bravado that Kim Song-il had indulged in after his return from Kyoto the previous year, assuring the Korean king and government that Hideyoshi was a paper tiger and that war would never come.
It was now May 11. The invasion was less than two weeks away.
* * *
On Korea’s southern coast, Cholla Left Navy Commander Yi Sun-sin was continuing to work energetically to prepare his command for war. The task required constant vigilance. Earlier in the year, for example, he had received a report from the Traveling High Commissioner stating that the port of Sado was in fine condition and recommending rewards for the officers there. When Yi visited the port to inspect it personally, he found it to be in dreadful shape and was obliged to order floggings for its officers and men. Staff at the port of Pangtap had to be similarly punished for neglect. “Judging from their selfishness for personal gain without paying attention to public duties,” Yi confided in his diary, “I can guess at their future.” Corruption was clearly still a problem. [155]
May twenty-second. The day dawned clear at Yi’s home port at Yosu. The commander had breakfast, then went down to the water’s edge to test fire the “earth” and “black” cannons that had just been installed aboard his recently completed turtle ship. A staff officer of the Traveling High Commissioner was on hand for the demonstration. In the afternoon Yi engaged in some archery practice, as he tried to do most days; like any good Korean officer, he firmly believed in main taining his skill with a bow. The rest of the day passed uneventfully. [156]
Twenty-four hours to go.
* * *
Hideyoshi was now nearing the southern tip of Honshu on his journey south from Kyoto, still two weeks away from his headquarters at Nagoya. His orders to proceed with the invasion had preceded him, and final preparations had already been made. Contingents one, two, and three, the spearhead of the invasion, were now in place at the forward staging area of Tsushima, the island in the strait between Japan and Korea. The remaining six contingents were encamped at Nagoya, ready to follow. Everything was set for the conquest of Korea. It was now just a question of waiting for the wind, which was blowing strongly from the wrong direction and whipping up the sea. [157]
The first three contingents poised to strike on Tsushima were led respectively by Konishi Yukinaga, Kato Kiyomasa, and Kuroda Nagamasa. Konishi, in his mid thirties, was the oldest of the three. He hailed from a wealthy merchant family in Sakai and had served Hideyoshi from the very beginning, when the latter had assumed the mantel of national unifier following the death of Oda Nobunaga in 1582. Hideyoshi first rewarded Konishi with a fiefdom in Harima Province on the Inland Sea, then moved him south to a more generous holding in Higo Province on Kyushu in the shake-up following that island’s conquest in 1587.
Like many of his neighboring Kyushu daimyo, Konishi Yukinaga was a Christian. He had been baptized in 1583 and taken the Christian name Augustin, and was very friendly—some would say subservient—to the Jesuits who were then having so much success on the island. Most of the other daimyo in his first contingent were Christians as well. Tsushima lord So Yoshitoshi, Konishi’s son-in-law, had been baptized in Kyoto in 1590 with the name Dario; his wife Marie was particularly supportive of the Portuguese fathers and did much to make Tsushima fertile ground for their proselytizing. Arima Harunobu of Hizen had been a Christian since 1579 and went by the name Protasio; Omura Yoshiaki, also from Hizen, was known as Sancho. Most of the soldiers in the armies commanded by these men were Christian converts as well. Matsuura Shigenobu was in fact the only daimyo in the entire contingent who was not a Christian, but many of the men he
It was now May 11. The invasion was less than two weeks away.
* * *
On Korea’s southern coast, Cholla Left Navy Commander Yi Sun-sin was continuing to work energetically to prepare his command for war. The task required constant vigilance. Earlier in the year, for example, he had received a report from the Traveling High Commissioner stating that the port of Sado was in fine condition and recommending rewards for the officers there. When Yi visited the port to inspect it personally, he found it to be in dreadful shape and was obliged to order floggings for its officers and men. Staff at the port of Pangtap had to be similarly punished for neglect. “Judging from their selfishness for personal gain without paying attention to public duties,” Yi confided in his diary, “I can guess at their future.” Corruption was clearly still a problem. [155]
May twenty-second. The day dawned clear at Yi’s home port at Yosu. The commander had breakfast, then went down to the water’s edge to test fire the “earth” and “black” cannons that had just been installed aboard his recently completed turtle ship. A staff officer of the Traveling High Commissioner was on hand for the demonstration. In the afternoon Yi engaged in some archery practice, as he tried to do most days; like any good Korean officer, he firmly believed in main taining his skill with a bow. The rest of the day passed uneventfully. [156]
Twenty-four hours to go.
* * *
Hideyoshi was now nearing the southern tip of Honshu on his journey south from Kyoto, still two weeks away from his headquarters at Nagoya. His orders to proceed with the invasion had preceded him, and final preparations had already been made. Contingents one, two, and three, the spearhead of the invasion, were now in place at the forward staging area of Tsushima, the island in the strait between Japan and Korea. The remaining six contingents were encamped at Nagoya, ready to follow. Everything was set for the conquest of Korea. It was now just a question of waiting for the wind, which was blowing strongly from the wrong direction and whipping up the sea. [157]
The first three contingents poised to strike on Tsushima were led respectively by Konishi Yukinaga, Kato Kiyomasa, and Kuroda Nagamasa. Konishi, in his mid thirties, was the oldest of the three. He hailed from a wealthy merchant family in Sakai and had served Hideyoshi from the very beginning, when the latter had assumed the mantel of national unifier following the death of Oda Nobunaga in 1582. Hideyoshi first rewarded Konishi with a fiefdom in Harima Province on the Inland Sea, then moved him south to a more generous holding in Higo Province on Kyushu in the shake-up following that island’s conquest in 1587.
Like many of his neighboring Kyushu daimyo, Konishi Yukinaga was a Christian. He had been baptized in 1583 and taken the Christian name Augustin, and was very friendly—some would say subservient—to the Jesuits who were then having so much success on the island. Most of the other daimyo in his first contingent were Christians as well. Tsushima lord So Yoshitoshi, Konishi’s son-in-law, had been baptized in Kyoto in 1590 with the name Dario; his wife Marie was particularly supportive of the Portuguese fathers and did much to make Tsushima fertile ground for their proselytizing. Arima Harunobu of Hizen had been a Christian since 1579 and went by the name Protasio; Omura Yoshiaki, also from Hizen, was known as Sancho. Most of the soldiers in the armies commanded by these men were Christian converts as well. Matsuura Shigenobu was in fact the only daimyo in the entire contingent who was not a Christian, but many of the men he
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