The Imjin War: Japan's invasions of Korea
- Date
- 1592–1598
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Korean Peninsula and surrounding seas
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
In May 1592 Toyotomi Hideyoshi launched roughly 158,000 troops against Joseon Korea, intending to march through the peninsula to conquer Ming China. Japanese armies, equipped with arquebuses, overran Korean defences and seized Seoul and Pyongyang within months.
The tide turned through three forces: the Korean navy under Admiral Yi Sun-sin, whose armoured turtle ships and tactical mastery shattered Japanese fleets and severed their supply lines; large Ming Chinese expeditionary armies sent to aid their tributary; and Korean civilian guerrilla bands. After a stalemate and failed negotiations, Hideyoshi invaded again in 1597. The renewed offensive was checked, and following Hideyoshi's death in September 1598 Japanese forces withdrew, with Yi Sun-sin killed at the climactic Battle of Noryang in December 1598. The war devastated Korea, killing or displacing huge numbers, destroying farmland, libraries and artworks, and inflicting damage that took generations to repair. It drained Ming resources at a moment of mounting strain, contributing to the dynasty's later weakness, and the campaigns' failure helped discredit the Toyotomi regime, smoothing the path for Tokugawa supremacy in Japan. The war remains central to Korean and East Asian historical memory.
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Empires active in 1592–1598
- Ottoman Empire1299 CE – 1922 CE
- Solomonic dynasty1270 CE – 1974 CE
- Ming Dynasty1368 CE – 1644 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Defenestration of Prague and the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War23 May 1618
- Fall of Beijing and the Ming–Qing transition1644
- Battle of Tondibi and the fall of the Songhai Empire13 March 1591
- Defeat of the Spanish Armada1588
- Battle of Lepanto7 October 1571
- Battle of Talikota and the fall of Vijayanagara23 January 1565
Further reading
The wider story
The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties
Engaging survey of Yuan-Ming China (Harvard History of Imperial China).
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