Premodern Korea in a Global Context: Premodern Literature and Cultural Exchange

Imjin War and Cultural Exchange

This class turns our eyes to Korea’s relationship with Japan. Although of considerable importance, Korea’s relationship with Japan has not enjoyed much visibility in premodern Korean history, with the exception of the Japanese Invasion (1592–98), known among Koreans as the Imjin War (임진왜란). Few people are now aware that many Westerners, particularly the Spanish and Portuguese, directly or indirectly aided Japan in the war and in so doing introduced Western products, such as tobacco, into Korea. This class examines this late sixteenth-century Japanese invasion, focusing on how the war affected Koreans’ perception of foreigners in general and of Westerners in particular.

Introducing the details of cultural exchange concealed beneath the cruel surface of the war, this class demonstrates the importance of Japan and the Imjin War to our inquiry into Korea’s relationship with the West. We will discuss underrepresented and sparingly researched topics such as the presence and role of Koreans, held overseas as prisoners of war, as mediators of the cultural exchange between Koreans and foreigners. Some of these captives were reported to have converted to Christianity, and their names may be found in European documents. By looking both at records of the European perceptions of Koreans and at Korean war captives’ accounts (lecture content), we will examine the narrowing distance between Korea and the West, and the influence of Western culture, thought, and religion on late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Koreans.

Reading Assignments:Suggested Readings 


Imjin War: Japanese Invasion of Korea

1591: Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a powerful warlord, unified Japan.

1592: Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched an invasion of Korea.

1592, April 13: The Japanese army attacked Pusan, an important port city in the southeastern coast of Korea. Taken by surprise, Pusan quickly fell.            

1592, April 27: The Japanese army captured Ch'ungju, a strategically important city to the south of Seoul, making the capital vulnerable.

1592, April 30: The royal court of Chosŏn fled to the north ahead of the Japanese advance.

1592, May 2: The Japanese army entered the abandoned capital.

1592, May 12: The royal court of Chosŏn sent an envoy to China for military assistance.

1592, June 14: The Japanese army captured P’yŏngyang, an important city to the north of the capital, and moved further north. 

1592, July 15: The Chinese force attacked the Japanese-occupied P’yŏngyang, but was defeated. 

1593, January 8: The combined forces of China and Korea retook P’yŏngyang and pushed the Japanese army to the south.

1593, February: The Japanese advance was stopped at the Haengju fortress, located near the capital, by the combined forces of China and Korea. The war began to stalemate and negotiations for peace were underway. 

1593, March: The Japanese army withdrew to the southern coastal areas of Korea after some negotiation terms were met.

1597, January: Unsatisfied with the terms of peace, Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched another invasion to Korea. The Japanese army again landed on Pusan first and advanced north. Unlike the previous invasion, battles were mostly fought in the southern provinces. Although the Japanese army captured some major cities, the combined forces of China and Korea were able to drive them back.

1598, August: Toyotomi Hideyoshi died, and the Japanese army retreated from the Korean Peninsula to Japan.


In spite of the initial disasters suffered at Pusan and Ch'ungju, Korea rallied, and within days of the loss of Seoul there were three separate developments whose influence continued until all the Japanese invaders had been driven away. These factors were the naval campaign, the actions by volunteer guerrilla armies, and the intervention of Ming China. All were of the utmost importance, but of the three, the naval campaign is probably the most remarkable because its success was due almost entirely to one man: Admiral Yi Sun-sin.

Admiral Yi Sun-sin (1545–1598) waged a naval campaign that destroyed hundreds of Japanese ships and made supplying and reinforcing Japanese troops costly. Yi came from a family of civil officials but chose to take the military rather than the civil examinations. He served as an officer along the northern frontier and later in Chŏlla. Alarmed by the reports of a possible invasion, he launched a last-minute shipbuilding effort. Yi experimented with new weapons and tactics. His most ingenious innovation was the kŏbuksŏn (“turtle ship”), an ironclad ship designed to withstand Japanese cannon fire and to ram and sink its opponents’ vessels. These were the world’s first ironclad ships. The turtle ships proved to be highly effective. The first ship was completed just days before the Japanese landed. Yi, with the help of his turtle ships, led an effective naval campaign that prevented the Japanese from using the western coastal route to transport supplies and reinforcements to their army in the north of Korea, making resupplying their army in Korea from Japan hazardous.

The Outcome of the Imjin War

The invasions, while a failure, were highly destructive, since the Japanese, like the Mongols earlier, used a scorched-earth policy to overcome resistance. As a result, they left behind a ruined countryside and a legacy of bitterness and fearfulness of the Japanese among Koreans. The viciousness of the conflict was symbolized by the 38,000 ears of Chinese and Korean forces sent back to Japan by military commanders as proof of their military successes. These were pickled and buried in Kyoto in the Mimizuka (Mound of Ears). The conflict provided later generations of Koreans with heroes from the fighting monks and peasants to Admiral Yi. It also led to a temporary and partial breakdown in the social order as slaves took advantage of the war to seek freedom. A court in desperate need of money sold official titles to commoners and even outcastes. These titles, however, did not become hereditary. While the Ming only intervened when it became clear that the Japanese were a threat to Chinese security, the invaluable assistance of China reinforced Korea’s tributary ties and its emotional connection with the Middle Kingdom. The conflict also brought Korean influence to Japan. Japanese forces brought back thousands of Korean captives. These included the scholar Kang Hang, who played a major role in introducing Neo-Confucian philosophy to that country, and potters whose rough-hewn Korean wares would influence Japanese ceramic traditions.
 

Korean Pottery

Of those who were not slaughtered, the monk Keinen's diary recorded the sight of Korean captives being led away in chains and bamboo collars by Japanese slave traders. Between fifty and sixty thousand captives are believed to have been transported to Japan. Most were simple peasants, but there were also some men of learning and numerous craftsmen, including medicine makers and gold smelters; however, particularly well represented were the potters. The Japanese enthusiasm for the tea ceremony had ensured that at least one aspect of Korean culture was respected when the country was invaded, and it would certainly have astounded some anonymous Korean potter to hear that a simple peasant's rice bowl he had once made was doing service as a treasured and priceless tea vessel, handled by the greatest in the land. Even before the war, Hideyoshi had hired two brothers, sons of a Korean-born potter, to make the tiles for the roof of his palace of Jūrakutei, and under the guidance of the famous tea master Sen Rikyu, these ceramic craftsmen developed the unpretentious but highly prized raku style of tea bowl.

When the conquerors prepared to return home, the opportunity to enrich their own pottery tradition at so little cost was too good to miss. The Shimazu brought seventy Koreans with them to Satsuma, including several potters who began ceramic production in three areas; two centuries later, visitors to Satsuma noted the distinctive Korean dress and language of the communities. Not all the kilns were as successful as these, and the low-quality clay that was available for one of the Korean kilns established by Kuroda Nagamasa led to some of his potters being sent back to Korea. 

Most of the imported workers, however, were to be associated with successful and continuing production for many years to come, and it is no coincidence that the daimyō who established Korean-operated kilns in their provinces were all passionate devotees of the tea ceremony. Kuroda Nagamasa, who brought back to Japan the Korean stone lantern still standing in the Daitokuji in Kyoto, set up a successful kiln at TaKatōri using potters brought from Kyŏnsang province. Hosokawa Tadaoki, whose aesthetic sensibilities led to his Korean souvenir collection being enriched by the inclusion of a stone from the Namdaemun gate of Seoul for a garden feature, put his captives to work at Agano. Mōri Terumoto established a kiln at Hagi, while the famous name of Arita porcelain is associated with Imari, a town within the fief of Nabeshima Naoshige, the conqueror of southern Hamgyŏng. Here, in 1616, a Korean potter called Yi Sam-pyŏng discovered deposits of kaolin-rich clay, which led to the first production of porcelain in Japan. Karatsu, which, under the name of Nagoya castle, had provided the departure point for the invasions, boasted several kilns in the domains of Nabeshima and Terazawa.

Turnbull, S. Samurai Invasion: Japan's Korean War 1592-98. London: Cassell, 2002.
Seth, M. J. A History of Korea: From Antiquity to the Present. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011.

The First Appearance of Korea on a World Map:


Korea was perceived as a large island, as seen in the map drawn by Abraham Ortelius (1527–1598). This shows that Europeans already had certain but mystified knowledge of Korea in the sixteenth century, which facilitated their travel to Korea on various purposes. In particular, Portuguese and Spanish missionaries and merchants who were active in Japan had contacted Korean war captives in certain areas in Japan such as Nagasaki, and there emerged a number of Korean Christian martyrs during the period of the Imjin War for the first time in Korean history. Many Western materials such as tobacco, arquebus, and pepper were introduced to Korea during this period.    

Initial Missionary Endeavors, 1500s-1620s.

The history of Christianity in Korea is prefaced by a period of initial missionary endeavors, attempts made in the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century by Catholics in Japan, China, and the Philippines to reach the populations of the Hermit Kingdom. Following a level of success with many of the feudal daimyō of Japan, Jesuit missionaries in about 1567 began to think of promoting missions in Korea. Among the first was Father Gaspar Vilela, who drew up plans for a Jesuit mission but died in 1572 before he could implement them. As a result of the invasion of Korea by Hideyoshi in 1594, many Koreans had been taken back to Japan as slaves, there they became Christians through the work of Catholic missionaries in Nagasaki and other major cities. In 1596, Father Louis Frois reported that there were three hundred Koreans under instruction in Nagasaki. It is significant that when the Tokugawa shogunate suppressed Catholicism in the early 1600s, thirteen (six percent) of the 205 martyrs were Koreans. Among these martyrs was “Vincent” Kwŏn, who had made several attempts to evangelize Korea between 1614 and 1626. In the Philippines, a Dominican missionary, Father Juan de Domingo, in 1611 and 1616 attempted unsuccessfully to enter Korea.

From Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Timonthy S. Lee, eds. Christinaity in Korea. University of Hawai‘i press, 2006.
 

Korean Christian Martyrs

Leo Karasuma (St) {1 –group}
5 February
d. 1597. From Korea, he was a Shinto priest before his conversion and became the first Franciscan tertiary in Japan. He helped the Franciscan missionaries as a catechist and was crucified at Nagasaki. Cf. Paul Miki and Comps and Japan, Martyrs of.

Cosmas Takeya Sozaburo (Bl) {2}
18 November
d. 1619. A Korean, he was taken to Japan as a prisoner of war. While there he joined the Confraternity of the Holy Rosary and sheltered Bl John of St Dominic, for which he was burnt at Nagasaki with BB Leonard Kimura and Comps. Cf. Japan, Martyrs of.

Anthony of Korea (Bl) {2}
10 September
d. 1622. A Korean catechist helping the Jesuits in Japan, he was beheaded at Nagasaki during the ‘Great Martyrdom’ with Charles Spinola and Comps. Cf. Japan, Martyrs of and Great Martyrdom at Nagasaki.

Mary of Korea (Bl) {2}
10 September
d.1622. Wife of Bl Anthony, she was beheaded at the ‘Great Martyrdom’ at Nagasaki (Japan) with her family. Cf. Japan, Martyrs of and Great Martyrdom at Nagasaki.

Peter of Korea (Bl) {2}
10 September
d. 1622. He was only three years old when he was beheaded with his mother Mary and brother John in the ‘Great Martyrdom’ at Nagasaki (Japan). His father Anthony was burnt. Cf. Japan, Martyrs of and Great Martyrdom at Nagasaki.

Gaius of Korea (Bl) {2}
15 November
d. 1624. Originally a Korean Buddhist monk, he migrated to Japan as a Christian, helped the Dominican missionaries in Kyushu as a catechist, and became a Dominican tertiary. He was burnt at Nagasaki. Cf. Japan, Martyrs of.

Vincent Kaun (Bl) {2}
20 June
d. 1626. From Seoul in Korea, he was taken to Japan as a prisoner of war in 1591. There he became a Christian and entered the Jesuit seminary at Arima, spending thirty years as a catechist in Japan and in China. He was burnt alive at Nagasaki with BB Francis Pacheco and Comps. Cf. Japan, Martyrs of.

Gaius Jinyemon (Bl) {2}
27 August
d. 1627. A Japanese (or Korean) born of Christian parents on the island of Amakusa near Nagasaki, he became a Dominican tertiary and was martyred with BB Francis-of-St-Mary of Mancha and Comps. Cf. Japan, Martyrs of.

From: Watkins, D. B. The Book of Saints: A Comprehensive Bibliographical Dictionary. London: Bloomsbury, 2016.

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