ABSTRACT
This chapter explores three themes that are fundamental for understanding China's role in the Imjin Waeran: first, Ming relations with Korea and Japan vis-a-vis the 'tribute system', a concept that has had serious revision since John Fairbank's first formulation of its dimensions many decades ago; second, Ming military strategy, another topic now undergoing 'historical overhaul'; and, third, the financial background to the war, an assessment of the burden of military expenses in relation to other pecuniary obligations engendered by the Ming state during the late sixteenth century. Despite the unusual powers held by a number of Ming commanders during the Imjin Waeran, a court-led civilian bureaucracy far away from the combatants and military theaters basically administered China's involvement in the war. Because the Ming authorities were so relatively far removed from the sites of destruction they could not really share either Korea's primary sense of desolation or Japan's feeling of self-glorification.
