In the history of the Ming Dynasty, there are more wars than stars, just like the Battle of Yu'erhai, the change of Tumu Fort, Qi Jiguang's War of Resistance against The Wu, the Battle of Salhu, the Battle of Songjin, etc., but there is a war that has been forgotten in the depths of history, and the dust of history has been blown away, and now when we recall this history, we will see a heroic general, on the battlefield of that foreign country, for the people of a foreign country, for the Son of Heaven will have the heart of the jackal enemy to retreat, defend the motherland behind him. This war was one of the three major marches of the Wanli Dynasty to resist Japan and aid Korea — the only major war in history to completely defeat Japan on its own. And this general was the famous Ming Dynasty general Li Rusong.
Speaking of the history of this war, Japan at that time can be described as strong and strong, because at this time, Japan Toyoda Hideyoshi unified Japan, ending the Japanese Sengoku period, and After the unification of Japan, Toyoda Hideyoshi believed that Japan at this time already had enough strength, so he chose to prepare to cross the ocean to Korea at the other end, conquer Korea and then conquer China, and complete Japan's dream of becoming the largest country in Asia from an island country. So hundreds of years later, Japan still followed the legacy of its ancestors to come to Korea and China again to complete their dream of reunification, but many years later history proved that all this was impossible, and this time they were doomed to failure.
At this time, in addition to seeing that its own country had just experienced war, the whole people were soldiers and the quality of combat was very high, but on the contrary, the Ming Dynasty at this time had lived a stable life for more than a hundred years, the troops had not been trained for a long time, and corruption was prevalent, and the reigning emperor was an emperor who had not been in the dynasty for many years, so Toyoda Hideyoshi felt that this was the best time to attack China, and during the Ming Dynasty, the Wokou ran rampant in the coastal areas of our country, and every time they came, they did not receive decent resistance, and in the eyes of the Japanese ronin, the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty were not vulnerable at all A casual fight would be enough to crush them and conquer China, but was that really the case?
This was true at the beginning of the war, north Korea had not experienced war for hundreds of years, and had always been a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, but it was such a North Korea that experienced various partisan struggles, and the four parties in the east, west, south, and north had made a mess of the political situation in Korea, not to mention the armament, so when Toyoda Hideyoshi sent troops to Korea, they occupied the seven provinces of Korea without destroying the trend of decay. So the king of Korea also chose to flee to the Ming Dynasty to escape the war.
However, what the Ming Dynasty was doing at this time, the whole country was considering whether to send troops to help Korea resist Japan, the main war faction and the main peace faction were constantly arguing, and finally Wanli, who was not in the dprk, made the final decision and chose to send troops to Korea.
However, the first dispatch of troops ended in failure, after all, at that time, the terrain was unfamiliar, and the number of troops was small, so it was defeated by the Japanese army in one fell swoop, and Shi Ru, who was serving as a general of the travelogue at the time, was killed in battle, and Zu Chengxun was still alive. At this time, the Japanese army felt that the Ming army was nothing more than that, but the Ming Dynasty had a great fear of the Japanese army.
So the second wave of troops began, this time the Ming Dynasty no longer made small troubles but sent one of the best generals of the Ming Dynasty at that time, Li Rusong. Li Rusong had just returned from Ningxia Pingding at this time, so he came to Korea non-stop, although at this time the Ming army experienced a defeat, but Li Rusong, as the best general of the Ming Dynasty, was also very crazy in peacetime, so he did not pay attention to the Japanese army at all. So the Ming Dynasty began to counterattack the war, Li Rusong led his own most courageous and good at war, Guanning Iron Hoof, in one fell swoop flattened the Japanese army's small westward march, won the great victory in Pyongyang, after which Li Rusong took advantage of the victory to pursue, continue to pursue the Japanese army, at this time the Ming army seemed to be a divine soldier descending from the sky, the Japanese army collapsed into an army, although the rear of the Bi hoof hall suffered a lot of losses but did not affect the development of the entire war, Japan's wishful thinking was doomed to failure.
Although Japan and the Ming Dynasty began to negotiate peace later, but for this meeting and everyone said differently, some people said that they really wanted to negotiate peace, but more people thought that it was to take the technique of delaying the army to prepare for the defeat of Japan in one fell swoop, but Japan did not realize its own situation at all, still put forward various arrogant demands and then the negotiations broke down, the Ming army and the Korean coalition army began the final counterattack, in the Battle of Lulianghai, the Ming coalition army completely crushed the Japanese army, in August, Toyoda Hideyoshi died, Japan had to withdraw its troops, so the war of resistance ended.
In this battlefield against foreign enemies, the generals of the Ming Dynasty army helped Korea with their flesh and blood to help the Ming Dynasty, breaking japan's crazy heart, and also buried many bones of those who gave their lives for all this in foreign countries. Ten thousand people went out on a thousand returns, and the bones of the heroic souls remained in other places, yes and no. Although there are very few records of this war in the history of Korea and Japan, we must still remember that they are the heroes of our entire nation on the journey against foreign enemies.
Reference: History of the Ming Dynasty