ABSTRACT
The Korean king, Yi Yon, and his court were forced to retreat in disarray, first to Kaesong, then to Pyongyang, and finally to the town of Oiju on the Yalu River which formed the border with China, In the meantime a number of emissaries were dispatched to China. While the Koreans were indeed woefully unprepared for the invasion, they had been warned repeatedly in advance by the Japanese, and some sources had even passed the news on to the Chinese as well. The Ming court was rocked when they received word of the shocking defeat. The Koreans were duly impressed with Chinese firepower and military prowess. The grateful Koreans even erected a statue of Li Rusong in the city to commemorate the event. Shrines to other Chinese and Korean heroes dotted the countryside until the Japanese occupation of the twentieth century.
