In 1588, after the Japanese Taiko toyotomi Hideyoshi basically unified Japan, he decided to send troops to the outside world to obtain more land. Toyotomi Hideyoshi's plan was to use Korea as a springboard to invade and eventually achieve the goal of occupying the Ming Dynasty. Toyotomi Hideyoshi informed The Korean Emperor Seonjo Of this plan, who was taken aback and refused and exhorted both morally and common sense, urging Toyotomi Hideyoshi to abandon this crazy idea.
In early 1592, there was a heated debate within Korea about whether Toyotomi Hideyoshi was bluffing. However, at the same time, the Japanese army landed from Busan while Korea was defenseless. The total number of invading Japanese troops reached 150,000, who had experienced the test of war and had rich combat experience during the Japanese Civil War. On the North Korean side, the peace has been in peace for a long time, and the armament is in ruins, so the warring sides are not a level contest at all. In just one month, the Japanese easily crushed Korea's fragile defenses and captured the capital, Seoul.
Korea was the most important vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, and the ultimate goal of the Japanese army entering Korea was to invade the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, after some discussion within the Ming Dynasty, it was decided to rush to the aid of Korea.
The Wanli Korean War consisted of two phases, the first of which took place from April 1592 to July 1593. The Ming general Li Rusong led an army to severely damage the Japanese army in Pyongyang and recaptured the city of Pyongyang. However, he was defeated by the Japanese at the Battle of Bihokan near Seoul. Since neither of the belligerents could achieve a decisive victory, negotiations began to cease fighting.
The second phase of the Wanli Korean War took place from February 1597 to December 1598. The reason for the resurgence of the fighting is due to major disagreements over the deal negotiated in Phase I. In early 1597, Toyotomi Hideyoshi ordered an army of 140,000 to invade Korea, and the Ming Dynasty sent 80,000 troops to fight in Korea. This time the Japanese did not penetrate deep enough to reach the level reached by the first invasion, but the intensity of the fighting was not worse than the first. The combined Forces of the Ming Dynasty and the Japanese Army engaged in a protracted tug-of-war in southern Korea, and neither side was able to defeat the other.
In September 1598, Hideyoshi Taikaku died, which became a turning point in the second phase of the Wanli Korean War. Toyotomi Hideyoshi's heirs ordered all Japanese troops to withdraw to the country, and the Ming and Korean forces decided not to give the Japanese an opportunity to retreat in an orderly manner. In November 1598, the Battle of Luliang was officially fought, and the Japanese army suffered a devastating blow in this battle. It is worth mentioning that the famous Korean general Li Shunchen unfortunately sacrificed his life in this battle to rescue the Ming general Chen Xuan, who was besieged by the Japanese army.
The outcome of the Wanli Korean War was ostensibly a victory for the Ming Dynasty and Korea, but in fact the warring parties were actually losers.
Japan struggled hard and suffered heavy losses, but in the end it could only withdraw in a gray and slippery manner, and the losses were heavy, and the Toyotomi Hideyoshi clique also lost the war and led to its dominance being replaced by Tokugawa Ieyasu.
Although North Korea repelled the invaders, the control of the Lee dynasty in North Korea was severely weakened, and internal factional struggles intensified. Japan abducted more than 100,000 Korean craftsmen and artists, and the resulting losses cannot be measured in numbers. In addition, North Korea's agricultural, market, taxation and other systems have been disrupted. The number of homeless people has exploded, posing a great security risk to the social order.
The Ming Dynasty seemed to be the biggest winner of the three sides, but the two battles to korea cost about 20 million taels of silver, and the wealth accumulation of the early Wanli Dynasty was exhausted in this battle, resulting in a great weakening of the defense of the entire territory of the Ming Dynasty. For example, the Ming Dynasty originally had nearly 100,000 defenders in the Liaodong region, but after the Wanli Korean War, it dropped to only 40,000. At the same time, the Jurchen chief Nurhaci (Qing Taizu, the founder of the Qing dynasty regime) took advantage of the ming dynasty's lack of time to take care of the situation in Liaodong to rise rapidly. In 1619, Nurhaci led an army to defeat the Ming Dynasty in the "Battle of Salhu", laying a solid foundation for the later Qing army to enter the pass. Thus, in a sense, the war waged by Toyotomi Hideyoshi indirectly led to the downfall of the Ming Dynasty, but not in the way he planned.
References "Myashi"