THE HISTORIOGRAPHICAL INSTITUTE THE UNIVERSITY OF TOKYO
#150
150. RECORDS OF MILITARY SERVICE IN THE KOREAN WAR,
1591 AND 1597
THE discovery that has been made1 from fresh sources, of hitherto unsuspected reasons which fi-
nally prompted Hideyoshi to undertake his Korean expedition, is too recent to have found its way
into works in European languages which contain accounts of the campaigns. Events of the war
have, however, been well described by Murdoch and Brinkley,2 to whose narratives the reader is
referred. We shall not discuss with any degree of fulness the part which the Shimadzu played in the
two campaigns, for the story belongs rather to the history of the family, than to a volume of
Iriki-in documents. Yoshihisa being too advanced in age, his younger brother Yoshihiro, himself
fifty-seven years old, led the Shimadzu contingents in Korea. Yoshihiro's service was not specially
marked in the first campaign, 1592-1593, but, in the second, 1597-1598, he bore the brunt of the
attack at So-chon delivered by one of the three immense armies of China that had come to the
succor of Korea, and, on 30 October 1598, achieved a brilliant victory, thus enabling the expedi-
tionary armies of Japan to retreat with comparative ease. Hideyoshi had died on 18 September.
In the following notes of the military service in Korea, the numbers of the contingent under the
Shimadzu in each campaign is set down as 15,000 more or less. Yoshihiro's army in 1592, however,
is said to have been 10,000, and even this reduced number may not have been full.3 In 1597, again,
P333
the same number was credited to him, besides 800 under Iehisa.4 The Shimadzu had been in rather
straitened circumstances after the costly wars they had waged in Kyu-shu, followed by the great
reduction of their territory ordered by Hideyoshi.
Iriki-in Shigetoki was ill in 1592 when Yoshihiro had issued a hurried call to arms and started
on 8 April from Kurino with only twenty-three knights. Shigetoki sent two detachments, of
seventy-five men each, under his kinsmen Iriki-in Shigeoku and Togo Shigekage. When Umekita
Kunikane, a vassal of Yoshihiro, fearing punishment for his tardy arrival at Hirado, attempted a
foolish revolt in Higo, in July,5 the Iriki warriors under Togo were among the more than two
thousand men who were induced to join the insurgent, and shared in the speedy defeat and death
which the rebels received at the hands of local barons, (cf. Hi-go koku shi, II, 400-407). The other
division safely landed in Korea and joined Yoshihiro at Yong-p'iung Chong, in Kyun-geui do near
the border of Kang-wun do, followed by fresh recruits sent by Shigetoki. He was able to take part
in the second campaign, and returned on 30 January 1598 to Yunowo, where he had been trans-
ferred in the autumn of 1595.6
#150-A
A
(A copy in SK, 2nd series, XIV.)
"THE military service(gun-yaku) of Shimadzu dono in the Korean expedition:
15,000 men,- Mata-ichiro7 dono.8
"300 banners; 5 hand-spears(te-yari). Yoshihisa.8
300 spears, of which 200 are long spears(naga yari), and 200, hand-spears. Yoshihiro.8
"Besides these, the men should provide hand-spears according to their capacity.
20 hand-spears.9 In a retinue or in front of a camp, it is not sightly to have
nothing but long spears.
"1500 guns. 1500 men with bows.
"600 men with small banners; these should be armored.
"Only distinguished men should be mounted; however, all those who cannot go on
foot should be mounted. Therefore, the number of the mounted is indefinite. The
mounted men might well bear helmet and armor.
"These regulations shall be observed with zeal.
"Ten-sho 19 y. [1591]."
#150-B
B
(A copy in SK, 2nd series, XIX.)
"At the rate of one mounted knight for each 1,020 koku; 95 knights in all. Total,
3,230 men of this class, being 34 men with each [knight](zhin-tai).
"At the rate of one mounted knight for each 510 koku; 24 knights in all.
Total, 408 men of this class, being 17 men with each [knight].
"At the rate of one mounted knight for each 300 koku; 143 knights in all.
Total, 1,430 men, being 10 men with each [knight].
"300 squires10 on foot. 900 laborers(fu-maru), being three laborers with each
[squire].
"500 landless(mu-ashi) men. 1,000 laborers, being 2 laborers with each [land-
less man].
"665 carriers of weapons(do-gu).
"2,000 laborers from the lord's domains(kura-iri).
"2,000 boatmen.
"Grand total, 12,433 men.
P334
"Provision for these men for five months, 10,522.9 koku, inclusive of supplies
for boatmen and their chiefs.
"272 horses. Their provisions 61611 koku of beans, being for five months, at the
rate of 2 sho per day [for each horse].
"Rice and beans together 11,438.9 koku.
"Uma no kami12 dono's 9 mounted knights, with 332 men.
"Ko-gan's13 69 mounted knights, with 2,332 men.
"Total, 350 mounted knights;
total, 15,097 men.
"Distribution of boats: two voyages counted as one.
"10 boats with 10-tan14 sails, with 80 men per boat,-800 men;
40 boats with 9-tan sails, with 70 men per boat,-2800 men;
31 boats with 8-tan sails, with 60 men per boat,-1860 men;
4 boats with 7-tan sails, with 40 men per boat,-160 men;
6 boats with 6-tan sails, with 30 men per boat,-180 men.
"Total, 91 boats, 5,800 men.
"Distribution of horse-boats.
"1515 boats with 7-tan sails, 80 horses, with 5 horses, 15 grooms, and 10 boatmen, per
boat;
14 boats with 6-tan sails, 56 horses, with 4 horses, 12 grooms, and 8 boatmen, per boat.
"Total, 30 boats, 136 horses, 680 grooms and boatmen.
"Grand total, 5,800 men,16
121 boats.
"Boats on hand.
"10 boats with 10-tan sails; 5 boats with 9-tan sails;
10 boats with 8-tan sails; 20 boats with 7-tan sails;
20 boats with 6-tan sails.
"Total, 65 boats.
"[Boats made].
"45 boats with 9-tan sails, costing 65 kwan per boat;
21 boats with 8-tan sails, costing 55 kwan per boat.
"Total,66 boats made;
total [cost], 4300 kwan,-in terms of rice, 2,870 koku.
"Bun[-roku] 5 y. 12 m. 5 d. [22 January 1597]."
1 See the articles by the late Tanaka Yoshinari, in To-A no hikari, XIII, xi and foll.
2 A history of Japan, by James Murdock, ch. xii; A history of the Japanese people, by Capt.
F. Brinkley, ch. xxxv.
3 Sappan shi-dan shu, (Mr. Komaki's lecture), 348-351.
4 Hideyoshi's order of campaign, dated Kei-cho 2 y. 2 m. 21 d., in SK, 2nd series, XX.
5 Shimadzu koku-shi, xx, 18; Sei-han ya-shi, xii, 229.
6 See the Iriki-in genealogy, which records Shigetoki's feats more fully.
7Hisayasu, son of Yoshihiro; he died in Korea the next year.
8These three names may have been written in wrong places in the original copy.
9This phrase is not clear. 10 Kaji ko-sho.
P335
11 This should be 816 koku.
12 Shimadzu Yukihisa, Iriki-in Shigetoki's father.
13 Izhuin Tadamune. See No. 149, nn. 5 and 32.
14 Tan, the unit roll of cloth, whose measures varied considerably. A feudal lord's order for
Buzen dated 1462 stated that a tan of hempen cloth used in taxation should be 28 shaku in length,
(the width not given); one shaku being about 11.93 inches, this tan was some 27 feet 8 inches.
(Ouchi ke heki-sho, in Gun-zho rui-zhu, XIV, 89.)
15 This should be 16. 16 Exclusive of grooms and boatmen.