ABSTRACT
At the end of the sixteenth century, the Imjin Waeran shook Chos ŏ n Korea, Ming China, and Japan to their roots with repercussions continuing long after the war’s conclusion. In 1592, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, harboring an ambition to conquer Ming China, mobilized approximately 150,000 troops and ordered them to invade Chos ŏ n. The Japanese armies, with their extensive experience from the sengoku period and equipped with muskets, a new weapon, fi rst seized Pusan and then swept all before them to dominate the Korean peninsula. Despite these rapid victories, the Japanese army’s momentum from the early stages of the war did not continue for long. It was eventually pushed onto the defensive with the righteous army’s guerrilla attacks, the victories of the Chos ŏ n naval forces led by Yi Sunshin, the dispatch of a relief army from Ming China, and the counterattacks by Korean government army troops. At a certain point, peace negotiations between the Ming government and the Toyotomi regime began, but when the negotiations failed, the Japanese army launched a second full-scale invasion in 1597. With the death of Hideyoshi, Japanese forces evacuated from the peninsula at the end of 1598, and the Imjin Waeran, a tragic confl ict that took many lives over seven years, came to an end. Afterwards, Tokugawa Ieyasu, who seized power from the Toyotomi regime, requested the restoration of diplomatic relations with Chos ŏ n Korea, and the Chos ŏ n court fi nally resumed diplomatic relations with the Edo bakufu in 1607 in preparation against the threat of the Manchu tribes who were newly on the rise in the northern regions. The clash between the three countries of East Asia began without even a declaration of war and ended without any change in territory or a peace treaty. Former relations among the belligerents were resumed after nine years, but the shock and repercussions caused by this war were truly of an unprecedented nature.
