"The Korean War of 1592-1598 was a major conflict between Japan and the alliance of Ming of China and Joseon of Korea. Japan invaded Korea on May 23, with the larger objective to conquer the entirety of Asia (and the whole world)[1] by using Korea as a land bridge to China. The battles that involved 300,000 combatants and claimed more than 2 million lives took place mostly on the Korean peninsula and its nearby waters. The war consisted of two main invasions from Japan – the first in 1592 and 1593, and the second from 1597 to 1598.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the predominant warlord in Japan, had for long been aspiring to leave his name in history as a great conqueror of Asia. Even before unifying all of Japan in 1590, Hideyoshi in 1587 began sending ambassadorial missions to Korea in order to threaten the peninsular neighbor to submit and join with Japan in a war against China. Most of Hideyoshi's message initially failed to get across to the Korean side, however, since Hideyoshi relied on Tsushima Island as his main diplomatic channel to Korea, and Tsushima was a major beneficiary of the free trade between Korea and Japan during peacetime. During the subsequent diplomatic exchanges, the Koreans rejected Hideyoshi's demands, but they also refused to recognize his threats. The first invasion was launched late in May of 1592, commanded by Hideyoshi in absentia.
The Japanese troops first attacked the southeastern part of Korea and advanced northwestward to the capital. Hanseong, Korea's capital and present-day Seoul, fell within 3 weeks, and most of the peninsula came into Japanese control before the year's end. Without understanding the serious magnitude of the crisis, China initially responded by sending an advance force of 5,000 troops late in August, but the expedition was horribly outnumbered and defeated by the Japanese troops in Pyeongyang. Within a few days of the Chinese defeat, however, the Korean admiral Yi Sunshin annihilated the Japanese fleet tasked with securing the supply route to the Yellow Sea that would continue the invasion into China. On January 1, 1593, the Chinese launched a counter-offensive with 30,000 troops and reclaimed Hanseong by the middle of May. With the southeastern parts of the peninsula in Japanese possession, the two sides spent several years in diplomatic talks; the Japanese officials justified their invasion by asserting that Korea carried out policies to prevent Japan from entering the Chinese tributary system. Consequently the Chinese diplomats went to Japan and invested Hideyoshi, whose subordinates misled him into believing that the Chinese had come to surrender in person. The peace negotiations culminated in a second wave of invasion in October of 1597, after Hideyoshi learned the truth about the Chinese visit. The Japanese had different objectives in the second invasion, as Hideyoshi was primarily concerned with saving face against China, and his commanders sought to keep the southern parts of the peninsula as reward for their efforts. After scoring some points against the Chinese troops and wreaking unrestrained havoc on the civilians, the invaders turned back and began to partially withdraw by mid-1598.[2] The final climax of the war was the naval battle at the straits of Noryang on December 16, when the combined Sino-Korean fleet defeated a sizable Japanese fleet from the east. The hundred or so surviving Japanese ships from the battle as well as those from the north that escaped the Sino-Korean naval blockade which was lifted prior to engagement arrived at Busan several days later, whereupon the final evacuation began. The last Japanese ships set sail on December 24, 1598…"
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Amicalement
Armand
shows how using inks makes it easier to paint a 15mm scale army.
