 strong, are all about you. They have gone south to fortify the Cho-ryung Pass and thus cut off your retreat. The Han River is guarded so thoroughly that you cannot cross; Gen. Yi Yu-song is returning from the north with 300,000 fresh troops (an unblushing lie) and I am prepared to offer you the only possible way of escape. You must give up the two princes; you must leave the capital and move south to the coast of Kyung-sang Province. Then and not till then will we conclude peace and the Emperor will recognize your king as his vassal.” The vanquished invaders saw that there was nothing to do but comply, and so in the name of the thirty-seven Japanese generals they engaged to evacuate Seoul on the nineteenth day of the fourth moon. It was further agreed that they should leave untouched 20,000 bags of rice which were stored in the government granaries. The two princes were to accompany the Japanese as far as Fusan and were to be handed over to the Korean authorities there.

In accordance with their promise, the Japanese evacuated the city on the very day appointed, and Gen. Yi Yu-song, who seems to have recovered his health rapidly after he found that the Japanese did not mean fight, entered the city the following day. The condition in which he found things is almost indescribable. The Ancestral Temple and three palaces had been burned. Only the Nam-pyul-gung, which the invaders had used as headquarters, was standing. The country all about was lying fallow and a great famine stared the Koreans in the face. A thousand bags of rice were hastily brought and made up into soup or gruel, mixed with pine leaves, and a few of the starving thousands were fed. As Gen. Sa Ta-su was passing along the street he saw a young child trying to suck milk from the breast of its dead mother. The sight aroused his compassion and he carried the child to his quarters and ordered it to be cared for. Rice was so scarce that a whole piece of cotton cloth could be purchased with about three quarts of it. A horse cost but three pecks of rice. Famishing men fought and killed each other, the victors eating the vanquished, sucking the marrow from the bones and then dying themselves of surfeit. It is even said that when a drunken Chinese soldier vomited, half starved men would crawl to the place and fight over the possession of this horrible substitute for food. This state of things naturally brought on an epidemic of the native fever, a species of typhus, and the dead bodies of its victims lay all along the road, the head of one being pillowed on the breast of another. The dead bodies in and immediately around Seoul were gathered and piled in a heap outside the Water Mouth Gate and it is affirmed that the pile was ten feet higher than the wall.

It was on the twentieth of the fourth moon that Gen. Yi entered Seoul. He took up his quarters in the Nam-pyul-gung. He seemed to be in no haste to pursue the Japanese, so Gen. Yu Sung-nyong hinted that as the Japanese were in full flight it might be well to hurry after them and cut them down as occasion offered. The Chinese general had no intention of leaving his comfortable quarters that soon, but he gave consent to the project of pursuit and detailed 10,000 men under the lead of Gen Yi Yu-bak. A day or so later this doughty warrior returned saying that he had a pain in the leg. So ended the first attempt at pursuit. Then the Korean Gen. Kwun Ryul came in from P’a-ju and urged that there be immediate pursuit, but for some unexplained reason the Chinese commander forbade it, and the native accounts even add that he sent secretly and had the boats on the Han destroyed so as to render pursuit of the Japanese impossible.

After crossing the Han River, the retreating Japanese seem to have been in very ill humor, for they did not confine their exhibitions of temper to the living alone but even attacked the dead. They dug open the royal tomb at Chung-neung a short distance the other side of the river. Digging fifteen measures deep they found some rags and a few bones. These they scattered about on the ground. They then filled in the hole with rubble. Another royal tomb was opened and the casket and remains were burned.

In the beginning of the fifth moon a letter arrived from the Military Commissioner, Song Eung-ch’ang, in P’yung-yang, ordering a general pursuit of the Japanese. The Koreans believe this to have been a mere blind, for the Japanese had twenty days the start of them and pursuit was of course out of the question. At this point again the Koreans make a serious charge against the Chinese, asserting that the Japanese, before leaving Seoul, sent large sums of money toward P’yung-yang for Gen. Yi Yu-song and Song Eung-ch‘ang, and that by this means they secured immunity from pursuit. The delay was a cause of great wonderment to the Koreans and it is not unlikely that this theory of a bribe explained for them most fully the actions of the Chinese. And it must be confessed that there is little in the temperament or antecedents of the Chinese on which to base a refutation of the charge. An instance is cited to bring home the charge. A Korean who had come upon a Japanese straggler and killed him was severely beaten by order of the Chinese general in charge.

Finally, when all too late, Gen. Yi made a pretense of pursuit, but after crossing Cho-ryung Pass and still finding himself no nearer the enemy than before, he turned back and resumed his comfortable quarters in Seoul. If he thought the Japanese would hasten to take boat and return to their native land, he was much mistaken. It may be that they wished to do so, but the terrible punishment that Admiral Yi Sun-sin had inflicted upon the army of reinforcement made them wary of approaching the coast, and so the Japanese forces in the south found themselves practically entrapped. Had the Korean land forces been led at this time by a man of the skill and bravery of old admiral Yi the country would have been spared long years of war.

The Japanese in their flight south were brought face to face with this stern fact, and like the soldiers that they were they set themselves to solve the problem. They wanted to be near the sea, perhaps with a view to taking advantage of any opportunity that might present itself of slipping across to Japan, and yet they were so numerous that, living as they must on forage, it would be impossible for them all to encamp at the same place. So they adopted the plan of fortifying a long strip of the southern coast, reaching from the harbor of So-sang in the district of Ul-san in Kyung-sang Province to Sun-ch‘un in Ch‘ul-la Province, a distance of over two hundred and seventy miles. There were in all between twenty and thirty camps. Being thus about ten miles apart they had room for forage and still were near enough each other to render assistance in case the Koreans or their allies the Chinese should besiege them at any point. These fortified camps were all of the same general kind, overlooking the sea from a bluff and on the land side surrounded by a moat and earthworks. These preparations were made with the utmost care, for there was no hope of immediate succor and the Japanese foresaw stirring times.

In course of time the Chinese court was informed of these events and the success of their generals in the north seems to have given them some enthusiasm for prosecuting the war; so additional troops were sent to the front under the command of Generals Yu Chung and Hu Kuk-ch‘ung. These troops numbered 5,000 and were from southern China. Among them there are said to have been many “ocean imps,” or savages from the southern islands. These men could enter the water, it is said, and scuttle the enemy’s ships from beneath. We are told that there were also in this army some men of immense stature who came in carts rather than on foot. These forces went into camp at Sung-ju in Kyung-sang Province. At this place there was also a large Korean army under Generals Kim Ch‘un-il, Kim Sang-gÖn, Ch‘oÉ Kyung-whÉ, Ko Chong-hu, Yang San-do and Yi Chong-in. Under them were large numbers of militia and raw recruits, and this accounts in part for the speedy fall of the town and the terrible slaughter that ensued. The Japanese laid siege to the place and after nine days, during which time the Japanese made a hundred separate assaults, the latter were reinforced and the defenders, exhausted by the long struggle, were finally driven from the wall and the Japanese effected an entrance. But even after they got in, the Koreans fought desperately and sold their lives as dearly as possible. Of this most sanguinary battle only one incident is preserved in the Korean accounts. When the Japanese entered the city and had advanced to a point on the wall which overlooks the waters of the Nam-gang (river), a desperate encounter took place, in the midst of which the Korean general, Yi Chong-in, seized two of the Japanese about the waist and, dragging them to the brink of the precipice, threw himself and them into the water below. Korean accounts say that in this battle the almost incredible number of 70,000 Koreans were killed and that an equal number of the Japanese perished. This latter must be an exaggeration, for the loss of that number must have swept well-nigh the entire Japanese army from the country. We must remember that the Japanese army had received practically no reinforcements from the time it first landed on Korean soil, and it is safe to say that what with the losses by sickness and accident, together with the thousands who had fallen at the hands of the Koreans and Chinese, the original force must have dwindled to 150,000 or less; in which case the loss of 70,000 men must have put them hors de combat at once. This battle is called the greatest in the whole war, by the Koreans, though it is not considered the most important.

An interesting story is told of a dancing-girl of this town. When the Japanese took possession of the place she was appropriated by one of the Japanese generals. One day while they were feasting in a summer-house on the wall overlooking the river, she began to weep. He asked her the reason and she replied, “You have come here and driven away our people and our king. I do not know whether my sovereign is living, and yet I sit here and feast. I can hardly claim to be better than the beasts, to sit here and make merry. I must put an end to my life.” Thereupon she threw her arms about her paramour and flung herself and him over the edge, thus ending her weary life and helping to avenge her native land at the same time. For this reason she was canonized at a later date and her spirit was worshiped at this place each year by royal edict.

All this time the great Admiral Yi was in camp at Han-san Island off the coast of Kyung-sang Province. His force was not large, but during his enforced idleness he prepared for future work. He set all his men to work making salt by evaporating sea water, and by this means he got together a great store of provisions. Needing barracks for the soldiers, he offered to the carpenters and workmen about a bag of salt for a day’s work. His energy and patriotism were so contagious that many worked for nothing, and the barracks were soon built. At this point the king conferred upon him the admiralty of the three provinces of Ch’ung-ch’ung, Chul-la and Kyung-sang.

In the ninth moon the Commissioner Song Eung-ch’ang and Gen Yi Yu-song collected their forces and started back for China. They evidently considered the back bone of the invasion broken, and so it was; but like most spinal diseases it was destined to linger on for years before it came to an end. When these generals set out on their homeward way they left 10,000 Chinese soldiers in the hands of the Korean generalsgenerals Yu Chung and O Yu-ch’ang to act as a bodyguard for the king. In spite of their suspicions of the corruptibility of Gen. Yi Yu-song, the Koreans speak in high terms of him. They describe him as a young man of thirty, of handsome person, broad mind and possessed of great skill in the art of war. When he was on the eve of returning to China he bared his head and showed the Koreans that his hair was already turning gray. He told them it was because he had worked so hard for them, which piece of bathos seems to have impressed them deeply.